World of Warcraft with Wine [OUTDATED]

[kidcharles]

I had a hard time getting WoW to work in wine using the information I found on this forum and others. After being pointed to this howto (http://wiki.kaspersandberg.com/doku....orldofwarcraft) by a helpful individual named 'vanilla' on the winehq irc channel, I had great success. I thought I would make a post on the Ubuntu forums showing what worked for me. I borrowed heavily from that howto, but added some things I did to deal with workspace switching better, and some customizations I have done.

DOWNLOADS:

If you have already installed wine from the repositories, you will want to do a "complete removal" of it before continuing.

Install the 'build-essential' package if you haven't already that will install the compiling utilities you will need.
You will probably want to run the command 'sudo apt-get build-dep wine' which should install anything you will need to compile wine. Otherwise you may get messages during './configure' about missing libraries.

Download and extract the source code for wine (I used 0.9.6) from sourceforge http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/w...-0.9.6.tar.bz2.

Get the two patch files needed, and place them in the top directory of the source files:
http://kaspersandberg.com/~redeeman/...e-cvs-glx.diff
http://kaspersandberg.com/~redeeman/...ow-fixes.patch

Get the two Windows .dll files necessary:
http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dl....shtml?msvcp60
http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?mfc42

Get MozillaControl (I think this is needed for patching WoW)
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/w...2.exe?download

COMPILATION AND INSTALLATION

Before compiling and installing wine, we have to patch the source code. From the top directory of the source files:
$ patch -p1 < wine-cvs-glx.diff
$ patch -p1 < wine-wow-fixes.patch

Now we compile and install wine:
$ ./configure
$ make depend && make
$ sudo make install

Now we need to, as root, make a file with a text editor in /etc called ld.so.conf, that contains a single line specifying a directory: /usr/local/lib
Now run the command 'sudo ldconfig'. This is necessary due to the special way Ubuntu handles dynamic linking (I think), while Wine expects the more standard method.

You may at this point want to run 'wine' with no application specified.
$ wine
This should create the .wine directory in your home directory with the fake C drive.

Now we can put the .dll files in the system folder:
$ mv msvcp60.dll mfc42 ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32/

Now we need to install MozillaControl under wine:
$ wine MozillaControl1712.exe

Now we can use the graphical wine configuration utility and choose the following options:
$ winecfg

1. In the Applications tab change Windows version to “Windows XP”
2. In the Graphics tab:
1. Enable Pixel Shaders
2. Set Vertex Shader to Hardware
3. Enable Allow the window manager to control the windows
3. In the Audio tab set to OSS output (Option, but reported to be best)

WORLD OF WARCRAFT SETUP

Ok, wine is now ready for WoW. If you do not have a working copy of WoW available, and need to install, your best bet is to copy all of the contents of every CD into a directory on your hardrive, and start the installer using wine. I haven't tested this myself.

Once you have installed WoW, the /World of Warcraft/wtf/Config.wtf file needs to be modified. Add the following lines:
SET gxApi "opengl"
SET SoundOutputSystem "1"
SET SoundBufferSize "100"
SET gxColorBits "24"
SET gxDepthBits "24"

You should also add in the following two lines, but fill in values for the screen resolution and vertical refresh rate that are right for your setup. Mine were:
SET gxResolution "1280x1024"
SET gxRefresh "85"

Ok, now to run, you can type 'wine WoW.exe -opengl' in a terminal.

WORKSPACE SWITCHING

Ok, I like to use the workspace switching feature in Gnome (also found in every other window manager I am aware of) when playing WoW, to check Thottbot, reply to a IM, particularly on those long griffon/bat flights. I have set shortcut keys to switch to each workspace under System > Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts, mine are set to CTRL-F1 through F4. If you do this after starting WoW from wine in a terminal, it will switch out, but when you switch back, keyboard input is routed to the terminal instead of the game, so you can no longer use the ingame chat among other things. To fix this, I use a custom panel button to start the game instead. To make this panel button:

1. Right click on the panel you want to add it to (such as the one containing the Applications drop down) and select "Add to Panel..."
2. Highlight "Custom Application Launcher" and click "Add"
3. Give it a "Name" (such as "WoW Wine")
4. Under "Command" type "wine /path/to/World of Warcraft/WoW.exe -opengl"
5. Do not select "Run in terminal"

You can access these options by right-clicking on the button you made and choosing "Properties".

To get the World of Warcraft icon for your shortcut, you can install the 'icoutils' package (in the universe repository I believe). Then run the command:
$ wrestool -x --output=. -t14 /path/to/WoW.exe

This will extract the icon from the .exe file, placing the .ico file in your working directory. To add this icon, press "No icon" in the Properties window for your button, enter the directory where your .ico file is, and choose it.

If you use the panel button to start the game, when you switch workspaces back to the game, the keyboard input will go to the game properly.

LOADING NVIDIA SETTINGS

If you have an nvidia card, you may notice that until you use nvidia-settings during your session, your antialiasing and anisotropic filtering will not be activated. My method to activate these automatically is to start WoW with a script. To create this script, just make a file (mine is named simply 'wow') with the following lines (you can use gedit or other editor):

nvidia-settings --load-config-only
cd '/path/to/World of Warcraft'
wine WoW.exe -opengl

This will load your video card configuration before starting the game. To make this script executable:
$ chmod +x scriptname

To run this from your panel button, just put the script (including the full path) in the Command field.


TOP PANEL PROBLEM

What I experienced is that when switching back to the workspace of the game, the top Gnome panel was still on the screen, and the WoW screen was drawn underneath it, cutting off a small bit at the bottom. My workaround was to drag the top panel (the one with the Applications drop-down) down to the bottom of the screen, just on top of the bottom panel (the one with the trash icon and workspace indicators). This is not ideal, but it worked for me.

