howto: get SBCG4AP 101 (demo and full game) running on Linux
Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People episodes 101 and 102 howto: get them running in Linux
by demonfoo and tremby
the commands in this howto (and some of the files linked) are specific to Ubuntu Hardy Heron. a similar procedure should work for other distros, though.
to install the second episode, make sure you run the installer in your SBCG4AP environment:
to install the third, do the same stuff as for the second, but the link command will be a tad different:
by demonfoo and tremby
the commands in this howto (and some of the files linked) are specific to Ubuntu Hardy Heron. a similar procedure should work for other distros, though.
- install Wine 1.1.3 or later
- if you haven't already, add WineHQ's repository to your package manager. (instructions from WineHQ)
- add the repository's key so packages can be authenticated by running
wget -q http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/387EE263.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add - - add the repository to the list of sources by running
sudo wget http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/sources.list.d/hardy.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq.list - refresh your package list by running
sudo apt-get update
- add the repository's key so packages can be authenticated by running
- install or upgrade Wine by running
sudo apt-get install wine
- if you haven't already, add WineHQ's repository to your package manager. (instructions from WineHQ)
- install IEs4Linux
- first we need cabextract and tar. we'll get the MS fonts while we're at it. install them by running
sudo apt-get install cabextract tar msttcorefonts - then download and extract IEs4Linux by running
wget http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/downloads/ies4linux-latest.tar.gz -O- | tar zx - move into the IEs4Linux directory by running
cd ies4linux-* - load the installer by running
it'll complain on the command line that you're running an old version of Wine, but it's lying../ies4linux - install it. the default options are fine for the purposes of this howto, but since i'm a web developer i install IE7 too by clicking "advanced" and then checking IE7's box. close the installer when it's done.
- move back out of the IEs4Linux directory by running
cd ..
- first we need cabextract and tar. we'll get the MS fonts while we're at it. install them by running
- set up Wine for SBCG4AP and install the game
- copy the WINEPREFIX ("drive C") for IE6 to make one for SBCG4AP which has IE6 installed by running
cp -a ~/.ies4linux/ie6 ~/.wine_sbcg4ap - download the Homestar Ruiner demo installer with your browser (i'll assume to your desktop) or by running
wget http://www.telltalegames.com/demo/homestarruiner -O ~/Desktop/homestarruinerdemo.exe - start the installer by running
env WINEPREFIX=$HOME/.wine_sbcg4ap WINEDLLOVERRIDES="rpcrt4,ole32,d3d9=b" wine ~/Desktop/homestarruinerdemo.exe - follow its instructions. the default paths are fine, and be sure to answer "yes" to the question about installing DirectX. uncheck "Play now" when it's done and click "Finish". then you can delete the installer if you like by selecting it and hitting delete or running
rm ~/Desktop/homestarruinerdemo.exe - set up Wine for this WINEPREFIX (and therefore the game)
- run the Wine config tool with the game's WINEPREFIX by running
env WINEPREFIX=$HOME/.wine_sbcg4ap winecfg - on the "Applications" tab, set the Windows version to Windows XP
- on the Audio tab, say OK to the box telling you to edit your audio settings and it will set some defaults. check they make sense.
- add DLL overrides. to do this, go to the "Libraries" tab and add each of the following:
- d3d9
- ole32
- rpcrt4
- for each of the overrides above, click its entry in the list of "Existing overrides" and click "Edit". choose "Built-in (Wine)" from the menu and click OK.
- optional (do this if you're having problems with the game screen or just want to run in a window): on the "Graphics" tab, check "Emulate a virtual desktop" and enter the resolution you want.
- click "Apply" and then "Close"
- run the Wine config tool with the game's WINEPREFIX by running
- copy the WINEPREFIX ("drive C") for IE6 to make one for SBCG4AP which has IE6 installed by running
- start the game
double click the launcher, enter your My Telltale login information (if asked) and then click on the green area at right about the level of Strong Bad's feet; unfortunately the image that should be there doesn't appear.
to install the second episode, make sure you run the installer in your SBCG4AP environment:
env WINEPREFIX=$HOME/.wine_sbcg4ap wine ~/Desktop/Strong_Badia_the_Free_setup.exe
ln -s "../Episode 1 - Homestar Ruiner/d3dx9_27.dll" ~/.wine_sbcg4ap/drive_c/"Program Files/Telltale Games/Strong Bad/Episode 2 - Strong Badia the Free/"
to install the third, do the same stuff as for the second, but the link command will be a tad different:
ln -s "../Episode 1 - Homestar Ruiner/d3dx9_27.dll" ~/.wine_sbcg4ap/drive_c/"Program Files/Telltale Games/Strong Bad/Episode 3 - Baddest of the Bands/"
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Comments
Edit: I've uploaded Ubuntu hardy/amd64 packages. I can bootstrap other distros for packaging as well.
regarding the /desktop args -- i wondered about that since you had it the opposite way to how i've always done it. i just tested and it works (resoulution is set) the way i typed it above (title,resolution) and not the other way around.
the desktop gets resized when the system call to change resolution is handled, though, so when playing SBCG4AP it'll get resized to whatever you set in the game settings.
