Maple Story on Ubuntu SUCCESS

[Praill]

Ive noticed many older posts re: maple story and it's rather unique inability to run in anything other than Windows (due to GameGuard mostly). I figured I would give this problem a crack (for no particular reason.. I dont really enjoy the game all that much.. i just wanted to see if it could be done) and I've finally figured it out. I actually have it running in the background as I type this. Here was my procedure:

What you need:
-An internet connection (gona want high speed)
-A windows install cd or iso
-Patience and time

Before you start, make sure you have 3D capabilities in linux (because if you dont, then you wont in the emulator).
Open up a console and type:

 
$ glxinfo | grep direct

If it says direct rendering: yes, then you are good to go.
If it doesnt you can check out this guide for ATI cards, and hopefully someone else in the forum can help you if you have an nVidia card (I dont so I would'nt know the best places).
Now on with the show.


1) Choose an emulator.

Choices, choices. There are lots of emulators for linux, but at the time of this writing only one of them works for Maple Story: VMware. And, unfortunately, you can only legally run the full version of VMWare for 30 days without giving them money .
There are other free emulators out there you're welcome to try (I tried em all) but none of them support 3D acceleration via DirectX, which Maple Story needs. Even VMware only supports it in its "experimental stages", but its good enough to run a low intensive game like Maple Story. I'll assume for the rest of the thread that we're using VMware.

2) Download and Install the Emulator

Now, theres two routes you can go with VMware.
-a) download the 30-day trial VMware Workstation
-b) download the free, open source, VMware Player along with the Browser Appliance (that runs a mini Ubuntu ironically) and follow this guide for how to reformat the browser and install Windows on the disk image. I personally couldnt get this method to work, but others report to doing so successfully. Therefore I'll assume were using the 30-day trial version for the installation intructions.

Unfortunately you have to create an account with them, and provide a valid email address, to get your temporary license key. You can get an address from http://www.bugmenot.com/ if you dont want to receive the spam I'm sure they'll start sending.

Once you've downloaded and extracted the tar, you can call the install with

sudo ./vmware-install.pl

It will ask you a plethora of questions which you can give the default answer to for almost every case.
The VMWare installation is rather long and requires many dependencies that I don't remember. If anyone wants to post the dependencies as they encounter them I'll edit the post later and put them in this spot.
The installation script should completely install and configure the program so it's all ready to go.

3) Install Windows

If VMware installed correctly, you should have a link in Applications-->System Tools-->VMWare Workstation (under gnome). If you arent in gnome, or don't have this entry, then the default location for the executable is /usr/bin/vmware.
Once the program window is open you need to:
File-->New-->Virtual Machine
Next
select option 1 (Microsoft Windows) and the selection to your appropriate windows version, Next
Next
Use bridged networking, Next
Chose whatever disk size you want (pref > 4gb)
Finish

If you are installing Windows from iso you'll need to click 'Edit virtual machine settings', go to the CD-ROM option, and change it from physical drive to use iso. Then, power on the virtual machine.
The first time you go to start it will ask you for the temporary serial key you can get from logging into their page with your user name, but after that it will give you a POST screen, and then it will boot your windows install CD.
Install Windows.

4) Configure for Direct3D

Once Windows is installed we need to make it ready to play 3D games.
a) Start up Windows in the emulator and install the virtual drivers by clicking VM in the menu, then clicking 'Install VMWare Tools'.
This will pop up a windows installer that will emulate all your linux drivers and ask you to restart.
b) In the windows emulation click on Start-->Run and run 'dxdiag'. Make sure you are running at least directx9 on your virtual machine.
c) Now for the dangerous part. This has reportedly not worked for some, but it worked just fine for me.
Shut down your windows emulation, close out of VMware, and navigate to where it saves your virtual drive (should be /home/<uname>/vmware/Windows XP/). Look for the file with a .vmx extension. Open that file with gedit and add the following to the bottom:

mks.enable3d = "TRUE"
svga.vramSize = "67108864"
vmmouse.present = "FALSE"

Save the file, restart VMware, go to Edit-->Preferences-->Input, and uncheck all the cursor options. Apparently when 3D is running it wants to lock the mouse on the screen. That's ok, a simple ctrl+alt gives the mouse back to other applications.
Now, start up the emulated Windows again and once its loaded go to Start-->Run.
Type in 'dxdiag' and click OK.
Go over to the display tab and if you have Direct3D enabled, do a dance of joy, download Maple Story, install, and start playing.

