Star Wars: Battlefront

What works

Installation runs almost perfectly. The "LaunchBF.exe" file on the CD doesn't seem to work (it exits without any error), you need to run the "GameData/setup.exe" file from the CD. There is no need to copy files manually (as with some other multi-CD installations); you can simply follow the on-screen instructions. When entering the CD key, it is possible for the CD key box to lose focus and disappear, but you can alt+tab back to it.

Patching to 1.2 works perfectly. Wine doesn't even spit out any fixme information.

The game runs, but only after applying a No-CD crack (see below).

All the menus work, gameplay works, and the cinematics work.

For Internet network play Battlefront can find servers but cannot connect to any of them.

What does not

The game does not run without a No-CD crack. The intro menu comes up but after clicking "Start Game" it delays for a minute and then brings up a message: "Please insert the original disc instead of a backup. See www.securom.com/copy for more details." The console says it could not open devices /dev/sg0 and /dev/sg1 because of permissions. Changing permissions on these devices causes the console error to disappear but the SecuROM error remains. I was only able to get the game to run after applying a No-CD crack.

The game loads very slowly.

Sound works on the first menu, but after clicking "Start Game" it seems to cut out. I was unable to get the sound to work. The console spits out various errors, but no driver or setting seemed was able to fix it and (as far as I could tell) there was no specific dll mentioned in the output.

The game works fine with the vertex shader enabled, but when you face certain directions a strange box displaying part of the view upside-down appears in the upper-left hand corner of the screen. It only affects the sky and is not visible indoors, though its presence does slow things down a bit too much. With the vertex shader disabled there are numerous lighting artifacts and the planets in the menu show up as all black, though everything runs very quickly (maybe a bit too much so) and very smoothly. Pick your poison, I guess.

Workarounds

What was not tested

LAN and direct connection network play were not tested.

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments

The "HOWTO" below mentions disabling the vertex shader. I did not find that step to be necessary. There are display problems either way, though. Running "GameData/Battlefront.exe" directly did not work for me. It caused a page fault every time and crashed. I had to run "LaunchBF.exe" every time. (This may be a result of the crack I used, though.) Note from admin: Personally I won't go changing permissions on devices because securom asked me to, who knows what it might do.

-To start install type:

$ wine "d:\GameData\setup.exe" (d is your diskdrive, check winecfg for the correct letter)

-When asked to insall Gamespy choose 'No'

-Patch to 1.2

-Apply no-cd patch

-Run 'wincfg' and disable vertex shader support in the 'Graphics 'tab

-Run 'Battlefront.exe' from the( .wine/drive_c/Program Files/LucasArts/Star Wars Battlefront/GameData' folder