League of Legends Guide

Call on your Summoner to battle along-side minions in the free-to-play MOBA. Level up, buy upgrades from the store and play cooperative with some friends. League of Legends has a lot of competitive action and fighting as you slaughter minions, turrets and Summoners.

League of Legends has received a lot of attention in the Linux world. WineHQ's and PlayOnLinux are constantly bombarded with questions on how to run it.

Follow my step-by-step guide on installing, configuring and optimizing League Of Legends in Linux with PlayOnLinux.

Note: This guide applies to the Official Website version of League Of Legends. Other versions may require additional steps.

Tips & Specs:

To learn more about PlayOnLinux and Wine configuration, see the online manual: PlayOnLinux Explained

Mint 17.3 64-bit
PlayOnLinux: 4.2.10
Wine: 1.8

Wine Installation

Click Tools
Select "Manage Wine Versions"

Look for the Wine Version: 1.8
Select it
Click the arrow pointing to the right

Click Next

Downloading Wine

Extracting

Downloading Gecko

Installed

Wine 1.8 is installed and you can close this window

Create Account
Go To: https://login.leagueoflegends.com/
Click "Create an Account"

Click preferred language

Fill out registration form
Click "Play For Free"

Download League Of Legends Installer

LeagueOfLegendsBaseEUW (Europe West)
http://l3cdn.riotgames.com/Installer/SingleFileInstall/LeagueOfLegendsBaseEUW.exe

LeagueOfLegendsBaseEUNE (Europe Nordic East)
http://l3cdn.riotgames.com/Installer/SingleFileInstall/LeagueOfLegendsBaseEUNE.exe

LeagueOfLegendsBaseNA (North America)
http://l3cdn.riotgames.com/Installer/SingleFileInstall/LeagueOfLegendsBaseNA.exe

Navigate to Desktop
Click Save

PlayOnLinux Setup
Launch PlayOnLinux
Click Install

Click "Install a non-listed program"

Click Next

Select "Install a program in a new virtual drive"
Click Next

Name the virtual drive: leagueoflegends
Click Next

Check all three options:

• Use another version of Wine
• Configure Wine
• Install some libraries

Click Next

Select Wine 1.8
Click Next

Select "32 bits windows installation"
Click Next

Wine Configuration

Applications Tab
Windows Version: Windows XP

Graphics Tab
Check "Automatically capture the mouse in full-screen windows"
Check "Emulate a virtual desktop"
Desktop size: Enter resolution of Linux Desktop
Click OK

PlayOnLinux Packages (Libraries, DLL's, Components)

Check the following:

• POL_Install_corefonts
• POL_Install_d3dx9
• POL_Install_tahoma

Click Next

Note: All packages should automatically download and install

Installing League of Legends

Click Browse

Navigate to your Desktop
Select "LeagueOfLegendsBaseNA.exe"
Click Open

Click Next again

Click Next

Check "I accept the terms..."
Click Next

Select "Complete"
Click Next

Click Install

Uncheck "Launch League of Legends"
Click Finish

PlayOnLinux Shortcut

Select "lol.launcher.exe"
Click Next

Name the shortcut: League Of Legends
Click Next

Select "I don't want to make another shortcut"
Click Next

PlayOnLinux Configure

Back to PlayOnLinux
Select "League of Legends"
Click Configure

General Tab
Wine version: 1.8

Note: Click the + to download other versions of Wine. Click the down-arrow to select other versions of Wine.

Display Tab
Video memory size: Select the amount of memory your video card/chip uses

Close Configure

Launching League of Legends

Select League of Legends
Click Run

Note: Click Debug to see errors and bugs

Click Accept

Click Accept

Updating & Patching

Peer to Peer disable
Click the gear at the top right
Uncheck "Allow Peer to Peer Transfer"

Click Launch

Login
Check "Remember username"

Click Play

Optimization

Press Esc
Click Options

Click Video

Adjust:

• Resolution
• Windowed Mode
• Graphics Presets
• Character Quality
• Effects Quality
• Environment Quality
• Shadows
• Character Inking
• Frame Rate Cap
• Anti-Aliasing
• Wait for Vertical Sync

Click Okay

Conclusion:
League of Legends runs even better with Wine 1.8 I've read you may experience better performance with Wine 1.8-staging as well. I had no problems with my GeForce 550 Ti 192-bit 1GB RAM.

Gameplay Video:

Screenshots:

 

I'm still running into the same problem. I can start the client and login but the game won't load after I try to play a game, the screen just blacks out. Would virtual box help that problem?

 

I am not familiar with primus and bumblebee.
My Mint 16 (based on Ubuntu 13.10 Saucey) can run it just fine with Nvidia 319 drivers and Wine 1.7-LeagueOfLegends

Since you are using PlayOnLinux, we might need some more info on your configuration and how primus/bumblebee effects your hardware.

 

I just want to say that the new setup is not working with 1.7-leagueoflegends I was planning to download it to play a few matches with friends.

