How can I play Sims 4 on Ubuntu?

I have a computer running Ubuntu installed by someone else, and I know nothing about how to use it. My kids want to play Sims 4 on it.

I have Wine & Play on Linux. I managed to download Origin, which is what is needed to play from, but it won't open at all.

Can you please help me to set this up?

Solution 1:

Make sure your computer meets requirements.[1] Check your version of Ubuntu, you may need a current version. Either 16.04.2 LTS or 17.04.

WineDB shows the game does work in Origin, and the comment from July 22nd lists a method to get it to run.[2]

[1] https://www.thesims.com/faq#what-are-the-PC-minimum-system-requirements

PROCESSOR: 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, AMD Athlon 64 Dual-Core 4000+ or equivalent (For computers using built-in graphics chipsets, the game requires 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.0 GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-62 or equivalent)
MEMORY: At least 2 GB RAM 
HARD DRIVE: At least 9 GB of free space with at least 1 GB additional space for custom content and saved games 
DVD-ROM: DVD ROM drive required for installation only 
VIDEO CARD: 128 MB of Video RAM and support for Pixel Shader 3.0. Supported Video Cards: NVIDIA GeForce 6600 or better, ATI Radeon X1300 or better, Intel GMA X4500 or better 

[2] https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?bShowAll=true&bIsQueue=false&bIsRejected=false&sClass=version&sTitle=&sReturnTo=&iId=33219

Getting Origin to work. by Nick Olson on Saturday July 22nd 2017, 21:12

If you are having problems installing Origin, or can't connect to EA servers, you can follow the instructions posted by Luca Weiss: 

Download www.dm.origin.com/download/legacy (legacy OriginThinSetup.exe). 
Create a fresh wineprefix (32-bit). 
Run the installer and leave the default options. 
When Origin launches it will tell you that "Your update could not be completed.". 
Download origin-a.akamaihd.net/Origin-Client-Download/origin/live/OriginUpdate_9_12_0_34172.zip and put the contents into your_wine_prefix/drive_c/Program\ Files/Origin/ , so that that folder contains a Origin.exe file. 
You can then start this Origin.exe and log in.

After this you should be able to install Sims 4 without any problems.

Solution 2:

New Wine 4, new Sims 4 ;) Here's what I did - if you're on a different Ubuntu release, replace "bionic" as needed:

• On Ubuntu 18.04.1 ("bionic") x64, enable the WineHQ repo from https://wiki.winehq.org/Ubuntu

  sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
  
  wget -nc https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key && sudo apt-key add winehq.key
  
  sudo apt-add-repository 'deb https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/ bionic main'
  

• install current stable Wine (we needed to add the WineHQ repository above, as default repo has an older version)

  sudo apt update && sudo apt install --install-recommends winehq-stable
  

• Download the default Origin installer for Windows from https://www.origin.com/irl/en-us/store/download (the older one doesn't seem to work with current Wine out-of-the-box)

• Make a new 64bit prefix (I created it under ~/Documents, doesn't really matter where):

  cd $HOME/Documents; export WINEPREFIX=$(pwd)/sims4; wineboot -u
  

• Run the downloaded Origin installer in this prefix - note that

  WINEPREFIX=$HOME/Documents/sims4 wine OriginThinInstaller.exe
  

• Keep the defaults selected; a launcher for the Origin client will be created for you

• In the Origin client, sign in, download your Sims 4, and when it finishes, click Play. Voila!