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

[Sammi]

Don't compare to Win.

Blizzard doesn't support Wine or Linux and it's a miracle that the Wine devs have been able to make WoW work as well as it does on Wine/Linux. And it's not like you're paying for it either.

With that said and out of the way, please check your graphics card drivers. An update would be a logical move. The Envy application is an easy and quick way for doing that: http://www.albertomilone.com/nvidia_scripts1.html

Do note that it's not officially supported by Ubuntu, so there's no dear mommy if it doesn't work. But do not fret, because all you need to know, if or when you get in to trouble, is this simple line to enter in to a terminal "sudo envy --uninstall-all". It will make Envy clean up everything that it did, and start you fresh again. Works every time I'm in trouble

[Scarabomb]

Thanks sammi, you're a super troop when it comes to helping out the WoWheads even if you don't play the game anymore.

I should really watch what I'm saying when I go throwing WoW and Linux in certain categories but when you've been accustomed to one thing for so long, it gives you the impression that you have the obligation to justify what is and what isn't. I didn't mean to compare Wine to win and I understand how annoying that can be when you have folks (myself included) begging for help to make their systems do what they were used to other ways of doing.

With MY verse being said. I just threw on Ubuntu 64 bit. Apparently around the WoW community, they say that having 64 may or may not help. I have 32 Bit Vista and WoW on it simply blows plain and simple. If this all doesn't get the wheel going then I'll just let what is what is and give it sometime. Since the last time I've jumped onto the Ubuntu wagon, it has improved A LOT (When I was in the desert for a year, I spent a multitude getting Dapper Drake to work and it did what I wanted it to. I only stopped messing around with it when I got into WoW and when I went back to Germany).

We'll give it a wiz and see what's happening. I'll keep you guys updated on any turn around as I'm always reading around to see how to do things.

Edit: It looks like throwing Gutsy 64 actually did help with the game play. The stats show the same frame rate but it's actually playable and I'm quite pleased to say that it's enough to push me over more to using Ubuntu flat-out. Only thing that bothers me right now is the whole headphones thing. I'll be reading more into that later again and hopefully try a fix that won't screw up my setting with my sound (hence why I put 64 on here because my i386 goofed up). Either way, hopefully something new and fabulous will come around but for now, it looks like I'm content with out Wine treats WoW.

[donnyblaze1]

OK, made some progress on getting WoW to work properly on my X3100. I have been having the "missing characters" problem apparently plaguing ATI users. Adding the SET M2UseShaders line to my config.wtf file causes WoW to hang on startup. However, using a much earlier version of wine (0.9.29) with settings identical to my previous settings fixed the problem instantly. I now can run WoW with absolutely everything working...however my framerate has been cut in half. So, two things:

1) Does anybody have the expertise in wine to know exactly what might cause the difference between 9.29 and 9.47? If we can narrow this down it'd be a huge help to all my X3100 brethren.

2) Framerate. Under wine 9.47, avg. framerate in Org was 10-15 fps with no characters or NPCs visible, movement was very smooth. Now under wine 9.29, characters and NPCs are visible, but fps is down to 6-9 consistantly, and movement is considerably more herky-jerky. Settings are identical to what I found to yield best performance under wine 9.47 (see my prev. post for my Config.wtf and wine settings, and yes OpenGL registry tweak is still applied).

Thx again to everyone for your input, hopefully us X3100 users can get to the point all you nvidia guys are at soon!

[Resonance378]

Mesa 6.5.2 implementation error: i915_program_error: Exceeded max nr indirect texture lookups
Please report at bugzilla.freedesktop.org
DRM_I830_CMDBUFFER: -22

Any help here will be greatly appreciated. I see that f33nom is getting a very similar section of code and was wondering if he had figured out how to fix it. Thanks in advance.

intel onboard video chip - the i915 - if you take a look on the Wine AppDB and around here in general there are very few persons who have the holy grail of getting this combination to work.

Additionally your next step is included in that error:

Please report at bugzilla.freedesktop.org

Although I'd report it directly to the Wine bugzilla crew....
http://bugs.winehq.org/

Best of Luck!

[Resonance378]

Edit: Gee-Whiz what is in the water!? Windows and Linux. Apples and Oranges. blah blah blah

Wine has overhead, and I'm fairly sure WoW OpenGl is slower than D3d. For reference, my C2D 2.6, 4 GB, 8800GTS w/640MB pulls 60 FPS (vsync limit) with all settings maxed and 2X AA pretty much everywhere in the game under Vista and D3d. That same machine gets averages about 40 FPS outdoors under Linux

SET gxApi "OpenGL" & since you mention having VSync on: SET gxTripleBuffer "1"

See if either or both of these improves you FPS when running strict OpenGL mode with WoW ---> SET gxAPI "opengl" otherwise Wine tries to translate WoW through the D3D calls and OF COURSE there is overhead with that. Otherwise their OpenGL implementation is a 1:1 translation. Believe me, I got nailed to the wall on this on a bug report.

