Installing and Playing 0 A.D. on Raspberry Pi

Game Overview

0 A.D. is a real time historical strategy game, similar to Age of Empires. You start with a few settlers, gather resources, build a civilization, then defend and conquer. Being a free and open source game, it's easy to get it running on nearly any system that meets the minimum hardware requirements. It's the most impressive and fun open source game I've yet encountered. It's not for everyone, but it's a very good game of its type.

https://play0ad.com/

Note: The hardware upgrades and software tweaks required to make this game run well are a little more advanced, and will cost extra. Once the upgrades are complete, it opens the door to much better gaming and general performance on the Raspberry Pi 5.

Requirements

  • Raspberry Pi 5 or CM5, 4GB RAM or more
  • 3.0GHz overclock (recommended)
  • Graphics card. AMD 400 series or newer (Verified with AMD Radeon RX 460 4GB)
  • At least 4GB of storage space
  • Raspberry Pi OS Trixie (verified working)
  • Other operating systems may work, but are unverified

Hardware Upgrades

A dedicated GPU, or graphics card, is required to make the game playable and enjoyable. I'm currently working on making the upgrade process easier, but I'll include the most thorough and up to date resource I know of: Jeff Geerling. See below for instructions.

The GPU requires a computer power supply, an adapter to go from the NVME port to a PCIe slot, a PCIe extension cable, a power adapter for the NVME to PCIe adapter, a computer case to hold everything, and a fast USB drive for reliably booting up the system.

Hardware Required:

The items linked are the exact ones I use. They are not affiliate links. I can verify that this combination of hardware works. I have a Raspberry Pi 5 8GB model. Don't buy a Raspberry Pi from Amazon. They're over priced, and I got a "New" Pi 5 that was actually used. Mouser is a very reputable distributor. Yes, you will pay for shipping. Yes it's worth it.

Installing a GPU

This is a bit more involved than just installing the game, but I do think it is within reach of most tinkering types. I'm working on making this all easier, but it's a ton of work. Stay tuned.

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/using-amd-gpus-on-raspberry-pi-without-recompiling-linux/

Where it says "Before rebooting, edit your /boot/firmware/config.txt file, and add the following at the bottom:" the command you want is:

sudo nano /boot/firmware/config.txt

ctrl+shift+v will paste into that window. Ctr+x will exit and ask to save. Hit y to save the changes.

This isn't obvious to anyone new to Linux and Raspberry Pi OS, so I wanted to clarify.

Overclocking the Pi 5

This is an optional step, but highly recommended. Make sure you have an active cooler installed or the Pi will overheat and slow down.

Overclocking Guide

Installation Instructions

Install from the Snap Store, which can be installed from the Pi Apps store, or run the following commands in a terminal window:

Installs Snap, if not installed already:

sudo apt install snapd

Installs the game:

sudo snap install 0ad

The Snap installation method is the easiest, requiring only a single command, assuming Snap is already installed. The problem with this method is that the desktop and menu shortcuts don't get created. At least not on Raspberry Pi OS Trixie, which is what I've done all of this testing on. To start the game, without going through the hassle of creating the shortcut files yourself, you can run this command in a terminal window to start the game:

snap 0ad

The easiest way to install and manage the game is to install the snap store from Pi Apps and then install the game from the Snap Store. The Snap store also lets you manage updates and uninstall the game and other software.

Performance and Experience

On a stock Raspberry Pi 5, with enough RAM, the game will run. It will not run well. Even turning settings down, making the game look quite bad, will not make the game enjoyable if you decide to do something like sending an army of 180 soldiers into a town center with many dozens of other soldiers. You need a GPU to enjoy this game on the Raspberry Pi.

Zooming in actually helps increase performance as well. I've also found that, at least on my setup, changing the rendering scale from 100% to anything else causes the entire screen to go blank. I was playing at 1080p, and had to drop the quality of multiple settings later into a big game. Changing the resolution of the desktop on Pi OS might help with this. I don't run the desktop at 4K resolution, just for performance reasons. 

Using a supported GPU, the gaming experience on the Raspberry Pi 5 is very good. Overclocking the Pi to 3.0Ghz makes a noticeable difference in things like loading time and when many things are moving on screen at once. The game will run for hours on end without much trouble. There are many graphics options that can be tweaked to make the game look better or run smoother. It's worth playing around with them after you have a large population and a lot of movement on screen.

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