Installing Plutonium on Linux with NVIDIA GPU (Full Guide)

Neigdoig

Greetings Plutonians. This is my first post on this forum, but I am starting off with a bang.

This tutorial is associated with a YouTube video on CoculesNation (which I run alongside one other individual) if you want to see this method I use in action.

If you are using a Linux operating system (Mint, Pop, Arch, CachyOS, etc.), I am making sure this is OS agnostic for those people wanting to play T4-T6 and IW5 MP and ZM on Linux. However, I will be using CachyOS for my purposes here.

For this method, you need your OS set up for gaming and content creation first (some distros make it easy, others are manual installations). After that, this method will require WINE (staging recommended), Lutris, the Plutonium executable and the game files (I'll be using T6 [Black Ops II for those not in the know] for this guide) from your Steam account (Other methods will work too).

This takes heavy inspiration from SoyKappy's method, and I'd recommend you take a look at his tutorials and take notes from both methods.

That said, let's get started.

You need to have the game files ready to go, whether they be from Steam or otherwise (I used Steam to get the game, since that was easier for me to do). Download the Campaign, Zombies and Multiplayer modes. Have them prepared somewhere on your games drive.
Make a WINE prefix with DotNET 4.8, D3D Compiler 4.7 and the Microsoft Core Fonts, like so:

WINEPREFIX=~/.wine-cod winetricks dotnet48 d3dcompiler_47 corefonts

If you use WINEARCH for redundancy reasons, then you need to put in win64 as the architecture.

Go onto the Plutonium home page, click the "Download" button and follow the instructions on the documentation. It should be relatively self-explanatory. While you're at it, make sure you get an account on the forum first in order to play Plutonium online.
Pull up Lutris, and click the + on the top left hand corner of your screen. After that, select "Add Locally Installed Game".
In the "Game Info" tab, select WINE as your runner.
On the "Game Options" tab, click the three dots by the Executable text box, and search for where you placed Plutonium. Click "Open", or something similar in your file manager of choice.
For your WINE prefix, just select the one you had just made (or type it in if you're old-school). Leave everything else as the defaults.
Once you go into Runner Options, turn on the "Advanced" toggle right by the "Save" button. These upcoming steps require the advanced settings to be turned on.
Select the WINE version that fits right for you. I'm using wine-ge-8-26-x86_64 as my version of WINE (not even the Lutris WINE works for me for some reason).
On the Graphics box, enable everything, and make sure they're at the latest version of each.
If your kernel supports it, turn on both Esync and Fsync. My kernel does, so I turn both on. If you can only do Esync, that's fine too.
Read the following photo below and fill in the DLL Overrides with the 11 values, one for each key/value combo. The notes are for the reason why this is done, if applicable. You are now done with the Runner options. The environment variables are WINE_ENABLE_NVAPI and VK3D_CONFIG, which are for the System Options. Everythine else is for the DLL Overrides in the Runner Options.
In the System Options, you need to turn on "Disable Lutris Runtime". This essentially will disable the Lutris libraries. Likewise, make sure you have the system libraries preferred.
In the Display box on the System Options, disable both desktop effects and the screensaver. This will result in Plutonium and/or the game not spazzing out whenever one is AFK for some amount of time.
If you have the Gamemode daemon by Feral Interactive, it's under the CPU box, and you can turn that on. If you're on CachyOS like I am, this is not required.
(Optional) Under Audio, you can reduce the PulseAudio latency to 60 miliseconds. Since we're using Pipewire, however, this may be unnecessary.
(For CachyOS) If you're using CachyOS, under Game Execution, and then Command prefix, you need to place in game-performance, which is Cachy's way of doing the gamemode shenanigans.
Save the game, and then launch it. It should download and install the necessary files for Plutonium. Log in to your forum account after installation is complete.
Select your game, click the blue "Setup" button, and then find where you have the game installed.

That's it! Now you're able to play Plutonium on Linux, just like that. If I miss anything, I'll add an "Extra Steps" section and update it as I see recommendations and feedback.

Wayturns

Hey by chance are you having issues with mouse movement for me it feels and is very noticable choppy and it's like its snapped to the grid and jumps from one point on the grid to the other

Neigdoig

I've never had mouse issues when I played MnK every once in a while. I tend to use controller (pro strats, I know), since I had done my research on BO2.

Lumixx__

Wayturns I have this issue and I have been trying to fix it for two days now and I did but since I tried many things I have no idea what fixed it in the end. Do note that there is no shader pre-compiling on Plutonium like Steam has it and some issues might be fixed after the compiling is finished.

