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Since Unity3D in its fourth version introduced Linux builds export, many good things happened to our game market - a huge portion of games appearing on Linux are currently made with Unity. However, we did not get the Web Player browser plugin for our platform which is unfortunate, because it is often used in demo or early versions of Unity3D games.

That's why the Pipelight project some time ago introduced Unity3D plugin support. Pipelight brings newest versions of Windows plugins (Silverlight, Flash, Unity3D and few others) to Linux browsers using Wine "ports" or "pipes".

It really works (to me on Debian 7 with both Firefox and Chromium) and is quite easy to install. Exact instructions for installation on various Linux distributions can be found here:
http://fds-team.de/cms/pipelight-installation.html

Remember to turn the plugin on after installation! As root (or with sudo):
pipelight-plugin --enable unity3d


After that you can try running some Unity3D Web Player demos, e.g. on Kongregate, I recommend Race The Sun for testing purposes:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/flippfly/race-the-sun

More Unity3D games on Kongregate:
http://www.kongregate.com/unity-games
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: HOWTO, Unity, Wine
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Proud Debian gamer since 2010. Indie game developer and marketer for Frogsong Studios and Rengen Marketing.
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18 comments

gubs Jan 25, 2014
Hmm, does anyone know if this works with Jagged Alliance Online?
Half-Shot Jan 25, 2014
Sounds really cool, I haven't had that much experience with Unity3D web games but I'm sure this can pave some of the way for developers that don't want to think about packaging games.
hardpenguin Jan 25, 2014
Hmm, does anyone know if this works with Jagged Alliance Online?
It tends to have problems with more complex games but... Just try it out :)

Sounds really cool, I haven't had that much experience with Unity3D web games but I'm sure this can pave some of the way for developers that don't want to think about packaging games.
I'd say no. Pipelight is not an official solution and it has no warranty of working properly (while it mostly does). It is still Wine after all. This is not the right way for developers, but it is a good way for Linux gamers to widen their gaming possibilities.
DrMcCoy Jan 25, 2014
Pipelight brings newest versions of Windows plugins (Silverlight, Flash, Unity3D and few others) to Linux browsers using Wine
Ugh, I haven't even heard about this horrible abomination. I'm going to have to roll for sanity loss now.
HadBabits Jan 25, 2014
I appreciate their efforts, though mainly for allowing me to watch Netflix. (Despite performance and heavy graphical errors if not running fullscreen; I think it's an catalyst issue)
manny Jan 25, 2014
well browsers will be getting rid of NPAPI in 2014, so hopefully its an incentive for some of them to upgrade their stuff to better standards and multiplatform support.

http://blog.chromium.org/2013/09/saying-goodbye-to-our-old-friend-npapi.html
minj Jan 25, 2014
Weird timing on this article :P

This will be of no use to anyone soon anyway since NPAPI is going down.
Guest Jan 26, 2014
Pipelight brings newest versions of Windows plugins (Silverlight, Flash, Unity3D and few others) to Linux browsers using Wine
Ugh, I haven't even heard about this horrible abomination. I'm going to have to roll for sanity loss now.

This. Regardless of if this will be made redundant by browsers dropping NPAPI support, to jack Wine in to a native browser is a terrible choice.
philip550c Jan 27, 2014
Pipelight brings newest versions of Windows plugins (Silverlight, Flash, Unity3D and few others) to Linux browsers using Wine
Ugh, I haven't even heard about this horrible abomination. I'm going to have to roll for sanity loss now.
Its the best way to watch netflix in linux though. I dont really use netflix but I bought a months worth of service just to try out pipelight. It worked well actually for me but I did not try any other service. I would be very dissapointed to see developers think they could claim linux support by using pipelight but for those people that have netflix accounts this is much better than the previous way which was to run the whole browser in wine.
philip550c Jan 27, 2014
I appreciate their efforts, though mainly for allowing me to watch Netflix. (Despite performance and heavy graphical errors if not running fullscreen; I think it's an catalyst issue)
What kind of graphical errors? I did not experience any errors using nvidia so your assumption might be correct.
abelthorne Jan 27, 2014
Anybody manages to use Unity3D webplayer with Firefox (on Ubuntu, in case it's relevant)? I only get the error message about the platform being not supported. I've tried the two plugins they suggest in their FAQ to change the User Agent and a few UAs (Firefox Mac/Windows, Safari Mac) but nothing worked.
CFWhitman Jan 27, 2014
I appreciate their efforts, though mainly for allowing me to watch Netflix. (Despite performance and heavy graphical errors if not running fullscreen; I think it's an catalyst issue)
What kind of graphical errors? I did not experience any errors using nvidia so your assumption might be correct.
I'm pretty sure he's correct about it being a Catalyst issue.  It seems to work fine with AMD cards that use the Radeon R600g open source driver.  It even provides a decent experience on an old laptop with a Mobility Radeon HD2600 with a 1680x1050 resolution screen.
xkainxkainx Feb 15, 2014
well i got it but not only is it unity but shockwave when i go into add ons it says pipelight error (shockwave) and then (unity) and when i try to run contract wars it doesnt let me contract wars uses unity im playing it on kongregate all help would be appreciated im better at useing sudo apt mostly
Markus May 27, 2014
Even if I try to open the race the sun link you provided I get "Failed to update Unity Web Player". Any idea how I can do it manually?
ZioFaust Jun 4, 2014
First of all, thanks harpenguin!

I'm using Ubuntu 12.04.
Followed instructions in related link (please read completely the article, contains useful info to choose the most suitable installation).

After sudoing pipelight-plugin --enable unity3d I also tried and got an error : "Failed to update Unity Web Player". Then I run update manager, got some missing wine stuff,restarted system and lo, Unity on Ubuntu!

Good luck!
S Brook Jun 7, 2014
Does not seem to work on any games, even the suggested test one, on my system. Running Fedora 19 with both Firefox 29.0.1 and Google. Everything installed OK, enabled the plug in which shows up in the Add Ins list as Unity. But whichever site I try, I just get the Unity3D has crashed errors :(
hardpenguin Jun 7, 2014
Does not seem to work on any games, even the suggested test one, on my system. Running Fedora 19 with both Firefox 29.0.1 and Google. Everything installed OK, enabled the plug in which shows up in the Add Ins list as Unity. But whichever site I try, I just get the Unity3D has crashed errors :(
Many games do not work. But I just tested Race The Sun and it still works very fine to me. Report any problems to Pipelight developers/community, I am sorry but I can't provide you any support.
Anonymous Jun 7, 2014
Does not seem to work on any games, even the suggested test one, on my system. Running Fedora 19 with both Firefox 29.0.1 and Google. Everything installed OK, enabled the plug in which shows up in the Add Ins list as Unity. But whichever site I try, I just get the Unity3D has crashed errors :(
Many games do not work. But I just tested Race The Sun and it still works very fine to me. Report any problems to Pipelight developers/community, I am sorry but I can't provide you any support.


No Problem, I only wanted to try an FPS game on Fbook. Browser based FPS are not as good as installed games anyway, so I'll stick to my old favourites :)
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