OK, made some progress on getting WoW to work properly on my X3100. I have been having the "missing characters" problem apparently plaguing ATI users. Adding the SET M2UseShaders line to my config.wtf file causes WoW to hang on startup. However, using a much earlier version of wine (0.9.29) with settings identical to my previous settings fixed the problem instantly. I now can run WoW with absolutely everything working...however my framerate has been cut in half. So, two things:

The same URL given up for the character models also has a fix for ATI users hanging on startup - of course your hardware is different and the commands will be different but I am certain you could just use the portion line that turns FastTLS "off" on it's own to see what shakes down (xorg.conf) IE just try to use this specific command:
Option "UseFastTLS" "off"

However I don't endorse this without backing up your xorg.conf 1st...

1) Does anybody have the expertise in wine to know exactly what might cause the difference between 9.29 and 9.47? If we can narrow this down it'd be a huge help to all my X3100 brethren.

What happened between 0.9.29 and 0.9.47 and 0.9.57!?
Lot's - you can review each update by going to this URL:
http://www.winehq.org/?announce=0.9.57
And changing that .57 to the values you need.

2) Framerate. Under wine 9.47, avg. framerate in Org was 10-15 fps with no characters or NPCs visible, movement was very smooth. Now under wine 9.29, characters and NPCs are visible, but fps is down to 6-9 consistantly, and movement is considerably more herky-jerky. Settings are identical to what I found to yield best performance under wine 9.47 (see my prev. post for my Config.wtf and wine settings, and yes OpenGL registry tweak is still applied).

Thx again to everyone for your input, hopefully us X3100 users can get to the point all you nvidia guys are at soon!

Are you running in assumed D3D or do you have SET gxApi "OpenGL" ? This makes all the difference in the world.

Let us know what you find - so far you sound like you may have made it further than most X3100 users.

Best of Luck

[harrisjc]

Hello,

Yesterday I got rid of Windows 2000 and installed Ubuntu on an old slow box. (1.7 AMD, 512 RAM, Geforce 4000 MX video)

After just a few hours I got World of Warcraft working on Wine.

The sound works fine and the video is acceptable. The most important thing is that i have broken the shackles of Microsoft.

My framerate is about 15 and the mouse movement is a little rough, but I suspect another 512 of RAM would help that.

I also read about a tweak from two-year-old posts about running wow on a separate "x server". Does this help at all?

Keep in mind I am a total and complete linux noob. This fact should emphasize how user friendly linux has become under Ubuntu as well as urge help to be in the form of cut and paste script =)

[HeliClimber]

Finally got WOW to run. Only one problem left, I can't seem to get my FPS over 6 when outside. When I go into a pub, it goes up to 14 and that seems like it would be a playable level. Does anyone have any suggestions on improving FPS? I have already done the registry edit and the recommended edits for the config.wtf file. I have found that I get better FPS when I run WOW in d3d mode. Any other suggestions?

Here is my config.wtf file
SET locale "enUS"
SET hwDetect "0"
SET gxColorBits "24"
SET gxDepthBits "24"
SET gxResolution "1024x768"
SET gxRefresh "60"
SET gxMultisampleQuality "0.000000"
SET gxFixLag "0"
SET ffxDeath "0"
SET ffxGlow "0"
SET doodadAnim "0"
SET SmallCull "0.070000"
SET DistCull "350.000000"
SET frillDensity "8"
SET farclip "177"
SET particleDensity "0.900000"
SET movie "0"
SET readTOS "1"
SET readEULA "1"
SET realmList "us.logon.worldofwarcraft.com"
SET readScanning "-1"
SET readContest "-1"
SET readTerminationWithoutNotice "-1"
SET coresDetected "1"
SET videoOptionsVersion "1"
SET lastCharacterIndex "1"
SET showToolsUI "1"
SET Sound_OutputDriverName "System Default"
SET patchlist "us.version.worldofwarcraft.com"
SET spellEffectLevel "0"
SET realmName "Aegwynn"
SET gameTip "8"
SET accountName "*******"
SET textureFilteringMode "0"
SET Gamma "1.000000"
SET Sound_VoiceChatInputDriverName "System Default"
SET Sound_VoiceChatOutputDriverName "System Default"
SET Sound_MasterVolume "1"
SET Sound_SFXVolume "1"
SET Sound_MusicVolume "0.40000000596046"
SET Sound_AmbienceVolume "0.60000002384186"
SET baseMip "1"
SET groundEffectDist "70"
SET weatherDensity "0"
SET uiScale "1"

[donnyblaze1]

After some more playing, I'm happy to report that WoW is now fully functional and playable on my X3100! Of course, there is some room for improvement on the performance side...but I just finished running 15 3v3 arena rounds with no problems whatsoever. Performance is comparable (+/- 10-15% fps) to WoW on same hardware in XP. (Yes, I know its an apples to oranges comparison, but just to give others an idea.)

