System Shock 2

What works

Everything works so far, even with all of the mods that enhance graphics and sound in the game and most fan missions (the ones that do not work are not WINE's fault, just poorly created)

The graphics and sound updates as well as most of the available fan missions can be found at systemshock.org

What does not

Use of native D3D drivers for Direct X 9 leads to some graphical glitches in the terrain when moving.  Through experimentation I reached the conclusion that the glitches are in how D3D handles models in the game, textures themselves seem unaffected by it.  This can be fixed by altering a configuration file (see below)

Some options in SS2Tool 5.1 (which is used to update the game to the latest version and fix bugs) tend to render the game unplayable but those options are actually not essential.  However, the tool can and should be used, just do not include certain options.  (See below)

The game tends to crash on dual core and quad core machines.  This is not WINE's fault and is easily fixed in WINE (See below)

How to make the game ready for modding and playing fan missions with SS2Tool:

When running SS2Tool, UNCHECK the following:

- Move original files (Unnecessary, I just do not see the point)

- Portable .cfg

- Sound fix

CHECK the following:

- Use DirectX 6

The options you uncheck are non essential so you will not miss anything.  However, they must be disabled to make the game work in WINE.

How to set the game to enable 16 bit mode and disable use of Wine's DirectX 9 D3D:

In the game's main directory, open cam_ext.cfg and put a ; in front of the following lines to disable these options: 

- use_d3d_display (change to ";use_d3d_display")

- force_32bit (change to ";force_32bit)

Run the game and change the resolution to whatever you want but make sure it has 16 in front of it (indicating it is a 16 bit resolution).

Disabling D3D will make the game default to included Direct X 6 drivers.  This is far less buggy but slower.  Setting the resolution to 16 bit will give you a speed boost that will balance it out so you end up with all of the graphics but none of the bugs.  The game uses 16 bit colour palettes anyway so you lose nothing.

How to make the game run without crashing:

Create a link to the game (you likely were going to do that anyway).  Make the link point to the game's directory and use this as a command to run the game: "taskset -c 1 wine Shock2.exe"

Alternatively, if you plan on playing fan created missions in the game, you can use this as a command to open the mission selector:  "taskset -c 1 wine Shock2.exe -fm"

Using the listed command will force the game to run on only 1 CPU.  Since this game was origanally designed for older systems this will prevent the game from crashing.

Workarounds

What was not tested

Nothing

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments