Creating a ZLO BF4 Server on Linux Headless Server (no gui)

Today I'm going to show you my improved version of how to host a Battlefield 4 Server on Linux systems.

Performance is very good, even on my Virtual Machine i got constant 900fps! So if you have a root server or physical server you will get near native performance. Let's get started.

Important: Please use MobaXTerm to connect to your server as it supports X-Server which is important when installing vcr and first starting ZServer. without it no gui = not working

I tested this on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS but should work on every Debian/GNU distro

1. Download necessary files

xvfb and unzip

#just copy and paste following
sudo apt install xvfb unzip -y

wine 64bit

#just copy paste the following
sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
wget -O - https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key | sudo apt-key add -
sudo add-apt-repository 'https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/' && sudo apt update
sudo apt install winehq-stable

visual studio redist 2012 

wget -nc https://download.microsoft.com/download/1/6/B/16B06F60-3B20-4FF2-B699-5E9B7962F9AE/VSU3/vcredist_x64.exe

2. Install Visual C redist 2012

wine vcredist_64.exe

wait until window pops up for "mono" installation and click install. Wait again until VCredist installer pops up and click "install"

Done!

3. Move Server Files to your Server

Create folder called bf4 or whatever and move ZServer.exe and R63 Files into it.

4. Extract BF4 Server files

!!!Make sure youre in the right directory!!!
cd bf4  					#if you named it bf4
unzip BF4_R63_179665.zip

5. run ZServer for first time and insert params

You can change params after first start in ZServers.zlo file (it's just xml file with zlo extension)
!!!ACTIVATE AUTOSTART!!!

6. Make server run without gui and without terminal (keeps running after cmd is closed)

You create a screen session. Enter following command:

screen -S Battlefield4 xvfb-run wine ZServer.exe

Then you press "Ctrl + A" and after that "Ctrl + D", then you're detached from the session and close your terminal.
To get back to your process type:

screen -r Battlefield4

Now you can stop the server or do whatever you want.

can you show me how much core and cpu speed you have ? i see you got 900 fps i need see the cpu speed 

On 4/25/2022 at 6:25 PM, B7ackhawk said:

can you show me how much core and cpu speed you have ? i see you got 900 fps i need see the cpu speed 

I have a Ryzen 7 5800x and allocated 8 cores to the virtual machine. However the server greatly benefits from single core performance rather than utilizing threading. Also I did not install any VMware tools. I have a physical server with Ryzen 5 2600 but currently I cant test on it because I removed it. If you get it running maybe you can tell us how much performance you get.