LOTRO & Wine Performance Issues

CynicalPride · Post by **CynicalPride** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 3:27 pm

Hello,

I just built 2 systems recently, one for myself, and one for my wife. My wife is currently running Windows Vista 64, I am running openSUSE 11.1 x86_64. We play Lord of the Rings Online, my problem is I am experience severe performance issues under Linux.

My previous system was as follows:

Asus M2N32-SLI-Deluxe
AMD Athlon 5200 X2
4 GB Corsair XMS2X2048 4-4-4-12 800
EVGA Nvidia 7600 GT
Nvidia 180.29 Driver
WD Raptor 10k RPM, sata 1.5

With this configuration, I was able to run LOTRO(Lord of the Rings Online) on Ultra High settings, though I did experience graphics lag at times.

The New configuration is as follows:

Asus M4A79 Deluxe
AMD Phenom II 940
4 GB Corsair Dominator 5-5-5-15 1066
EVGA GTX 260 Superclocked
Nvidia 180.29 Driver(Upgraded to .44 recently, didn't help the problem)
WD Raptor 10k RPM sata 1.5

With this configuration It detects optimal settings as low, and if I turn the Graphics above low, I experience SEVERE graphics lag, followed by a crash to desktop.

Both setups were/are running openSUSE 11.1 x86_64, with WINE 1.1.17. I have been successfully running LOTRO in a WINE/Linux environment for about 1.5 years now, So I am sure this isn't a conflict with LOTRO and WINE. I have tried different versions of WINE, as well as different driver versions.

My wife running the exact same system, in Windows Vista, gets flawless performance(yes I have tried swapping parts back and forth, to check for bad hardware, to no avail).

My question is, is there a way to tell if this is a Driver Issue, a conflict with the GTX 260 and WINE, or some other unknown variable? I have tried everything from a OS re-install, to a swapping hardware, to drivers, to WINE versions, to WINE DLL's. I cannot seem to fix this problem.

I have a fairly good understanding of the linux operating system, nothing to advanced, so If someone could help me track down this problem, I would greatly appreciate it.

vitamin · Post by **vitamin** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 4:02 pm

CynicalPride wrote:I am experience severe performance issues under Linux.

Such as? How do they manifest themselves? What's the CPU doing? What and how are you running?

Wine's d3d by definition will always be slower then native. ATM it's about 1/3 to 1/2 of the native performance in d3d applications.

Alsp make sure you got rid of pulse audio or any other sound servers.

CynicalPride · Post by **CynicalPride** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 4:25 pm

Vitamin,

It seems as if you did not read my entire post before replying. If you read further down, you will see that when I activate higher graphics under my new system configuration, it causes graphics lag, than a crash. This did not occur under the old system.

I also had this setup running on my old hardware, flawlessly, with the exception that my hardware was simply not powerful enough to maintain the game at ultra high settings, during peak play hours. This was the reason for the hardware upgrade.

This isn't a wine configuration error, I have had this running before, and have been running this setup for about 1.5 years. These problem only started happening when I built the new system.

I understand that WINE's native DX, isn't as fast as windows, however, If I was running this on an EVGA 7600 GT, on ultra high with "little" graphics lag, and now I have an EVGA GTX 260, and cannot even run on low , without SEVERE lag and crashes, than I am pretty sure this isn't an issue with wine/lotro running nicely together.

Edit: For giggles, and out of desperation, I ripped pulse audio out, and tested, the problem remains. (I have used Pulse Audio for awhile, never had any problems with it).

James McKenzie · Post by **James McKenzie** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 8:25 pm

CynicalPride wrote:

Vitamin,

It seems as if you did not read my entire post before replying. If you read further down, you will see that when I activate higher graphics under my new system configuration, it causes graphics lag, than a crash. This did not occur under the old system.

I also had this setup running on my old hardware, flawlessly, with the exception that my hardware was simply not powerful enough to maintain the game at ultra high settings, during peak play hours. This was the reason for the hardware upgrade.

