Bioshock

What works

Gameplay from beginning to end.

What does not

High Detail Post Processing - This creates black squares where certain effects should be.

Saving - Usually works but can hang the game.  I think this happens while additional information is on the screen such as from playing tapes or the radio.

Workarounds

What was not tested

High resolutions.

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments

I ran 1024x768 the entire game because that is the default and after a hang, defaults are reset. Framerate was great at this resolution with the post-processing off. For reference, I use a 9800 GT and i7 920 @ 3.4ghz. Set openal32 to "native" if the game hangs at launch. (I've heard of a similar openal problem under native Windows.)

These notes were last updated: 14 May 2018

Follow these guidelines to avoid embarrassment when your Test Submission is immediately rejected!!

• Put your PC specifications in the Extra Comments section e.g. like your CPU and system memory.¹
• When adding test results please specify video card and driver version you are using.²
• It's also useful to mention what desktop environment you are using (e.g. KDE, Gnome, Xfce, Unity...)
• Specify what version of the Windows compatibility option you use in your Wineprefix (e.g. Windows XP, Windows 7, etc.).
• Add a comment about what is not working for you.
• Specify if you made any other changes to Bioshock e.g. installing a game "Mod", an .exe patch or details of any other modifications you made to the stock configuration files for the game.
• Please indicate if your using Wine Staging and/or any additional patches applied - to the version of Wine you are using.
• Please, don't submit test results like "Everything is working" or "Everything isn't working".

These guidelines ensure your submitted test results are actually relevant to other users of Wine and WineHQ.

¹ The console version of the lshw utility is your friend. This command will dump your System hardware specification in a clean format. Post command and output in the Extra Comments section:

sudo lshw -short | egrep -v '(volume|disk|bus)'

² inxi can be used to display information about your graphics card, and your OpenGL/ graphics driver versions. Post the command and output in the Extra Comments section:

inxi -G -c0

You will need:

• A recent version of Wine, it's generally recommended to use the latest development release.
• A video card with good 3D acceleration support (on your chosen flavour of Unix).
• The native 3D driver should be correctly installed for that card.
• It's not necessary to install Bioshock into a clean Wineprefix - but generally it's recommended.

Installing:

This game will install on a vanilla version of Wine. First install the Steam Client as per Steam AppDB page. Then install the Bioshock game from your newly installed Steam client (as per Windows). See the Known Issues section below to fix current problems with Bioshock.

Mouse axes confined to 360° zones

There is still a bug present with Wine that causes you mouse to lock in a fixed 360° arc whilst playing Bioshock. This issue always manifests when you play Bioshock in a Wine Virtual Desktop arrangement. It will manifest occasionally when playing Bioshock in standard Wine arrangement (i.e. non-Virtual Desktop). The symptom is that you are unable to spin you character round on the spot (it will become locked at a fixed angle) or be unable to view your characters feet.

The only work around for  this issue is to enable the mouse warping override:

wine reg.exe ADD "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\DirectInput" "/v" "MouseWarpOverride" "/t" "REG_SZ" "/d" "force"

DirectX 10.x Support

As of Wine version 1.7.53(+) there are tests enabled to see if your graphics hardware supports DirectX 10.x... Unfortunately a significant amount of the DirectX 10.x support has still to be implemented in Wine. The symptom for this issue is that Wine will crash immediately after you launch Bioshock.

The workaround is to disable support for the DirectX Graphics Infrastructure (DXGI) in Wine:

wine reg.exe ADD "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\DllOverrides" "/v" "dxgi" "/t" "REG_SZ" "/d" ""

Changing Game Resolution

In game changing screen resolution can be a bit erratic. The symptom of this is that you change the screen resolution in the game menus and you end up with a "windowed version" of the game running (i.e. smaller than your full monitor real estate). This problem especially manifests when using Linux proprietary graphics drivers.

Option 1 : set game resolution manually before launching

To set the default Bioshock game resolution manually, from a terminal... Run this terminal command (changing first: Xres & Yres - as required):

export Xres=1920
export Yres=1080
sed -i -e '/^\(Fullscreen\|Menu\|Windowed\)Viewport\(X\|Y\)=/{s/X=.*$/X='"${Xres}"'/;s/Y=.*$/Y='"${Yres}"'/}' \
"$( find "${WINEPREFIX:-${HOME}/.wine}/drive_c" -type f -iname "Default.ini" )"

NB: this command won't work if you're using a separate Steam Library directory (external to your WINEPREFIX) to install Bioshock to!

Option 2 : set game resolution in-game

A rather hacky in-game workaround for this issue is to switch Bioshock to windowed mode and then back to full screen mode:

• Select Windowed Mode ON and your desired Resolution...

• Then set Windowed Mode OFF...

Audio Garbled or No Audio when using PulseAudio

If you find that your in game audio is garbled or non-existent it may be advisable to try Wine with pulseaudio support. Any supported version of Wine will provide the necessary audio driver support - if the pulseaudio flag was enabled at build time.