For the newest client, see NXT

The Game Client is an open-source RuneScape launcher built by Jagex. The client is an alternative to playing the game in a browser, and is designed to compensate for those who do not have Java installed or those who are having issues with Java. It was used by 75% of players before the introduction of NXT.[1]

The project began on 20 January 2010 and was launched on 25 May 2010, originally only being available to Windows users. An unofficial GUI client was eventually developed to work with macOS by taking the jar file from the Windows client and wrapping it in the standard macOS Application Bundle. Jagex later placed its imprimatur on the unofficial macOS client by making it available in the download section of the Runescape website. As of 5 August 2015, the current release is version 1.2.7.

Prior to 25 May 2010, the client was an Internet Explorer-based site-specific browser application that allowed a user to play RuneScape without using a conventional browser. However, players using higher-end computers may prefer to use the browser based version as the client has size and resolution limitations that the browser version does not. Using third-party software (such as SwiftKit) to play RuneScape does not violate the Rules of RuneScape, but is not recommended for use by Jagex. Version 1.0.0.5 was the last stable of this release client version by Jagex.

The Game Client and its source code may be downloaded in the Download section of the RuneScape website.

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Troubleshooting

If users are having problems with the Game Client, they are recommended to try following these steps in order and see if they can resolve their problem.

General

When the Game Client loads, I get a page saying "Page cannot be displayed"

This is most likely to do with a personal firewall which is blocking the Client from accessing the internet. Users will have to allow the program ("runescape.exe" or "JagexLauncher.exe" for Windows users, and "RuneScape.app" for Mac users) access to the internet in order for it to work.

This is most likely to do with a personal firewall which is blocking the Client from accessing the internet. Users will have to allow the program ("runescape.exe" or "JagexLauncher.exe" for Windows users, and "RuneScape.app" for Mac users) access to the internet in order for it to work. When clicking on the map, the screen goes black, as if loading, but never loads. Click on the screen, and if it doesn't load, open another program to minimise it. If that doesn't work then just exit the program and restart it.



Mac

When I try resizing the window, the client locks up.

The Mac version of the client cannot be resized in software mode. Switching to OpenGL solves the problem and will allow access to the resizable and fullscreen options. The window can be resized in OpenGL, and the graphics can subsequently be switched back to software mode without problems.

Editing the client's configuration

If you update your client, you will have to apply the changes made to the configuration again.

Windows

On Windows the configuration is stored in the file %USERPROFILE%\jagexcache\jagexlauncher\runescape\runescape.prm

To edit this file type %USERPROFILE%\jagexcache\jagexlauncher\runescape into Explorer's address bar and open runescape.prm in Notepad. If you can't save, make sure the game is closed and try again.

macOS

On macOS, the configuration is stored in the file Runescape.app/Contents/Info.plist

To edit this file open Terminal and type the following:

open -a TextEdit /Applications/RuneScape.app/Contents/Info.plist

Configuration options

Connecting to Old School, Classic, Dimension of the Damned

Open %USERPROFILE%\jagexcache\jagexlauncher\runescape\runescape.prm in Notepad. Remove the flag: -Dcom.jagex.config=http://www.runescape.com/k=3/l=$(Language:0)/jav_config.ws Replace it with one of the following: Classic: -Dcom.jagex.config=http://classic3.runescape.com/jav_config.ws

Old School: -Dcom.jagex.config=http://oldschool.runescape.com/jav_config.ws

RuneScape 3: -Dcom.jagex.config=http://www.runescape.com/jav_config.ws

Dimension of the Damned: -Dcom.jagex.config=http://world200.runescape.com/jav_config.ws Save and close the file

Increasing maximum heap usage

You can increase the amount of maximum heap the RuneScape client uses and it is often a recommended step in troubleshooting on the official Forum. To do this:

Open %USERPROFILE%\jagexcache\jagexlauncher\runescape\runescape.prm in Notepad. Change every instance of -Xmx384m to a higher value; -Xmx512m is recommended Save and close the file

Allocating too much memory to the heap can cause game instability. If, after increasing the amount of maximum heap, your client begins to crash to desktop, decrease the maximum heap size and try again. -Xmx512m is generally considered a safe heap size, and should not be increased unless absolutely necessary.

Using a different garbage collector

You can optionally choose a different garbage collector for the RuneScape client to use. This will potentially improve map loading times, and decrease lag caused by garbage collection.

To make the changes to your Client's configuration file:

Remove every instance of the following flags

-XX:CompileThreshold=1500 -Xincgc -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -XX:+UseParNewGC

Add the following flags:

-XX:+DisableExplicitGC -XX:+AggressiveOpts -XX:+UseAdaptiveGCBoundary -XX:MaxGCPauseMillis=500 -XX:SurvivorRatio=16 -XX:+UseParallelGC

SSL connectivity

Enabling SSL connectivity will help you if you're connecting via a restrictive network, proxy, or firewall.

