From my understanding, at least one other necessary component is dxvk, and that wine is not enough.
dxvk is not necessary but it massively improves game performance on a lot of games, also keep in mind some games will actually not run if you use dxvk, so you sometimes (very rarely) have to use OpenGL instead and the only way I really found to do that was to have a wine prefix without dxvk. (I might’ve just been stupid though)
for the record only games that I had to use open GL for so far was Starcraft 2’s Galaxy Editor (although the actual game itself runs fine with dxvk) and I had some problems with alt tabbing in really old versions of Warcraft 3 (1.27 and older)
Anyway, for a time I used Lutris a bit but now I always run wine through terminal because Lutris was great when it worked but there were seemingly no solutions for when it didn’t (while running wine directly has never given me a problem).
And what’s great with running wine directly through the terminal is that either it will run and you’re good or you’ll get some error messages saying that some .dll or whatever is missing (usually .net, visual studio, msvcr100+.dll, mscvcp100+.dll, ms*.dll, etc.) and you just use winetricks and go through the list until you find what you need.
for example when I play Need For Speed Most Wanted 2005 I start it with this command: WINEDLLOVERRIDES="dinput8=n,b" wine speed.exe
another thing is sometimes you want to run games with some arguments, for instance before I got XCOM 2 on Steam and used AML I used to run it with this: wine XCom2.exe -noRedScreens -review
Now here’s a pretty big caveat, which is that I use FISH instead of Bash which adds some big QoL improvements (in this case it’s mainly about tab completion).
If I actually had to manually type in the commands or spend minutes going through history file every time I would never do it.
Although I suppose you could make an alias for each game.
Oh yeah and always run the games from the same directory as their .exe file is located in, more often than not it won’t work if you just do wine /path/to/directory/game.exe instead of cd /path/to/directory && wine game.exe
Edit: some typos, and I just want to note that the && aren’t supposed to include the amp; parts
If you don’t mind me asking, how would one go about diagnosing why a game/mod doesn’t work?
Specifically im working on nitrox for subnautica, which does some DLL funkery - but has reports of users getting it working on older editions, and radio silence for the later. I figured out from a reddit post that a ribbon.DLL was needed, to even boo the launcher (and the error code was pretty descriptive about it). Once it’s added the launcher doesn’t ever actually launch the game though, and the console is pretty radio silent about it all.
Again ignore all this if youre unsure/busy, but any tips are appreciated!
Why a game (unmodded) doesn’t work will usually be pretty obvious just from the errors you get
I might’ve just been lucky, but so far the only time I had to look up a fix was for battle.net launcher, which ever since a while back has to be done after every update.
But when it comes to mods it can be a lot trickier, and I don’t really have a general purpose solution. Hopefully the game is popular enough that someone else has a guide on what to do.
I’ve never played subnautica so I don’t know, but if the mods have their own modified DLLs then you’re probably supposed to use DLLOVERRIDES, so maybe WINEDLLOVERRIDES="ribbon=n,b" since it’s called ribbon.dll
Some other issues I’ve had with modding is that the mod might expect the game to be in a certain directory or for directories to have certain names or there might be some problem because Windows isn’t case sensitive while Linux is.
Honestly the mods are generally not causing issues from my experience, it’s the mod loaders and what not.
I don’t have a lot of experience with this, but if you want more logs, you can try upping the WINEDEBUG debug channel: https://wiki.winehq.org/Debug_Channels
I had some problems with alt tabbing in really old versions of Warcraft 3 (1.27 and older)
Have you tried Gamescope? I experienced similar issues with a lot of older visual novels. Gamescope was the cure-all for windowing issues like this. That said, if WineD3D works better than DXVK for the game, there’s not much reason to look into it.
dxvk is not necessary but it massively improves game performance on a lot of games, also keep in mind some games will actually not run if you use dxvk, so you sometimes (very rarely) have to use OpenGL instead and the only way I really found to do that was to have a wine prefix without dxvk. (I might’ve just been stupid though)
for the record only games that I had to use open GL for so far was Starcraft 2’s Galaxy Editor (although the actual game itself runs fine with dxvk) and I had some problems with alt tabbing in really old versions of Warcraft 3 (1.27 and older)
Anyway, for a time I used Lutris a bit but now I always run wine through terminal because Lutris was great when it worked but there were seemingly no solutions for when it didn’t (while running wine directly has never given me a problem).
And what’s great with running wine directly through the terminal is that either it will run and you’re good or you’ll get some error messages saying that some .dll or whatever is missing (usually .net, visual studio, msvcr100+.dll, mscvcp100+.dll, ms*.dll, etc.) and you just use winetricks and go through the list until you find what you need.
One more thing that took a while for me to learn was that some games (if you’re using mods) will need to be run along with
WINEDLLOVERRIDESenvironment variable https://wiki.winehq.org/Wine_User’s_Guide#WINEDLLOVERRIDES.3DDLL_Overridesfor example when I play Need For Speed Most Wanted 2005 I start it with this command:
WINEDLLOVERRIDES="dinput8=n,b" wine speed.exeanother thing is sometimes you want to run games with some arguments, for instance before I got XCOM 2 on Steam and used AML I used to run it with this:
wine XCom2.exe -noRedScreens -reviewNow here’s a pretty big caveat, which is that I use FISH instead of Bash which adds some big QoL improvements (in this case it’s mainly about tab completion).
If I actually had to manually type in the commands or spend minutes going through history file every time I would never do it.
Although I suppose you could make an alias for each game.
Oh yeah and always run the games from the same directory as their .exe file is located in, more often than not it won’t work if you just do
wine /path/to/directory/game.exeinstead ofcd /path/to/directory && wine game.exeEdit: some typos, and I just want to note that the && aren’t supposed to include the
amp;partsIf you don’t mind me asking, how would one go about diagnosing why a game/mod doesn’t work?
Specifically im working on nitrox for subnautica, which does some DLL funkery - but has reports of users getting it working on older editions, and radio silence for the later. I figured out from a reddit post that a ribbon.DLL was needed, to even boo the launcher (and the error code was pretty descriptive about it). Once it’s added the launcher doesn’t ever actually launch the game though, and the console is pretty radio silent about it all.
Again ignore all this if youre unsure/busy, but any tips are appreciated!
Why a game (unmodded) doesn’t work will usually be pretty obvious just from the errors you get
I might’ve just been lucky, but so far the only time I had to look up a fix was for battle.net launcher, which ever since a while back has to be done after every update.
https://old.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/yairmz/battlenet_fails_to_start_with_this_application/ituht4u/
But when it comes to mods it can be a lot trickier, and I don’t really have a general purpose solution. Hopefully the game is popular enough that someone else has a guide on what to do.
I’ve never played subnautica so I don’t know, but if the mods have their own modified DLLs then you’re probably supposed to use
DLLOVERRIDES, so maybeWINEDLLOVERRIDES="ribbon=n,b"since it’s called ribbon.dllSome other issues I’ve had with modding is that the mod might expect the game to be in a certain directory or for directories to have certain names or there might be some problem because Windows isn’t case sensitive while Linux is.
Honestly the mods are generally not causing issues from my experience, it’s the mod loaders and what not.
Amazing, I’ll give all this a shot!
I don’t have a lot of experience with this, but if you want more logs, you can try upping the
WINEDEBUGdebug channel: https://wiki.winehq.org/Debug_ChannelsHave you tried Gamescope? I experienced similar issues with a lot of older visual novels. Gamescope was the cure-all for windowing issues like this. That said, if WineD3D works better than DXVK for the game, there’s not much reason to look into it.