Spore

What works

Everything except the stuff noted below.

I checked out the wine sources and compiled it myself, after applying a patch. This was on Saturday, September 06 2008, I followed the instructions here: http://ericbetts.org/node/91

Running the compiled version (with the patch) took care of the traces (in stage 1) and most z sorting errors. But I got no sound. Running winecfg showed that alsa was not detected, but after switching to oss, sound works like a charm.

What does not

So now to the bad stuff. When building a creature, and switching to the color mode, the creature is covered in a black silhouette (i think its the base it stands on while creating it). And when "testrunning" the creature, a black silhouette of the creature can be seen from above in the middle of the screen at all times.

Also, as most have reported, at the end of stage one, the game crashes. Although stage 2 is unlocked despite the crash and Im free to start a new game on that stage.

Workarounds

What was not tested

Everything from stage 3 and onwards. Nothing related to the online part of the game.

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments

This was with Reloadeds no-cd crack. Also note that Im not running a standard release of wine, a patch was applied (see above). Im tempted to give this a gold rating, but there are two (nonbreaking) rendering issues, and still quite a critical crash. But other than that, Im able to fully enjoy Spore.

The easiest way to play Spore without problems in Wine:

• Make sure youre using wine version 1.1.26 or greater.
• Start Spore using the -safe flag, e.g.
  
  ­­wine Sporebin/Sporebin.exe -safe
• If you have problems: In the Settings menu, in Graphics, set the Lighting to the lowest possible quality. This is a useful workaround for almost all in-game crashes.
• Also: Turning off shadows allows paint mode to work properly.
  
• Enjoy.

If you experience problems:

• Make sure the current working directory you run this from is the SPORE folder, not the Sporebin folder - it'll spin forever looking for the data folder otherwise.
• If it hangs on start-up then try to rename DMCmdPortalClient.dll(also a problem on Windows):
  
  mv Sporebin/DMCmdPortalClient.dll Sporebin/DMCmdPortalClient.dll.bak


• Make sure you're passing the -safe flag.
• If you are using PulseAudio: this is not officially supported by Wine, but some users have reported success using the ESD or OSS audio driver instead of the ALSA driver. This is configurable in winecfg. It is recommended that you do not use PulseAudio with Wine.
  

If you experience graphical problems, please try to run your copy with the -safe flag, then file a bug with whether it works differently or not.

If you have problems with reaching the license server, please build from GIT or use this patch.