I do have a couple questions for the experts here, but first let me post the info others will need to duplicate my results on X3100 hardware.

System specs:

Sony Vaio VGN-NR110E
Pentium Dual Core
1GB RAM
Intel X3100 gfx
Xubuntu Gutsy
wine 0.9.29 (I have tried literally every version of wine from 0.9.47 backwards, .29 is the only version that will launch WoW without Error 132. 0.9.29 also fixed the earlier problem I had with no characters or NPCs, I am still looking into the underlying reasons for this.)
World of Warcraft: Applytoforehead add-on installed, along with my standard compliment of UI add-ons (mainly PhotekUI X7).

winecfg settings:

Windows Version: Windows XP
Window settings: Allow DirectX apps to stop the mouse...UNCHECKED
Allow the window manager to control...UNCHECKED
Virtual desktop...UNCHECKED
D3D Vertex Shader Support: Hardware
Allow Pixel Shader...UNCHECKED
Audio: OSS Driver
DirectSound Hardware Acceleration: Emulation
Driver Emulation...UNCHECKED
Well-documented OpenGL registry tweak applied

Config.wtf:

SET locale "enUS"
SET hwDetect "0"
SET gxColorBits "24"
SET gxDepthBits "24"
SET gxResolution "1280x800"
SET gxRefresh "60"
SET gxFixLag "0"
SET gxMultisampleQuality "0.000000"
SET lod "1"
SET SmallCull "0.070000"
SET DistCull "350.000000"
SET shadowLOD "0"
SET frillDensity "48"
SET farclip "177"
SET particleDensity "0.900000"
SET unitDrawDist "300.000000"
SET movie "0"
SET expansionMovie "0"
SET Gamma "1.000000"
SET readTOS "1"
SET readEULA "1"
SET showToolsUI "0"
SET MusicVolume "0.40000000596046"
SET SoundVolume "1"
SET MasterVolume "1"
SET realmList "us.logon.worldofwarcraft.com"
SET patchlist "us.version.worldofwarcraft.com"
SET realmName "Mug'thol"
SET gameTip "27"
SET AmbienceVolume "0.60000002384186"
SET minimapInsideZoom "0"
SET uiScale "0.81000000238419"
SET useUiScale "1"
SET checkAddonVersion "0"
SET MasterSoundEffects "0"
SET EnableMusic "0"
SET EmoteSounds "0"
SET SoundListenerAtCharacter "0"
SET minimapZoom "0"
SET CombatDamage "0"
SET CombatHealing "0"
SET mouseSpeed "1"
SET profanityFilter "0"
SET cameraYawMoveSpeed "90"
SET cameraYawSmoothSpeed "180"
SET cameraDistanceMaxFactor "2"
SET statusBarText "1"
SET UnitNameNPC "1"
SET cameraDistanceMoveSpeed "15"
SET targetNearestDistanceRadius "22"
SET targetNearestDistance "44"
SET UnitNamePlayerPVPTitle "0"
SET cameraView "0"
SET coresDetected "2"
SET readTerminationWithoutNotice "1"
SET Sound_OutputDriverName "System Default"
SET movieSubtitle "1"
SET Sound_VoiceChatInputDriverName "System Default"
SET Sound_VoiceChatOutputDriverName "System Default"
SET Sound_MasterVolume "1"
SET Sound_SFXVolume "1"
SET Sound_MusicVolume "0.60000002384186"
SET Sound_AmbienceVolume "0.69999998807907"
SET weatherDensity "3"
SET ChatMusicVolume "0.5"
SET ChatSoundVolume "0.5"
SET ChatAmbienceVolume "0.5"
SET OutboundChatVolume "1"
SET InboundChatVolume "1"
SET VoiceActivationSensitivity "0.40000003576279"
SET EnableVoiceChat "1"
SET PushToTalkButton "'"
SET anisotropic "4"
SET Sound_EnableErrorSpeech "0"
SET Sound_ZoneMusicNoDelay "1"
SET readScanning "-1"
SET readContest "-1"
SET videoOptionsVersion "1"
SET textureFilteringMode "0"
SET groundEffectDensity "64"
SET groundEffectDist "140"
SET processAffinityMask "3"
SET accountName "xxxxxxx"
SET DesktopGamma "1"
SET ffxDeath "0"
SET ffxGlow "0"

