Matrix Games Forums

 Forums  Register  Login  Photo Gallery  Member List  Search  Calendars  FAQ 

My Profile  Inbox  Address Book  My Subscription  My Forums  Log Out

Newbie Questions

 
View related threads: (in this forum | in all forums)

Logged in as: Guest
Users viewing this topic: none
  Printable Version
All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [World War II] >> Steel Panthers World At War & Mega Campaigns >> Newbie Questions Page: [1]
Login
Message << Older Topic   Newer Topic >>
Newbie Questions - 5/1/2021 12:57:26 AM   
DirtyHarri

 

Posts: 12
Joined: 4/22/2021
Status: offline
Hi folks,

I am new to the game and got the free game patched to v8.403 running in the Wine layer on a Linux machine.

Since I am considering to buy the commercial version, I'd like to know, wether there is a technical difference between the two games, besides the four mega campaigns. Especially regarding the video resolution. I got the free game scaled up to desktop resolution via the free DxWnd tool.

Kind regarnds
Post #: 1
RE: Newbie Questions - 5/1/2021 10:55:06 AM   
tomlowshang

 

Posts: 28
Joined: 5/22/2016
Status: offline 		Welcome, fellow Linux user.

The free and the commercial version have no technical differences. You are paying for the campaigns, essentially.

_____________________________

Wargaming live streams https://www.twitch.tv/tomlowshang

(in reply to DirtyHarri)
Post #: 2
RE: Newbie Questions - 5/1/2021 9:23:49 PM   
DirtyHarri

 

Posts: 12
Joined: 4/22/2021
Status: offline
Thank you for the welcome. :-D
I am glad that many of the technically not so state-of-the-art games work surprisingly well under Wine. Most glitches are minor and can be circumvented or don't spoil the fun.

(in reply to tomlowshang)
Post #: 3
RE: Newbie Questions - 5/1/2021 11:40:37 PM   
tomlowshang

 

Posts: 28
Joined: 5/22/2016
Status: offline 		SPWAW was the very first game that successfully ran on Wine for me. That was in 2004.

_____________________________

Wargaming live streams https://www.twitch.tv/tomlowshang

(in reply to DirtyHarri)
Post #: 4
RE: Newbie Questions - 5/2/2021 10:19:25 PM   
DirtyHarri

 

Posts: 12
Joined: 4/22/2021
Status: offline
Well, I believe it must have been Empire Deluxe Enhanced Edition many years ago in my case...

The only glitch I found so far is that the game completly freezes, when I try to show mission data by clicking the 'Mission' button in the Formation Selection menu, no matter if I want to create a random battle, edit a scenario, or buy formations at the start of a campaign.

(in reply to tomlowshang)
Post #: 5
RE: Newbie Questions - 5/2/2021 10:59:40 PM   
tomlowshang

 

Posts: 28
Joined: 5/22/2016
Status: offline 		I've never seen that problem. Does it happen without DxWnd?

_____________________________

Wargaming live streams https://www.twitch.tv/tomlowshang

(in reply to DirtyHarri)
Post #: 6
RE: Newbie Questions - 5/3/2021 2:27:56 PM   
DirtyHarri

 

Posts: 12
Joined: 4/22/2021
Status: offline
Yes, it happens nonetheless.

(in reply to tomlowshang)
Post #: 7
RE: Newbie Questions - 5/3/2021 3:16:37 PM   
tomlowshang

 

Posts: 28
Joined: 5/22/2016
Status: offline 		Which Wine version are you using?

_____________________________

Wargaming live streams https://www.twitch.tv/tomlowshang

(in reply to DirtyHarri)
Post #: 8
RE: Newbie Questions - 5/3/2021 5:36:41 PM   
DirtyHarri

 

Posts: 12
Joined: 4/22/2021
Status: offline
It's version 5.0.

(in reply to tomlowshang)
Post #: 9
RE: Newbie Questions - 5/3/2021 7:51:21 PM   
tomlowshang

 

Posts: 28
Joined: 5/22/2016
Status: offline 		That's old. Current stable is 6.0. You can get it here if it's not packaged for your distro yet. Try latest development release if the problem exists in current stable as well.

_____________________________

Wargaming live streams https://www.twitch.tv/tomlowshang

(in reply to DirtyHarri)
Post #: 10
RE: Newbie Questions - 5/3/2021 9:26:46 PM   
Red_L.E.D.


Posts: 37
Joined: 4/16/2020
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: DirtyHarri
The only glitch I found so far is that the game completly freezes, when I try to show mission data by clicking the 'Mission' button in the Formation Selection menu, no matter if I want to create a random battle, edit a scenario, or buy formations at the start of a campaign.


I can confirm this happening on Linux Wine environment in my testing. In this case it is Debian Buster with Wine version 4.0.

I will try to investigate more.

(in reply to DirtyHarri)
Post #: 11
RE: Newbie Questions - 5/3/2021 10:15:03 PM   
Red_L.E.D.


Posts: 37
Joined: 4/16/2020
Status: offline 		It's a curious thing as the process does not appear to be frozen. Music plays normally the mouse cursor just becomes unresponsive. This reminds the issue on Windows systems where hovering the mouse over the unit list while changing or fixing a unit in a campaign seems to cause a similar loss of input.

