I’ve had a lot less of a desire to pirate games after moving to Linux full time a few years ago. But FitGirl has been the one reliable place for public torrents, compaed to chancing it on the third Google Link or scrolling through the Russian CS-Rin-Rulette forum to find links.

Fair point. I guess it would be more accurate to say “development studios” (you know, the organisation… including the bloody boss) instead of “game devs”.

What’s your process for running the unpacker executable? Maybe it depends on the game, but I set up a wineprefix through Lutris and always seem to run into issues getting it to complete properly without any unpacking errors.

I only use DODI when there is no Fitgirl release. DODI torrents are always behind spam/scam link gates and the installer is horrible. In the DODI installer to start it for some reason you have to press the up arrow or something. Just… why? It’s like he saw that feature on his phone lock screen and decided to add it without asking himself what purpose it serves. The installer is also totally broken if you have changed windows scaling so every time I want to use it I have to go into the properties and disable scaling.

As someone trying to move to Linux this year, what issues are there? I’ve heard this before, but I never see an explanation on what makes it difficult.

For the setup:

Final Edit: The wine prefix is the same for the games and the installer, just a windows subsystem that has all the dependencies.

First I install the wine-cachyos package, create a WINEPREFIX variable for the folder i want to put the prefix in, then i run winecfg to start the prefix, then I install the dotnet packages and vcredist packages through (before, when the repos existed) these links for the vcredist and dotnet (maybe archive.org or somewhere else still have the executables), or using winetricks too, but these are nicer to use as they install everything in one go.

Then I install the dxvk and vkd3d (you can install through lutris, so this is kinda useless hahaha).

Then I run the fitgirl repack through lutris and click to install the vcredist or .net when asked.

Then I just run the game with a runner or wine-cachyos.

I’ll update this with valid links when I find them.

Edit: last time I used this and this, installing just the .net runtimes, not directx, java, silverlight, etc.

If you can afford it

IsThereAnyDeal

IsThereAnyDeal (isthereanydeal.com)

Might be a better option, or least send the devs some support while using repacks. It’s sort of like a thrift store when you find something you really wanted maybe a game you didn’t even know of, and it means a lot more because it feels like finding a treasure.

I actually didn’t know that the whole point of fitgirl was for compression, I’ve been blessed with massive hard drives. I think I took my 4tb ssd for granted. Not everyone has even an extra $5 .

They crack, she repacks

This is just not true. Both DODI and ElAmigos are Repackers.

Proton can handle the game files but not the installer. So you have to install in wine and it’s a hassle. I install the games on my windows pc, zip them and then transfer them to my deck.

Ah, alright alright

DODI torrents are always behind spam/scam link gates

There’s a bypass script for this and should be on the DB0 megathread list (or at least in the PiratedGames megathread).

and the installer is horrible. In the DODI installer to start it for some reason you have to press the up arrow or something. Just… why?

Honestly, I never found this to be an issue. But can understand it could be a bit annoying.

It probably has the same deals as your website, but I use https://gg.deals/. It shows keyshops with the various risks that might be associated with them, too

Since Fitgirl’s installer just unpacks stuff, I just use the same prefix for all installers. Protontricks/wine lets you specify a path in the Z:/ drive as well (the linux base system), so no need to move stuff.

I even made a dummy exe file that does nothing and added that as a non steam game that works as a catch-all prefix for whatever I need to run without adding it as a non steam game first.

I’d suggest having a look into LinuxRuleZ! repacks, maybe not for lower performance devices but at least it’s like 2 clicks and you’re up and running for basically any game.

Even games that are notoriously difficult to make work pirated, like Forza Horizon 4 and 5.

I wouldn’t really say that. The kind of extreme compression Fitgirl does comes with the tradeoff of really long decompression times. Depending on which games, nearly 45 minutes (with a 7800x3D)

Some games lack compression but I would not want those long install times by default, if you have a speedy internet connection they usually take longer to install than to download. Don’t get me wrong, for people with really slow internet those repacks are a godsend but they are not “better” on every aspect.

They don’t go out of their way to break it, they just don’t pay attention to it (yet). There was an interesting interview here a few months ago: https://lemmy.world/post/32441387

Huh? I add the installer to steam, use proton and install. No problem.

Steam gets around this problem by doing the decompressing on the fly as you download. Go check out your CPU usage next time you install a game.

Edit: I think this is also why it defaults to not downloading while you game. Steam doesn’t want you to have a bad experience from the decompression.

The last time I used one, I had to edit some paths in a .md5 file to get the hash verification to work.

Why would you ever use google to find torrents?

The fitgirl unpacker and installer? Tbh I never tried, everyone on the web simply said it didn’t work.