Bard's Tale Trilogy in Wine?

[astrobryguy]

Has anyone successfully gotten the trilogy to run under Wine on macOS? I was under to run the installer under Wine 3.13 (couldn't use Wineskin, since it only supports 32-bit apps), but the game has so far failed to run (lots of Direct3D errors)

If anyone has had success, please share any tips & tricks here.

Thanks!

[shmerl]

I'm going to try it shortly, using Wine and dxvk on Linux (the game is using DX11). Just finished building fresh Mesa with llvm 7 snapshot and fresh dxvk. Now just building Wine (not strictly necessary, but I do it just for the fun of it). The Mesa step is necessary though for AMD cards. DXVK doesn't work well with llvm 6.0.

I'll report the result

[shmerl]

Hm, it fails with dxvk with these errors:

Code: Select all

info:  D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Probing D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_1
info:  D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Probing D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_0
info:  D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Using feature level D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_0
warn:  D3D11DeviceContainer::QueryInterface: Unknown interface query
warn:  9d06dffa-d1e5-4d07-83a8-1bb123f2f841
warn:  D3D11DeviceContext::QueryInterface: Unknown interface query
warn:  420d5b32-b90c-4da4-bef0-359f6a24a83a
warn:  D3D11DeviceContainer::QueryInterface: Unknown interface query
warn:  6007896c-3244-4afd-bf18-a6d3beda5023
err:   D3D11Device: CheckFeatureSupport: Unknown feature: 14

[shmerl]

Reported it here: https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/issues/561

[shmerl]

I think I know what happened. There is a delay in the beginning, so I minimized Wine fullscreen window, and after restoration - it's black and nothing works. If I don't minimize it, it works OK.

[shmerl]

Here is the result of game running in Wine + dxvk on Linux (Debian testing):

[shmerl]

Setting virtual desktop to screen resolution in Wine settings works around focus loss mess.

[shmerl]

@astrobryguy: since you are using MacOS, you'll need to figure out how to enable Vulkan in Wine. Wine recently enabeld using MoltenVK for MacOS to translate Vulkan into Metal API. You need to make sure you have Wine built with Vulkan + MoltenVK enabled. After that you'll need to build dxvk and install it for your prefix.

Not sure though if the game is using any features like tesselation. While Vulkan supports it, MoltenVK so far does not, so it's a limitation. In general, you'll have better experience with Wine on Linux than on MacOS.

[thom_bardstale]

Can I join you guys in this thread?
I'm trying to run the Remaster in wine as well. Ubuntu 16.04, Gnome3, wine 3.13 staging, Nvidia card GTX 750 Ti.
I got an error on install (something about buffer overflow, I think), but the game starts, sorta. Only the first screen shows, with the copyright and all that. After that, just a black screen with a mouse cursor (a hand). I can even blind-click on what's apparently the Exit button to close the game down.

Game runs in emulated desktop, same size as my screen (or smaller, tried both), added d3dx11_43 through winetricks, nothing helps.
Not sure about the dxvk you guys are toying with, that's new to me. Would I need that? I never touched the whole Vulkan stuff.

[thom_bardstale]

For me, despite trying hard, I can't get the graphics to load right, just black screens. Tried d3dx11 via winetricks, emulated desktop, nothing (wine 3.13 staging)
Do I need that dxvk stuff? I never touched that Vulkan topic, never needed it so far.

[shmerl]

Yes, dxvk is necessary to play it. You can learn more about it here: https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk

winetricks also allows installing it now.

[thom_bardstale]

Well, rats. My Ubuntu 16.04 only supports nvidia 384.130.
I guess I'll upgrade to 18.04 a bit sooner then, that was kinda my plan anyway. Thanks a lot.

[Khael]

For 16.04 users: you can use this ppa for display drivers:
https://launchpad.net/~graphics-drivers ... ubuntu/ppa
I've managed to run the game with dxvk with these drivers(396.51), but some text is missing(notably the text in "legacy" menu). I have not played much to say anything else.
Also, for me Wine often starts unity games on secondary monitor(not the one set as main in nvidia-settings). It is solvable by either using wine-staging or manually moving the window(alt+enter) to the required display(and then alt+enter again to go fullscreen).

[shmerl]

Also, for me Wine often starts unity games on secondary monitor(not the one set as main in nvidia-settings).

Heh, I didn't realize the remaster is using Unity, I thought it's some custom engine. I checked it now, and it's Unity indeed.

It also means that Linux and MacOS versions should be relatively easy to make.

[thom_bardstale]

For 16.04 users: you can use this ppa for display drivers:
https://launchpad.net/~graphics-drivers ... ubuntu/ppa
I've managed to run the game with dxvk with these drivers(396.51), but some text is missing(notably the text in "legacy" menu). I have not played much to say anything else.
Also, for me Wine often starts unity games on secondary monitor(not the one set as main in nvidia-settings). It is solvable by either using wine-staging or manually moving the window(alt+enter) to the required display(and then alt+enter again to go fullscreen).

Wow, thanks. That did it, I can now play BTR, all good and proper. Much obliged, Sir. (Of course I am now off to update my OS to 18.4, but that's just the crazy Linux-geek in me )

[Valien]

The other option for OSX users if you have Steam and a PC you can stream. I do that and it works fine. But does require Steam and a PC on top of OSX...

[astrobryguy]

Yes, dxvk is necessary to play it. You can learn more about it here: https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk

winetricks also allows installing it now.

Thanks. I've got Wine 3.13 - Development installed, which supports MoltenVK (I wish Apple would just support Vulkan - or contribute to the MoltenVK project so it was "super easy, barely an inconvenience" to convert Vulkan to Metal). So, I'll look at building dxvk and adding it in with winetricks. If it doesn't work, hopefully inXile and Krome will make a macOS build with Unity.

[shmerl]

So, I'll look at building dxvk and adding it in with winetricks. If it doesn't work, hopefully inXile and Krome will make a macOS build with Unity.

You don't need to build dxvk if you are using winetricks. It installs prebuilt binaries from Github.

[_Nicholas_]

As a non-programmer, this seems really complicated. What are the steps for a Mac OS X user to install this? There's so much cross-talk here about Linux, graphics drivers, etc, that I'm a bit confused. It's too bad that inXile didn't include some sort of instructions for Mac users (not to mention call out that this was a Windows-only port on their backer website).

[shmerl]

What are the steps for a Mac OS X user to install this?

You'd need to wait for @astrobryguy or anyone else trying to run it on MacOS in Wine to report if they succeeded. I don't have MacOS and only use Linux for gaming. Getting it to run on Linux in Wine is relatively easy.