To do this add the flag to the configuration file:

-Dhttps.protocols=TLSv1,TLSv1.1,TLSv1.2

Multiple client configuration

Go to %USERPROFILE%\jagexcache\jagexlauncher Create a new folder and name it either "oldschool" or "classic" for whichever version you'd like to create a client for Copy the .prm file from %USERPROFILE%\jagexcache\jagexlauncher\runescape Paste the .prm file inside the newly created folder named "oldschool" or "classic" Rename the file to match the folder; oldschool.prm or classic.prm Open the renamed .prm file in Notepad. Remove the flag: -Dcom.jagex.config=http://www.runescape.com/k=3/l=$(Language:0)/jav_config.ws Replace it with the corresponding flag: Classic: -Dcom.jagex.config=http://classic3.runescape.com/jav_config.ws

Old School: -Dcom.jagex.config=http://oldschool.runescape.com/jav_config.ws Save and close the file Locate the Game Client shortcut and make a copy of it; By default, the Game Client shortcut is found on your desktop Right-click the new shortcut copy, and select "Properties" from the context menu Under the shortcut tab, find the box right of the word "Target"; It should display C:\Users\USERPROFILE\jagexcache\jagexlauncher\bin\JagexLauncher.exe runescape Change the runescape on the end to match the the folder name created in step 2 Click OK to save the changes made

Use on Linux

Create an executable sh file and add the following to it (you must have 7zipinstalled before running):

#!/bin/sh CLIENT_LINK="http://www.runescape.com/downloads/runescape.dmg" GAME_LOC="$HOME/jagexcache/runescape/bin" # temporary directory used by the script: its contents will be deleted. RS_TMP="$HOME/rstmp39383" # Check if 7zip is installed (required to extract the DMG) if [ ! -f /usr/bin/7z ]; then echo "It appears you do not have '7zip' installed, which is required to extract the download. To install it, run:



sudo apt-get install p7zip-full" exit fi if [ ! -d $GAME_LOC ]; then # Create the directory for the client mkdir -p $GAME_LOC # Make a temporary folder to store extracted files mkdir $RS_TMP cd $RS_TMP wget -q $CLIENT_LINK # Extract the downloadable Mac client and the hfs file to get the jar and icon 7z e runescape.dmg 2> /dev/null 7z e 0.hfs -y 2> /dev/null # Move the required files to the client directory created earlier mv jagexappletviewer.{jar,png} $GAME_LOC cd ~ # Delete the temporary folder rm -rf $RS_TMP fi # Run the client java -Djava.class.path="$GAME_LOC/jagexappletviewer.jar" -Dcom.jagex.config=http://www.runescape.com/k=3/l=en/jav_config.ws jagexappletviewer "$GAME_LOC" > /dev/null

Alternative use on Linux

It is possible to use the windows client on linux systems as follows:

Download the windows client (Runescape.msi) from the RuneScape website Rename it to a zip file (eg RuneScape.zip) Extract RsLauncher.cab from the zip file Rename RsLauncher.cab to RsLauncher.zip Extract JagexAppletViewerJarFile.XXXXXXXX_XXXX_XXXX_XXXXXXXXXXXXXX from RsLauncher.zip (X is a hex digit) Rename JagexAppletViewerJarFile.XXXXXXXX_XXXX_XXXX_XXXXXXXXXXXXXX to jagexappletviewer.jar Extract JagexAppletViewerPngFile from RsLauncher.zip Rename JagexAppletViewerPngFile to jagexappletviewer.png Copy jagexappletviewer.jar to ~/.jagex/runescape/bin/jagexappletviewer.jar Copy jagexappletviewer.png to ~/.jagex/runescape/images/jagexappletviewer.png Copy the following 3 lines into a text file called runrs.sh in your home directory:

#!/bin/bash cd ~ /usr/bin/java -Xmx256m -Djava.class.path=$HOME/.jagex/runescape/bin/jagexappletviewer.jar -Dcom.jagex.config=$"http://www.runescape.com/k=3/l=en/jav_config.ws" jagexappletviewer $USERNAME/.jagex/runescape/images

Everything from "/usr" to "/images" is a single command line in the script file. You can also increase the memory allocation (-XmxNNNm where NNN is a number) if you want. See "man java".

12. Make runrs.sh file executable (chmod a+x ~/runrs.sh)

13. From a terminal. ~/runrs.sh

14. You may also need to create the following directories:

~/.jagex_cache_32 ~/.jagex_cache_32/runescape ~/c:

You could also get the client to be installed by downloading the program Wine and using it to install the client. (confirmed for Debian Squid, and it also works out-of-the-box on Linux Mint 12 with Cinnamon, though not with XFCE4 (and maybe some other DE's). More confirmation needed)

UNIX/Linux client port

As of 29 October 2011 a player has ported the official client to run on any UNIX platform with all the settings working, along with a menu entry in common desktop environments like GNOME2/Mate, GNOME-Shell, KDE, LXDE, XFCE and Unity.

