Making Obduction work under WINE in Linux (In Progress)

[Doctor Timbrwulf]

For those of you who would rather have Obduction work natively on Linux instead of trying to hack the Windows version, please see this thread.

According to Cyan Support[support.cyanworlds.com], there is no Linux version planned. This does not mean there won't be one, but it's unlikely that there will be. The best bet to get it working on Linux is either to run a virtual machine (which means you're not using Linux directly; you're using Windows or Mac), or use an emulator. This discussion is about getting the Windows version of Obduction working on Linux using Wine (often stylized as WINE, but it's simpler to not use all-caps).

How can I use WINE/Proton to make Obduction work?

On August 21st 2018, Steam announced that in the Client Beta for Linux, you can install and run Windows games via Steam Play. In order to do this, please follow these steps (I added the numbers to the quote):

Originally posted by t3opc:

1. Get latest steam beta (if not in beta: Steam menu item -> settings -> change to beta and restart)

2. Go back to Steam menu item -> settings and then to Steam Play and enable for all titles. Restart if it asks you to and then install Obduction. That's it! ;-)

You can see the full post (#47) here. You may also try to get the Windows version of Steam and use Winetricks or PlayOnLinux. For those instructions, see post #35.

Update: Running Windows games via Steam Play now a default feature in the stable release.

You can also make it work manually using Protontricks[github.com]:

Originally posted by sorthious:

The AppID [is] 306760, [but] if you have protontricks you can use: protontricks -s <game_name> to find an AppID.

When running the shell script you actually need to point to the Wine Bottle where the game is located, followed by the command to launch the script. It's probably best to just unzip the folder into your Obduction folder under the ...steamapps/compatdata folder. Once that's done, change directory to that folder via terminal. Then, type the following command to launch it:

$ WINEARCH=win64 WINEPREFIX="/home/<username>/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/306760/pfx" ./install-mf.sh

After that you should be good to go.

Protontricks requires the Steam Client Beta, Python 3.4 or newer, and Winetricks to be installed on your Linux system!

I just got an error in trying to make Obduction work. What does it mean?

These are the most likely errors you may get when trying to make Obduction work in Wine. I ran across these errors due to the fact that the hardware of my Ubuntu laptop is not sufficient enough to run Obduction, but just because you have the minimal requrements doesn't mean that you won't still run across them. These errors were produced using PlayOnLinux under pretty much any Wine version available. All other settings not mentioned are system default.

• Using GDI as the DirectDraw Renderer:
  

  DX11 feature level 10.0 is required to run this engine.

  This basically means that Obduction is using DirectX 10 features in DirectX 11. If your system supports DX10, you can attempt to run it, but you might want to be safe and make sure that your hardware will at least support DX11. Learn more about feature levels here.[en.wikipedia.org]
  
• Using GDI and appending an argument to use DirectX 10:
  

  DX11 feature level 10.0 is required to run this engine.

  You can force DirectX 10 by right-clicking on the game in your Steam library, click Properties, then click Set Launch Options... and type "-dx10" or "-d3d10". However, DirectX 11 seems to still be required.
  
• Using DirectX 9, switching to Windows 7 or older, OR switching from GDI as the renderer (when not forcing OpenGL):
  

  The global shader cache file 'C:/Program Files(x86)/steam/steamapps/common/Obduction/Engine/GlobalShaderCache-PCD3D_SM4.bin' is missing. 
  
  Your application is built to load COOKED content. No COOKED content was found; This usually means you did not cook content for this build. It also may indicate missing cooked data for a shader platform(e.g., OpenGL under Windows): Make sure your platform's packaging settings include this Target RHI. 
  
  Alternatively build and run the UNCOOKED version instead.

  This usually means that the virtual hardware is not supported or out of date, but it can also mean that something is truly missing. Do a file verification check in the Steam client; if all the files are there, reinstall. If it still doesn't work, then there's either missing dependencies or your hardware is out of date.
  
• Forcing OpenGL with argument "-opengl", with GLSL support on and the renderer using OpenGL:
  

  The global shader cache file C:/Program Files(x86)/steam/steamapps/common/Obduction/Engine/GlobalShaderCache-GLSL_150.bin' is missing. 
  
  Your application is built to load COOKED content. No COOKED content was found; This usually means you did not cook content for this build. It also may indicate missing cooked data for a shader platform(e.g., OpenGL under Windows): Make sure your platform's packaging settings include this Targeted RHI. 
  
  Alternatively build and run the UNCOOKED version instead.

  The hardware is still unsupported, or dependancies are not met. I think OpenGL 4 is the minimum. This is a common error on Mac OS, as well.
  
• Using the "-vulkan" argument outputs "Fatal error!". Vulkan may not be supported yet by your hardware.

What hardware is recommended to run Obduction in Wine?

