KotOR for WineX/Linux!

[Boiler98]

Hi all!

 

First time posting here, but was a strong regular back in the beginning days of the KotOR era over at the BioWare forum. I thought some folks might find this of interest if they are Linux and KotOR fans.

 

TransGaming, the makers of WineX, have just released version 3.3.2 which claims supporting for KotOR! Of course, the fates have conspired to inform of this while at work -- so I have yet to try it out. *fingers crossed*

 

So if you are a Linux user, sans-Xbox, and always wanted to try KotOR, now you can! Or, if you just want to "stick it to the man" by getting KotOR to run on anything but Windows, you can do that too.

 

News of successful installation to come later tonight.

[Boiler98]

WineX 3.3.2, KotOR Install - First Impressions

 

After getting home this afternoon I fired up the PC and began my tinkering to get SW:KotOR working with the latest release of WineX and Linux. Here are some first impressions.

 

System Config:

P4 2.8GHz, 1G RAM

PNY GeForce4 Ti 4400, 1920x1200 @ 24bpp

Hercules Fortissimo II

Gentoo Linux 2004.1

 

Installation:

The install went smoothly. No troubles. Installed the 1.03 patch with no problems (other then trying to find a place to download it).

 

First Run:

None of the KotOR shortcuts worked properly. They loaded the launcher app up correctly, but nothing worked beyond that. Running 'autoexec.exe' straight off the CD fixed this.

 

KotOR needs to be configured the first time it is run, so I ran the config and made a few changes based on the WineX release notes. I left everything else very simple -- I'll worry about getting the fancy stuff working later.

 

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

At least, that is what I *should* have seen! None of the movies are playing correctly -- they are running, but you can't see them. It is easy enough to abort out of them (and then turn them off in the settings), but let's be honest... the FMVs rock. This was a disappointment which I hope to find a solution to.

 

Once started, the game ran as it should!

 

I have only run around my cabin on the Endar Spire at this point. Real game play will have to wait for another day.

 

The Ugly:

As noted in the release notes, KotOR "crashes" when it is closed. This means a few things are not cleaned up -- one being the video resolution. If you run KotOR at the natural resolution of you desktop this might not be a problem; unfortunately, KotOR does not support 1920x1200 so I have to exit X and restart it after exiting KotOR.

 

Final Notes:

Not a bad start. Given a dual boot system, it is still better to use Windows. Once the movies and exit crashing is fixed, it is ready for prime time!

 

I am currently working on getting WineX to "manage" KotOR. This would put KotOR in a window instead of running it full screen. My hope is that this will fix the resolution problem I have. Maybe even the movies!

[Boiler98]

Update:

I have KotOR running in windowed mode now, using a combination of KotOR's FullScreen settings and WineX config settings. Movies are working in windowed mode!

 

For the most part KotOR is near 100%, with only minor issues which come with the territory.

 

Here are few screen caps:

http://www.rightstep.org/kotor/screencaps/kotor_wine01.png

http://www.rightstep.org/kotor/screencaps/kotor_wine02.png

http://www.rightstep.org/kotor/screencaps/kotor_wine03.png

 

Not a whole lot of graphical settings are available, the above is running with no fancy goodies set.