29 replies to this topic

[CMDR ZOD]

I followed the instructions from WineHQ for building wine for World of Tanks, which requires using a disable dynamic vertex shaders patch as WoT runs much better. I also got all of the winetricks dlls for world of tanks and also vcrun2010. I could not say for sure as to whether this patch improves framerates on MWO. When configureing wine I used these configure options to (hopefully) improve performance:

./configure CFLAGS="-O3 -pipe -fno-strict-aliasing -fomit-frame-pointer -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections -maccumulate-outgoing-args -mno-push-args -freorder-blocks-and-partition" LDFLAGS="-s"

Then I copied the installed game folder from my Win7 partition. There is a workaround to get the MWO installer to work with wine, but right before I was attempting to use wine we lost the old forums, which contained the info on how to get the installer to work in wine.

To run the game I find I have to use nautilus to browse to the game directory which is now in my .wine folder and double click the MechWarriorOnline.exe in order for the launcher to work. Making shortcuts to this launcher in Gnome in Ubuntu 12.10 will just not work for some reason. Oh well, I can make a shortcut in my places to the Bin32 folder so good enough for me.

I then configured my joystick in wine using the command "wine control.exe". Linux uses a few different ways of interacting with joysticks, so you must use the wine control panel to disable all but on stick or else you will find odd things happening in the game, because wine thinks that there are multiple joysticks connected, when in fact there is only one. Setting buttons up in game seems to work fine, but you must set throttle direction and inverse y axis in User.cfg in the base Mechwarrior folder to make your joystick operate the way one would like.
My user.cfg file:

