How I got Halo: Combat evolved working on wine 0.9.39

In order to help those getting it working, here are the exact steps I followed to get Halo working.

This guide will also work for Crossover. Halo works following this guide for 6.1 and 6.2. 6.2 sees better performance and the lack of the "window" bug, meaning until the crash on startup regression is fixed Crossover 6.2 is the best way to play Halo.

NOTE: Regressions in Wine 0.9.43 prevent Halo from working, use wine 0.9.42, or if all else fails, fall back to 0.9.39. The regression has yet to be fixed. I will do a regression test when I'm able to next, with hoping that this will eventually be fixed.

Update: This appears to be fixed with 0.9.52, however there does appear to be an abnormally high amount of memory usage.


== Step 1: Install wine ==

1. Install wine, following instructions on winehq: http://www.winehq.org/site/download-deb Remember to run winecfg, and configure your sound drivers. It doesn't matter whether you're set to OSS or ALSA, performance is the same.

== Step 2: Preparation ==

1. (Optional, ignore if installed with add/remove program) FInd a .exe file, for example the setup.exe on your halo cd, right-click it and click properties. Click on Open with, and click add. Click custom command, and type wine. Click add and then close.
2. Go to http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?mfc42 , download the file and open it. Then copy the file to your system32 folder in your fake c drive

== Step 2: Install Halo ==

1. Double click setup.Exe in your halo cd, or run
   Code:

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   wine /path/to/cdrom/Setup.Exe

   ---

   in a terminal
2. Follow the install through, it will generate a few errors that can be safely ignored.
3. At the end of the install do not press Play now, it will not work.

== Step 3: Necessary settings ==

1. In your Halo folder, run haloupdate.exe to update to the latest version OR download this file and run it: http://www.softwarepatch.com/games/halo.html
2. Copy protection does not work, in order to get the game working, a no-cd crack must be used.
3. Then right click on the Halo icon on your desktop and click properties. (If it isn't there, make one, using
   Code:

   ---

   env WINEPREFIX="/home/chris/.wine" wine "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Halo\halo.exe"

   ---

   as the command, assuming that's where you installed the game)
4. Click Launcher, and in the Command box, after the speech marks (at the end) add -novideo. For example
   Code:

   ---

   env WINEPREFIX="/home/chris/.wine" wine "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Halo\halo.exe" -novideo

   ---

== Step 4: Playing! ==


You should now be able to run the game simply by clicking on the desktop shortcut. But there are some full screen issues. I recommend you run the game in a virtual desktop (configure that by running winecfg). Also make sure that if you run it like that then make sure Halo is set to run in the same resolution as wine's virtual desktop, or vice versa. To force Halo to run at your preferred resolution, add

Code:

---

-vidmode w,h,r

---

on the end of your command, the same way as we added the -novideo line. (make sure the -novideo line remains), changing it for you proffered resolution, for example :

Code:

---

-vidmode 1024,768,60

---

There are some known issues, these are explained on the appdb. I filed the Gold report that is linked, and another member (The noble) filed the bronze one underneath it. They are with Nvidia and ATI cards respectively.

Here are a few screenshots of me playing the game:

http://ubuntuforums.org/attachment.p...5&d=1182011098
http://ubuntuforums.org/attachment.p...6&d=1182011098
http://ubuntuforums.org/attachment.p...7&d=1182011098

You can notice a slight visual glitch on the third picture, that is very minor and I personally didn't notice it until after I had taken the picture.

Please note that I do not guarantee that the game will work for you. These are these exact steps that I followed to get the game working in the state that I gave the Gold rating. Please do not sue me if you go out and buy the game and can't get it working, ask here for help and make sure you followed the guide correctly.

It should also be noted that I am only able to run the game by doubleclicking on the desktop icon, running the game via a terminal causes a file missing error.




TIP: Well when it comes to a laggy mouse, unfortunately there's no known way to solve it. I do experience the issue, but not enough for me to make a big deal of it, but since other people seem to be having worse cases of the issue I've done some experimenting and found a way to lessen the issue (for me anyway)

First disable Specular in Halo's options, then run regedit and change or create

Code:

---

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Direct3D\RenderTargetLockMode

---

with the content

Code:

---

enabled

---

This improved things, but the problem was still there, but it made the game more playable. Some people may have to lower settings in game to improve this issues. (It seems to be worse when more is on screen, which suggests that people with higher graphics cards would probably have a smoother ride.)