This isn't a wine configuration error, I have had this running before, and have been running this setup for about 1.5 years. These problem only started happening when I built the new system.

I understand that WINE's native DX, isn't as fast as windows, however, If I was running this on an EVGA 7600 GT, on ultra high with "little" graphics lag, and now I have an EVGA GTX 260, and cannot even run on low , without SEVERE lag and crashes, than I am pretty sure this isn't an issue with wine/lotro running nicely together.

Did you have an Nvida card in the old system and an Intel video system
in the new one? I would go out and find a good NVida card to replace it
with. AMD/ATI and Intel (especially them) have poor Linux video drivers
which means poor quality response to Wine.

James McKenzie

jeffz · Post by **jeffz** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 9:27 pm

CynicalPride wrote:Vitamin,

It seems as if you did not read my entire post before replying. If you read further down, you will see that when I activate higher graphics under my new system configuration, it causes graphics lag, than a crash. This did not occur under the old system.

I also had this setup running on my old hardware, flawlessly, with the exception that my hardware was simply not powerful enough to maintain the game at ultra high settings, during peak play hours. This was the reason for the hardware upgrade.

This isn't a wine configuration error, I have had this running before, and have been running this setup for about 1.5 years. These problem only started happening when I built the new system.

I understand that WINE's native DX, isn't as fast as windows, however, If I was running this on an EVGA 7600 GT, on ultra high with "little" graphics lag, and now I have an EVGA GTX 260, and cannot even run on low , without SEVERE lag and crashes, than I am pretty sure this isn't an issue with wine/lotro running nicely together.

Edit: For giggles, and out of desperation, I ripped pulse audio out, and tested, the problem remains. (I have used Pulse Audio for awhile, never had any problems with it).

might it be the video memory auto detection?

Wine doesn't have a check for the GTX 260, only the 280 at the moment... it needs to be added.

You can set your video memory size manually through regedit

HKLM, Software, Wine, Direct3D

create a key named VideoMemorySize, and set it to 896 (I think all GTX 260's have 896MB)

CynicalPride · Post by **CynicalPride** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 9:40 pm

James McKenzie wrote: Did you have an Nvida card in the old system and an Intel video system
in the new one? I would go out and find a good NVida card to replace it
with. AMD/ATI and Intel (especially them) have poor Linux video drivers
which means poor quality response to Wine.

James McKenzie

James,

I listed the specs for the system on my first post, The new system has an EVGA GTX 260.

CynicalPride · Post by **CynicalPride** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 9:42 pm

jeffz wrote:
might it be the video memory auto detection?

Wine doesn't have a check for the GTX 260, only the 280 at the moment... it needs to be added.

You can set your video memory size manually through regedit

HKLM, Software, Wine, Direct3D

create a key named VideoMemorySize, and set it to 896 (I think all GTX 260's have 896MB)

Jeffz,
I have set the registry key to VideoMemorySize=896. This didn't help at all.

Congrats for being the first person who actually read my post though. That in itself seems to be a huge accomplishment thus far.

James Mckenzie · Post by **James Mckenzie** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 10:19 pm

CynicalPride <[email protected]> wrote on April Fools' Day:

James McKenzie wrote:
Did you have an Nvida card in the old system and an Intel video system
in the new one? I would go out and find a good NVida card to replace it
with. AMD/ATI and Intel (especially them) have poor Linux video drivers
which means poor quality response to Wine.

James McKenzie
James,

I listed the specs for the system on my first post, The new system has an EVGA GTX 260.

My Bad. One question though, do you still have the old system and can you swap out the video cards to eliminate this as a cause of the error?

You tried Jeffz' suggestion, but I would try a lower number like 768 or even 512 (I know the card has more memory than this, but anything is worth a try and all it takes is starting and stopping Wine and wineserver to try it, much easier than rebooting your system.)

