Arma 3: Experimental Ports

Please visit this overview page to learn more about our experimental client ports to Linux and Mac, including the limitations and F.A.Q.

Installation

1. Check the limitations overview to decide whether you find them acceptable.
2. Check the minimal requirements to determine whether your system is able to run the ports.
3. Download and install the Steam client, create an account and purchase the Windows retail version of Arma 3.
4. Install the game (it will automatically download the data for Mac or Linux, depending on the platform you are installing from).
5. Play!

Known Issues

• Potential Out Of Memory client crashes/freezes when playing for longer periods of time
• Lower FPS after long gameplay - this may hint at an incoming OOM crash. Restarting the game cleans the memory.
• Lag and desync under heavy multiplayer load
• The "Diary" key (J by default) may cause the game to freeze temporarily.
• Faulty ATOC on AMD GPU cards (white outlines on vegetation) - it can be disabled in the video settings.
• Problem with different languages and diacritics - only English works properly. Non-ASCII characters are not supported.
• Low FPS on OS X - running the OS and the native display resolution eat up a lot of computing power.
• AMD graphical artifacts - black and white squares appear on-screen and AMD GPUs do not show all shadows correctly.
• Occasional Alt + Tab crashes
• Unusually large Dedicated Server RPT files - this can eat up more than 800 MB on Mac.
• Aspect ratio changing CTD - changing the aspect ratio in-game can cause issues and/or CTDs.
• Unable to use free camera (double Alt key) in some planes - players may not be able to change to free camera in airplanes.
• Joystick, gaming devices - Xbox 360 controllers should work plug-and-play on Linux and Mac, but it's not possible to remap their buttons in-game. Joysticks, Xbox One gamepads and other game controllers need user alterations of the SDLGamepad.config file located in the Arma directory on Linux.
• The VP wrapper can lower Arma 3’s performance by up to 25 percent on several systems, but the performance drop should not exceed 10 percent on a vast majority of systems.
• Video options have some limitations dependent on the system’s computing power. It can disable your option to set up High or Ultra quality levels on less powerful machines.
• Any issues fixed since the 1.54 Windows version

Distros

Supported Linux distributions are:

• Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS 64bit and later (recommended is Ubuntu 14.10 64bit)
• Mint 17.1, 64bit and later
• Fedora 22 and later

32bit Linux systems are considered too unstable due to crashes in MP, although it may be possible to play Arma 3 on them.

We support only default desktop environments such as Cinnamon on Mint and Unity on Ubuntu. It should be possible to run the game on Debian and Gentoo, but it was not the part of the QA process, therefore we cannot guarantee support.

There are community tests of Arma 3 on other Linux distributions such as Arch Linux. You can find more information on the forums and Feedback Tracker regarding issues on unsupported distros.

Linux Graphics Drivers Updates

NVIDIA

A quick 'how-to' on updating NVIDIA drivers on Linux systems:

1. Open Terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T).
2. Enter "sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa".
3. Enter "sudo apt-get update".
4. Enter "sudo apt-get install nvidia-361" .

Your drivers should now be updated after restarting.

Check https://launchpad.net/~graphics-drivers/+archive/ubuntu/ppa for newer drivers.

AMD

AMD Catalyst drivers are a bit more complicated. The only method we have found that works reliably, is to install the driver from the archive provided by AMD for download. The drivers shipped with Ubuntu 14 are outdated, they have known performance problems and contain bugs (http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Linux+x86).

There is a guide to manually installing them here. The guide mentions the 13.12 drivers, but the process is the same for the later ones.

Joysticks & Gamepads

• Xbox 360 controller should work plug-and-play on Linux and Mac, but it's not possible to remap it. Joysticks, Xbox One gamepads and other game controllers need user alterations of the SDLGamepad.config file located in the Arma directory on Linux. Adding a GUID and controller map of your gaming device might work.
• Steam Big Picture mapping is unfortunately not working with Arma 3 at this moment.

Dedicated Servers

Mac

1. Run the Steam client (if do not start the normal game first, it will not let you launch after the Dedicated Server is on).
2. Run Arma 3 and wait for the game to get to the main menu.
3. Run Terminal.
4. Change the current directory to the path where the Arma3.app is (e.g. "cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/Arma\ 3/").
5. Run the Dedicated Server by command: "./ArmA3.app/Contents/MacOS/ArmA3 --args -server -config=Server.cfg".

Linux

Method 1

1. Launch Arma 3 via Steam normally (if do not start the normal game first, it will not let you launch after the Dedicated Server is on).
2. Find your Arma 3 by right mouse button in Steam's library and go to the Properties > Local files > Browse local files section to copy the path. You should also put the server.cfg file there.
3. Open Terminal and write: cd 'your Arma 3 path' and press Enter. It should open your game folder.
4. Type in Terminal: ./arma3. It should output this message: error while loading shared libraries: libSDL2-2.0.so.0.
5. Type in Terminal: sudo apt install libsdl2-2.0-0:i386, press Enter, enter the password and let it install. Agree by pressing Y.
6. Type in Terminal: sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386 and press Enter.
7. Type in Terminal: sudo apt update and press Enter.
8. Type in Terminal: ./arma3 -server -config=server.cfg and press Enter.

Your Dedicated Server should now run alongside the normal game.

Note: in case of dependency problems during launching a Dedicated Server on Ubuntu: "./arma3.i386: error while loading shared libraries: libSDL2-2.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory"

• Solution: enter the following into terminal: export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="<.steam install path>/ubuntu12_32"
• Example: export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/home/user/.steam/ubuntu12_32"

Method 2

Arma_3_Dedicated_Server#Instructions_.28Linux_o.2Fs.29

Fedora Firewall

There may be an issue with connections on Arma 3’s server on Fedora caused by a firewall. For disabling this you may use this: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/19/html/Security_Guide/sec-Disabling_firewalld.html.

Keep in mind this will open your firewall completely, and opening ports just for Arma 3 is advised (default ports are: 2302-2305 UDP)

Cross-Platform Windows Compatibility

The Linux / Mac ports use the Legacy version 1.54 of Arma 3 currently. You can only access servers with this version (green in the server list).

1.54 Legacy version installation on Windows:

1. Open the Properties of Arma 3 or Arma 3 Server in the Steam library.
2. Open the Betas tab.
3. Enter access code: Arma3LegacyPorts. This should unlock the legacyports version.
4. Download and play.