TIP: offscreenrenderingmode:

backbuffer (default) Best, no visual glitches, good performance.

pbuffer: Good performance but many visual glitches pictured in an attachment.

fbo: No visual glitches, but bad performance.


I hope this helps those of you who are having problems.

Wow nice one ;), hows online play? Does the no-cd .exe allow for it?

Ive got halo sitting there on my shelf which hasnt been played for about 2 years hehe. Looking forward to trying it out again on a kubuntu box.

Thanks

As I have posted in other threads, I am the one who made the bronze report on appdb. I was using an x700 pro from ATI and noticed some problems, which may or may not be related to using the .9.38 release. If anyone happens to use an ATI card and gets halo to work with no visual glitches, please post. I should be able to test
the latest .9.39 this next week, so I'll report my finding then.

xelnaga666 asked the valid question on online play. When I used .9.38, I could connect to several servers and scroll through the server pages. I couldn't actually *see* what was happening, but it should work now.

If all is in working order, this will make me really happy to see that Wine has gotten to such a high directx 9 level of compatibility that even an in house game runs great.

Yeah sorry noble I credited you in the post.

Yes I have been able to play online, th game works well, but very few servers show up, although I think this is because of the no-cd crack, not because of a wine issue.

Oh and while the how-to was written for Ubuntu, the process should be very similar for kubuntu and xubuntu. (I'm sorry I have never used xubuntu and have had very little experience of kubuntu)

Hopefully this will end the massive wave of halo threads.... lol.

Mad props lordhebe.

Installing it right now :D
I'm going to also test it in LAN (With another windows computer) and in online multiplayer modes.

I tried installing Halo, and it installed OK, but I cant play it. :( The installation worked, but when I tried running it with the downloaded Halo.exe program, the computer just freezes. When I restarted the computer and ran it again, I got a dialog that said the program didnt exit correctly and I should run Halo in safe mode. When I clicked safe mode, it still froze. Again i can see the computer at least switches the display resolution to load the game, but nothing comes up. I just see my desktop, which is bigger than normal because the display resolution at least changes. I have a Toshiba Satellite 1905 laptop with 16mb ATI Radeon Mobility M6 graphics card (I know 16mb is low, but the game worked fine in Windows despite the old graphics card) and 256mb RAM. I tried changing some settings using winecfg, and tried several other patches, but none work. Why wont it work for me?

Downloaded Halo.exe? Do you mean the no-cd crack or an illegitimate version of the game? Plus try running the game in a terminal and see if you can catch the output. Plus make sure that you have the -novideo flag active. Oh and I have yet to try the game on wine 0.9.40, so there could be some regressions preventing it from working. Try installing 0.9.39.


EDIT: Whoops yes sorry I forgot about the card, yes The noble is right you will not be able to run this game on linux, sorry

I downloaded the NOCD crack, which had the halo.exe program in it (I bought the game legally from a local game store, and used the CD to install it). In addition to an actual exe program, I saw a Halo mini-image for a NOCD crack. Its an IMG file, but I did not download it. Would that work? I will try to get the output of running Halo via a terminal window (I know alot shows up, but the game freezes before I can do anything)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lordhebe

Yeah sorry noble I credited you in the post.

Yes I have been able to play online, th game works well, but very few servers show up, although I think this is because of the no-cd crack, not because of a wine issue.

Oh and while the how-to was written for Ubuntu, the process should be very similar for kubuntu and xubuntu. (I'm sorry I have never used xubuntu and have had very little experience of kubuntu)

---

There is no need to apologize, I was merely explaining my experience in the matter (thanks for the credit anyhow!).

Anyways, as I said before, online worked flawlessly for me (sadly the graphics didn't). There we 20 to 30 servers up and running, although I only tried one. And Doug52392, your system is not going to be able to play halo under linux; even though you were able to get it running under windows, the combination of bad drivers from ATI and the added overhead of wine will cripple your system. I suggest at least a 64 MB dedicated graphics card.

Also, I am going to test both .9.39. and .9.40 tomorrow when I get home (in about 16 hours for those of you in a different time zone). I'll report my finding here.