James McKenzie

CynicalPride · Post by **CynicalPride** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 10:29 pm

James,

I had already tried the lower numbers in VideoMemorySettings(I had been working on this for about 2 weeks, before I even posted).

As far as the old system, I have it. However, I have 2 of the GTX 260's(I built 2 identical systems, 1 for me, 1 for my wife). I have swapped them back and forth, they both work great in her Vista 64 environment, and both horribly in my Linux Environment. However, I will try swapping out for the old 7600 GT, just to narrow the problem down to something to do with the video card.

Thanks for the suggestion.

James McKenzie · Post by **James McKenzie** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 10:05 pm

CynicalPride wrote:

James,

I had already tried the lower numbers in VideoMemorySettings(I had been working on this for about 2 weeks, before I even posted).

As far as the old system, I have it. However, I have 2 of the GTX 260's(I build 2 identicle systems, 1 for me, 1 for my wife). I have swapped them back and forth, they both work great in her Vista 64 environment, and both horribly in my Linux Environment. However, I will try swapping out for the old 7600 GT, just to narrow the problem down to something to do with the video card.

NVida video drivers still have bugs in them. You stated you are using
the latest/greatest drivers in your original posting. It may be a good
idea to switch over video cards to the older NVida card and see what
happens.

Thanks for the suggestion.

You are welcome. I try to stay away from 'bleeding edge' equipment. I
suffer less this way.

James McKenzie

CynicalPride · Post by **CynicalPride** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 10:57 pm

James,

Tried the old 7600 GT Card, was a huge performance boost. I have confirmed this is an issue with the GTX 260, however it's not a hardware issue with the card itself, I have 2 of them, and both of them are experiencing the same problem. However they run flawlessly in a windows environment.

Anyone have any suggestions?

vitamin · Post by **vitamin** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 11:18 pm

CynicalPride wrote:Anyone have any suggestions?

File bug with Nvidia and search their forum for problems like yours. There might be some workarounds.

As James said, drivers are not perfect, especially for newish HW. Nvidia eventually fixes them but months later after release (ATI doesn't fix anything at all, until card is obsolete, then they don't make any drivers for it at all).

CynicalPride · Post by **CynicalPride** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 11:47 pm

Update: Apparently, WINE is not identifying my hardware properly, when I set DeviceID/Vendor ID manually, I see a HUGE performance increase, however It's still not where It should be.

At this moment, my GTX 260 is performing on par with my 7600 GT. I feel I'm getting closer to the issue, however I do not feel this is a driver issue. I feel this is an issue with WINE and the NVIDIA GTX 260 series graphics card.

Warren Dumortier · Post by **Warren Dumortier** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 3:30 am

Mayve use native dxdiagn? It solved problems with TM:NF for me with
detecting graphics card specs...

2009/4/5 CynicalPride <[email protected]>

Update: Apparently, WINE is not identifying my hardware properly, when I
set DeviceID/Vendor ID manually, I see a HUGE performance increase, however
It's still not where It should be.

At this moment, my GTX 260 is performing on par with my 7600 GT. I feel I'm
getting closer to the issue, however I do not feel this is a driver issue. I
feel this is an issue with WINE and the NVIDIA GTX 260 series graphics card.

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CynicalPride · Post by **CynicalPride** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 10:55 am

Warren,

Yea, I tried that as well, installed DX9.0C from winetricks, no performance gain, and DX reports my card as unknown. Even after manually identifying it in the registry. Thanks for the suggestion.

CynicalPride

Warren Dumortier · Post by **Warren Dumortier** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 11:32 am

And what if you do not install DirectX, but use native dxdiagn?
Hm, will vote for that feature request!

2009/4/5 CynicalPride <[email protected]>

Warren,

Yea, I tried that as well, installed DX9.0C from winetricks, no performance
gain, and DX reports my card as unknown. Even after manually identifying it
in the registry. Thanks for the suggestion.

CynicalPride

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