First I will tell you steps that you would do on Windows as well because the game already has issues with modern MnK setups and fixing them brings you one step further.
Windows setps:
-Right click plutonium-bootstrapper-win32.exe -> properties -> compatibility -> tick the "disable fullscreen optimizations" box. (Don't even know if Wine supports/needs that, but I couldn't find the option on wine anyway. If you find it try it for me)
-Set your mouse polling rate at least <1000Mhz (I use 500Hz).
-Lock Framerate at 200 max. On my hardware is cable of reaching +500 FPS on Windows (Servers usually lock it to 200 anyway) I had to painfully lock it to 125FPS (I have a 240Hz monitor) because everything above is not good for me because the engine doesn't like it when the FPS is jumping up and down. (I might be able to lock it at something higher when shaders are cached properly)
-Switch between V-Sync On/Off and Fullscreen/borderless. You have to test it yourself. Most people told me to turn off V-Sync and go into Fullscreen, but borderless and V-Sync on fixed it. I turned off V-Sync because I lost at least 30FPS and I don't know if it's a shader compiling issue or if is a game/wine issue.

I will put a "(?)" to settings I changed and didn't notice a difference when switching it on or off.

Console commands:
m_filter 1
cl_mouseAccel 0
in_mouse 1 (?) (1 is direct input, 0 Windows mouse sensitivity & acceleration settings) I have no idea if the command does something. (Actually I feel like many commands are in game because it's the same engine since Quake and they are just leftovers while not doing anything)
raw_input 1 | So far only 2 people confirmed me that they fixed it with this command but for me, it always said at 0, now it's removed from the console since that last big patch, but It's still present in the plutonium_mp.cfg, but I think it doesn't work.

Ingame settings:
-set brightness as low as possible
-highering my FOV from 80 to 90 made it better for me
-run the game in native resolution

Additionally, if graphics don't matter to you and only plan on playing solo ZM and MP against bots in a custom match. (I don't recommend)
-All cod games work first game cfg start
Command 0=OFF 1=ON Description
cg_blood /turn blood off/on
cg_brass /turn bullets off/on
cg_hudGrenadeIconEnabledFlash /shows nearby flash/stun with arrow
cl_maxpackets "100" improve latency
r_blur_allowed /turn off for fps boost
r_distortion /turn off for fps boost
r_dof_enable /turn off for fps boost
r_gfxopt_water_simulation /turn off for fps boost
r_glow_allowed /turn off for fps boost
r_motionblur_enable /turn off for fps boost
r_multiGPU /turn on if you have SLI/Crossfire enabled
r_multithreaded_device /turning on might improve performance
r_shaderWarming /turning on might improve performance
r_specular /turn off for fps boost
r_zfeather /turn off for fps boost
ragdoll_enable /turning off might improve performance
sm_maxLights muzzleflash from the gunfire

Yes, most of them are FPS boost commands, but a stable FPS makes the mouse behave better. That's how the engine works.

Linux:

Environment Variables:
KWIN_FORCE_SW_CURSOR=1 or KWIN_FORCE_HW_CURSOR=1 (?) (haven't even checked in the logs if it even changed something)
DXVK_ASYNC=1
PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1 and PROTON_NO_FSYNC=1
I know that it's in the guide above to turn it on but on old guides it was recommended to turn it off, but that might be due to the old Wine/Proton version they used back in the day. Try it for yourself, what better works on your system.

-I used Heroic Launcher and added the Pluto launcher to the library.
-MangoHud breaks the game (according to some on ProtonDB) while I have luck and it only breaks itself while the game boots totally fine.
-Gamemode seems to be not working as well but I haven't tired to fix it because same as MangoHud it could break the game as well.

Also, I would like to add. While troubleshooting, I was only joining a custom game to see if I fixed it just to realize that it fixed itself joining "any" server. But I noticed that it only works on some servers. Mainly the bigger servers hosted by people who have enough experience with COD server hosting. (NamelessNoobs, AWOG etc). I asked here on the forum and on Discord what they might use in their custom GSC, but then my issues fixed themselves like black magic. I deleted the posts shortly after I posted them because I thought I don't need an answer anymore, but after a reboot the issues came back and since then, I was too lazy to make the same post again. When I asked again and got an answer, I will post it here.

My system specs:
Distro: Garuda Linux
Kernel: 6.12.9-zen1-1-zen
KDE Wayland
CPU: Ryzen 7 3800x
GPU: RTX 3080 10GB Zotac
RAM: 64GB DDR4 3200MHz

Nate EP

Hey, Im having issues with the Plutonium updater. It gives me this error message, please help! Yes I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling. Thank you:)