WINE abnormally slow when playing Starcraft

Nathan · 2009-01-31 02:26:55

I used to have a 1.6Ghz computer with 512MiB of RAM. It ran Starcraft just fine in WINE, full speed and everything. So, like any normal person would I upgraded this box as soon as I could. I now have a 2.3Ghz quad-core with 2GiB of RAM. Big improvement, right? Well, I get about 3-5 FPS in Starcraft. I've tried running Starcraft.exe in compatibility modes for XP and '98. I've tried googling for literally hours and I can't find any solutions.

So does anyone have any ideas? The weirdest thing is that I can run Spore full speed and play it in full screen; I can play Black & White on high detail at a pretty big resolution. Why can't I play Starcraft, I should be able to run 18 instances of Starcraft at once?

I just want my Starcraft back!

Procyon · 2009-01-31 02:31:43

Same wine version? Try an older wine version.

Dheart · 2009-01-31 07:01:43

Apparently, you didn't see wine's appdb entry.

Nathan · 2009-01-31 16:10:33

Dheart wrote:

Apparently, you didn't see wine's appdb entry.

Yes, I saw it. I tried every single fix on there and nothing helped. That's why I'm posting here.

Dheart · 2009-01-31 16:47:14

Does StarCraft run better with new wine prefix? Did you try -opengl?

Nathan · 2009-01-31 18:17:26

Yes and yes. No fix.

EDIT: By "Yes" I meant yes, I have tried it. Neither of the solutions worked. Sorry for any confusion I may have caused.

Last edited by Nathan (2009-01-31 19:37:45)

Roberth · 2009-01-31 20:24:18

I fixed it by running the game in a window.

Nathan · 2009-02-01 01:23:24

Roberth, I tried that too. It didn't work unfortunately.

FrozenFox · 2009-02-03 12:00:01

Try this, out of sheer curiosity. It should only take 2 minutes or so to test my probably-nonsense idea anyway.

If you're on/using kde4, anyway..

sudo pacman -Sy gdm
ctrl+alt+f1 and login as regular user
sudo /etc/rc.d/kdm stop
sudo /etc/rc.d/gdm start
switch session to 'twm' and login as regular user
click the desktop, open xterm, run sc from wine there.

For some bizarre reason, my performance randomly turns abysmal in starcraft at startup->on (and occasionally in other apps too, outside of wine included) when I'm in kde4 or using kdm or something, with or without effects. I didn't have the same issue with kernel 2.6.27 and nvidia 180.16, now on 2.6.28 and 180.27 respectively. I don't have a clue what the problem is or even if its a painfully coincidental issue as opposed to an actual cause, which seems to be the case with many of the bizarre issues I've had on Arch. I haven't run into the same issue if I avoid all things kde-related. Perhaps it could work for you. I don't expect it to though.

Last edited by FrozenFox (2009-02-03 12:20:44)

Marko-Serbia · 2009-09-06 13:22:45

Ok guys I think I have complete solution for playing starcraft on linux arch (but can be applied on any distro in general) with wine and being able to connect to battle net. I will assume that you have properly set your graphic card drivers which is crucial thing. Nvidia is preferable brand for linux gaming in my opinion and experience.

1. Download wine tarball from aur repository and install it using makepkg -s and then sudo pacman -U "package name". It is for 686 architecture. This patched version of wine will allow you to play on battle net. It was optimized for warcraft 3 but it works for starcraft as well (both blizzard games ) )
http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=27298
In this step we made starcraft playable on internet .

2. In this step we will optimize starcraft to run without glitches, lag or mouse delay under wine. After you make some wine regedit modifications, starcraft should be able to run smoothly. You should do next:
a) in terminal type: wine regedit
b) position yourself to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Wine/Direct3D
c) in Direct3D add the following String Values (right click/New/String Value) or in menu (Edit/New/String Value):
I DirectDrawRenderer (value data: opengl)
II OffScreenRenderingMode (value data: fbo)
III RenderTargetLockMode (value data: readtex)
IV VideoMemorySize (value data: put your graphic card video memory size) p.s. For example mine is 256

Ok, those were registry tweaks concerning starcraft performance. Lets go to the next step, step 3.

3. Lets make some changes in winecfg. In terminal type winecfg. In applications window go add application and point to your starcraft.exe file. Mine is (/home/marko/Starcraft/StarCraft.exe) . Then mark Starcraft.exe and go to graphics tab and uncheck allow window manager to decorate the windows. The rest of settings leave as they were by default.

4. In my experience, after adding those registry modifications and changes in winecfg I had some problems starting starcraft properly. I got distorted screen and couldn't see starcrat menu properly. I am using xfce4 and I figured out that after changing my window manager from xfwm4 to metacity, using compiz fusion icon, I had no problems. So, my suggestion for you is to use metacity window manager while playing starcraft. sudo pacman -S metacity

5. The last thing I had to change is the keybinding for metacity. When I started playing starcraft whenever I clicked combo: right mouse click+ alt I got fast menu activated. Pretty annoying xD. If you have in mind that metacity is deafult window manager for gnome, logical conclusion would be that it can be changed in gnome-control-center:
Go sudo pacman -S gnome-control-center
After it installs in terminal type gnome-control-center and go to windows option. In windows option change Movement Key option from Alt to Meta.

After all those steps I had perfectly playable starcraft under wine with opportunity to connect on battle net and play some games. Starcraft was performing faster than in windows in my case . The only thing I wasn't been able to fix is black screen in battle net lobby which is not that big of a deal but still annoying a bit. You can still see where to click and how to login and thats what matters the most.

Thats all. I hope its helps.

Kisses from Serbia.

Last edited by Marko-Serbia (2009-09-07 04:48:36)

phunkedelik · 2009-10-16 04:50:44

im following this post AS I TYPE, makepkg -s is taking a while but i encountered the battlenet wine error just like everyone else. Can play LAN etc. but hopefully this wine version will do the trick

quarkup · 2009-12-06 20:32:24

If you talking about the slow issue, configure the wine to use your graphics card by following this simple article which will make you speeding up wine

check this:
http://linuxgamingtoday.wordpress.com/2 … g-in-wine/

Arch Linux

#1 2009-01-31 02:26:55

WINE abnormally slow when playing Starcraft

#2 2009-01-31 02:31:43

Re: WINE abnormally slow when playing Starcraft

#3 2009-01-31 07:01:43

Re: WINE abnormally slow when playing Starcraft

#4 2009-01-31 16:10:33

Re: WINE abnormally slow when playing Starcraft

#5 2009-01-31 16:47:14

Re: WINE abnormally slow when playing Starcraft

#6 2009-01-31 18:17:26

Re: WINE abnormally slow when playing Starcraft

#7 2009-01-31 20:24:18

Re: WINE abnormally slow when playing Starcraft

#8 2009-02-01 01:23:24

Re: WINE abnormally slow when playing Starcraft

#9 2009-02-03 12:00:01

Re: WINE abnormally slow when playing Starcraft

#10 2009-09-06 13:22:45

Re: WINE abnormally slow when playing Starcraft

#11 2009-10-16 04:50:44

Re: WINE abnormally slow when playing Starcraft

#12 2009-12-06 20:32:24

Re: WINE abnormally slow when playing Starcraft

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