Oblivion on Wine

[Falcata]

I have started a series of articles on my blog which will give reviews of how well Oblivion runs under Wine, a compatability layer that allows games and applications for Windows to run on Unix and Unix-like systems, such as Linux and Mac OS X. I'll issue updates within a few days of new Wine releases, which come out every other friday. I'll provide details about improvements, regressions, bugs, crashes, and workarounds for problems that are encountered. The first article has been issued, and it covers version 1.1.23 of Wine. You can find it by following the link below. The same link will take you to new articles as they appear.

 

Oblivion On Wine 1.1.23

[Falcata]

My report on how Oblivion fares in Wine 1.1.24 is now up. Cliff's notes on this new version? Possible increase in performance, and fewer crashes. To read it, just click this link or the one in my signature: Oblivion On Wine 1.1.24

[darkjaffar]

Aw, OBSE doesn't work on Wine yet? That's more or less a deal killer nowadays. =(

[Falcata]

Yeah, sadly it still doesn't work. Personally, I'd like to see one of OBSE's devs sit down with one of Wine's devs so that they can figure this one out. I had one instance where I started OBSE's launcher, and Oblivion was successfully started. As I later discovered, however, what happens is that if OBSE crashes, it will still attempt to launch Oblivion. After reading about OBSE's problems (http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13915) I found one potential solution which works 20% of the time. I'll take a look at it and see if I can get OBSE to work on my system.

[Falcata]

Anyone who is interested in getting OBSE to work under Wine, please vote its the bug report! You can find the bug report here: http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13915

 

To vote, you'll need to register on the site, which shouldn't take long at all.

[jimuno]

Alas, it is not a "bug", after reading the readme for the launcher, OBSE Launcher and probably OBSE were built with .Net Framwork 2.0. The problem with OBSE and OBMM is that no-one has found a satisfactory way to deploy .Net on Wine. If we could somehow convince the authors of these to use standard C++ instead of the MS specific code, we would be in business.

 

On another note: The reported bug causing the blank screen when using HDR Lighting, I have found a workaround. It seems it only does this when using Shaders 2.0, by modifying your ini to set bAllow30Shaders=1 and renaming shaderpackage019 to the one listed in your RenderInfo.txt file, You can use HDR lighting. It worked for me using Fedora 11 and Wine 1.1.23. GL

[Falcata]

OBSE is a .Net 2.0 application? Those work just fine in Linux. You just install it with winetricks. Or did you mean OBSE? Because I've successfully used that under Wine with .Net 2.0 installed.

 

Sadly, if OBSE is in fact a .Net application, I can't test it at the moment because Wine doesn't work very well in x86_64 environments. For the past few weeks, I've been running off of a backup hard drive that had Arch Linux x86_64 installed on it. Had to do that after my computer's crummy SATA controlled failed, resulting in both my SATA hard drive and CD/DVD burner getting bricked. So for now, I'm waiting on a replacement hard drive to be shipped.

 

Moral of the story: If you're going to build your own computer, never use a BIOSTAR motherboard. Or a motherboard from any other budget manufacturer. Even if it has a 5-star rating on newegg. Next time I build a computer, I'll buy a motherboard from a decent manufacturer, like ASUS.

[jimuno]

I do not know about OBSE itself, the Launcher said .Net 2.0 in the read.

 

I am using 64 bit Fedora, that may explain some of my problems with getting .Net to load. I fought with it for awhile, but ran across an article about MONO (An open source, multi-platform .Net), downloaded the Win version, installed it under Wine, should work, but haven't tested it yet with OBSE. Been trying to get OBMM up and running. I am not certain but think I may have found the root of it's problem. It is supposed to work with MONO, but reading the src code for OBMM, it call files from the /My Documents/My Games/Oblivion directory which under Wine is not there. Wine puts that data under home/current user/My Games/Oblivion. I tried manually creating the directories but that didn't work. Now all I have to do is figure out how to change all the references, what compiles to what, then re-compile the source and give it a try, but not today. If you have any suggestions on this, they are always welcome.

 

I would really like to get this going right. I did the ini mod and renamed shaderpackages to force shaders 3.0. HDR lighting works. With the same settings as my windows install, I get less video lag, no halting or jerking as it loads when moving around, and I personally think the graphics look better. I do get crashes, but hey, got the under Gates' BugWare also. Some I think are because I copied my windows install over and some of the files are from OBSE mods and OBSE is not enabled (go figure). And I can actually close Oblivion without a crash.

 

I wish you luck on you MB, I tried a few off brand boards myself before. Hated the performance on them and had one go "POP", black screen, smoke from the case, and a nice burnt smell in the room for a day or so. Yep, ASUS gets most of my business these days with a little to ABit every now and then.

 

P.S. WineTricks under Fedora 11 x86_64, not a pretty combination. In my experience of course.

[Falcata]

May be some time before I get a new MB. Thinking of building a new computer later this fall with a quad-core processor. Of course, I'll probably reuse some components from my old computer (such as the video card) to save money.

[Falcata]

Well, I'll be getting the hard drive within 5-7 business days. Once that's done I'll review how well Oblivion runs on versions 1.25, 1.26, and 1.27 of Wine.