wine users - Jun 2009 - Conflicts between kde and wine games - workaround

I'm posting this message because I discovered that there appear to be
serious video conflicts between some games running in wine, and the kde desktop.
Specifically, I have been unable to get "The Witcher Enhanced Edition"
to run without severely distorted video. I have both gnome and kde desktops on
my system (kUbuntu jaunty-9.04). Today I tried running the game in gnome, and
was surprised to find that it worked almost perfectly (the friend/foe rings
still don't show up, but that's a minor issue).
What I found is that if compositing "screen effects" are turned on in
kde-4.2 or higher, there are major video problems with the game. Those problems
go away if the "effects" in
SystemSettings>Desktop>EnableDesktopEffects are turned off. This is a
little surprising, because gnome also uses compositing effects, but I believe
that gnome uses compiz, while kde has its own internal effects drivers. It's
also odd that other games seem to work fine in kde with effects turned on; not
at all sure why Witcher is different, but there it is.
So for others who may be having video problems, if you are running kde, make
sure the effects are turned off.

On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 8:29 PM,
doctordruidphd<wineforum-user at winehq.org>
wrote:
> I'm posting this message because I discovered that there appear to be
serious video conflicts between some games running in wine, and the kde desktop.
Specifically, I have been unable to get "The Witcher Enhanced Edition"
to run without severely distorted video. I have both gnome and kde desktops on
my system (kUbuntu jaunty-9.04). Today I tried running the game in gnome, and
was surprised to find that it worked almost perfectly (the friend/foe rings
still don't show up, but that's a minor issue).
> What I found is that if compositing "screen effects" are turned
on in kde-4.2 or higher, there are major video problems with the game. Those
problems go away if the "effects" in
SystemSettings>Desktop>EnableDesktopEffects are turned off. This is a
little surprising, because gnome also uses compositing effects, but I believe
that gnome uses compiz, while kde has its own internal effects drivers. It's
also odd that other games seem to work fine in kde with effects turned on; not
at all sure why Witcher is different, but there it is.
> So for others who may be having video problems, if you are running kde,
make sure the effects are turned off.
It's a known issue. File a bug with KDE.

-- 
-Austin

I have this problem with a few games on wine too.
Try using this plasmoid, it is very handy to have! It Enables/Disables
compositing at the flick of a switch :)
http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php/Toggle-Compositing?content=78299

Games probably run faster with compositing disabled anyway so I always switch it
off before running a game.

~AlienWolf

AlienWolf wrote:
> I have this problem with a few games on wine too.
> Try using this plasmoid, it is very handy to have! It Enables/Disables
compositing at the flick of a switch :)
> http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php/Toggle-Compositing?content=78299
Also, Alt+Shift+F12. :-)
> Games probably run faster with compositing disabled anyway so I always
switch it off before running a game.
> 
> ~AlienWolf
Sjors

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