Valve Source games display problem

[sgtrock]

I'm hoping someone can help me figure this problem out. It's been bugging me for quite a while. First, basic specs:

8.04 Kubuntu
x86 64 bit system.
Nvidia 9600 GT video card
2GB RAM

Wine version 1.1.10

I've been running wine for several years through several different versions of Linux (RedHat, Mandrake, Gentoo before Kubuntu). I've always migrated my home directory largely intact. It's distinctly possible that I've got some leftover configuration information that's messing me up. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling to see if that would help. No luck.

With that background, the symptoms:

1) Open Steam.
2) Log in normally. All Steam displays, with the exception of the Flash based content on the Store tab, looks fine.
3) Select the "My Games" tab. All content displayed properly.
4) Choose a game and launch. Launching the game works correctly.

5a) Team Fortress 2:
5a1) Choose a server to connect. Connects normally.
5a2) The introduction display, which I believe is simple HTML, shows a black box instead of the content that the gameserver admin has created.
5a3) Hit 'Continue'. Game loads normally. Plays normally.

5b) Left 4 Dead:
5b1) While the game launches normally and runs the intro movie correctly, something odd occurs when it finally gets to the menu display. I see the moving background of zombies. I hear all the sounds correctly. The odd part is that while I see and hear all this stuff, I can't see the menu!

It gets a bit stranger. If I just move the mouse pointer around the screen, I get the little click as I pass over approximately where the various menu items should be. I think I have even managed to select one or two because the configuration of buttons sometimes seems to change.

Both of these games are ones that others have reported on AppDB at WineHQ as working with hardware configurations that are similar to mine. My current tentative working hypothesis is that I've got a HTML rendering problem that is affecting both games.

I thought I'd found the solution when I realized that wine-gecko was not installed. Installing the latest version has not resolved the issue.

Does anyone know if I'm on the right track? If so, what should I try?

If you think I may be off base, do you have any advice as to what steps I should take to investigate the problem?

TIA

[vitamin]

5b) Left 4 Dead:
5b1) While the game launches normally and runs the intro movie correctly, something odd occurs when it finally gets to the menu display. I see the moving background of zombies. I hear all the sounds correctly. The odd part is that while I see and hear all this stuff, I can't see the menu!

Try completely reinstall Steam as suggested on AppDB. It could be something left over from old times.
I don't have L4D can't tell for sure. But Valve did make lots of changes in L4D engine comparing to TF2. Could be one of those changes is what you see.
You can also try dxlevel 90 (anything else won't work).

[sgtrock]

I'm at work at the moment so I don't have direct access to my workstation. What do you mean by "dxlevel 90"? Is that a command line switch? Something I can set through winecfg?

Thanks for the response!

[vitamin]

Something I can set through winecfg?

RTFM: http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki ... rameters_2

that is linked from http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.p ... n&iId=1554

You can also try dxlevel 90 (anything else won't work).

Meant anything less then 90 won't work. L4D engine requires full dx90 compatibility.

[sgtrock]

Something I can set through winecfg?

RTFM: http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki ... rameters_2

that is linked from http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.p ... n&iId=1554

You can also try dxlevel 90 (anything else won't work).

Meant anything less then 90 won't work. L4D engine requires full dx90 compatibility.

No change. Sigh.

I'm becoming more and more convinced that I'm seeing some sort of HTML rendering issue. I keep seeing this set of errors repeating whenever that kind of content needs to be displayed:

err:ole:CoGetClassObject class {4590f811-1d3a-11d0-891f-00aa004b2e24} not registered
err:ole:CoGetClassObject no class object {4590f811-1d3a-11d0-891f-00aa004b2e24} could be created for context 0x1

Does that ring any bells?