Spoiler

;************************************************************************
;*********************** MWO LOWEST PRO Config **************************
;************************************************************************
;---
;============================ Core ======================================
;---
r_VSync = 0
sys_spec_Environment = 0
sys_spec_GameEffects = 0
sys_spec_ObjectDetail = 0
sys_spec_Particles = 0
sys_spec_PostProcessing = 0
sys_spec_Shading = 0
sys_spec_Shadows = 0
sys_spec_Texture = 0
sys_spec_Physics = 0
sys_spec_Sound = 1
r_MultiThreaded = 2
;--- 0=disabled, 1=enabling rendering in separate thread, 2(default)=automatic detection
;s_FileCacheManagerSize = 80
;---
;============================ Controller ================================
;---
i_mouse_smooth = 0
i_mouse_accel=0
cl_sensitivity = 1.50
cl_joystick_invert_pitch = 1 //Sets the y-axis(aka Pitch) in the right direction - thanks CyBerkut.
cl_joystick_invert_throttle = 1 //makes the throttle work in the right direction.
cl_joystick_throttle_range = 0 //makes the throttle work in (Forward/Neutral/Reverse) mode.
i_joystick_buffered = 0 //disables the Joystick buffering which greatly increases the joystick's sensitivity
i_joystick_deadzone = 0.20
cl_sensitivityController = 1.9
;i_mouse_accel_max = 100
;---
;============================= Renderer ================================
;---
q_Quality = 0
q_Renderer = 0
q_ShaderFX = 0
q_ShaderGeneral = 0
q_ShaderGlass = 0
q_ShaderHDR = 0
q_ShaderIce = 0
q_ShaderMetal = 0
q_ShaderPostProcess = 0
q_ShaderShadow = 0
q_ShaderSky = 0
q_ShaderTerrain = 0
q_ShaderVegetation = 0
q_ShaderWater = 0
;---
;============================= ObjectDetail =============================
;---
e_ViewDistMin = 10
e_ViewDistRatio = 100
e_ViewDistRatioCustom = 100
e_ViewDistRatioDetail = 75
e_ViewDistRatioLights = 50
e_ViewDistRatioVegetation = 50
r_DrawNearZRange = 0.08
e_ObjQuality = 2
e_Lods = 1
e_LodRatio = 20
e_LodMin = 0
e_decals=0
ca_useDecals = 0
e_DecalsAllowGameDecals = 0
e_DecalsLifeTimeScale = 2
e_DecalsOverlapping = 0
e_DecalsHitCache=0
e_DecalsForceDeferred = 0
e_VegetationBending = 0
e_VegetationMinSize = 0
e_VegetationSpritesDistanceCustomRatioMin = 1
e_VegetationSpritesDistanceRatio = 1
e_ProcVegetation = 1
e_TerrainDetailMaterialsViewDistXY = 1024
e_TerrainDetailMaterialsViewDistZ = 128
e_TerrainOcclusionCullingMaxDist = 200
e_Dissolve = 2
e_MaxViewDistSpecLerp = 1
e_OcclusionCullingViewDistRatio = 1
e_streamCgf = 0
ca_AttachmentCullingRation = 200
ca_DrawFaceAttachments = 1
es_DebrisLifetimeScale = 0
;---
;============================= Textures ================================
;---
r_TexResolution = 1
;--- Diffuse. When 0 (default) texture resolution is unaffected, 1 halves, 2 quarters etc.
r_TexBumpResolution = 2
;--- Reduces bump texture resolution. Same as ^^^
r_EnvTexResolution = 0
;--- Sets resolution for 2d target environment texture, in pixels. 0: 64 / 1: 128 / 2: 256 / 3: 512
r_EnvCMResolution = 0
;--- Sets resolution for target environment cubemap, in pixels. 0: 64 / 1: 128 / 2: 256
r_TexSkyResolution = 1
r_DynTexAtlasCloudsMaxSize = 32
r_DynTexAtlasSpritesMaxSize = 32
r_DynTexMaxSize = 80
r_EnvTexUpdateInterval = 0.001
r_ImposterRatio = 1
r_TexAtlasSize = 512
r_TexMinAnisotropy = 0
r_TexturesFilteringQuality = 0
r_VegetationSpritesTexRes = 16
;----------------------------- Detail Textures -------------------------
r_DetailTextures = 0
r_DetailNumLayers = 0
r_DetailDistance = 1
;---
;================ Post-Processing / HDR / DOF / Motion Blur ============
;---
r_ColorGrading = 0
r_DepthOfField = 0
r_dofMinZScale = 0
r_dofMinZ = 1
r_DepthOfFieldBokeh = 0
r_DepthOfFieldBokehQuality = 0
r_EyeAdaptationBase = 0.1
r_EyeAdaptationFactor = 0.85
r_EyeAdaptationSpeed = 0.1
r_GlowAnamorphicFlares = 1