I looked at what PlayOnLinux did, they did a tarball of the whole game and uploaded it on their website so people didn't have to use the official setup (because you'll be running into issues with the setup more often than running the game).

What I would suggest is using virtual box to download the game and follow the guide, then pull over the game's folder to your drive_c/Program Files

That is so strange. I've never had problems installing and launching the game.
I've tried several Wine versions and used Mint 13, 14 & 16.

 

Been awhile, booman. How's the Linux install running? Someone had it going good on dual graphics on Lenovo's beast laptop Y510 back in january, just asked them for their install guide, it may still work. Found a fix for the RP store yet?http://www.playonlinux.com/en/topic-8868.html

 

Hey, I'm pretty new to Linux but I'm a big LoL player, so I'd love to get it working. First off, thanks for the guide man, this is why the Linux community is so brilliant.

So here's my problem, it opens and I can log in fine, even go to champ select. So the first problem is, when I start up tutorials, I get the LoL logo, a black screen and then nothing for a while. Eventually the LoL cursor appears but then it just crashes after a little while longer, taking me back to the LoL client and giving me an empty error report. Weirdly customs work, which makes me think actual games would as well. More problems though

So the biggest problem is I have pretty much no graphics. I have a HUD but no icons, health bars but no minions or champs (unless I hover over them, then I get their outline) and the whole map is black. The other problem is that it won't go full screen, just to the full screen of the Wine desktop (1024:768) This means I can't quite see the bottom of the screen, which is a problem as it means I can't scroll down.

One thing I should probably mention: I'm running on a laptop without dedicated graphics. In the Wine config settings, I changed the number to default for graphics memory (where you put 2048). Does this mean it won't work at all do you think? :/

 

First of all... can you play any other games on your laptop?
It really sounds like a driver problem. What laptop do you have?
What integrated video is it using? AMD, Nvidia, Intel

Using the virtual desktop is a good idea for testing and the Memory in PlayOnLinux configuration should be the amount that your video card uses. On laptops this can be misleading because there may be shared memory between the video and system RAM.

 

Heh, you beat me to it, booman. Just got the email notification on my phone. I agree with it sounding like a driver problem, might not have one at all and linux is falling back on a universal one. Also, @SadSnipingStrife have you tried checking the settings after getting into the LoL match in custom? Maybe it is only on windowed?

 

Hey, yeah, I've played loads on it. I had some hard drive problems and I can't find my recovery discs, so I thought I'd give Linux a go. I've played LoL on it loads before I installed Linux. I've got Intel HD 3000. Yeah, I don't think the share is an 8 number :/

 

Before Linux? So you mean in Windows correct?
What other games have you played in Linux?
I'm just checking because there are a few dependencies required to play games like proprietary drivers, 32-bit libraries, proper setup for PlayOnLinux.

 

Yeah, when I ran 7 Ultimate. Um, I've installed steam for linux and played some of my Linux-compatible games on there, such as FTL (Faster than light) and Starbound.

 

You may be onto something with the proprietary drivers for Strife there, but in the interest on not wanting to reinstall the entire thing...

@booman I have an up-to-date install on an external hard drive, am I able to just copy that over, rather than waiting for the install+updates?
Never tried, just a thought. Any idea?

 

Sorry Sonic, only just saw your message. I'll see if I can find some drivers for my 3000 on Linux :/ Also, its in fullscreen mode according to the settings and it does fill the wine desktop window, but only that, not my whole screen.

 

Oh, looks like you have an Intel HD 3000 on your laptop. That is bad news for Linux.
I have a Chromebook with an HD 2000 and it plays some games, mostly older ones like Half-Life, Lugaru, Torchlight, but none of the newer games.
I have a feeling the drivers are fine for Windows, but in Linux we kinda get left-behind on development. So you may be at the mercy of Intel.

SonicMaster7773 - I have not successfully copied an updated version of LoL to a virtual drive. In theory it should work, but Wine uses the Windows Registery, not sure if there will be complications.

 

Aww ok, thanks for the help Booman

 

Yeah, wasn't sure if I should try it or not but it install ten times faster to this machine than the one I previously posted fixes for. The full install I have is from a windows pc, so I figured it probably would work, but I am just trying a new install. Hopefully the framerate isn't too terrible.

 

I know how to copy game files in Steam, but with other clients the game files can go in different places at different times. So its hard to back them up and install again.
Kinda frustrating.

 

The TuxLoL works pretty good. I just played an entire match and was able to go to the store and purchase items.
I"m going to add the steps at the bottom of the guide for those of you who are getting a crash when clicking the store.

 

Thanks for the easy and great guide, but I'm having one problem. Everything went good with downloading and logging in and I got into champoinselect, but after that my loading screen went black and nothing happend. I read some other forums too, and it might be a Driver problem, do u know anything about this? I am using Ubuntu 12.04

 

1 thing more, several times I had Bugsplat and the most suprising this is that, my SHOP WORKS onyl by following this guide.