I've edited this section to include what I think should be the minimum hardware requirements to run the game in Wine.

• OS Version – Windows 7 SP1 64 bit or newer. Wine can fool a program into thinking it's any version of Windows, so this is easy to fulfill. Any Linux version can run Wine, but I recommend Ubuntu.
  
• Processor – CPU Intel i5-2500 equivalent[ark.intel.com] or better. If you don't have it already, definitely look into a quad core with no less than 2.5 GHz for each core.
  
• Memory – 8GB+ RAM. May want to make that 12 GB or more, since having to run it through Wine takes up more resources than running it natively on Windows.
  
• Graphics – GeForce 660 GTX / AMD 7700 series equivalent or better. You definitely need a graphics card with DirectX 11 support (similar to OpenGL 4.x).
  
• VRAM – 1 GB. May be dependant on system memory. Mine supports 2 GB.
  
• Network – Broadband Internet not required to play. No comment.
  
• Disk Space: 20 GB. Disk space needed for Obduction in Wine may be larger, so try to reserve double that much.
  
• Additional Notes : DirectX 11 (not 12) required. See graphics.
  
• Note: Does not include minimum VR specs. No comment.

Tests by the Steam Community

Thank you guys for your interest in making Obduction work in Wine! Here's what we've got so far:

• GiantBlargg (Daniel Doran) submitted a report to the Wine AppDB[appdb.winehq.org]. He used a program known as DXVK, which hacks DirectX and replaces it with Vulkan drivers. It runs, but some videos do not play, and there are sound issues. (starts at post #12)
  
• nicksname_1 has tested it on a desktop, reporting crashes, audio skipping, and missing images. (starts at post #26)
  
• farias tested the GOG version under Wine. Although it's not the Steam release, he has reported to the Steam Community crackling sounds staying at 100% volume, stuttering, and no videos playing. (starts at post #60)
  
• sorthious has managed to get it working using ProtonTricks, a wrapper for Winetricks, and the Steam Client Beta. (starts at post #71)

Keep trying, guys!

Is this thread dead? I don't see any activity...

The fact that "In Progress" is in the title should have been an indicator of whether this discussion is done or not, but for anyone still in doubt, see post #38 of this discussion.

[Doctor Timbrwulf]

Originally posted by t3opc:

Originally posted by Timbrwulf:

What version of WMP is usually packaged with WINE?

Ok so it looks like WMP 10 is possible but that could be too old:
https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=131

Windows 7, 8, and 10 can and should be on WMP 12 today:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/17615/windows-media-player-12

But it looks like 11 can be installed. Don't know about 12 and don't know if 11 will work.

The following link is what is required on Windows for Obduction in-game videos:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=53356
This is listed as "Media Player and related technologies"

So its difficult to say if only WMP is needed or if there's some other part too.

That's all I can figure out without actually installing Wine and Obduction (which I still won't do lol)

Even though you're not testing Obduction in Wine, you are helping. This time, I'm not being sarcastic. ;-)

Answering my own question, I believe that what comes via Winetricks and PlayOnLinux is WMP 9, which is probably the latest version for Windows XP and the oldest for Windows 7. You may be on the right track in thinking that WMP 11 is the oldest version that could work. As I see it, here are our options:

• We can attempt to get a later version of WMP that is not readily available by Wine and its supporters. One can try Windows' own site for that, but that may mean finding and installing missing dependencies and upgrading existing ones within Wine.
  
• We can try to get another player that emulates WMP, or at least satisfies Obduction well enough that the in-game videos will work. Try looking on SourceForge, Github, Gitlab, etc. for things like that.
  
• Probably more involved and with someone more experienced than I am in order to do this, but someone who has the Unreal Engine Development Kit may be able to uncook their version of Obduction and insert a dedicated video player into the code - in which case, they may as well try to port it over to Linux!
  
• A full-blown player may not be necessary. Just use bits of code from WMP or similar players to get the videos to work. May be more time consuming and requires programming knowledge, but overall saves space on storage.

[Doctor Timbrwulf]

UPDATE

Changed "Timbrwulf's Tests" to be about the errors in general. I figure if it's more about getting the community involved and not simply what I've done, more people will be interested in helping.

[Doctor Timbrwulf]

Originally posted by t3opc:

I suggest trying Obduction using Valve's just annouced CUSTOM Wine support with a new version of their Steam Play.

"enthusiast users are also able to try playing non-whitelisted games using an override switch in the Steam client."

https://steamcommunity.com/games/221410#announcements/detail/1696055855739350561

This is very helpful information. I will reference this post in my head post.

[Doctor Timbrwulf]

Originally posted by t3opc:

Originally posted by Timbrwulf:

This is very helpful information. I will reference this post in my head post.

