DirectX Games in Linux !

[JakeLogan]

Looking over the July issue of PClinuxOS magazine I found an article about one of my favorite subjects , Games. This article talks about installing Direct X in Linux through Wine and being able to play games made for Direct X.

Here's the link: http://www.pclosmag.com/html/Issues/201107/page11.html

This is exciting news, but I wanna know how well it works. I plan to try this with a few games. If anyone gets this to work, please post the games it works on.

Having more Direct X games running on Linux would help keep more Windows users using Linux longer or, help keep Linux users from having to use Windows for gaming.

[T6]

the last year i remember lots of people having fun with call of duty and similar games

some games will complain with some dlls and others will refuse to work with certain hardware

your mileage will vary

[billy7720]

Games that work in WINE via DirectX 9.0:

City of Lost Children
Last Rites
Slam Tilt Pinball
Normality
Anvil Of Dawn

There are more I'm working on...like Might and Magic IX and Killing Time.

Just a little tweaking here and there.....

[bicol_willem]

Just like John Lennon said: Imagine!
But this time about someone able to create a nice script to have that DirectX thingy installed a (whole) bit easier then the Status Q......

yes, I know, someone else said: I had a dream 

[parnote]

Looking over the July issue of PClinuxOS magazine I found an article about one of my favorite subjects , Games. This article talks about installing Direct X in Linux through Wine and being able to play games made for Direct X.

Here's the link: http://www.pclosmag.com/html/Issues/201107/page11.html

This is exciting news, but I wanna know how well it works. I plan to try this with a few games. If anyone gets this to work, please post the games it works on.

Having more Direct X games running on Linux would help keep more Windows users using Linux longer or, help keep Linux users from having to use Windows for gaming.

Actually, we'd LOVE to run a monthly Game Zone article, that features topics (and games) of interest to PCLinuxOS users who find ways to run their favorite games on Linux, either natively or via Wine (sorry, but games ran in a copy of Windows running in VBox don't count). Myself and Meemaw have literally exhausted our very limited range of Game Zone articles, since neither of us are "gamers." Frankly, I'm surprised we managed to keep it going as long as we did, especially since we really tried to make it a regular monthly feature.

Despite numerous, multiple pleas (either public or via PM), no one has stepped up to help continue those Game Zone articles in The PCLinuxOS Magazine. Thus, the Game Zone article in the magazine will continue to be an irregular feature/column in the magazine, where we'll publish things we think may be of interest to PCLinuxOS users who may also be gamers as we find them. We'd really prefer to make it a regular feature, if someone could/would step up to produce them.

(Hint: if someone who's reading this is inclined to take this on, you can write up several articles at once, so you're not under a monthly deadline. Also, don't worry if you feel that you're not much of a writer ... we (the members of the magazine staff) can usually tweak your articles to make you sound like one!).

BTW, I'm glad you guys liked the DirectX article. When I find things like this, I will try to get permission from the blog author to reproduce them in The PCLinuxOS Magazine. Unfortunately, I come across such things very irregularly.

Paul Arnote [parnote]
PCLinuxOS Magazine Chief Editor

[billy7720]

Looking over the July issue of PClinuxOS magazine I found an article about one of my favorite subjects , Games. This article talks about installing Direct X in Linux through Wine and being able to play games made for Direct X.

Here's the link: http://www.pclosmag.com/html/Issues/201107/page11.html

This is exciting news, but I wanna know how well it works. I plan to try this with a few games. If anyone gets this to work, please post the games it works on.

Having more Direct X games running on Linux would help keep more Windows users using Linux longer or, help keep Linux users from having to use Windows for gaming.

Actually, we'd LOVE to run a monthly Game Zone article, that features topics (and games) of interest to PCLinuxOS users who find ways to run their favorite games on Linux, either natively or via Wine (sorry, but games ran in a copy of Windows running in VBox don't count). Myself and Meemaw have literally exhausted our very limited range of Game Zone articles, since neither of us are "gamers." Frankly, I'm surprised we managed to keep it going as long as we did, especially since we really tried to make it a regular monthly feature.

Despite numerous, multiple pleas (either public or via PM), no one has stepped up to help continue those Game Zone articles in The PCLinuxOS Magazine. Thus, the Game Zone article in the magazine will continue to be an irregular feature/column in the magazine, where we'll publish things we think may be of interest to PCLinuxOS users who may also be gamers as we find them. We'd really prefer to make it a regular feature, if someone could/would step up to produce them.

(Hint: if someone who's reading this is inclined to take this on, you can write up several articles at once, so you're not under a monthly deadline. Also, don't worry if you feel that you're not much of a writer ... we (the members of the magazine staff) can usually tweak your articles to make you sound like one!).

BTW, I'm glad you guys liked the DirectX article. When I find things like this, I will try to get permission from the blog author to reproduce them in The PCLinuxOS Magazine. Unfortunately, I come across such things very irregularly.