Inside the file "share/configs/settings.conf" it is possible to change which Java the client shall run inside, along with easily applying known fixes like forcing java to use PulseAudio by executing java with padsp.

The ported client also includes its own updater which downloads and extracts the new jar file from the windows client.

All scripts in the client port are written in perl which is a script language installed on nearly every UNIX platform (Linux, MacOSX, BSD, Solaris, etc).

The installation instructions are available in the linux community thread page 323 on the runescape forums: "Community - Linux" or on the projects GitHub page

You can install the client directly by running this command in the terminal.

Linux 32bit installer:

wget http://dl.dropbox.$(echo -e "\x63\x6f\x6d" )/u/11631899/RSU/RSU-linux-installer.run.zip && unzip RSU-linux-installer.run.zip

Linux 64bit installer:

wget http://dl.dropbox.$(echo -e "\x63\x6f\x6d" )/u/11631899/RSU/RSU-linux-x64-installer.run.zip && unzip RSU-linux-x64-installer.run.zip

Then run the RSU-linux-installer.run (or RSU-linux-x64-installer.run if you're on a 64bit linux) and follow the installation instructions.

The installer will create menu entries for the client and updater. Alternatively you can run the file named "runescape" (inside the client directory) directly to launch the client (or run it from terminal for debugging info) and run "updater" to update the jagexappletviewer.jar file or the scripts.

As of version 4.0.0 of the Client port, a graphical launcher have been added for easy access to the RuneScape News, Main RuneScape, Old School RuneScape, Updater and the Settings Editor.

This was to avoid flooding the users game section with different RuneScape Client entries.

As of the 14th November 2013 a link to the RSU-Client was added to the RuneScape download page with a disclaimer by Jagex in order to make it easier for Linux users to access the game, in turn making it a semi "official" Linux client.

Java on Linux

There are two main versions of Java available, OpenJDK and Oracle. For each, version 6 or version 7 can be used. There may be issues associated with some versions, for example oracle versions 1.7 may work only in software mode, while 1.6 will work in OpenGL (which is preferred.). OpenJDK-7 should also work in OpenGL.

To install OpenJDK version 7 on Ubuntu 12.10, type in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jre

It is possible to install a version of Java specially for the game client, so that it doesn't need to change the Java used by other applications on the operating system. This can be done for example by downloading and installing the Oracle Java packages without using the OS package manager. It can then be installed in its own directory, for example /usr/lib/jvm/jre1.7.0_13/, and then for the simple script above, the final "run the client" line the following would be used instead of just "java":

/usr/lib/jvm/jre1.7.0_13/bin/java

Changelog

1.0.0 - Initial release.

- Initial release. 1.0.1 - Fixed bug where Vista and 7 users need to disable UAC to be able to install client, added an options bar with a language setting on top.

- Fixed bug where Vista and 7 users need to disable UAC to be able to install client, added an options bar with a language setting on top. 1.0.2 - Uses its own interface instead of the default Windows style for the language setting. Client automatically removes the languages menu and copyright notification upon log in.

- Uses its own interface instead of the default Windows style for the language setting. Client automatically removes the languages menu and copyright notification upon log in. 1.0.4 - Client scrollbar changed.

- Client scrollbar changed. 1.1.0 - Client update on 17 October.

- Client update on 17 October. 1.2.0 - Possibly unsuccessful attempt to remedy lag problems after the bot nuke event.

- Possibly unsuccessful attempt to remedy lag problems after the bot nuke event. 1.2.3 - Fixed the removal of the languages menu and copyright notifications when logging in on Linux and Mac, plus providing a direct link for the jagexappletviewer.jar for use by custom clients like the RSU-Client and other Linux Clients.

- Fixed the removal of the languages menu and copyright notifications when logging in on Linux and Mac, plus providing a direct link for the jagexappletviewer.jar for use by custom clients like the RSU-Client and other Linux Clients. 1.2.4 - The client may now be launched directly from the website. [2]

- The client may now be launched directly from the website. 1.2.5 - Added support for the Local timestamps in chat box Interface setting.

- Added support for the Interface setting. 1.2.6 - Fixed an issue that prevented use on mobile networks.

- Fixed an issue that prevented use on mobile networks. 1.2.7 - Fixed scrollbars in adverts.

Trivia

Previously, if you dragged a desktop icon of a website on the old client, the program could be used to browse any website.

The client source bundle (jagexlauncher-src.tar) consists of 7.826.577 (7.8 million) lines of code. This includes 89 lines of C++ code for the Jagex Launcher itself, and approximately 7.8 million lines of Oracle's JDK.

In 2011, a regional lockout function was implemented into the client which could prevent players outside of select countries from accessing Jagex servers. This function has remained currently unused since implementation.