Dragon Age: Origins

What works

Most of the install.  It crashes at the end, probably while trying to install PhysX, but the game files are all installed by then.

Sound, in-game menus, gameplay, most of the graphics, the 1.01b update.

What does not

The installation program crashes at the end.  (The game files are installed by then, and PhysX can be installed manually.)

The configuration program doesn't show any options on several screens, and claims the wrong version of DirectX is installed.  (This doesn't hinder gameplay.)

DVD detection fails.  (This can be worked around with a no-cd crack.)

Textures are all a mess.  (Mostly fixed with a wine patch.)

Movies don't work at all.  (A wine patch can get them working fine in windowed mode, and sort-of working in fullscreen mode.)

Character portraits are black unless I run in low graphics detail mode.

Anti-aliasing.  (I can mark it enabled if I configure everything just right, but nothing looks anti-aliased.)

Fully zoomed-out mode (tactical view) has a lot of graphics glitches in indoor areas.

Workarounds

What was not tested

Network features.
Updater service.
Dragon Age Toolset.

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments

After hours of work, I am now able to play the game if I don't mind the few remaining graphical glitches. I would have given a Silver rating if I could do so without patching wine. For the record, I'm using the nVidia 180 driver from the Ubuntu repositories, and have a GeForce 8800 GTS 512 card. What I Did To Make It Work At Silver Level ------------------------------------------ Apply three patches to wine 1.1.33. (See below.) Use a fresh wine directory by setting WINEPREFIX=/my/new/directory when installing and running. Set the new wine directory's windows version to Windows 2000. This makes sure necessary runtime files (MSVC and DirectX?) get installed. Some are omitted by the installer when running in Windows XP mode. Run the installer, let it crash at the end. Download and install PhysX_9.09.0814_SystemSoftware.exe directly from nVidia: http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx_9.09.0814.html (Optional) Download and install the 1.01b update: http://social.bioware.com/page/da-patches Replace the installed bin_ship/daorigins.exe file with one that has been patched to disable the DVD check. (I found this on the net; I'm not sure what winehq's policy is on linking to no-cd cracks, so I won't link to it just now.) Create this registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Direct3D ...and this string value within that key: Multisampling=enabled Run the game and exit, to create ~/BioWare/Dragon Age/Settings/DragonAge.ini Change these settings in DragonAge.ini: [VideoOptions] FullScreen=0 GraphicsDetailLevel=3 AntialiasingLevel=0 DisableMRT=1 [AudioOptions] SoundDisabled=0 To make the game run a bit smoother, I wrote a launcher script that silences wine's debug output using this environment variable: WINEDEBUG=-all Wine Patches ------------ To fix a black texture issue during gameplay, I applied the Gothic3-Sky_workaround patch: (It does not fix the black character portraits.) http://bugs2.winehq.org/attachment.cgi?id=22894 To get movies somewhat working, I applied the state.c:transform_projection/glOrtho hack patch: bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20469 To help with movie playback, I applied FeepingCreature's patch: http://pastebin.ca/1674653 (Some of these patches required manual application, either because they were meant for different versions of Wine or because they affect one another.)

If you go on another desktop and then come back to Dragon Age window, you should notice keys on keyboard don't work anymore.

In fact, wine thinks the keys Crtl and Alt are still hold.

The workaround is simple : hit crtl key, then alt key with focus on Dragon Age window : the keyboard should work again

If you are affected by this bug, please warn Wine team about it on wine bugzilla :

Bug 33553

If you see black screen or flickering during the cutscenes or/and on the main screen, you will need to run winetricks strictdrawordering=enabled

If you are affected by this bug, please report it on the wine bugzilla to help Wine team to solve it : Bug 22383

Downloading the DLCs manually seems currently the only way to get them working.

You can find the downloads in the Redeemed DLC Unofficial Troubleshooting and FAQ, section 4.1.

Afterwards you can install them using the "daupdater.exe", which requires dotnet20 (.NET  Framework2.0).you can install it using winetricks :

winetricks dotnet20

In order to install the required components for Dragon Age DLC's, you will have to create a 32 bits wineprefix and install everything there (Dragon Age Origin included).

To create your 32 bits prefix : WINEARCH=win32 WINEPREFIX=/path/to/wineprefix winecfg

To start winetricks in that prefix : WINEPREFIX=/path/to/wineprefix winetricks

To run Dragon Age from this prefix : WINEPREFIX=/path/to/wineprefix wine /path/to/DragonAge/daorigins.exe

If you experiment any bug listed above, or any non listed bugs, please report it to wine bugzilla, specifying your wine version : http://bugs.winehq.org/

If you see black screen flickering during the cutscenes or/and on the main screen, you will need to run winetricks strictdrawordering=enabled