Can I replace my Windows install with Wine, on my hardware?

[achalmers]

I'm relatively new to Wine. I've been hearing about it for a while now. I've look a various comments about Wine on the net and I seems like a lot of people have got it to work for them. I've even used at work to run Inno to create a simple windows installer, which work well, although the User Interface was ugly (probably some missing fonts and things).
I have a laptop at home running Ubuntu. I also has a small Windows partition that I boot into from time to time, mainly just for games. If I could run my Windows Games under Wine I could get rid of my Windows partition for good.

Last week I gave it a gone on a couple of the Harry Potter Series of games. Unfortunately although I can get "Goblet of fire" to run I get no graphics, just a black screen ( I can tell it's running because I get the audio) an lot and lots of warning and errors about GL functions mainly. many references to "fixme".
It seems I'm one of those unfortunates to have an ATI video controller (Radeon X1200 or X1250) which ATI no longer support with their fglrx Linux Drivers. I therefore use the recommended open source drivers (not much choice really).

There a lot of comments/discussion on the net about issues with wine and the fglrx drivers and ATI controllers, and various tweaks and configuration settings that people have use to fix various issues. Unfortunately none of it seems to relate directly to the ATI controller I have. I've even tried a few things but no luck.

The questions I'd like to ask are: is it worth my time continuing to pursue it? Does anyone believe that a solution (and not one that involves a downgrade) is actually out there in the immediate future? Or if I really want to play my windows games under Linux, would I be better off buying a new laptop with an Nvidia video Controller?

For the specifics:
The laptop is a HP 6715b.
Running Ubuntu Lucid (10.04) 64-bit
$ cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=10.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=lucid
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 10.04 LTS"
$ uname -a
Linux tigger 2.6.32-22-generic #36-Ubuntu SMP Thu Jun 3 19:31:57 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux
$ wine --version
wine-1.2-rc3
$ lspci | grep VGA
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RS690M [Radeon X1200 Series]
$ glxinfo | grep version
server glx version string: 1.2
client glx version string: 1.4
GLX version: 1.2
OpenGL version string: 1.5 Mesa 7.7.1
$ glxinfo | grep render
direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI R300 (RS690 791F) 20090101 NO-TCL DRI2

[dimesio]

Or if I really want to play my windows games under Linux, would I be better off buying a new laptop with an Nvidia video Controller?

Yes.

[James Mckenzie]

achalmers <[email protected]> wrote:

Last week I gave it a go on a couple of the Harry Potter Series of games. Unfortunately
although I can get "Goblet of fire" to run I get no graphics, just a black screen ( I
can tell it's running because I get the audio) an lot and lots of warning and errors
about GL functions mainly. many references to "fixme".

Can you create a logging file and post it on a site like pastebin.com?

The Wine FAQ has the procedures on how to create the logging file.

It seems I'm one of those unfortunates to have an ATI video controller (Radeon X1200 or
X1250) which ATI no longer support with their fglrx Linux Drivers. I therefore use the
recommended open source drivers (not much choice really).

What version of the Catalyst drivers are you using? Version 10.6 is reported to be much better than version 10.5.

There a lot of comments/discussion on the net about issues with wine and the fglrx
drivers and ATI controllers, and various tweaks and configuration settings that people
have use to fix various issues. Unfortunately none of it seems to relate directly to
the ATI controller I have. I've even tried a few things but no luck.

You might also want to look at the Applications Database for further hints/tricks.

The questions I'd like to ask are: is it worth my time continuing to pursue it? Does
anyone believe that a solution (and not one that involves a downgrade) is actually out
there in the immediate future? Or if I really want to play my windows games under
Linux, would I be better off buying a new laptop with an Nvidia video Controller?

This is an option. However, you might also want to try the trial version of CrossOver Linux for Games as well. Yes, it is commercial software, but is is a lot less expensive than a full blown system upgrade (unless that is really what you want to do.)

James McKenzie

[achalmers]

Or if I really want to play my windows games under Linux, would I be better off buying a new laptop with an Nvidia video Controller?

Yes.

Thanks dimesio. I thought as much.