Awesome

No videos due to lack of wmp is now a submitted bug as well so it will always be in the back of someone's mind at Valve lol https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/327

Great job! I also left a comment on their recent announcement requesting that this game be whitelisted. If they can approve Obduction to work on Linux, then this would make our work a whole lot easier!

[Doctor Timbrwulf]

UPDATE

Finally added links in the head post which reference to posts in this discussion about other people trying to make the game work in Wine. Thank you @GiantBlargg and @nicksname_1 for your reports! Please try out the new Steam Beta update when you guys get a chance.

[Inukaze]

Wine still is better for a lot of microsoft windows software, like videogames, proton is a good proyect, i hope has a lot of improvements and works better than wine.

If someone still are using 32 Bits, the Proton, don't run, because is just for 64 Bits. meanwhile wine still make 32 Bits version.

[Inukaze]

Originally posted by t3opc:

It is possible to get Proton to use 32bits but is a total pain: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/99e0kc/steam_playguide_create_custom_32bit_prefix_to/
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/449

Proton is more interesting than WIne but it still sucks (and Wine is total crap) for lack of better words, imo (and I am heavily opinionated about it). Steam proton bugs are up to over 1k already.

If they fixed one bug per day average that would be 1,000 days without any regressions or new bugs which isn't possible. A bunch will take weeks, months, or even never. It's crap if even one game fails. Its contant work that never stops because things keep changing

I'm going to add that Valve should maybe just have asked for the code from developers and then ported each game themselves to whoever wanted it on Linux. Either way they dig themselves into the "fixing stuff" hole.

There has to be a better way than fighting going up a waterfall when it just keeps pushing you down. This is what Wine is built off of really. They keep fighting the waterfall. Its been around for so many years now and still sucks in the end. Their only hope is to get the fixes out faster than the changes and catch up.

That just explain how to make "32 Bit Prefix" and i am saying Proton dont work on a raw 32 bits environment. because the binary executables like "wineserver" is just 64 bits. the strange thing is, proton have a "wine" binary executable of 32 Bits, but that executable cannot be run if wineserver are just for 64 bits. and is the unique wineserver inside the proton files.

Game depend, for all my games, wine works better than proton, specially the branch before 3.X. with a lot of them. i had my own version of test [Spanish Google Doc Document] -> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1R01CVRs2OdK4z3kXqNazObBpxdW2AkAyUjGVZirV36g/edit?usp=sharing

and wine 3.X is the worse versions of wine i had use. this remember me when wine and winex are separted projects. and we need to use Transgaming Cedega for run fine games.

Proton is still Wine 3.7 with improvements and games, because when the developers fix one thing another gets broken. if you don't belive you just need run the follow commands :

PATH="$HOME/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Proton 3.7/dist/bin:$PATH"
export WINESERVER="$HOME/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Proton 3.7/dist/bin/wineserver"
export WINELOADER="$HOME/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Proton 3.7/dist/bin/wine"
export WINEDLLPATH="$HOME/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Proton 3.7/dist/lib"
export WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Proton 3.7/dist/share/default_pfx"
export WINEDEBUG=fps
winecfg

throught years i request a feature on Steam, the option to use the wine version installed on system, detected if from PlayOnLinux ,Q4Wine, CrossOver, etc . . . , Select the arquitecture, and ready the users, make the rest for own. for the Linux Community, you can see the last time i request -> https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/10/1743342647560377340/

[Doctor Timbrwulf]

Originally posted by t3opc:

Its not actually Windows Media Player. I should have previously looked up specificially which part of Windows Media Feature was needed =)

"Windows Media Foundation (WMF) handles standard audio/video playback and recording on the Windows Platform" with UE4.

There's no way to get this to Wine that I know of.

Its notable that Wine development does do some stuff with WMF such as in Wine-Staging 3.15 which just dropped August 31st. It won't fix the video here.

Specifically it seems to be having a problem with not having mfplay.dll and mfplay.dll.so

Really, Wine/Steam Play just needs to be able to install msu files and have the one for Windows Media fully install then it should hopefully work. Unfortunately, when will that happen? Maybe never, maybe years from now?

Thanks for clearing that up. If Steam is not willing to port those DLLs over, perhaps one can take them from a copy of Windows where those exist and inject them into the proper folder(s). Seems a pain in the neck for everyone to have to do that, but if that's what's required...

Here's another thing: review the posts I referenced. At least a handful of people are getting it to work (if only partly, but at least it runs!). So, maybe it's not so dependant on mfplay to run as it is just for the in-game videos.

Originally posted by t3opc:

It is possible to get Proton to use 32bits but is a total pain...

Yes, but Obduction is a 64-bit only game. It will exit with an error if you try to run it on a 32-bit platform or via 32-bit software.