Things that still need work:

1) I run wow.exe with no arguments, in assumed D3D mode. Using the -opengl argument yields terribad graphical results (everything is discolored, artifacts hopping all over the screen, only upper torso of characters show on screen). I assume this is because of poor OpenGL implementation in either the "intel" driver or the hardware itself, but if anyone has any tips here please chime in. I'd prefer to run in native OpenGL mode to prevent the D3D overhead. Using -opengl does seem to run faster and more fluidly than D3D, the graphical errors just make it unplayable.

2) Double cursors! Running WoW in full-screen mode I have 2 cursors...my regular X cursor and the Warcraft "glove" cursor following along behind it ever-so-slightly. It really doesn't impact play too much, but it is definitely an annoyance.

3) Terminal output. Not sure if this is an "error" or not, but my while running WoW, my terminal fills up with

fixme:d3d:IWineD3DQueryImpl_Issue (0x1190edb8) : Occlusion queries not supported.
fixme:d3d:IWineD3DQueryImpl_GetData (0x1190edb8) : Occlusion queries not supported. Returning 1.

Is this anything to worry about?

To summarize:
I'm very pleased to be running this well on X3100. WoW now definitely runs well enough to ditch Windows (for me at least, I know this is a bit subjective). With the few issues listed above and general fps improvements to work on, I feel like we don't have too far to go to make WoW as good as it can be on the hardware. X3100 users please give my config a shot, hopefully we can duplicate some of this success!

[Resonance378]

After some more playing, I'm happy to report that WoW is now fully functional and playable on my X3100!

Congrats!

Things that still need work:

1) I run wow.exe with no arguments, in assumed D3D mode. Using the -opengl argument yields terribad graphical results (everything is discolored, artifacts hopping all over the screen, only upper torso of characters show on screen). I assume this is because of poor OpenGL implementation in either the "intel" driver or the hardware itself, but if anyone has any tips here please chime in. I'd prefer to run in native OpenGL mode to prevent the D3D overhead. Using -opengl does seem to run faster and more fluidly than D3D, the graphical errors just make it unplayable.

2) Double cursors! Running WoW in full-screen mode I have 2 cursors...my regular X cursor and the Warcraft "glove" cursor following along behind it ever-so-slightly. It really doesn't impact play too much, but it is definitely an annoyance.

3) Terminal output. Not sure if this is an "error" or not, but my while running WoW, my terminal fills up with

fixme:d3d:IWineD3DQueryImpl_Issue (0x1190edb8) : Occlusion queries not supported.
fixme:d3d:IWineD3DQueryImpl_GetData (0x1190edb8) : Occlusion queries not supported. Returning 1.

Is this anything to worry about?

1) Possibly a newer wine than .47 will resolve these issues since you went to 0.47 and regressed to .29 through your testing.

2) See answer to 1)

3) See answer to 1)

Some points for you to ponder:

wine 0.9.29 (I have tried literally every version of wine from 0.9.47 backwards, .29 is the only version that will launch WoW without Error 132. 0.9.29 also fixed the earlier problem I had with no characters or NPCs, I am still looking into the underlying reasons for this.)

Any reason for not trying beyond 0.9.47? Like .48-.57

Additionally many of the issues you point to may be fixed in .48 - .57. If you went the miles to get Wine to run on WoW in regressing to .29 why not try progressing beyond 0.47?

I understand that the need to play WoW can certainly take priority over working out issues you seem fine with though So if it works and you're happy then don't bother shaking the tree for any more fruit Enjoy and congrats again!

Edit: For historical accuracy - as of this posting Wine 0.9.57 is the latest version

[Resonance378]

Hello,

Yesterday I got rid of Windows 2000 and installed Ubuntu on an old slow box. (1.7 AMD, 512 RAM, Geforce 4000 MX video)

After just a few hours I got World of Warcraft working on Wine.

The sound works fine and the video is acceptable. The most important thing is that i have broken the shackles of Microsoft.

My framerate is about 15 and the mouse movement is a little rough, but I suspect another 512 of RAM would help that.

I also read about a tweak from two-year-old posts about running wow on a separate "x server". Does this help at all?

Keep in mind I am a total and complete linux noob. This fact should emphasize how user friendly linux has become under Ubuntu as well as urge help to be in the form of cut and paste script =)

I know of the script you speak of and I've never gotten it to work for me, but I didn't try very hard either. I found this: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=522334

And I'll look elsewhere for some cut and dry instructions for you when I have time.