r_HDRBloomMul = 0.5
r_HDRBlueShift = 0.2
r_HDRBrightLevel = 0.50
r_HDRBrightOffset = 30
r_HDRBrightThreshold = 5
r_HDREyeAdaptionCache = 30
r_HDRGrainAmount = 0
r_HDRLevel = 0
r_HDROffset = 10
r_HDRRendering = 1
r_MotionBlurMaxViewDist = 0
r_PostProcessHUD3DCache = 30
r_RainMaxViewDist_Deferred = 0
r_sunshafts = 0
r_Coronashafts = 0
r_Coronas = 0
r_Flares = 1
r_MotionBlur = 0
r_MotionBlurShutterSpeed = 0.00001
ca_MotionBlurMovementThreshold = 0.00001
r_Reflections = 0
r_ReflectionsQuality = 0
;---
;============================= Light/Shading ===========================
;---
e_DynamicLightsMaxEntityLights = 8
e_GI = 1
e_GIAmount = 0.5
e_GIMaxDistance = 80
e_GINumCascades = 1
e_SkyType = 1
e_SkyUpdateRate = 0
e_TerrainAo = 1
e_TerrainNormalMap = 1
e_VegetationUseTerrainColor = 1
;---
;============================= Shadows =================================
;---
e_GsmCache = 0
e_GsmCastFromTerrain = 0
e_GsmLodsNum = 0
e_GsmRange = 0
e_ParticlesShadows = 0
e_Shadows = 0
e_ShadowsCastViewDistRatio = 0
e_ShadowsMaxTexRes = 0
e_ShadowsOnAlphaBlend = 0
e_ShadowsResScale = 0
e_ShadowsTessellateCascades = 0
r_ShadowBlur = 0
r_ShadowJittering = 0
r_ShadowsMaskResolution = 0
r_ShadowsPCFiltering = 0
r_ShadowsUseClipVolume = 0
e_ShadowsSlopeBias=0
;---
;============================= AA/MSAA/FSAA ============================
;---
r_PostMSAA = 0
r_PostMSAAMode = 0
r_PostMSAAEdgeFilterNV = 0
r_FSAA = 0
r_UseEdgeAA = 0
;---
;============================= SSAO ====================================
;---
r_ssdo = 0
r_SSAO = 0
r_SSAOQuality = 0
r_SSAODownscale = 0
r_refraction = 0
r_ssreflections = 0
r_ssdoAmbientAmount = 0
r_ssdoAmount = 0
;---
;============================= Volumetrics =============================
;---
r_FogColorGradient = 0
r_Beams = 0
r_BeamsDistFactor = 0.05
r_BeamsMaxSlices = 200
e_Clouds = 0
r_CloudsUpdateAlways = 0
;---
;============================ Particles ================================
;---
e_ParticlesQuality = 0
e_ParticlesLights = 0
e_ParticlesMaxScreenFill = 32
e_ParticlesMinDrawPixels = 1
e_ParticlesMotionBlur = 0
e_ParticlesObjectCollisions = 1
r_UseParticlesHalfRes = 0
r_UseSoftParticles = 0
r_UseParticlesRefraction = 0
r_UseParticlesGlow = 0
r_UseParticlesMerging = 0
r_UseParticlesHalfResForce = 0
r_RainDropEffect = 0
r_RainAmount = 0
r_Rain = 0
;e_particles_thread = 1
;---
;============================ Water ===================================
;---
e_WaterOceanFFT = 0
e_WaterTesselationAmount = 10
e_WaterTesselationAmountX = 10
e_WaterTesselationAmountY = 10
e_WaterTesselationSwathWidth = 10
r_WaterCaustics = 0
r_WaterReflections = 0
r_WaterReflectionsQuality = 0
r_WaterReflectionsMinVisiblePixelsUpdate = 0
r_WaterUpdateDistance = 0
r_WaterUpdateFactor = 0
;---
;============================ Physics ==================================
;---
;Physics
g_breakage_particles_limit = 90
g_joint_breaking = 1
g_tree_cut_reuse_dist = 0
e_CullVegActivation = 50
e_FoliageWindActivationDist = 25
e_PhysFoliage = 0
e_PhysOceanCell = 0.5
p_gravity_z = -36.3
p_joint_damage_accum = 2
p_joint_damage_accum_threshold = 0.2
p_max_MC_iters = 4000
p_max_object_splashes = 3
p_max_substeps_large_group = 5
p_num_bodies_large_group = 100
p_splash_dist0 = 7
p_splash_dist1 = 30
p_splash_force0 = 10
p_splash_force1 = 100
p_splash_vel0 = 4.5
p_splash_vel1 = 10
v_vehicle_quality = 4
es_MaxPhysDist = 100
es_MaxPhysDistInvisible = 15
;---
;============================ Sound ===================================
;---
s_FormatSampleRate = 44100
s_MaxChannels=32
s_MPEGDecoders = 32
s_Obstruction = 1
s_ObstructionAccuracy = 1
s_ObstructionUpdate = 0.1
s_ReverbType = 1
s_SoundMoodsDSP = 1
s_VariationLimiter = 1
s_PrecacheData = 1
s_PriorityThreshold = 1
;---
;============================ STREAMING ===============================