If Direct3D still isnt enabled, or youre getting weird reactions, try removing the svga.vramSize = "67108864" line from the .vmx file.
If this doesnt work than its possible your Ubuntu installation isnt set up for 3D direct rendering. You'll have to resolve this issue first as described in the first steps above.
If that is not the case then you might have to wait for the team at VMware to further develop their Direct3D support.

5) (optional) Improve Speed

If you've got it installed and working, but are having issues with speed, theres a couple things you can do to speed it up.
a) Increase memory usage.
By default, VMware sets virtual machines to use something like 256mb of the system memory. This is hardly enough to just run XP, so you can increase this value to whatever you wish (but Im assuming giving it too much can be a bad thing).
b) Change svga.vramSize = "67108864" in the .vmx file to a larger value. Currently it's set at 67,108,864 bytes (64mb) so only change this if you have more than 128mb memory available on your video card. It has to be changed in logical increments that equal a megabyte. So for 92mb multiply by 1024 then 1024 again = 96468992 bytes
c) Eliminate the XP Frills.
Click Start-->Control Panel-->System-->Advanced-->Performance Settings
and adjust for best performance.

6) (optional) Slow Network

One final note: If you notice slow throughput on your network card you can try changing the ethernet settings to use NAT instead of bridged. Bridged is ideal because it allows for network transfers with the host, but has been known to have problems.


Good Luck!

[Darconix]

[I]***UPDATES***

2) Download and Install the Emulator

Now, theres two routes you can go with VMware.
-a) download the 30-day trial VMware Workstation
-b) download the free, open source, VMware Player along with the Browser Appliance (that runs a mini Ubuntu ironically) and follow this guide for how to reformat the browser and install Windows on the disk image. I personally couldnt get this method to work, but others report to doing so successfully. Therefore I'll assume were using the 30-day trial version for the installation intructions.

Unfortunately you have to create an account with them, and provide a valid email address, to get your temporary license key. You can get an address from http://www.bugmenot.com/ if you dont want to receive the spam I'm sure they'll start sending.

Once you've downloaded and extracted the tar, you can call the install with

sudo ./vmware-install.pl

It will ask you a plethora of questions which you can give the default answer to for almost every case.
The VMWare installation is rather long and requires many dependencies that I don't remember. If anyone wants to post the dependencies as they encounter them I'll edit the post later and put them in this spot.
The installation script should completely install and configure the program so it's all ready to go.
[B]

Sorry for this n00b question, im still new to ubuntu
can you explain how to install this exactly i cant figure out how i got the files and i did what it said but didnt work
but what do i do after that?
Thankyou!

[ceeg]

Sorry for this n00b question, im still new to ubuntu
can you explain how to install this exactly i cant figure out how i got the files and i did what it said but didnt work
but what do i do after that?
Thankyou!

vmware-asdfasdf.tar.gz

tar xvzf vmware-asdfasdf.tar.gz
cd vmware-asdfasdf
sudo ./vmware-install.pl

Make sure you are in the directory with the tar.gz archive before execute the above instructions.

[Praill]

I'm not sure exactly where you are stuck. Could you be more specific?

[Hansuonu]

ok i have a problem to...i did all u say till directX i DL 8.1 and my maple sayd some "display GR2D" error, then i added those settings and "Yes it worked" till i start loading that Nexon and Wizet i did not see anything only black screen but there was music and then when i need to login i cannot see picture only this freakying black screen and when i use Control+alt+delete it says maple is running....

Pleas help me
TY Hans

and u who needed to install that VMware u need to open TERMINAL Applications->Accessories->Terminal

[Hansuonu]

that error was "Failed to find proper screen mode for Gr2D"

[Praill]

Hmm.. do me a favor and try to install directx 9 instead of 8.1. Tell me if that fixes it.

[Hansuonu]

same... nothing helps..

[Praill]

Thats the error you get when DirectX doesnt have 3d rendering ability.
If you added:
mks.enable3d = "TRUE"
svga.vramSize = "67108864"
vmmouse.present = "FALSE"
to the config and you still dont have 3d in the virtual OS then theres nothing you can do. VMWares 3d support is still in its experimental stages.

[nythacker]

2) Download and Install the Emulator

Now, theres two routes you can go with VMware.
-a) download the 30-day trial VMware Workstation
-b) download the free, open source, VMware Player along with the Browser Appliance (that runs a mini Ubuntu ironically) and follow this guide for how to reformat the browser and install Windows on the disk image. I personally couldnt get this method to work, but others report to doing so successfully. Therefore I'll assume were using the 30-day trial version for the installation intructions.

I've discovered that you only need the free VMware Player and http://www.easyvmx.com/ to create complete virtual machines for VMware Player. There is no need for either VMware Workstation or the free VMware Server to create virtual machines.