[WoW] How I got World of Warcraft to run on Linux
From: Yeechang Lee (ylee_at_pobox.com)
Date: 03/22/05
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Date: 22 Mar 2005 21:54:49 GMT
Here's how I got _World of Warcraft_ to run on my Linux box and ATI
video card with excellent results. Since I see a *lot* of weeping and
moaning online about how problematic the process is, I thought I'd
share wisdom gleaned from my experience.
BACKGROUND
System: Athlon 1400GHz, 512MB RAM
Distribution: Fedora Core 3, stock 2.6.10-1.766_FC3 kernel
Card: ATI Radeon 9500 Pro, 128MB video RAM
Driver: fglrx_6_8_0-8.10.19 RPM available at ATI Website
Emulator: CVS Cedega
Game version: 1.2.4
STEPS
* Follow all the directions at
<URL:http://www.linux-gamers.net/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=45>
to install the CVS version of Cedega. I captured the snapshot on
Saturday, 19 March early in the morning.
The default Cedega installation puts all files in your home
directory. Make sure you have enough free space there, or do what I
did and, after Cedega installs, move ~/.cvscedega and ~/.WineCVS to
another partition or drive and create softlinks to the original
locations.
* I don't know how often Transgaming updates the CVS archive. I do
know that, regardless of the company's claims for its latest
4.3 commercial release
(<URL:http://downloads.transgaming.com/files/cedega-4.3_releasenotes.html>),
on my system I *do* have to follow the exec-shield, legacy VA layout,
and noexec steps outlined at
<URL:http://transgaming.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1325>. (To be
accurate, I *know* at least one of these three steps is required for
me. I haven't bothered to experiment to figure out which one; perhaps
they all are.) I did *not* have to disable automatic prelinking, also
mentioned in the previous link, so presumably Transgaming's work there
has migrated into the CVS code.
* Copy the contents of each World of Warcraft CD (or the DVD) to a
single directory on your computer.
* Install the game with something like
$ cvscedega /path/to/previous/directory/Installer.exe
It's a long installation process, but fortunately there's no need to
swap CDs (which is problematic on Cedega; thus our installing it this
way in the first place). Don't be surprised if the installer crashes
at the end.
* Make sure ~/.cvscedega/config (the Cedega configuration file) has a
section that reads something like this:
[d3dgl]
"AnisotropicTextureFiltering" = "Y"
"VertexShaders" = "Y"
"VertexShaderMode" = "Hardware"
"PixelShaders" = "N"
"ClipSpaceFix" = "Y"
Also, where it reads
; Use a desktop window of 640x480 for Wine
"Desktop" = "800x600"
Make sure to comment out the "Desktop" line. This ensures WoW will run
in full screen mode, which is important.
* Run the game with something like
$ cvscedega -- \
~/.cvscedega/c_drive/Program\Files/World\ of\ Warcraft/WoW.exe \
-opengl
The game will repeatedly download patches then restart. Again, don't
be surprised if there are crashes; simply run WoW.exe again. However,
give each patch download some time to get started before assuming
Cedega has crashed; it's a slow process.
* Run the game again. Log into an existing World of Warcraft account
(I don't have firsthand experience with creating one on Linux, but
don't see why it wouldn't work) and character. Yay! The game is
running, with decent graphical performance and good sound. However,
note the horrible graphical corruption that occurs.
* Never fear; go to
<URL:http://digital-conquest.ath.cx/wiki/index.php/World_of_Warcraft>)
and follow the steps under "How to use OpenGL rendering" up through
step 4. Since we're not using Point2Play, modify the path in step 1
accordingly. These are the lines that magically enable the WoW/CVS
Cedega/ATI combination to work without bugs.
* Run the game again. Note how 99% of the graphical corruption has
disappeared. On my computer, with the lowest graphical detail settings
according to Ctrl-R I get about 10-25 fps outdoors, which is eminently
playable in my book (I'm used to similar settings when playing WoW on
my 800MHz iBook G4). The absolute, positive worst I've seen is 1-2 fps
in the Ironforge auction house, but then lag there is horrible for
everyone. Overall, all is well with Linux in the land of Azeroth.
CAVEATS
* I am writing this from memory and quite possibly forgot important
steps.
* I also tried running the game with the latest (also as of 19 March)
CVS version of Wine (<URL:http://www.winehq.org/>), Cedega's
cousin. Without going into details, I found that while the game ran
much faster than under CVS Cedega, sound did not work well, with
many buffer overruns. This is possibly because the ~/.wine/config as
installed by the Wine CVS installation script appears incomplete.
* In any case, the WoW 1.3 released today reportedly breaks
compatibility with Wine and, thus, quite possibly breaks Cedega
compatibility as well, but I haven't had a chance to see for
myself. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
-- <URL:http://www.pobox.com/~ylee/> PERTH ----> * Cpu(s): 23.2% us, 4.6% sy, 0.5% ni, 67.6% id, 3.8% wa, 0.3% hi, 0.0% si Mem: 515800k total, 446744k used, 69056k free, 26700k buffers Swap: 1052216k total, 182076k used, 870140k free, 115428k cached
- Next message: Trevor Bramble: "Re: fglrx drama"
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