[Inukaze]

Originally posted by t3opc:

It is possible to get Proton to use 32bits but is a total pain...

It not possible on raw 32 bit environtment because the wineserver is just 64 bit, and is requiered by wine and wine-preloader.

just use
ldd ./wineserver

linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007fff1a153000)
libwine.so.1 => /home/inukaze/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Proton 3.7/dist/lib64/libwine.so.1 (0x00007fac16575000)
librt.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/librt.so.1 (0x00007fac1636d000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007fac15fc2000)
libdl.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00007fac15dbe000)
libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007fac15ba1000)
/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007fac1691b000)

and you see the output, the binary executable require 64 bit for work.

[Doctor Timbrwulf]

Originally posted by ;3317353727674537625:

Wine still is better for a lot of microsoft windows software, like videogames, proton is a good proyect, i hope has a lot of improvements and works better than wine.

If someone still are using 32 Bits, the Proton, don't run, because is just for 64 Bits. meanwhile wine still make 32 Bits version.

I understand that you want to know if Proton is available for 32-bits. While I don't really know, and have not researched it myself, may I remind you that this is supposed to be a discussion about getting Obduction to work on Linux. Obduction is strictly a 64-bit game, so any discussion about 32-bits is considered off-topic for this discussion. If you want to pursue this further, please consider starting a new discussion, or you may use the chat feature in Steam to discuss it with other folks.

Please understand; I don't want to appear harsh. I only mention this because I want to keep this thread from getting cluttered with useless info. You are welcome to leave a comment in my profile or any off-topic/general info group discussions I've created. If you've started a discussion about this, leave a link to me somewhere in the aforementioned places. If you'd like, I can even create a group chat where we can talk about such things. I myself am interested in 32-bit proton, if it can make other games work better than the 64-bit version.

[farias]

Have anyone figured out a way to fix the FMV problem? I'm really excited to play it, but without the videos it's impossible.

[Doctor Timbrwulf]

Originally posted by farias:

Have anyone figured out a way to fix the FMV problem? I'm really excited to play it, but without the videos it's impossible.

Well, this discussion has been raised from the dead, thanks to you! I haven't been working on Obduction lately; I still don't meet the hardware requirements.

Have you tried the Steam Beta?

[farias]

Originally posted by Timbrwulf:

Originally posted by farias:

Have anyone figured out a way to fix the FMV problem? I'm really excited to play it, but without the videos it's impossible.

Well, this discussion has been raised from the dead, thanks to you! I haven't been working on Obduction lately; I still don't meet the hardware requirements.

Have you tried the Steam Beta?

I haven't, I tested the GOG version with Wine. As it gave the same errors the Proton folks were reporting (FMVs not playing, every sound at 100% voume at all times, glitchy sound, stutters) I supposed a potential fix would be universal.

I don't meet the hw requirements as well, but the game was pretty playable here (i5 7200u, hd 620).

I don't have much knowledge on Wine/Proton, but I'm glad to test any ideia you may have.

[Doctor Timbrwulf]

Originally posted by farias:

Originally posted by Timbrwulf:

Well, this discussion has been raised from the dead, thanks to you! I haven't been working on Obduction lately; I still don't meet the hardware requirements.

Have you tried the Steam Beta?

I haven't, I tested the GOG version with Wine. As it gave the same errors the Proton folks were reporting (FMVs not playing, every sound at 100% voume at all times, glitchy sound, stutters) I supposed a potential fix would be universal.

I don't meet the hw requirements as well, but the game was pretty playable here (i5 7200u, hd 620).

I don't have much knowledge on Wine/Proton, but I'm glad to test any ideia you may have.

Please let us know your hardware specs and all the problems you are having. If it at least runs, I'll mention you in the head post as part of our progress

[farias]

Originally posted by Timbrwulf:

Originally posted by farias:

I haven't, I tested the GOG version with Wine. As it gave the same errors the Proton folks were reporting (FMVs not playing, every sound at 100% voume at all times, glitchy sound, stutters) I supposed a potential fix would be universal.

I don't meet the hw requirements as well, but the game was pretty playable here (i5 7200u, hd 620).

I don't have much knowledge on Wine/Proton, but I'm glad to test any ideia you may have.

Please let us know your hardware specs and all the problems you are having. If it at least runs, I'll mention you in the head post as part of our progress

Sure!

i7-7200u
Intel HD 620
8 GB RAM DDR4
SSD
Linux 4.18.12
Xubuntu 18.10

On low @ 720p it runs playable, I don't know the framerate (a little above 30 FPS)

Bugs I noticed:
-FMVs don't play at all, not even the subtitles
-Every sound is at 100% volume at all times
-Sound is crackling, especially noticeble on menu
-Frequent stutters (not a dealbreaker for a puzzle game)
-Gamepad isn't recognized