Guild Wars

What works

Installing, generally playing the game, (re-)zoning areas...
Only playable in windowed mode with heroes / henchmen.

I used these settings:
registry settings:
******************
DirectDrawRenderer: opengl
OffscreenRenderingMode fbo
PixelShaderMode enabled
RenderTargetLockMode auto
UseGLSL enabled
VertexShaderMode hardware
VideoMemorySize 512

Winecfg:
********
Windows version: WinXP
Graphics:
Allow window manager to decorate windows
Allow window manager to contol the windows
Direct3D Vertex Shader support: Hardware + allow Pixel Shader checked
Audio: ALSA, Full. 44100 sample rate, 16 bits

other settings:
***************
In-game graphics: all medium or low disabled "Wait for vertical sync" in Graphics tab
disabled "Enable post-process effects"
disabled "Use best texture filtering"

Also using Compiz-fusion, but without desktop effects (like the Cube->disabled).

What does not

*Minimizing / maximizing the window. After maximizing I'm unable to switch back to windowed mode. Also there's a weird mouse zooming problem when the screen is maximized: when moving the mouse around the camera 'drops' to the ground and zooms in on your character.
*The 'alt' key is unusable; window manager tries to move the screen, or - in combination with the right mouse button - displays context screen.
*Some sound effects (like when taking a reward) gets cut off.

Workarounds

What was not tested

PvP

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments

*Minor troubles in loading / re-zoning an area -> very slow (3-4 seconds before actual loading begins). This is really annoying when playing with real people in your team. *Mouse pointer somtimes disappears after a long period of playing. *Graphic glitches when changing 1 armor piece in inventory screen (F9). Solves when complete armor is changed.

NOTE: Guild Wars usually doesn't require any special settings to get working. The advice listed below is only for those who require help installing, running, or troubleshooting Guild Wars.

Installation:

Simply use the installer found at guildwars.com. Unzip the installer and run it using Wine:

wine GwSetup.exe

Running:

WINEDEBUG=-all wine "C:\Program Files\Guild Wars\Gw.exe"

WINEDEBUG=-all will stop the flood of fixme messages generated from normal use. If you require debugging, omit this option.

Troubleshooting:

• Make sure 3D works in native applications before blaming Wine. Try glxgears, or a 3D game such as etracer or supertuxkart.
• Use the latest version of Wine. Type 'wine --version' to check.
• Use the latest version of your graphics driver.
• Try different versions of Windows in winecfg, such as Windows XP and 98.
• Under the winecfg Graphics tab, try experimenting with the window settings if you have window/resizing issues. It is recommended to run the game in a virtual desktop for performance and other reasons.
• Turn off Compiz Fusion or KDE desktop effects.
• "Guild Wars has encountered an unrecoverable graphics driver error and must terminate" (bug #12870) is caused by fglrx, not Wine.
• OSS graphics drivers (aka radeon/radeonhd/nouveau/intel) will provide poor performance with wine games, it is recommended to use the binary nvidia driver or fglrx for ATI.

If you are having graphics issues, use regedit to try some registry keys:

• UseGLSL=disabled (Use this if you have a low end graphics card, Intel graphics, or if you are having performance problems.)
• DirectDrawRenderer=opengl (Already the default with up to date versions of Wine)
• OffscreenRenderingMode=fbo (Already the default with up to date versions of Wine)
• Multisampling=enabled (Already the default with up to date versions of Wine)
• RenderTargetLockMode=auto

Appending these flags to the run command may help you:

• -dx8 - Uses DirectX 8
• -noshaders - Disabled shaders, along with -dx8 this will improve performance (but make the game look pretty bad)
• -dsound - Uses DirectSound
• -nosound - Disables sound

Other tips:

• In Options > Graphics, set the refresh rate to 60hz or the highest you have listed that is within your monitors range and turn on vsync for improved responsiveness in some cases.

Using FBO as the ORM crashes with fglrx drivers

This is not a Wine bug, it is a fglrx bug. Please do not open a bug for this, it will just be closed.

See the fglrx bug for more details, or check the HOWTO for this app for a workaround.