Full Wallace & Gromit on WINE?

[Kjella]

Anyone got the first episode of W&G working under WINE? I've got both Sam & Max and Strong Bad working, but when trying to activate W&G I just get thrown back to the serial prompt again. Using WINE 1.1.17, tried both with and without native DX9... I hope to get these working because they usually run wtih a Platinum rating once they get going.

[demonfoo]

I'm running into the same problem. I'll poke at it once I have some more time, but off the top of my head I'm not seeing the problem. Tried with IE6 as installed by ies4linux; unfortunately it doesn't even present the splash screen completely.

[demonfoo]

Wow. Talk about dirty hacks. However, I have managed to get the game itself going; the launcher screen doesn't work correctly even with IE6, like with previous titles, and using the Gecko fake-IE stuff doesn't work, since as mentioned, inputting the serial number and clicking the button just loops back to an empty field. However, I have managed to get it working, and the game itself does launch and run successfully. This is ugly, but it works:

1. Get and install a reasonably modern version of Wine; I'm currently using Wine 1.1.17 on Ubuntu intrepid (x86_64).
2. Get and install ies4linux as directed on this page. When the installer window appears, click the "Advanced" button, and check the box to install IE7. It says it's in beta state; that's fine. Let the installation go. Python may crash at the end, but it doesn't matter.
3. Download the Wallace and Gromit Episode 1 installer.
4. Run the following commands:
   

   rsync -a ~/.ies4linux/ie7/ ~/.wine_wgga/
   WINEPREFIX=~/.wine_wgga winecfg

   Once the winecfg window appears, do the following:
   • Go to the Applications tab, and make sure "Windows XP" is selected as the Windows Version.
   • Go to the Libraries tab. Add entries for rpcrt4, ole32, and d3d9, and edit each one to force use of the Wine built-in library.
   • Go to the Graphics tab. Check the "Emulate a virtual desktop" checkbox, and enter dimensions of 1024x768 (or 800x600, if your display isn't large enough to accommodate the window).
   • Go to the Audio tab. When winecfg tells you no driver has been selected, click OK.
   • Then click OK in the main window, it will save its new settings and exit.
5. Now run (replacing the path as appropriate to point to wherever you downloaded the installer):
   

   WINEPREFIX=~/.wine_wgga wine ~/Desktop/Downloads/WallaceGromit101_setup.exe

   When the installer asks if you want to run the DirectX updater, make sure you choose NO. If you choose Yes, the dxwebsetup program will crash and leave you with a half-finished install, so I'm really serious about this. Uncheck the box to launch the game now, and the installer will exit.
6. Once the install is done, run:
   

   cd ~/.wine_wgga/drive_c/Program\ Files/Telltale\ Games/Wallace\ and\ Gromits\ Grand\ Adventures/Fright\ of\ the\ Bumblebees
   WINEPREFIX=~/.wine_wgga wine ./WallaceGromit101.exe

   The game launcher will appear. Sort of. You should get a white window with a prompt to enter your serial number. You won't be able to use the handy-dandy paste, so key in your serial number by hand, then click the button below (which probably has an empty label, so it's just a gray small rectangle). Let it sit for a moment. You'll probably see Wine pumping out warnings in the terminal window; unfortunately it does this. Once a minute or so has passed, press Ctrl-C in the terminal window.
7. Now, start Wine again with the same command line as above:
   

   WINEPREFIX=~/.wine_wgga wine ./WallaceGromit101.exe

   You should now see a link that says "Click here to start the game". Click it. You should now see the opening animation.

Yes, yes, I know. That was ugly. Sorry. But it does work...

Also, you won't be able to switch resolutions; or at least, I haven't been able to. When I get into the game, and go into the Settings panel, it is locked at 1024x768, and I'm not able to change that. Changing the virtual desktop resolution doesn't help either, it still uses 1024x768. I have no idea why. This isn't technically a problem for me, as I have a dual display setup with fairly large screens, but for others it may present a problem. It doesn't seem to be isolated to Linux, though; I've seen threads from Windows users about video mode switching not working as well.

[Kjella]

Originally Posted by demonfoo

Wow. Talk about dirty hacks. However, I have managed to get the game itself going;

Why does it always have to be the launcher using some farked up MSHTML/Javascript stuff, meh.

