Howto: WOW with Wine (help.ubuntu.com/community/WorldofWarcraft)

[t.rei]

Well yes, mixing 64 and 32 bit is always a bad idea. I am not shure if and what is specifically 64 bit in a warcraft installation, but doing a clean install might solve some problems then. good luck.

[rwestenb]

I'm posting this message in desperation. I've been using Ubuntu for less than a day, my other laptop with Windows 7 harddrive broke, and this laptop is on loan from a friend.

I'm trying to install and play World of Warcraft 4.1. Installation is successful, although the first problem i experienced was that the mouse didn't align correctly, which was frustrating but somehow I managed to fix it while fiddling with Applications>Wine>Configure Wine> Graphics.

Although, now, I'm having problems with random crashes, all before I'm able to "Enter World". Sometimes, if I start WoW, and I leave it to idle for a few seconds it crashes. Although, I can enter my email/pass quickly enough and get to the realm type/ area select screen. Then, I can select my realm and select my character, but this is usually as far as I get. Once I click "Enter World" and the loading screen comes up, is where I run into major problems. Most of the time, when the loading screen is finished, the screen goes back to the character selection screen with the default Blizzard UI superimposed over it. (I hope I described it well, I would take a screenshot if the computer didn't crash at this point). The farthest I've ever got in the game, is where I logged on in an inn in Orgrimmar, and 1 second later the screen turned black and froze up.

Here is a photo album of my WINE 1.3.20 settings:
http://imgur.com/a/P3Gh3#eX4oh

System Info (from System Monitor)
http://i.imgur.com/Q4EtV.png

Graphics Card (Radeon Mobility X600)
http://i.imgur.com/FxPQ6.png

Results of sudo lspci |more
http://i.imgur.com/h1tkg.png

RAM check
http://i.imgur.com/WHWDD.png

Summary: Running Ubuntu 10.10(maverick), 1.2gb memory, Intel Pentium M Processor 1.73 GHZ, Radeon Mobility X600 Graphics Card.

WoW freezes repeatedly, mostly in the first loading screen after the character select screen.


Other important info:
I did the Registry tweak

"Reg tweak
This is a simple registry edit for Wine that either will either fix graphical glitches, increase framerate, or even stop the game from crashing, or it will create glitches, decrease the performance, and even make the game crash. You should give it a try to see what is does for you, as you may always easily remove it again, if it acts negatively for you.

Open a terminal window, type regedit and press enter. This will start the Wine equivalent of the windows registry editor. If you are familiar with using the registry editor under windows then this is pretty much the same.

Notice: the guide below is case sensitive!

1. Find this key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\
2. Highlight the wine folder in the left hand pane by clicking left on it. The icon should change to an open folder
3. Right-click on the wine folder and select [NEW][KEY]
4. Replace the text New Key #1 with OpenGL
5. Right-click in the right hand pane and select [NEW] then [String Value]
6. Replace New Value #1 with DisabledExtensions
7. Then double click anywhere on the line, a dialog box will open.
8. In the value field type GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object

"

Also, I tweaked config.wtf too, as seen below

Graphics troubleshooting

If you are having trouble with your graphics, here is a few tweaks you could try.

Config.wtf

Add the following to Config.wtf:
SET ffxDeath "0"
SET ffxGlow "0"Note that disabling ffxGlow may also enable antialiasing for some users.
If you experience a problem with missing character and object models, and/or the login windows background is black, add:
SET M2UseShaders "0"


In conclusion: Please help me.

edit: I installed WoW using blizzard downloader, I don't have the CDs unfortunately.

[Tweak42]

I'm trying to install and play World of Warcraft 4.1. Installation is successful, although the first problem i experienced was that the mouse didn't align correctly, which was frustrating but somehow I managed to fix it while fiddling with Applications>Wine>Configure Wine> Graphics.

There was a regression in the wine 1.3.20 that messed up the mouse input. I'm still running 1.3.19 because of it.