Paul Arnote [parnote]
PCLinuxOS Magazine Chief Editor

Parnote;

As much as I'd love to help, I play VERY FEW Windows games. I never explained why either, so here it goes. I do play some that caught my fancy over the years - but most of the games are either OLD or usually the ones folks just don't care about. Might And Magic IX: Writ Of Fate and Killing Time are two I can name off the top of my head. Both of these games weren't great sellers nor did many folks play them. I have played a few that sold quite a few such as Arx Fatalis (which I did finish and was one of the FINEST 3D RPG's ever made) and Wizards and Warriors (which I also finished). Alas, these games listed were really fantastic but they never recieved the fanfare they should have - yes, they were that good.

But, I was always capitvated by Dos games for a few simple facts:
1. The games were huge.
2. Graphics are not the top issue. Gameplay and storylines were.
3. Most Dos games were written by regular folks like you and me.
4. Growing up in the "dos age" I have more respect for the classics.

I never really denied that I wanted to help you - I do, as much as I can. If I come across ANY Windows game that works under WINE (even with tweaks) I'll be glad to let you know. So far Killing Time has been taxing and I know what the problem is - the darned flash player MUST be placed in the proper area for KT to run. So far, no luck so it's time to go into the program itself and fix lines of code. This really is not for newbies or folks who don't understand how to open certain files and play around with them. BUT - once I get a file fixed or repaired I can always make it available to the public. I've done this in the past and it works, just have little time to do much of anything with games via Windows. Hence, why I like Dos over Windows.

So, I hope you'll understand. My apologies to you and your staff for an explanation that should be understandable. I will do my best to try to help. Back in the 80's, it was much easier to open or "crack" a file and fix the problem. Today it isn't.

Anyway, I do have quite a few games that run under DosBox without issues. I would like to get them up somewhere for others to download them but have not found an acceptable place to put them using tarballs. I also have a few Windows games that (believe it or not) run under DosBox via Windows via WINE. They work almost flawlessly. If I can find some space I can put these up. Some games are less than 1MB and some over 600MB.

Anyway, I am sorry I can't do more for you. You're a great guy, the staff are awesome. I will do my best to get you as much as possible for gaming via Linux as much as possible. Just give me time - if I find ANYTHING that you or your staff may be able to use I will send it right away to you. Hope you understand. Again, my apologies for not being able to help more.

Sincerely;
billy7720

[parnote]

billy7720,

I appreciate your response. But trust me, my post wasn't aimed at any one particular individual. I appreciate your contributions (present, past and future). Since neither me nor Meemaw are gamers, we don't know what is popular or "the latest" in gaming. It also makes it particularly difficult for us to write about something that we really don't know much about. We literally have little to no frame of reference. I know there are PCLinuxOS users who are gamers, but none of them will step forward to write up reviews of the games and how they got them to run under PCLinuxOS. At the same time, many of them clamor for a Games section in the forum. As a response to that wish, I tried to create the Game Zone column in the magazine, to provide a place for gamers to talk about their games, provide game play tips, and tips on how to get some games running under PCLinuxOS. Yet, even then, no one "bit."

parnote

[JakeLogan]

parnote,

 That's why I'm trying to get my new xfce system installed so I can test some games with directX under PCLOS. I have tons of games from 1998 upwards. If I can get half of these to work I'd spend so much less time in windows it's not funny. I remember you and I talking about this before.. In fact, if you Google "PCLinuxOS games" that thread comes up in the Google search as number 2 from the top down! That's pretty neat and it shows that lots of people are googling PcLos/Linux games. Here is that thread: http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php?topic=84408.0

I'm currently on a laptop and all these games ( I have a list of over 100 of them) are all good directx action or rpg games that run on this machine well.. and it's only got an ATI 4200HD video chip on board with 336 MB of video memory shared up to 1.6 gigs with system ram which is 4 gigs. A cheap wal-mart 400 dollar laptop. I figure if they will run in windows with all its overhead, if they get running on linux they should run well also with it's low overhead.

[ibi]

I tried installing DirectX as per the instructions in this month's magazine. Here's what happened when I got to the part of running dxsetup.exe (I got this first line about a zillions times):

err:setupapi:do_file_copyW Unsupported style(s) 0x144

Then I got:

[kevin@localhost directx]$ fixme:advapi:SetEntriesInAclA 1 0x33f72c (nil) 0x33f764
fixme:advapi:SetSecurityInfo stub
fixme:advapi:SetEntriesInAclA 1 0x33f71c (nil) 0x33f764
fixme:advapi:SetSecurityInfo stub
fixme:advapi:SetEntriesInAclA 1 0x33f73c (nil) 0x33f784
fixme:advapi:SetSecurityInfo stub
fixme:system:SetProcessDPIAware stub!
fixme:dwmapi:DwmIsCompositionEnabled 0x33f0fc
fixme:iphlpapi:NotifyAddrChange (Handle 0xb6e8d8, overlapped 0xb6e8e0): stub

--------------------------

Running dxdiag.exe after this results in nothing. The Wine icon will appear and flash a few times in my panel, then it just quits.

