Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa

What works

---Installer---

Tabula Rasa version: 1.4.6000

Installer version: 1.87 (as reported by first screen of installation)

Fails to install the PlayNC Launcher if it isn't unpacked/placed on a Wine drive. Otherwise, the launcher fails to install. First tried installing from /var/downloads/misc/TabulaRasa/Disk1, but ended up doing it by moving Disk1 to ~/.wine/c_drive/Disk1 and running wine c:\\Disk1\\setup.exe ... Otherwise, I got to the "Next you will be presented with installation options for the PlayNC Launcher. Click "Next" to confirm your choices and genin the PlayNC Launcher installation" screen, clicked next, and got a "The PlayNC Launcher failed to install, and it is required for installing Tabula Rasa. Setup will now exit." message dialog.

---The Game---

As long as I used the installer, placed on an actual Wine-mounted drive, everything worked. Slightly less fps than in windows, had to reduce graphics quality to lowest setting to get the same reasonable fps.

What does not

---The Launcher---

fails to install, as noted above - and we all know the launcher is a .NET app and doesn't work very well.

---Copying The Game From Windows Partition---

Copied the installed game from a windows partition.Got the following error:

Error initializing Game Client. Contents of tabula_rasa.log:
WARNING: Incompatible D3D Runtime Version Detected: D3D must be DX9.0b or later to run Palantir
ERROR: No device!
ERROR: PalantirApp::Initialize failed

Workarounds

What was not tested

OK, didn't test the ENTIRE game but c'mon, it's an MMORPG...

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments

1. Don't use the Original-DVD, the installer takes forever to get a hopeless outdated version on your Harddisk.

2. Get the Client from ftp://ftp.playtr.com/setup_data_files/
Event though the Client is very large (~3GB) you will have to download the same amount in Patches, if you are upgrading from the Disk-Version.

3. Install either from disk or the downloaded client

4. Get the Linux-Launcher from http://www.lotrolinux.com/ULL
Install it.
./configure
make
make install (checkinstall, whatever you prefer)

5.  If the game complains that you miss d3dx9_33.dll.

Download it, and place it in your wine installations windows and windows/sytem32 folder (/home/user/.wine/drive_c) and it should work fine.

6. Use the Launcher to Patch your Copy of Tabula Rasa