I wrote about that issue in this post:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4797045

But this new issue found does not happen on my Windows system. Additionally as tomlowshang points out it does not happen on his Linux/Wine 6.0 setup either. It's an interesting little puzzle to solve!

(in reply to Red_L.E.D.)
Post #: 12
RE: Newbie Questions - 5/3/2021 11:07:48 PM   
tomlowshang

 

Posts: 28
Joined: 5/22/2016
Status: offline 		It's a bug in Wine. I've had a few of them affect SPWaW over the years.

_____________________________

Wargaming live streams https://www.twitch.tv/tomlowshang

(in reply to Red_L.E.D.)
Post #: 13
RE: Newbie Questions - 5/4/2021 2:40:48 PM   
DirtyHarri

 

Posts: 12
Joined: 4/22/2021
Status: offline
Thanks for the info! I will upgrade wine when the next system general overhaul is due. Right now, I don't dare so, since atm. I have several other programs using the current config which I depend on. It's the only issue I have so far afterall.

(in reply to tomlowshang)
Post #: 14
RE: Newbie Questions - 5/4/2021 4:50:07 PM   
Red_L.E.D.


Posts: 37
Joined: 4/16/2020
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: tomlowshang

It's a bug in Wine. I've had a few of them affect SPWaW over the years.


I'm afraid it may not be so simple. Testing on VirtualBox running the same Debian and Wine 4.0 did not produce the mouse cursor lockup when clicking on the mission button. My bet is that it is another bug in mech.exe that only affects some systems.

(in reply to tomlowshang)
Post #: 15
RE: Newbie Questions - 5/4/2021 5:21:07 PM   
Red_L.E.D.


Posts: 37
Joined: 4/16/2020
Status: offline 		Well this is interesting... It would appear that the mission button works fine if I start the game using the console to navigate to the game folder and type in the command "wine mech.exe". If I try to run the game from a shortcut or double click on it in the file explorer the bug appears even if the shortcut is just a .sh batch file. Weird... Next step would be to try wine 6.0 and see if that makes a difference.

(in reply to Red_L.E.D.)
Post #: 16
RE: Newbie Questions - 5/4/2021 5:56:23 PM   
DirtyHarri

 

Posts: 12
Joined: 4/22/2021
Status: offline
Nice! I tried the same and it works. I also did it the other way around. I launched the wine session and executed the wine built-in command shell start.exe in c:\windows\command and then mech.exe. This also works. I guess it may then be some path issue.

(in reply to Red_L.E.D.)
Post #: 17
RE: Newbie Questions - 5/4/2021 6:31:53 PM   
tomlowshang

 

Posts: 28
Joined: 5/22/2016
Status: offline 		I don't remember exactly when Wine changed, but it now requires changing to the directory containing mech.exe. However, in my case mech.exe wouldn't start at all. Different versions of Wine can behave very differently. It's just the nature of open source.

_____________________________

Wargaming live streams https://www.twitch.tv/tomlowshang

(in reply to DirtyHarri)
Post #: 18
RE: Newbie Questions - 5/4/2021 7:24:32 PM   
Red_L.E.D.


Posts: 37
Joined: 4/16/2020
Status: offline 		OK, I got the game running properly from a desktop shorcut on Linux using the following parameters for my spwaw.desktop file:


[Desktop Entry]
Name=SPWaW
Exec=wine "C:\\Games\\Steel Panthers World At War\\mech.exe"
Path=/home/username/.wine/drive_c/Games/Steel Panthers World At War/
Icon=/home/username/Pictures/example.png
Type=Application
Categories=Wine;
Comment=
Terminal=true
StartupNotify=false


The critical entry here was "Terminal=true".

(in reply to tomlowshang)
Post #: 19
RE: Newbie Questions - 5/4/2021 7:53:47 PM   
tomlowshang

 

Posts: 28
Joined: 5/22/2016
Status: offline 		I don't use a DE or shortcuts so I would never have found this solution. I start everything from the command line via shell scripts.

< Message edited by tomlowshang -- 5/4/2021 9:23:07 PM >

_____________________________

Wargaming live streams https://www.twitch.tv/tomlowshang

(in reply to Red_L.E.D.)
Post #: 20
RE: Newbie Questions - 5/4/2021 8:49:39 PM   
DirtyHarri

 

Posts: 12
Joined: 4/22/2021
Status: offline 		Well, I use something in between, that is to say, a shell script I put on the desktop. To ensure it uses the terminal environment, the 'wine' command itself must be launched as an option by the terminal emulator (like 'xterm -e') to run it.

So I consider this one solved. Thank you, Gentlemen!

edit: Mixed up shell interpreter and terminal emulator stuff. Only the latter seems of relevance here.

< Message edited by DirtyHarri -- 5/6/2021 12:03:16 AM >

(in reply to tomlowshang)
Post #: 21
Page:   [1]
All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [World War II] >> Steel Panthers World At War & Mega Campaigns >> Newbie Questions Page: [1]
Jump to:





New Messages No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages Locked w/o New Messages
 Post New Thread
 Reply to Message
 Post New Poll
 Submit Vote
 Delete My Own Post
 Delete My Own Thread
 Rate Posts


Forum Software © ASPPlayground.NET Advanced Edition 2.4.5 ANSI

1.813