The first time I tried installing DirectX, I got a message that the installation couldn't complete because I was missing a Gecko package. I downloaded that via SPM and tried reinstalling. I didn't get the missing Gecko package message this second time, but I got the error messages printed above.

So I then tried downloading the DirectX 9.0c redistributable package from another source (the first time was from Microsoft). My attempt to install with the second package resulted in the same error messages as above.

Has anyone been able to get this to work? Thanks.

[kernowyon]

Do you specifically need DirectX9? If not, then I wouldn't try to install it.

If you do, then the recommended method is to install it using the winetricks  program - which is available in the repository for PCLOS. It is worth copying your error into a search engile - you will find a good fix in the wine official forum at wineHQ involving winetricks.

Personally, I have not found a need to install Dx9 - but I guess you may be trying to run a specific game which has complained?

Wine is a much easier program these days than it was a few years ago - but by its very nature, it is still a pretty complex piece of code.

[kernowyon]

Keep in mind those games which run in Linux without resorting to wine too - stuff like UT2004, Doom3, Quake3 , Medal of Honor....
UT2004 has a Linux installer on the disk, the others have downloadable installers from the guy who wrote the installer on the UT2004 disk - Icarus.

I wrote a little piece on installing Doom3 and Quake3 on a Linux system (admittedly it wasn't on PCLOS - and the info is probably well outdated now - but I am happy to assist folks trying to install these games if I can) - the write ups have some useful tips too.
The link is http://www.kernowyon.co.uk/linux_stuff/

I love gaming and play Wesnoth and other Linux games regularly - I used to play Cube (if you played it, you will probably recognise my name) and Nexuiz, but Cube has pretty much petered out (replaced by newer versions) and my internet speed is too slow now for online gaming.

More than happy to pitch in with gaming info on Linux (I don't run Windows machines at all - so my gaming is Linux only!)

[SpinheadMickey]

 I installed DirectX 9.0c 4 days ago per the instructions in PCLOS magazine - no error messages, but

Running dxdiag.exe after this results in nothing. The Wine icon will appear and flash a few times in my panel, then it just quits.

 Same thing here. But, I installed it on Lenovo ThinkPad R500 2.8Ghz Core2 Duo, 4 Gb RAM, and Intel Mobile 4 Series onboard graphics. I know this GPU does not like Linux very much, but figured I'd at least try. I will be the first to admit that M$-Win has better games (for now), and it would've been cool to get some of them running under WINE.
 Anyway, after getting DX9 installed, I installed Resident Evil 4 to test. The game requires DirectX to run 7 the readme stated that during installation it would check to see if it was installed. No flags during install - went without a hitch. I then launched the game and (after a very long 'loading' screen) it came up. However, the gameplay was so slow that the game was practically unplayable. But it at least told me DirectX was installed & working. I think the Intel integrated graphics chipset is the only show-stopper here. 

[ibi]

Well, I had a couple games I really wanted to get working under Wine, but would not. When I saw the article, I figured it would be worth a try. I see now I should have explored the winetricks first (although I've poked around winehq and read a bit about winetricks, and it seems a little complicated too me).

At least my experiment has not wrecked my Wine installation; all the programs I had working still load fine.

[deathromantik]

I have found out that if you have Never Winter Nights for windows (Still available in some gamestore bargin bins) there is a linux installer available, just google for it.

[billy7720]

I installed DirectX 9.0c 4 days ago per the instructions in PCLOS magazine - no error messages, but

Running dxdiag.exe after this results in nothing. The Wine icon will appear and flash a few times in my panel, then it just quits.

 Same thing here. But, I installed it on Lenovo ThinkPad R500 2.8Ghz Core2 Duo, 4 Gb RAM, and Intel Mobile 4 Series onboard graphics. I know this GPU does not like Linux very much, but figured I'd at least try. I will be the first to admit that M$-Win has better games (for now), and it would've been cool to get some of them running under WINE.
 Anyway, after getting DX9 installed, I installed Resident Evil 4 to test. The game requires DirectX to run 7 the readme stated that during installation it would check to see if it was installed. No flags during install - went without a hitch. I then launched the game and (after a very long 'loading' screen) it came up. However, the gameplay was so slow that the game was practically unplayable. But it at least told me DirectX was installed & working. I think the Intel integrated graphics chipset is the only show-stopper here.  

I use the Intel chipset on my laptop with no issues. It's not that. WINE keeps MASSIVE amounts of logs while running hence the slowdowns with most games. There is a way to turn this off but I cannot find the page I saw last referring to this. Once I find it I'll post the link. I've had no problems with directX. I just installed it under the dx folder on my C: desktop and checked it like the article said. Works for me.

Even with my thread explaining DosBox in WINE has gotten some Windows games to run amazingly. I don't play many Windows games because I prefer Dos but it's WINE that is causing the slowdowns NOT your Intel graphics chipset.