Stronghold 2

What works

Everything, played with maximum display settings

What does not

The game works with native Directx libraries (like in Windows), but does not work with the WINE-provided ones (hence the game is not Platium).

Also the default file descriptor limit 4096 is too low for the game (it will fail silently when hitting this limit).

Workarounds

Application requires native d3dx9_27.dll: Either download it manually and place it in the Stronghold 2 installation directory or run winetricks d3dx9_27 to install it globally.

Without this the game will fail to compile some of its shaders on startup and crash (see bugzilla#44613). – This only affects the deluxe edition.

The file descriptor limit can be raised by adding

*               soft    nofile          65535
*               hard    nofile          65535

to /etc/security/limits.conf (replace the * with your username if you believe these limits are anything but stupid and would be unsafe to raise for all users) and logging out and back in. You can check the limits currently in effect using ulimit -Sn and ulimit -Hn.

What was not tested

Multiplayer

CD Protection (SecuROM) – Used NoCD crack because I don't have a CD drive anymore

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU: AMD
• Driver: open source

Additional Comments

When starting Stronghold 2 on most machines it will silently fail because it cannot open enough files at once.

You can raise this limit, adding (as root)

*               soft    nofile          65535
*               hard    nofile          65535

to /etc/security/limits.conf (replace the * with your username if you believe these limits are anything but stupid and would be unsafe to raise for all users) and logging out and back in.

The limits currently in effect can be checked using ulimit -Sn and ulimit -Hn.

This should work for any app, if you have Intel + AMD or AMD + AMD with open source drivers. 

If you have laptop with hybrid graphics cards. You can launch game with command:

env DRI_PRIME=1 vblank_mode=0 wine ~/path/to/your/exe/file

In case of using command, you get swich to powerful graphics card and disable vsync for more FPS.

If you have Mesa drivers 17.x.x or more, you can use this command:

env DRI_PRIME=1 mesa_glthread=true vblank_mode=0 wine ~/path/to/your/exe/file

Last command is most best in performance that you can get in this moment, you can use it for any wine application that you need. But argument mesa_glthread=true may not always work, so if your app crash, remove it.

For Steam users, you can set environment variable of any applications in properties. 

DRI_PRIME=1 mesa_glthread=true vblank_mode=0 %command%

(It will work only with native Steam for Linux) For Wine, you have to start Steam or game with those arguments