Ubuntu, Wine and World of Warcraft
Jan 20
RandomStrings, WoW linux, ubuntu, windows xp, wine, world of warcraft 8 Comments
I am far from a linux “fanboi”, in fact until recently I didn’t really use linux all that much at all.. All of my games are played in WindowsXP simply because there really is no other option… or is there?
I have been using linux quite a lot at work, and really like where Ubuntu is going. Pretty much everything about it leads me to think that Microsoft should be worried. (Apple has nothing to fear, simply because they are a hardware company..)
Anyway, after having XP tell me for the umpteenth time that I had “unused icons on my desktop”.. (Yes I know.. I PUT THEM THERE..) I decided to install Ubuntu on my game machine and try to get WoW working. I figured I’d be in a long and protracted fight, an impossible up hill battle with a colossal fight at the end! I couldn’t have been more wrong — but I get ahead of myself.
Getting Ubuntu installed on my game machine was cake. I installed a new hard drive, partitioned it to have a /, a /home and a swap.. Installed Envy to get the nvidia drivers running.. and fiddled with the xorg.conf file for hours on end trying to get my dual monitors to work correctly. That was the only part that was hard to be honest, I screwed it up a couple times.. heh. That and I had to correct some oddity with the alsamixer being muted.. not sure what that was about.
So with that, my game machine is now dual bootable into XP and Ubuntu. Synergy works nicely on both installs which gets me to my email goofing off box (also ubuntu) and all the peripherals work nicely.. (er.. I haven’t gotten the G15 keyboard stuff working in Ubuntu yet.. but haven’t tried either)
So next, I installed WINE. I really didn’t know what to expect here, but was pleasantly surprised.. It’s very simple, clean and works nicely.
Next I dragged the World of Warcraft install off my XP C: partition into the .wine directory.. and typed “wine Wow.exe” via command line..
And holy shit if World of Warcraft didn’t launch first try!! I was shocked and stunned beyond describing.. I mean I didn’t expect it to work at all.. little alone the first damn try.
Now the truth is, it didn’t work fully the first try. It got to the loading in screen, got to 100% and locked up. But a couple of config file changes later (I had to enter 3 lines into the WTF config file) it worked and I played on it for several hours.
What amuses me the most about this is that the game actually played in Linux at roughly the same frame rates as my windows XP box or HIGHER frame rates depending on what I was doing.
I have no idea how they do it, but the WINE folks are awesome..Awesome I tell ya. Wine you’re the bomb!
I don’t know how it would handle a much more intense game.. Lets face it, World of Warcraft doesn’t exactly push the envelope here.. So if I tried the same trick with say, Crysis… I doubt it would work. But still I’m damn impressed.
Jan 20, 2008 @ 07:23:24
Linux graphics driver maturity is improving all the time.
Famously, ATI are in the process of releasing the full specifications of their VGA chipsets so that open-source drivers of the highest quality may be written.
NVIDIA have been providing high quality proprietary drivers for Linux for some years now. As an indication of NVIDIA’s confidence in their latest drivers, they have recently moved to a common version designation for Windows and Linux.
Already, many games (particularly those that use OpenGL and hence native Linux libraries) run under Linux with frame rates as high if not higher than Windows.
Compatibility is improving all the time.
Take a look at http://appdb.winehq.org/ to see if your favourite game or application is supported.
Jan 20, 2008 @ 09:54:39
How the Wine folks do it?
10yrs+ of hard work and dedication.
(or essentially “re-inventing the wheel” and translating Windows and DirectX calls into what Linux and OpenGL can understand)
That’s how!
Jan 21, 2008 @ 09:47:40
mwhincup, Cool thanks!
tumb, I call it “Magic”.
Jan 22, 2008 @ 17:53:23
Crysis does work, but at the moment the frame rates are very very slow. Unplayable. Still, it’s an encouraging sign.
Jan 23, 2008 @ 20:23:50
Yeah no kidding.. I’m shocked it works at all, all things considered..
Now if I could only get Wolflair’s Armybuilder working..
Feb 01, 2008 @ 06:33:55
what were the lines in your WTF file, i seem to be having the same problem.
-Thanks!
Feb 03, 2008 @ 18:10:35
Here is my entire file so you can compare.. I have added a few more than three at this point I think:
SET accountName “{useyourown}”
SET realmName “{useyourown}”
SET readTOS “1″
SET readEULA “1″
SET readScanning “-1″
SET readContest “-1″
SET locale “enUS”
SET hwDetect “0″
SET gxColorBits “24″
SET gxDepthBits “24″
SET gxResolution “1680×1050″
SET gxRefresh “50″
SET gxMultisampleQuality “0.000000″
SET gxFixLag “0″
SET fullAlpha “1″
SET SmallCull “0.010000″
SET DistCull “500.000000″
SET trilinear “1″
SET frillDensity “24″
SET farclip “777″
SET specular “1″
SET pixelShaders “1″
SET particleDensity “1.000000″
SET unitDrawDist “300.000000″
SET movie “0″
SET expansionMovie “0″
SET realmList “us.logon.worldofwarcraft.com”
SET coresDetected “4″
SET processAffinityMask “3″
SET videoOptionsVersion “1″
SET textureFilteringMode “5″
SET Gamma “1.000000″
SET showToolsUI “1″
SET Sound_VoiceChatInputDriverName “System Default”
SET Sound_VoiceChatOutputDriverName “System Default”
SET Sound_OutputDriverName “System Default”
SET Sound_MasterVolume “1″
SET Sound_SFXVolume “1″
SET Sound_MusicVolume “0.40000000596046″
SET Sound_AmbienceVolume “0.60000002384186″
SET patchlist “us.version.worldofwarcraft.com”
SET shadowLevel “0″
SET groundEffectDensity “64″
SET groundEffectDist “140″
SET weatherDensity “3″
SET uiScale “1″
SET mouseSpeed “1″
SET profanityFilter “0″
SET cameraYawMoveSpeed “180″
SET cameraYawSmoothSpeed “180″
SET cameraDistanceMaxFactor “1″
SET ShowVKeyCastbar “1″
SET gameTip “29″
SET minimapInsideZoom “2″
SET readTerminationWithoutNotice “-1″
SET minimapZoom “2″
SET ChatMusicVolume “0.30000001192093″
SET ChatSoundVolume “0.40000000596046″
SET ChatAmbienceVolume “0.30000001192093″
SET OutboundChatVolume “1″
SET InboundChatVolume “1″
SET VoiceActivationSensitivity “0.40000003576279″
SET scriptErrors “1″
SET gxApi “opengl”
SET ffxDeath “0″
SET gxCursor “0″
SET DesktopGamma “1″
SET autoSelfCast “1″
SET gxWindow “1″
SET Sound_NumChannels “64″
SET Sound_EnableHardware “1″
Mar 10, 2009 @ 11:11:35
The line “SET gxApi “opengl”" is the most relevant to getting wow working under wine iirc. Also “SET gxWindow “1″” is worth it, not that fullscreen mode won’t work under wine, but it does freeze up for a few seconds if you try to alt-tab from fullscreen mode, also you may end up with display problems with multiple monitors. Windowed mode with the maximize video setting enabled is pretty much the same as fullscreen anyhow, but it allows you to run another display at the same time