wine users - May 2009 - Wine and 3D rendering issues

Hi everyone,

I hate to ask n00bish questions, but after several days of forum scouring and
searching for answers, I'm at a loss as to where to go next.

I'm a long-time Linux CLI user, but I haven't really played with Wine or
many aspects of the GUI-end until recently.  I've been trying to get two of
my favorite Windows games to run on my Debian Testing install, and keep coming
to the same road block: games in Wine run as if they're being rendered by
the CPU, not my graphics cards.

Here's a rundown of my PC:
Intel C2D E6600 2.4GHz
4GB 800MHz DDR2
NForce 680i Chipset
2x NVidia 8800GTS 320MB OC GPUs
Creative XFi Titanium Sound Card

OS Info:
Debian Testing with 2.6.26-2-amd64 kernel, KDE3.5 and Wine 1.1.18

After fiddling with ALSA and the recently released OSS drivers, I've gotten
sound working fine at least to the point that 2.1 sound is working for testing
purposes.  I'm trying to install the two games below:

Steam + Counter-Strike:Source
The Lord of the Rings Online

I've gotten both working at least to the point that I can start them both up
and get into the game itself, but the games run ridiculously slow, like it
doesn't see my graphics cards.  It's not a small difference, either. 
Here's a framerate comparison for CS:S:

Windows: 1680x1050 + Full Effects + 4xAA + 16xAF = 80 fps minimum
Wine: 800x600 + Minimum settings = 5-20 fps

I've installed the proper nvidia kernel package
(nvidia-kernel-2.6.26-2-amd64) and installed the current nvidia-glx userspace
libraries and all seems to be working fine.  The glxinfo output shows direct
rendering is enabled, and Linux-native 3D applications (e.g. Extreme Tux Racer)
work great.  Also, glxgears gives a high output at 16,000+ fps, indicating the
graphics cards must be working, at least for Linux.

I've actually done a full reinstall of Debian at this point to ensure I did
everything right and I was working on a vanilla system.  I've also tried the
stable version of Wine and the one in the squeeze repository (1.1.18) to no
avail.  However, at this point, everything works on the machine except for the
fact that Wine doesn't seem to recognize the graphics card at all.  I've
searched high and low for any configurations that I need to perform on Wine
itself to enable rendering, but I can't seem to find anything.

Hopefully someone can shed light on the situation...thanks!

It is 64bit install? That is probably why it is not working smooth for you. CSS
is 32bit game.

gamblor01 wrote:
> Then try playing the game and see how it does.  After that, start trying to
add the values in the Direct3D registry key one at a time and see what happens. 
Obviously the heapsize and dxlevel won't help LotR much, but the registry
tweaks might.  If you're running Compiz then temporarily disabling that
while you play a game should also help.

Good stuff.  I'll give this stuff a shot tonight.  I hope it's just as
simple as something DirectX-related being messed up.  The fps discrepancy seems
way too high to be just down to "tweaking."  Like I said, I have dual
8800GTSes and I can normally get over 80-100fps in normal CS with full
eye-candy, while Wine looks like a slide-show at 800x600 with minimum settings.

Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, is there something to know about
running SLI cards and Wine?  I might try disabling one tonight to see what
happens.  I was also considering installing DirectX 9, but many threads and
HOWTOs seemed to strongly advise against it.

Andy Wettstein wrote:
> Make sure you have the 32 bit nvidia libraries installed.  If you are you
using the debian packaged version of the nvidia driver, you need to install
nvidia-glx-ia32.

Well holy crap, that sounds like it...

I only installed nvidia-glx, not the 32-bit user libraries...

Thanks a million!  I'll definitely be trying this out tonight!  Also,
I'll be looking forward to gamblor01's HOWTO for optimizations on the
Source engine!