SCREEN RESOLUTION/REFRESH RATE PROBLEM

When switching out of the WoW workspace to a different one, I have experienced that the screen resolution switches a few times before settling on the proper desktop resolution (I am running both my desktop and game at 1280x1024 at 85 Hz). It's a bit jarring, but it's not a big deal. However, when exiting the game, the desktop inexplicably settles on a 1600x1200 resolution, which is the highest my monitor can handle. I am then forced to return it to 1280 x 1024 under System > Preferences > Screen Resolution.

If anyone has any ideas on how to avoid top panels being rendered or how to solve the screen resolution issues, or any other ideas or questions, please post to this thread. I'll see you in Azeroth!

UPDATE January 23, 2006

I found a workaround for the problem of it switching to 1600x1200 after game exits (this is apparently a Wine bug). I removed all instances of "1600x1200" in the various "Display" subsections in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. Now that resolution is no longer available, and the desktop returns to 1280x1024 upon exit. Also, the workspace switching is much smoother, with just a brief bit of flickering.

UPDATE January 25, 2006

Switched the order of the commands to install MozillaControl and .dll files, and added running the command 'wine' to create the .wine directory in the home directory.

[glaze]

Huge thanks! I had WoW working before, but didn't know the icon thing or a fix for workspace switching problem. Now it's purrfect

[schnabea]

Hi. I am a totally new linux user, picked up Ubuntu cause it seemed stable and cool looking. I am trying to get WoW to run through but I really have no idea what I am doing. I used the synaptic package manager to install the build-essential package you mentioned. I'm not sure what to do next.

I downloaded wine and extracted the wine-20021125-I386-1.tgz to the desktop in a folder named wine. I then placed the two patch files in the wine folder and tried to run the patch command in the terminal and got a long message about how the file in line 4 was not found.

I obviously have no clue what I am doing, so if anyone could point me towards a good step by step resource for this kind of thing I would really appreciate it. I would like to make the move away from windows completely and getting WoW to work will be a big step in that direction.

Also, I have WoW installed on a hdd in an NTFS partition that I use under Windows XP so I need to know how to make that folder available to wine once i get all the other issues ironed out.

Again, any help would be appreciated, I'm sorry for being such a noob

[Artificial Intelligence]

http://www.winehq.org/site/download-deb

[alinuxfan]

AI,
If I do it the apt-get way...how do I add the patches before installing? or can it be done after?

[Artificial Intelligence]

okay, didn't read the whole thread and can see the problem, you might check this howto and see if it's easier to follow: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=92367

[alinuxfan]

thanks, I thought I had it workign for a minute, but it gets past where I enter my name and password and says "connecting" forever...gonna look in the thread you pointed me to and see if I can find anything

[Viro]

Originally Posted by schnabea I downloaded wine and extracted the wine-20021125-I386-1.tgz to the desktop in a folder named wine. I then placed the two patch files in the wine folder and tried to run the patch command in the terminal and got a long message about how the file in line 4 was not found.

Is there any reason you're using the 2002-11-25 version of Wine? That is almost 4 years old!

[kidcharles]

schnabea:

I would get the newest source if I were you. Here is a direct link:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/w...r.bz2?download

Extract this using the command:

$ tar -xvf wine-0.9.6.tar.bz2

Now you'll have the directory wine-0.9.6. THAT is the top directory in which you should put the patch files. I think what you had before was a directory called 'wine' that contained the directory 'wine-<version number>', and had the patch files in 'wine', while they should have been in 'wine-<version number>'.

One thing I left out is that there are a number of dependencies, packages that are needed for the compilation process, that need to be installed. The quickest way to do this is probably to run the command 'sudo apt-get build-deb wine'. This should grab all the dependencies that you will need to compile wine from source. I'll add that to the top post in the thread.

As for the NTFS partition, you may know that writing to an NTFS partition in Linux is experimental and not recommended as it can destroy data. Reading is fully supported though. I recommend, if you have the space, to make a copy of World of Warcraft on a Linux partition, or at least a FAT32 partition. The game will need to write a multitude of things (chat log files, macro definitions, and addon data files) so running it from an NTFS partition is probably asking for trouble.

Ubuntu by default gives only root the ability to read from NTFS drives. To learn how to change this so normal users have read access to NTFS drives, go to http://ubuntuguide.org/#automountntfs and read the section entitled: "How to mount Windows partitions (NTFS) on boot-up, and allow all users to read only."

Artificial Intelligence:

The HOWTO that you link to didn't work for me, that's why I thought I'd write this one up. The problem is that it involves using the pre-compiled wine package, which caused problems for me. Also, even if it otherwise works, you will not see targeting circles and surface effects in the game due to a bug in World of Warcraft opengl rendering. There is a sign error in the WoW code that causes targeting circles and the like to be rendered just BELOW the surface, as apposed to just ABOVE the surface. Shame on you Blizzard! The patches that I link to fix this (I think?) and other problems.

alinuxfan:

While getting the precompiled copy of wine is certainly the easiest way to install it, there is not (that I know of) a way to apply the necessary patching to the already compiled files. That's why the method I described starts with the source code. I tried to run WoW with the wine package, and had problems.

[alinuxfan]

Originally Posted by kidcharles alinuxfan: While getting the precompiled copy of wine is certainly the easiest way to install it, there is not (that I know of) a way to apply the necessary patching to the already compiled files. That's why the method I described starts with the source code. I tried to run WoW with the wine package, and had problems.

cool, thanks for the info...
I ended up installing from your howto except i switched around putting the dll's in the system32 folder and THEN install the mozilla exe

thanks for the howto
(I thinkthe realms are down right now cause i can't see the realms to log in, but everything has worked up to that point)