Feature request if anyone could pass one to development: Ability to launch G&W with a "WallaceGromit101.exe --serial=XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX" and have it activate without using the splash screen. Cause: Linux compatibility. Should be very easy, parse the command line arguments and pass it to whereever the submitted serial number from the splash screen goes today.

[covox]

Geez. Props to demonfoo for finding a way around the MSHTML mess. I gave up early (ran Wireshark in the background, to find that clicking "Submit Query" didn't even try to connect to anything, then had a go with IE6 which made it crash).


For pedants like me who cringe at the thought of running crappy IE7 Wine for W&G, you can do the following steps to copy your registration over to your proper Wine install:

Do steps 1-5.

NOTE: For step 5, install WallaceGromit101_Setup.exe to your proper Wine install (i.e. omit the WINEPREFIX=~/.wine_wgga).

5a.) Open up regedit in your proper Wine install.

regedit

Export the key HKEY_LOCAL_USER/Software/SecuROM to a file (e.g. securom-source.reg). Close regedit.

5b.) Open up regedit in your crappy Wine install.

WINEPREFIX=~/.wine_wgga regedit

Import the key from securom-source.reg. Close regedit.

Do step 6. Remember that you installed W&G to your proper wine install, so cd to "~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Telltale\ Games/Wallace\ and\ Gromits\ Grand\ Adventures/Fright\ of\ the\ Bumblebees" instead.

6a.) Open up regedit in your crappy Wine install.

WINEPREFIX=~/.wine_wgga regedit

Export the key HKEY_LOCAL_USER/Software/SecuROM to a file (e.g. securom-target.reg).
Export the key HKEY_LOCAL_USER/Software/Telltale\ Games/Launcher to a file (e.g. launcher-target.reg). Close regedit.

6b.) Open up regedit in your proper Wine install.

regedit

Import the two files you just exported.

Wahey! You should now be able to run W&G from your proper Wine install, while keeping all the saved license data from your other registered Telltale games.

[GozzoMan]

Hi, thanks for the guides!

Anyone of you have tried gamepads? Do they work with this solution?

Furthermore and more to my point: do you think that running it in wine it could be a workaround to use gamepads not supported in windows due to the Xinput/DirectInput duality??

Thank you.

[Lazlo Woodbine]

I followed covox's solution to the letter, and got to the "click here to start the game" message, but after clicking it Wine aborts with the following message:

wine: Call from 0x7b844430 to unimplemented function d3dx9_36.dll.D3DXAssembleShader, aborting

Can anybody help?

I'm running Wine 1.1.17 on Ubuntu 8.10 64bit

[demonfoo]

Originally Posted by Lazlo Woodbine

I followed covox's solution to the letter, and got to the "click here to start the game" message, but after clicking it Wine aborts with the following message:

wine: Call from 0x7b844430 to unimplemented function d3dx9_36.dll.D3DXAssembleShader, aborting

Can anybody help?

I'm running Wine 1.1.17 on Ubuntu 8.10 64bit

That looks like the message you'd get if d3dx9_27.dll isn't installed in the game executable directory. In the Wine prefix where you're trying to run the game, does that DLL exist in the directory where the WallaceGromit101.exe file lives? If not, copy it in and try to run the game again. (Unfortunately Wine apparently hasn't fully implemented a replacement for the D3DXAssembleShader function.)

[Lazlo Woodbine]

Thanks, that was it. Everything seems to be working now.

I'm also able to run it in fullscreen mode too, which is nice.

[Leak]

Originally Posted by demonfoo

Unfortunately Wine apparently hasn't fully implemented a replacement for the D3DXAssembleShader function.

Considering that function is running the full shader compiler I can't say I'm surprised - it's a wee bit more complex than just wrapping some existing OpenGL functionality...

np: Harmonic 313 - Quadrant 3 (When Machines Exceed Human Intelligence)

[DarthBo]

I just found out activation works without any hacks whatsoever on (the older but stable) wine 1.0.1

Anyway, there's a bugreport for the Wallace & Gromit activation here: http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=17883

If you guys want to see it fixed, give it a vote!
The more votes, the more attention it'll get (some extra terminal outputs wouldn't hurt either I think)