Wizard 101 is an online, multiplayer, wizard school adventure game with
collectible card magic, wizard duels, and far off worlds! The game
allows players to create a student wizard in an attempt to save Wizard
City and explore many different worlds.
The basic areas are free to play, and advanced content can be unlocked by subcription or a pay-by-area model.
W101 runs well under WINE.
Old test results
The test results you have selected are very old and may not represent the current state of Wine.
Selected Test Results (selected in 'Test Results' table below)
What works
Everything tested OK.
ATI/fglrx graphic drivers were not tested (not available to me).
What does not
The game would crash when trying to run it with SLI enabled. With SLI disabled it ran just fine.
What was not tested
Everything past Celestia Base Camp as my character has not progressed past there. ATI/fglrx graphic drivers were not tested (not available to me).
Additional Comments
Graphic Drivers: Intel HD (Ubuntu default install) and nVidia (version-current-updates)
No special prefix settings used. There were some random graphical glitches, but nothing that would inhibit game play. Sunken City seemed perfectly playable to me. The installer would show an IE6 download window when patching, just cancel/close them.
I used the below commands to install:
Download the Wizard101 installer (~/Downloads)
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa
sudo apt-get install wine1.5
export WINEARCH=win32 (recommended for 64-bit systems)
winetricks mfc42 ie6
wine ~/Downloads/InstallWizard101.exe
Before you can install the game, you must create an account at https://www.wizard101.com/, then download the installer from the link in the data block above.
The game requires at least 2 Gig of free space for the full installation. (Once the launcher installs, it will download all of the game data from inside the game.)
I recommend creating a separate WINEPREFIX area, as different games have conflicting setting requirements. This way, no settings you change for other apps will affect Wizard101..
export WINEPREFIX=~/W101
Install Wizard 101
wine InstallWizard101.exe
Known Issues
(Last edited 2013-05-29)
Black Wall in Ravenwood/Multi-color Splash in The Commons
The problems of a black "wall" just inside the entrance to Ravenwood and a multicolor "splash" in the Commons are not Wine issues: both problems have been reported by Windows users on the Wizard101 Message Board. https://www.wizard101.com/posts/list/21857.ftl
Launcher Error
Beginning with Wine 1.5.28, GnuTLS is used for secure connections rather than OpenSSL. On systems with older versions of libgcrypt, the launcher will throw up an error dialog when trying to load the Ravenwood News, and console output will contain the line
This is bug 27036. According to the bug report, this is fixed in newer versions of libgcrypt, so upgrading that library should solve the issue (it did on my system). For users unable to upgrade, simply clicking "No" will close the dialog and the game will load and play normally. Sticking with 1.5.27 will avoid the issue altogether.
Performance Guide for Wizard 101
(Last edited: 2013-03-06)
Wizard101 Performance Guide
This game will run without any configuration changes in Wine. But you may have some choppy graphics issues in high population areas. I also noticed that when you are downloading a lot from the server graphics may be impeded while it downloading also. So since this game installs without much issue we will concentrate on the performance issues.
As with the other HowTo, it is recommended that you create another Prefix for Wizard101. Though it is not required.
Predownloading
Go to the Wizard City Commons and just let your Character sit. You will start to download a lot of common elements in the game. This may be time consuming. But when the game is not downloading you will get a slight performance increase. So if you are not playing at the moment. Go to Wizard City Commons and then go to a highly populated server and just let your character sit still and download the extra graphics.
Full-Screen or Window
I never run this game in fullscreen mode. I always do a Window. But I do it the fake way. Here is how to have the game in full screen but show on your desktop as a window.
1. Run winecfg
2. Go to Graphics and put a check in Emulate Desktop. Make Setting the resolution you want to use. 800x600 is the default for Wizard101. Smaller the screen the better the graphics speed. It has less to draw :)
3. Click Ok.
4. Load Wizard101 and click on Settings.
5. Uncheck Bloom Active, Check Fullscreen, Set the resolution to screen size you choose under winecfg, Set Smoothing Off, and uncheck Enable Shadows. Then Click Ok.
Window Graphics and Game is all setup.
Optional Performance increases :)
Note: unnecessary overrides and/or registry changes may cause problems. Do not file bugs or ask for help on the forum if you have used any of the tweaks below.
d3dx9
This will give you a 5-10% performance increase over the stock dlls included with Wine. Load up winetricks. Click Select the default prefix then ok. Click Install Window DLL or component. Scroll down to d3dx9 and click. Then click ok. Go thru installation. You're done :)
Registry Settings
Using regedit is not really all that bad. This will smooth out about 50% of the choppiness of the graphics. Though it will still get a bit bad when you hit high population areas.
1. Load up a terminal and type regedit.
2. Click the + by HKEY_CURRENT_USER
3. Click the + by Software
4. Click the + by Wine
5. Look for a key called Direct3d. If it is not there right-click on Wine then choose New ->Key. Name this key Direct3D (Spell it exactly that way)
6. Now add the following Keys. They are all Strings so right-click on Direct3D and choose New -> String Value (Spell them exactly the way it is shown)
AlwaysOffScreen
DirectDrawRenderer
PixelShaderMode
StrictDrawOrder
VideoMemorySize
After creating all those Keys set the values by right-clicking and choosing modify (remember to spell them exactly as typed).
Video Memory Size -> I cannot tell you how much Video memory your video card has. But set this to what your video card has. If you are unsure , Load up Wizard101 and click settings. The last tab on the bottom line will give you a good idea of what you have.
If you suffer from any performance decrease from using these setting you can always enable and disable them until you achieve your best performance. What works good for me may not work good for you. For the ones with enable you can choose disabled to cut it off. For the ones with disabled you can choose enabled to cut it on. For the DirectDrawRenderer there is a second option, gdi, you can try. Experiment to find what works best for you.
Webpage on Load
If you want to enable the webpage when you first load the client, you have to install any one of the Internet Explorers under winetricks. Load up winetricks. Click Select the default prefix then ok. Click Install Window DLL or component. Scroll down to Internet Explorer and choose one and click. Then click ok. Go through installation. You're done :)
The crash on the exit of the game when using native Internet Explorer is caused by the Wizard101 Client trying to load it to display the exit ad. This will not effect anything and can be ignored.
As I learn more performance enhancements I will post them here for you view and use.
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. WineHQ is not responsible for what they say.
Login screen fix
by James Potts on Thursday February 9th 2012, 16:54
You can fix the blank login screen on wine 1.3.38 (and probably 1.4rc) by installing ie6 (winetricks ie6). If you do this, DEFINITELY do it in a clean prefix, as it WILL break other games that use the web browser. It generally isn't necessary, tho, since all that is is a "logging in for dummies/children" screen.
