Howto: World of Warcraft – Wrath of the Lich King (WoW – WotLK) Beta running on wine

OVERVIEW

its just e beta so everything can change quickly, and not everything works

WHAT WORKS: most things like in the 2.4 Version
WHAT WORKS WITH A WORKAROUND: Deathknight Quest line (when using the Eye) -> see Workarounds below
WHAT DOES NOT WORK:

• Slow Mouse when using opengl
• MAJOR memory leak during the installation
• Shadows under d3d engine screw transparency of models up (switch to opengl engine to work around)
• Shadows with shadow-level above 4 (nvidia 8600 gts tested) blank the screen out
• Screenfog blanks the screen out (switch to d3d engine to work around)
• Installer fails to activate the agree button on EULA (install ies4linux to work around – bug #13321)
• Compiz + Wine = major fps drop and screen redraw problem, use metacity (run metacity –replace from console)

TESTED ON: Kubuntu Hardy 8.04 x86_64, Wine 1.12, nvidia closed drivers
WHAT WAS NOT TESTED: OSS, Window Mode, Ingame Communications

Step 1: Install Wine

Get the most recent Wine from the wine-site (wine in the repos is old)

wget -q http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/387EE263.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Next, add the repository to your system’s list of APT sources: For Ubuntu Hardy (8.04): (goto http://www.winehq.org/site/download for other versions/distros)

sudo wget http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/sources.list.d/hardy.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq.list

Install wine:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install wine

Run winecfg to create necessary ~/.wine directory and set ALSA as sound output

winecfg

Step 2: Install Wow

you can now install World of Warcraft, choose your preferred method:

• 1. copy from windows (smb share or ntfs mount)
• 2. install form cd (wine d:\install.exe) (very slow)
• 3. download install files from http://www.wow-europe.com/en/burningcrusade/download/ (slow)

After the install, you have to tweak your config.wtf:

nano  ~/.wine/drive_c/Programme/World of Warcraft/WTF/Config.wtf

and add the following values at the end of the file:

SET SoundBufferSize “200″
SET gxApi “opengl”
SET ffxDeath “0″
SET ffxDeath “0″
SET gxResolution “800×600″

start Wow:

wine “C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\WoW.exe” (default install path)

or

wine WoW.exe (from installed dir)

Done

if you get a “Segmentation Fault” when starting WoW, you have to reinstall your closed source drivers, or update to the most recent, something like that:

sudo sh NVIDIA-177.run

Additional Stuff / Troubleshooting & Workarounds

Black Screen (except UI)

If you get a Black Screen during Quests (which uses Screen frog like the Deathknight Quest line when you have to use the eye), you have to switch to d3d for that part, so do:

close Wow
start wow with -d3d option:

wine path-to-wow-wotlk/WoW.exe -d3d

do the quest part, after that shutdown wow again and now use -opengl instead of -d3d to restart your wow

When you use compiz:

run from console to fix the huge FPS drop:

metacity –replace

to shutdown compiz and run metacity

Registry Tweak

There is also e Registry Tweak, but not tested if this is still required:

Open a Terminal and type

regedit

and follow this steps:

1. Find HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\
2. Highlight the wine folder in the left hand pane by left clicking on it. The icon should change to an open folder.
3. Click right on the wine folder and select [NEW] then [KEY].
4. Replace the text “New Key #1″ with OpenGL (CaSe Sensitive).
5. Right click in the right hand pane and select [NEW] then [String Value].
6. Replace “New Value #1″ with “DisabledExtensions” (CaSe sensitive).
7. Then double click anywhere on the line, a dialog box will open.
8. In the value field type “GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object” (without the quotes).

related links https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WorldofWarcraft http://www.wowwiki.com/Linux/Wine http://www.wowwiki.com/Linux/Wine/Troubleshooting http://de.gentoo-wiki.com/Wine_World_Of_Warcraft