Installing

Requirements

DFHack supports all operating systems and platforms that Dwarf Fortress itself supports, which at the moment is the 64-bit version of Windows and Linux. However, the Windows build of DFHack works well under wine for other platforms.

DFHack releases generally only support the version of Dwarf Fortress that they are named after. For example, DFHack 50.05 only supported DF 50.05. DFHack releases never support newer versions of DF – DFHack requires data about DF that is only possible to obtain after DF has been released. Occasionally, DFHack releases will be able to maintain support for older versions of DF - for example, DFHack 0.34.11-r5 supported both DF 0.34.11 and 0.34.10. For maximum stability, you should use the latest versions of both DF and DFHack.

Downloading DFHack

Stable builds of DFHack are available on Steam or from our GitHub. Either location will give you exactly the same package.

On Steam, note that DFHack is a separate app, not a DF Steam Workshop mod. You can run DF with DFHack by launching either the DFHack app or the original Dwarf Fortress app.

If you download from GitHub, downloads are available at the bottom of the release notes for each release, under a section named “Assets” (which you may have to expand). The name of the file indicates which DF version, platform, and architecture the build supports - the platform and architecture (64-bit or 32-bit) must match your build of DF. The DF version should also match your DF version - see above for details. For example:

  • dfhack-50.07-r1-Windows-64bit.zip supports 64-bit DF on Windows

Warning

Do not download the source code from GitHub, either from the releases page or by clicking “Download ZIP” on the repo homepage. This will give you an incomplete copy of the DFHack source code, which will not work as-is. (If you want to compile DFHack instead of using a pre-built release, please see Building DFHack for instructions.)

Beta releases

In between stable releases, we may create beta releases to test new features. These are available via the beta release channel on Steam or from our regular Github page as a pre-release tagged with a “beta” or “rc” (“release candidate”) suffix.

Development builds

If you are actively working with the DFHack team on testing a feature, you may want to download and install a development build. They are available via the testing release channel on Steam or can be downloaded from the build artifact list on GitHub for specific repository commits.

To download a development build from GitHub:

You can extract this package the same as if you are doing a manual install (see the next section).

Installing DFHack

If you are installing from Steam, this is handled for you automatically. The instructions here are for manual installs.

When you download DFHack, you will end up with a release archive (a .zip file on Windows, or a .tar.bz2 file on other platforms). Your operating system should have built-in utilities capable of extracting files from these archives.

If you are on Windows, please remember to right click on the file after downloading, open the file properties, and select the “Unblock” checkbox. This will prevent issues with Windows antivirus programs.

The release archives contain a hack folder where DFHack binary and system data is stored, a stonesense folder that contains data specific to the stonesense 3d renderer, and various libraries and executable files. To install DFHack, copy all of the files from the DFHack archive into the root DF folder, which should already include a data folder and a save folder, among other things. Some redistributions of Dwarf Fortress may place DF in another folder, so ensure that the hack folder ends up next to the data folder, and you’ll be fine.

Installing into a wineskin on Mac

Until DF (and DFHack) is natively available for Mac, you’ll have to run the Windows version under emulation. Here are the instructions for adding DFHack to a wineskin that has DF installed in it:

  1. Find the location of your existing Dwarf Fortress app (default is /user/applications/Wineskin/). Control + click and select “Show package contents” from the menu.

  2. Find the location of the Dwarf Fortress folder inside the package contents (default is /drive_c/Program Files/)

  3. Copy the contents of the unzipped DFHack folder (Windows versino) into the Dwarf Fortress folder inside the package.

These instructions were last tested on Mac Sonoma 14.1.2.

Uninstalling DFHack

Just renaming or removing the dfhooks library file is enough to disable DFHack. If you would like to remove all DFHack files, consult the DFHack install archive to see the list of files and remove the corresponding files in the Dwarf Fortress folder. Any DFHack files left behind will not negatively affect DF.

On Steam, uninstalling DFHack will cleanly remove everything that was installed with DFHack, so there is nothing else for you to do.

Note that Steam will leave behind the dfhack-config folder, which contains all your personal DFHack-related settings and data. If you keep this folder, all your settings will be restored when you reinstall DFHack later.

Upgrading DFHack

Again, if you have installed from Steam, your copy of DFHack will automatically be kept up to date. This section is for manual installers.

First, remove the hack and stonesense folders in their entirety. This ensures that files that don’t exist in the latest version are properly removed and don’t affect your new installation.

Then, follow the instructions in the Installing DFHack section above, making sure to choose to overwrite any remaining top-level files when extracting.