Although, now, I'm having problems with random crashes, all before I'm able to "Enter World". Sometimes, if I start WoW, and I leave it to idle for a few seconds it crashes. Although, I can enter my email/pass quickly enough and get to the realm type/ area select screen. Then, I can select my realm and select my character, but this is usually as far as I get. Once I click "Enter World" and the loading screen comes up, is where I run into major problems. Most of the time, when the loading screen is finished, the screen goes back to the character selection screen with the default Blizzard UI superimposed over it. (I hope I described it well, I would take a screenshot if the computer didn't crash at this point). The farthest I've ever got in the game, is where I logged on in an inn in Orgrimmar, and 1 second later the screen turned black and froze up.

Unfortunately the X600 falls into the category of unsupported legacy hardware and will not work with the latest proprietary AMD catalyst linux drivers. Are you using the latest open source radeon drivers? Are you launching wow using opengl or dx9 mode? Enable by "-opengl" after the wine wow.exe command or adding SET gxApi "opengl" to your config.wtf

edit: I installed WoW using blizzard downloader, I don't have the CDs unfortunately.

Using the downloader is essentially the same as a CD install, just slower to finish. I read a report of problems when playing while client is background streaming client content. If you haven't logged in using a Cataclysm enabled account, you can still force the launcher to download all the content by:

1. Make sure World of Warcraft and/or the launcher and background downloader are completely closed.
2. Open up your World of Warcraft folder.
3. Open your WTF folder.
4. Open Launcher.wtf in Notepad and change the "accountType" line from LK to CT.
5. Open Config.wtf in Notepad and change the "accountType" line from LK to CT.

Note: Your hardware is pretty slow to actually play wow (even if you were using windows), but you should still be able to login and move around town.

[cwwilson721]

Just one addition to Tweak42's post:

• Since before Cata came out, if you append '-opengl' to the launch command, WoW will add the opengl line to your config.wtf file for you, no need to edit anymore.

And that mouse regression in 1.3.20 is a bugger..I do the same, running 1.3.19 just so I don't get dizzy...lol (Mine works like 'click to move' is checked...)

[rwestenb]

Thanks for your replies. Running WoW in wine from terminal made everything work for me.

[dokhidamo]

updated my graphics driver and now it works. Though I get lower FPS on linux than windows, any solutions? I use switchable graphics.

[Tweak42]

updated my graphics driver and now it works. Though I get lower FPS on linux than windows, any solutions? I use switchable graphics.

How much lower? If it's drastically bad, you can try some of the suggestions under "Graphics related issues": http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManage...sion&iId=23352

I've had success with multi-core processor wine patch to reach windows performance parity but at the loss of some stability. Without it I run about 80% of windows, but it's playable in both cases.

I don't believe the switchable graphics itself would impede wow performance, as long as X server is using the faster discrete 3D accelerator and loading the highest performance drivers.

[ae1234]

rGL fps patch for wine
http://www.aewi.info/rgl/

discussion
http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11674#c72

[dokhidamo]

rGL fps patch for wine
http://www.aewi.info/rgl/

discussion
http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11674#c72

how do you install that?

also, what should I do if it now starts often crashing?

[Tweak42]

how do you install that?

also, what should I do if it now starts often crashing?

To install you need to download the wine source code, apply the rGL patch and then compile wine. This process does require use of the terminal command line. It also allows multiple versions of wine to exist in system. This tutorial covers the steps fairly clearly if you're interested in attempting.

An easier, alternative way is to use Aigars Mahinovs Wine with Pulse support patches PPA instead of the Ubuntu Wine Team PPA. However since this replaces the existing ubuntu wine install with a special patched version and thus may affect other installed applications that rely on wine. Since this method is just a plain wine version swap, it should not require any changes to existing wine prefixes and launchers.

If you have crashes, you can just go back to the wine version that's stable. If you have any feedback or questions for the devs regarding this patch, address it in wine bugzilla entry.

FYI: I received a reply from Codeweavers regarding this patch; they consider it to messy for inclusion in CX or the main wine tree, and that resources would be better used focusing on improving dual core support in wine as a whole.