rocksmith-nix

Rocksmith 2014 packaged for NixOS — WineASIO, rs-autoconnect, RS_ASIO, and declarative Home Manager module.

Upstream

Project	Original code (no upstream)
License	N/A
Tracked	N/A

What Is This?

A Nix flake that wires together every Linux component needed to play Rocksmith 2014 on NixOS:

• Four packages — patch-rocksmith shell helper, wineasio-32 (32-bit Wine ASIO bridge), rs-autoconnect (JACK auto-connect shim), rs-asio (Rocksmith's ASIO wrapper DLL)
• Home Manager module — generates RS_ASIO.ini + Rocksmith.ini declaratively, deploys DLLs into the Proton prefix on every launch, exports a rocksmith-launch Steam wrapper that does the dance automatically
• Optional GoXLR Line-In routing — WirePlumber rules wiring guitar input through GoXLR Mini/Full
• Eval + format CI — no upstream-tracking workflow (own code), weekly flake.lock maintenance only

Packages

Package	Arch	Description
patch-rocksmith	x86_64	Shell script to register WineASIO in a Rocksmith Proton prefix
wineasio-32	i686	32-bit ASIO-to-JACK driver for Wine (bridges Wine ASIO → PipeWire JACK)
rs-autoconnect	i686	librsshim.so — shim library that auto-connects Rocksmith's JACK ports to PipeWire
rs-asio	x86_64	RS_ASIO v0.7.4 DLLs — ASIO driver wrapper that intercepts Rocksmith's audio calls

Home Manager Module

The repo exports homeManagerModules.default — a full HM module that provides:

• rocksmith-launch wrapper script (set as Steam launch option)
• RS_ASIO.dll + avrt.dll deployed from Nix store (no network at runtime)
• RS_ASIO.ini generated declaratively (WineASIO driver config)
• Rocksmith.ini generated declaratively (game audio settings)
• WineASIO DLLs auto-installed into Proton prefix
• WirePlumber rules for GoXLR Line In → WineASIO routing (optional)
• Wine/PipeWire environment (WINEDLLOVERRIDES + 32/64-bit JACK library paths)

Options

myModules.home.rocksmith = {
  enable = true;                        # Enable Rocksmith configuration
  latencyBuffer = 2;                    # 1-4, lower = less latency (default: 2)
  pipewireLatency = "256/48000";        # quantum/rate (default: "256/48000")
  steamAppDir = "~/.steam/...";         # Auto-detected (default: standard Steam path)
  goxlr.lineInRouting = true;           # WirePlumber rules for GoXLR Line In
  goxlr.deviceName = "GoXLRMini";       # "GoXLRMini" or "GoXLR" (default: "GoXLRMini")
};

Audio Chain

Guitar → 3.5mm cable → Audio Interface Line In
  → PipeWire/ALSA capture → PipeWire JACK → WineASIO (32-bit)
  → RS_ASIO → Rocksmith 2014

On Windows, Rocksmith uses a native ASIO driver (e.g., GoXLR ASIO). On Linux, wineasio-32 bridges Wine's ASIO calls to PipeWire's JACK emulation, and rs-autoconnect (librsshim.so) handles automatic JACK port routing. RS_ASIO.dll intercepts Rocksmith's audio initialization and redirects it through WineASIO.

Installation

Add as a flake input:

{
  inputs.rocksmith = {
    url = "github:Daaboulex/rocksmith-nix";
    inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
  };
}

Then use the package:

{ pkgs, inputs, ... }:
{
  environment.systemPackages = [ inputs.rocksmith.packages.${pkgs.system}.default ];
}

Usage

1. Add flake input

# flake.nix
inputs.rocksmith-nix = {
  url = "github:Daaboulex/rocksmith-nix";
  inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
};

2. Wire into host config

# In host flake-module.nix

# Overlay (provides pkgs.rs-asio, pkgs.wineasio-32, etc.)
nixpkgs.overlays = [ inputs.rocksmith-nix.overlays.default ];

# HM module
home-manager.sharedModules = [ inputs.rocksmith-nix.homeManagerModules.default ];

3. Enable in host HM config

myModules.home.rocksmith.enable = true;
myModules.home.rocksmith.goxlr.lineInRouting = true;  # if using GoXLR

4. Set Steam launch option (one-time)

rocksmith-launch %command%

That's it. Everything else is automatic on every game launch.

Optional additions to the launch option:

• gamemoderun rocksmith-launch %command% — enable gamemode (CPU governor + scheduling)
• MANGOHUD=1 rocksmith-launch %command% — enable FPS overlay

What the launch wrapper does

On every game start, rocksmith-launch automatically:

1. Copies RS_ASIO.dll + avrt.dll from the Nix store into the game directory
2. Deploys generated RS_ASIO.ini and Rocksmith.ini
3. Copies wineasio32.dll into the Proton prefix
4. Sets environment variables:

Variable	Value	Purpose
WINEDLLOVERRIDES	wineasio=n,b	Use native WineASIO DLL
PIPEWIRE_LATENCY	256/48000	Match PipeWire quantum (configurable)
WINEASIO_NUMBER_INPUTS	2	Prevent enumeration crash with multi-device setups
WINEASIO_FIXED_BUFFERSIZE	1	Lock buffer to PipeWire quantum
WINEASIO_PREFERRED_BUFFERSIZE	256	Derived from pipewireLatency option

System Requirements

• PipeWire with JACK enabled (services.pipewire.jack.enable = true)
• Low-latency audio — 48kHz @ 256 quantum (5.3ms) recommended
• PAM realtime limits for the @audio group (memlock unlimited, rtprio 99)
• Steam with Proton

Development

nix develop      # Enter dev shell (installs git hooks, provides nil LSP)
nix fmt          # Format all Nix files (nixfmt-rfc-style)
nix build        # Build default package (patch-rocksmith)
nix flake check  # Run all checks (eval + format)

Build individual packages:

nix build .#patch-rocksmith
nix build .#wineasio-32
nix build .#rs-autoconnect
nix build .#rs-asio

CI/CD

Workflow	Trigger	Purpose
ci.yml	Push/PR	Eval check, format check, build, verify
maintenance.yml	Weekly (Sunday 4 AM UTC)	Update flake.lock, cleanup stale branches

All GitHub Actions are pinned to full commit SHAs for reproducibility.

Credits

• re1n0/nixos-rocksmith — original NixOS flake
• nizo/linux-rocksmith — Linux Rocksmith setup guides and patch scripts
• KczBen/rs-linux-autoconnect — JACK auto-connect shim library
• wineasio — ASIO to JACK driver for Wine
• mdias/rs_asio — Rocksmith ASIO wrapper (RS_ASIO)

License

GPL-3.0 (inherited from upstream)

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Maintained as part of the Daaboulex NixOS ecosystem.