Thanks for giving such detailed information and solutions! However I must call on you once again - thought hte game is running, I can get no sound. The Test Sound button in WINE config seems to work okay though, oddly.
This may be related to sound problems elsewhere on my PC though (Ubuntu Heron), with games such as Supertux not having sound either (and crashing when I exit them).
Thanks for the help.
if you've definitely done that, i don't know what to suggest. you could try loading wineconfig again (run it with the command shown in the instructions above so that it affects your SBCG4AP WINEPREFIX) and experimenting with other settings on the "Audio" tab. mine's set to ALSA, with acceleration on full, sample rate at 48kHz and sample size 16. the driver emulation box isn't ticked. i've got a fairly old Soundblaster card.
As tremby mentions, it's *critical* that you set Wine (at least for the WINEPREFIX you're using for SBCG4AP) to pretend to be Windows XP - if you use Windows Vista like you would for the Sam and Max titles, you'll get no sound (apparently the sound library used for the game has some Vista-specific features, and if the object for those Vista-specific bits isn't present, it just shuts audio off entirely). I left audio at full acceleration in the winecfg settings, and didn't have to enable the Driver Emulation option; you might try tweaking one or both if you're using Windows XP compatibility mode and still not getting audio though.
This also fixed all audio/crashing issues in other games.
HOWEVER! Upon starting the game, I now notice that Strong Bad's eyes are missing.
i've seen the eyes disappearing issue mentioned in other threads -- it's probably a common bug with certain hardware, whether you use Wine or Windows. most likely your graphics card. what graphics card do you have, and which driver are you using?
But this is in Wine, on Linux... and Sam and Max seasons 1 and 2 worked perfectly for me (in Vista compat mode). But anyway, it's mostly irrelevant, now that we've found the right incantations.
Pulling this out of a hat and likely wrong to why Wine is acting different. That is the tech difference with Strong Bad and the rest of the others.
But then why would audio work fine when pretending to be XP and not Vista? As I mentioned in the previous thread, when running in Vista compat mode, it attempted to access an OLE object that, according to the research I did, was related to volume controls (I *think* per-app volume control, one of the new features in Vista), and after doing that, audio didn't work; it doesn't do that in XP compat mode, and audio plays perfectly. I think it's something in the sound engine you're using in the new game executables - just my own guess based on past experience.
Dua, I keep forgetting that Strong Bad is also our first Windows release using FMOD. We've done it for Sam & Max Wii, but this is the first publicly consumed Windows release.
That's about all the lead I can give you. This is beyond my realm.
Just so you know what's going on, we require the 'Aug 2005' DirectX package, but the eyes bug seems to be fixed for most people who have 'Dec 2006' or 'Feb 2006' packages in their installs. If you want the DLL file names:
d3dx9_27.dll - Aug 2005 - Required
d3dx9_28.dll - Dec 2005
d3dx9_29.dll - Feb 2006
I have no idea what Wine allows you to go up to for DirectX 9, but hopefully this information helps. I should also note that no version of DirectX 10 will help as that's a completely different mode to run DirectX.
The executable first looks for the DX DLLs at the same folder the EXE lives, then looks in the SYSTEM32 folder.
didn't get the "no eyes" in the five minutes that i just played, but then again i've only seen it for a total of about 20 seconds on my machine.
Edit: The above statement has held thus far - no reoccurrences of the "disappearing eyes" problem thus far with Wine 1.1.3.
edit 2: And it fails. For the first time in many attempts, Strong Bad's eyes are missing again. Oh well...
I just cannot get passed that initial screen requesting the username and password information to get started. Even if I say to go directly to the demo, it just shows the screen with Strong Bad and Homestar, but just gray to their left where the menu is supposed to go. I followed all the instructions to the letter, having had to delete wine and ies4linux a couple of times just to get them going in the right order (it's all OK since I got to this point).
When I try to log in it says:
"Sorry, we weren't able to log you in. If you're connected to the internet, please use your serial number instead. Otherwise please go to the manual unlock tab and follow the instructions for offline activation"
I've uploaded a screenshot, so you'll know what I mean by "gray." I think there is supposed to be a menu there. Could it have something to do with my settings with ie? ie seems to work fine (though I haven't tested it much other than the welcome screen). I am on a 64 bit system if that makes a difference, so of course flash and such is a pain in firefox itself. Can that be a problem here?
*EDIT - The posted image is what I see after clicking "take me to the demo" or whatever that button was. The above still holds for the "sorry we weren't able... etc."
your Firefox/Flash/64-bit stuff shouldn't be an issue.
I tried that, and it sends me to a "the page cannot be displayed." I've posted another screenshot. It still seems a bit ominous that I cannot get in with the registration information anyway.
Let me give you some more background as to my history in attempting to run this game in linux.
I had wine 1.1.1 and for all intents and purposes, I've been able to run almost anything with it. I tried using it when I installed (blindly) sbcg4ap at first, and of course it didn't work. So that's when I began to scour through the internet and stumbled upon this thread. I subsequently deleted the folder (first also uninstalled the game using the uninstaller app) and installed ies4linux. Seemed to have trouble with the gui installation, but I finally got it to run. I then continued to follow the instructions and still with no avail.
