Novetus on MacOS and Linux

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This page details how to use the Wine compatibility layer to play legacy Roblox using the Novetus launcher on MacOS and Linux. The guide may apply to other operating systems supported by Wine such as BSD, and other Roblox launchers and revivals, but this guide focuses mainly on Wine for Linux.

Background

  • Novetus is a launcher for legacy clients.
  • Roblox was exclusive to Windows until being ported to MacOS in 2011. Linux was never supported.
  • Although 2011 and 2012 clients and studio are on MacOS, no launchers or revivals currently support it.
  • Wine is an open-source compatibility layer (not an emulator) allowing you to run Windows applications on Unix-based operating systems.

Legacy Roblox runs extremely well in Wine, due to being written in 10+ year old Windows C++ code, which Wine is best suited for. Novetus is written in the C# .NET Framework which isn't well supported by Wine, but it should mostly work.

Setup

  • To install Wine, follow the MacOS guide or if on Linux, get it from your package manager repositories (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, etc.). You will likely have to add Wine's 3rd-party repository to get the latest version of Wine.
  • It's recommended to use Wine's Staging version for the latest features and updates, but Stable works just as fine.
  • Follow the Novetus article to install the launcher.

After Wine is installed, you should be able to double click on the bootstrapper .exe to open it, or use the command:

wine /path/to/NovetusBootstrapper.exe

To run Novetus, Wine should prompt you to install Mono, an open-source and cross-platform implementation of the C# .NET framework. You can install Mono later by following Wine's guide, or as an alternative, simply install Microsoft's version of .NET Framework which is included in Novetus's _redist folder.

Another Wine component you'll be prompted to install is Gecko. Some Windows applications use Internet Explorer to render parts of it. Roblox uses it for the Studio output, Object Browser descriptions, and possibly more. Without Gecko, these will be blank. Wine provides its own implementation of Internet Explorer based on Mozilla's Gecko browser engine, used in Firefox. You can install Gecko later by following Wine's guide.

Steam Deck

This is untested, but Novetus can likely run on a Steam Deck. If you install Novetus in desktop mode, you can run it using Proton. Proton is Steam's version of Wine. You can probably even add it in game mode and play that way!

Of course, neither classic Roblox nor Novetus come with controller support, so you will have to plug in a keyboard and mouse to play.

Troubleshooting

  • If decals, textures, and HUD aren't displaying, or stop displaying when you get far away, play around with the graphics settings in Novetus launcher > Options > Graphics Settings until you find a configuration that works. (Try setting Graphics Quality to High or Ultra.)
  • Novetus will use the simpler-looking Extended launcher style rather than the default Stylish if it detects you are using Wine. This is to improve compatibility.
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