Homeworld: Emergence

What works

Gameplay, audio, intro cutscenes and menus.

What does not

Adjusting the resolution or renderer in the menus crashes the game.

Workarounds

Credit goes to Matej Pivec and multiple others who have kindly posted their workarounds. The below guide builds off their work.

1. Install the game into a new 32-bit prefix. Use this command (include the double quotes): Winearch=win32 WINEPREFIX="INSTALL LOCATION FOR THE PREFIX" winecfg

For example: Winearch=win32 WINEPREFIX="/home/homeworld_emergence" winecfg

There is no need to create the directory, as WINE nicely does that for you.

2. To make the prefix you just created the active one (it will only remain active in the current terminal session), use this command (this time do not include the double quotes): export WINEPREFIX="LOCATION FOR THE PREFIX"

For example: export WINEPREFIX=/home/homeworld_emergence

3. Run the setup.exe you downloaded from GOG in the same terminal session using wine setup.exe

4. Install the game into your newly created prefix location. It may throw up some errors at the end of the installation, but that is totally fine and doesn't impact the installation.

5. Open a terminal and use the cd command to head into the game directory.

6. Remove the following files: glide.dll, glide2.dll, glide3x.dll and nglide_config.exe using the rm command.

7. Run the game for the first time using the software renderer: wine cataclysm.exe /sw /disableAVI

People who run open source drivers seem to not run into any problems at this stage. However, I am currently running the Nvidia 430 proprietary drivers, so I had the libGL fbConfigs and libGL swrast error. To solves this, I ran the following command: apt install libnvidia-gl-430:i386 and the game booted up. Replace the "430" part of the command with your nvidia driver version.

8. Change any graphics settings you want (set everything to maximum is what I recommend), but don't change the renderer or resolution, as the game will crash. Exit the game once you have done this.

9. Run wine regedit

10. Head to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Wow6432Node/Sierra On-Line/Cataclysm

The above location may be different depending on your WINE version. As long as you find the Cataclysm directory, you are good to go.

11. Set the following:

deviceToSelect: gl

glToSelect: opengl32.dll

screenDepth: 32 (set the base to Decimal)

screenHeight: 1080 (or whatever resolution you would like, again set the base to Decimal)

screenWidth: 1920 (again, whatever resolution you wish, remembering to set the base to Decimal)

12. Close Regedit and run the games using this command from the same terminal session: wine cataclysm.exe /disableAVI /noglddraw /noswddraw /device gl

13. The game should run in your chosen resolution (for some reason it didn't work for me first time, so I had to change all of the settings again in Regedit (the game resets all of the settings if not run with the above command)). When you go into the options menu, as long as the OpenGL renderer is selected, you should have no problems. If it isn't selected, something went wrong either with a command you typed or your Regedit settings.

14. Run and have fun with an incredible RTS experience! Man, I love this game!

What was not tested

Multiplayer.

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU: Nvidia
• Driver: proprietary

Additional Comments

Nvidia 430.14 was used.
GOG V1.01