So I broke down and installed the new version of wine (1.1.4, after removing 1.1.1 of course) and started the process all over, but kept the first ies4linux. No avail. I then tore everything down and started from scratch (deleted the ~/.ies4linux folder ~/.wine_sbcg4ap and any other remnants I could find, though I think that's about it). I installed ies4linux and sbcg4ap still following the instructions and finally got to the point where I could see the splash screen asking for the information input. That's what puts us now where I currently am.
I'm thinking there might be something wrong with the settings in IE6 to connect to the internet, or something to that effect. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. Thanks!
I don't know if that has anything to do with it, but can you just confirm the order in which you indeed installed the game and configured the files? I've tried a lot of things, but nothing seems to get me past my problem area. Thanks for the help.
am i getting this right that you have paid for the game but are unable to log in to unlock it? i've never seen the various splash screens on a Windows machine and so don't know the order in which they're supposed to come up. i'm also not clear on what logging in is compared to entering a serial number, and i've no idea where you might find the "manual unlock tab" which you mentioned was in the message when you couldn't log in.
potentially a stupid question, but just a thought: you're sure you're using the right login info? (though if you're getting other 404s it's no surprise it can't check your info.)
... that would have been everything. the registry, configuration and filesystem for a particular WINEPREFIX are all stored within its directory.
i never had to change any IE6 settings. maybe you'd have to if you use a proxy, though...?
load up IE6 -- not from whatever launcher ies4linux may have given you but rather from SBCG4AP's Wine directory -- by running and ensure you can get to other websites, just to be sure that IE within the game's WINEPREFIX isn't the problem.
... i definitely did it in the order i gave. that wasn't by design, actually -- i hadn't thought about what effect the emulation mode would have on the installer.
i've never actually been 100% convinced about installing the DirectX files -- we're overriding the installed d3d8 and d3d9 DLLs with Wine's built-in ones. maybe demonfoo can elaborate on how installing it helps -- i seem to recall him mentioning that it puts something else we need in place. perhaps whatever that is is not Windows-version-specific and so setting the compatibility mode before installing isn't necessary.
I just reinstalled SBCG4AP to a separate tree to verify for myself - the d3dx9_27.dll file *does not* get installed unless you let the DirectX updater run. Without that file, SBCG4AP will *fail* to run. It is very important that it's allowed to run, otherwise Wine will fail to run it at all, due to not being able to link d3dx9_27.dll into the runtime image.
while i was at it, i tried switching off some of the other overrides, setting each back to "native" (which was set by ies4linux), and the d3d8 one needn't be builtin. i've updated the howto.
but then i tried removing all the overrides, thus using only the builtin Wine ones and, after installing Gecko, i got just a white page with "Click here to run the game". clicked that and the game starts up, and seems to be fine. interesting, but i'm not sure if it's useful, given that logging in is necessary at some point.
OOOHHH. Interesting thought. I tried that and guess what? Didn't work! That could be the root cause of my problem. Looks like ies4linux isn't able to access the internet within the WINEPREFIX of SBCG4AP. This being the case... it might not be a flash/graphics issue as I originally thought (since I couldn't see the options the game claimed to have.) ies4linux work on their own and I do not use a proxy (never really bothered to learn how they work or for what purpose), only a firewall with a static IP. I can easily change it to DHCP for the time being. I just need to know what the forwarding settings for wine are or what settings need to be changed to allow ies4linux to access the internet within that prefix.
demonfoo is right in his explanation. Though it looks like that part went off without a hitch for me. Thanks for pointing out the problem with the ies4linux, though. I thought it was something like that, though I wasn't sure in what context to place it under.
Yup... it's the internet connection problem with that prefix. Where to go from here? Thanks for the help!
I'm running SimplyMEPIS 7.0 and using the native guarddog application for a firewall connection. It never does anything to inhibit access to the internet and I can connect using the launcher for ies4linux. I just cannot connect to the internet when running the ies4linux in the WINEPREFIX for SBCG4AP.
I tried disabling the firewall just now and even tried using DHCP instead of my static IP, with no avail. The problem lies somewhere in how the prefix is defined for SBCG4AP and how that is affecting my connection.
step 3-1 in the first post of the thread copies the whole of IE6's Wine environment (ies4linux makes separate environments (WINEPREFIXes) for each IE it installs) to start your SBCG4AP environment.
if you've done that right, running IE6 from the SBCG4AP environment should act no differently whatsoever from running IE6 from the IE6 environment, regardless of any firewall settings.
just so we're sure, can you try these in turn:
since you've told your SBCG4AP environment to use a virtual desktop, the only difference should be that the second runs in a window. a few other things are different (the things you set up in 3-5) but none of these should make a difference to IE.
if the first works (you can access the web) and the second doesn't, i can't think of any explanation except that you've done something wrong in the step i mentioned.
just in case you're not clear, that's (it doesn't like the work path being a directory other than its own, so you need to be in its dir first)
you could send all output to a file to attach by running
and then attach sbcg4apoutput.txt, which will be in your home directory.