I find these graphics options in my user.cfg very useful. They decrease the visual settings even more than the in game graphics settings. I have a very powerful system (GeForce GTX480 x3 and i7 990x OC to 4GHZ with 12Gb 1600Mhz ram) and leaving settings on minimum isn't enough to make the game playable. With these settings i can get over 20 FPS which is a bit more tolerable. I currently use SLI in Linux so that may have something to do with the weak FPS, will take more experimenting.

Then, when a round is over you MUST NOT click quit game. I found the game freezes in a black screen of doom. You must just end the match. Now when you get back to the desktop, the game launcher will not be in the window properly, and will not work correctly. To play another round you must kill wine with the "wineserver -k" in a terminal and re-open the launcher by double clicking on MechWarriorOnline.exe.

These are my results in wine so far, if anyone has any suggestions or something to add to this please do so. Hope this helps your Mechwarrior-ing in Unix!</p>

[nungunz]

What are your exact specs by the way?

I keep seeing people having issues with the FPS, but I've never really dropped below 40 unless the game glitches.

[CMDR ZOD]

My specs are:
Ubuntu 12.10 Gnome Remix
Nvidia Driver Version 310.14 in 3 way SLI single frame rendering
Compiz Enabled
Rampage II Extreme
Intel i7 990x OC 4Ghz
3x GTX 480 1536Mb Reflashed to 900Mhz Core 2Ghz Memory from 700Mhz and 1.8Ghz
12Gb 1600Mhz Ram
1200 Watt PS
CPU and all 3 GPU's are water cooled
Using Microsoft Force Feedback Pro 2 Usb. Works well in linux and also in Win 7 for MWO. Seems slugish on the rudder under wine though.

Any suggestions for improving my FPS? I thinking SLI should be turned off that would likely help. I know SLI in Win 7 causes the game to freeze for me.

Edited by CMDR ZOD, 06 November 2012 - 09:47 PM.

[Woogoose]

This is great Zod! I'm getting frustrated with having to reboot to Windows every time I want a quick drop. By proving that Wine is capable of running MWO, you've confirmed that I will now be spending a disproportionate amount of time playing with configuration

[CMDR ZOD]

Well I got the FPS issue figured out and, as I suspected SLI was to blame for the very low frame rates. I find setting the graphics any higher than absolute minimum will cause cryengine errors. I suppose one could tinker around with the different options and find a workaround. On minimum graphics with SLI disabled I get around 40 fps I would say, which is more than playable. Can't wait for some decent joystick support in this game, namely sensitivity adjustment. Oh yeah, almost forgot, I figured out how to make a link for this game rather than browsing through nautilus all of the time. Here it is:

Spoiler

#!/bin/bash
cd /home/hair/.wine/drive_c/Games/Piranha\ Games/MechWarrior\ Online/Bin32/
wine MechWarriorOnline.exe

Just create a text file in your home directory and name it startmechwarrior.sh (or whatever you like) and paste the text from the spoiler into the file. Go into the file properties through your file manager after and make the file executable. Now any link you make to this script will start the mechwarrior launcher. I still have yet to see if updating the game will work in wine though. Don't forget to edit the command in the spoiler to the correct directory that your mechwarrior online installation resides in.

Edited by CMDR ZOD, 06 November 2012 - 09:45 PM.

[chomeop]

Epic!!

Good work mate, i was toying with the idea of installing *nix on my main machine again, this was going to be the tipping point!

Love ya work!

[Ademan]

This is absolutely awesome! I'm running Ubuntu 12.04 and I'll have to give this a go myself. I expect major issues as I'm using the open source ATI drivers and have already experienced odd shader issues with software I consider "known to be good", but as others have said, not having to boot to windows to play a match would be wonderful.

I'd love to hear a definitive comment from PGI that they won't ban users (just for) using Wine though, as Blizzard allegedly was doing.

EDIT: I'd also like to see any *real* solutions make it back into mainline Wine.

Edited by Ademan, 11 November 2012 - 04:29 PM.

[Peter Powers]

i kinda wish they would at least look into getting the installer run on wine,
even if they don't officially support it.

[CMDR ZOD]

I know on the old forums someone had posted a way to run the installer inside of wine. Now that it appears they have integrated the old and new forums you may be able to find out how to do it. I sure hope they consider Linux gaming a bit more seriously as the Steam Beta has shown massive potential with over 60k people signing up in the first week of beta. Windows 8 will also help push users to linux as well. I don't understand how anyone could like such an unproductive, non-intuitive interface. Nvidia is also helping with their new drivers which are really beginning to be promising.

[SOIMiMozO]

Getting this, when pushing "Play" button in launcher:
err:seh:raise_exception Unhandled exception code c0000005 flags 0 addr 0x37e38a41
Does anybody know how to fix it?

[Sand Lantern]

CMDR ZOD, on 19 November 2012 - 09:44 PM, said:

I know on the old forums someone had posted a way to run the installer inside of wine. Now that it appears they have integrated the old and new forums you may be able to find out how to do it. I sure hope they consider Linux gaming a bit more seriously as the Steam Beta has shown massive potential with over 60k people signing up in the first week of beta. Windows 8 will also help push users to linux as well. I don't understand how anyone could like such an unproductive, non-intuitive interface. Nvidia is also helping with their new drivers which are really beginning to be promising.

The real issue at hand, though, is that MechWarrior, as a license, is owned by Microsoft to my knowledge. That means they probably had to forfeit the rights to make it on any platform except for windows. Don't expect PGI to officially support linux for this game ever, as I'm sure it's in their contract not to.

[SOIMiMozO]

geforce 460. 310.19 drivers with treaded optimization enabled. 8GB RAM. Wine 1.5.18. Running game on high with quite decent FPS.

Upd.: Ultra is quite laggy, but with some tweaks can be playable as well.

Edited by SOIMiMozO, 29 November 2012 - 07:14 AM.

[FuzzWig]

I know you guys are all running Linux, but I'm currently trying to get the game to work in OSX Lion through wineskin, all i have managed so far is for it to pop up with an out-line of the patcher screen thing then disappear. Very frustrating!
Been using all the recommended wine tricks and still got nowhere. Any ideas guys?

[SOIMiMozO]

FuzzWig, on 02 January 2013 - 08:57 AM, said:

I know you guys are all running Linux, but I'm currently trying to get the game to work in OSX Lion through wineskin, all i have managed so far is for it to pop up with an out-line of the patcher screen thing then disappear. Very frustrating!
Been using all the recommended wine tricks and still got nowhere. Any ideas guys?

Any terminal output pal? There are no mediums here you know...

So, does anyone know how to improve FPS? I've tried this:
ddr=opengl
multisampling=enabled
Looks like it's stabilizing my FPS a bit, but not much.
Also, tried NVIDIA's multi-threading. Got a significant FPS decline with that.

[Evilpaperbag]

FEAR NOT warriors im playing around with the wine configuration in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS to get the Installer working. Im not new but im not old to MWO. Any results ill post.

[Firefrog]

Evilpaperbag, on 23 April 2013 - 02:43 PM, said:

FEAR NOT warriors im playing around with the wine configuration in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS to get the Installer working. Im not new but im not old to MWO. Any results ill post.

Any luck?

[Byzan]

Linux is great, I love Mint, really awesome and ****** all over windows in many ways.

but the lack games is a downer and I really can't be bothered with wine.

I really hope the day comes where Linux is seen as a main platform. Linux has come such a long way I really think it just needs a couple of mainstream games to come out with linux support and the use of linux will explode.

the rise of android and steam for linux is a start... Come on devs!

[PanglossMcKayJr]

So... would any one happen to know then how to get the mechwarrioronlineinstaller.exe to work via wine ? I am trying to play around with it right now but ... not much luck yet.

[CaptainBoom]

This is exactly the discussion I was hoping to find. Today marks another day of fighting with windows to play mechwarrior, rather than fighting mechs in Mechwarrior. The windows 8 OS is just the latest edition of the typical windows experience. I and after 5 hours of fighting Microsoft to get it to reload again, I'm just shaking my head. The only reason Windows 8 was allowed to survive on this awesome PC is because.... BABA BAAA Mechwarrior. Thats the single and only reason.

My education is in Network and Database. I've worked in a Datacenter that refused to upgrade from windows to Linux... and you know what? ever f-ing second of my working life I wonder how can Microsoft constantly produce such a crappy user experience and get away with it. Well... thanks to MWO... there is a good reason to permit windows to live on a dual boot.

THANK GOD there is a slivers chance that one of the best games in the world, can run on one of THE best OSs of the world. I don't mind front loading the effort to fight linux to make MWO work... rather than having MWO work initially, and then fight microsoft to play my game every week there after.

Sorry for the rant. I got up early to play with my team of friends.... 7 hours ago. I've been battling the Microsoft experience since then. Confounded, catastrophe of a user experience.

Please, for the love of humanity, develop for a real operating system! - I just want to play, that's ALL!! it's not a crime to have an OS preference is there???

[FilBot3]

Well, since the beginning of this thread, Wine has had a few updates. Also, my PC is pretty beefy, so I'll be trying this out soon. I'm sure we could get a community effort to help either port or get a native client. Like Captain Boom said, this game is the only reason I have windows.