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Play Project Entropia on Linux?

CareBear

CareBear

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Shenan CareBear Doah
Well, I was just messing around on digg.com and found a cool article about a company that actually wrote linux support for all the windows API's so that games will work on linux. Here is the company...

http://www.transgaming.com/

They have Project Entropia listed in their game database but it is not one of their "Officially Supported" games, so I don't know personally how well it works...

http://transgaming.org/gamesdb/games/alphabrowse.mhtml?letter=P

I decided to look on their forums for Project Entropia and surprisingly I got some hits. It seems like at least a couple people were successfull.

http://transgaming.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2398&highlight=entropia

The subscriptions is $5 a month :(, but that includes all games, support, and upgrades.
 
I actually have this program for linux. I can honestly tell you that even tho some games are listed at %100 they are not. I subscribed to it awhile back. Unless they have made lots of improvements it is still buggy. I tried playing several of the games that were %100 and it was buggy as hell.

So, not to get down on it. But unless you have the $5 to blow (which isnt that big of a deal) give it a shot, but dont expect it to be %100.. or even work for that matter.

Suicide

EDIT: More detail.

The $5 you can pay once to download the product. You just dont get the updates after your subscription runs out. With a $5 subscription you get "votes". Those votes can be used to vote for what game you want next. So for example you vote for PE along with 1000 other people. But if 10000 people vote for EQ2 they are going to work on EQ2 first. Very democratic and all, but needless to say, it will probably be awhile before PE gets any attention.
 
Suicide said:
I actually have this program for linux. I can honestly tell you that even tho some games are listed at %100 they are not. I subscribed to it awhile back. Unless they have made lots of improvements it is still buggy. I tried playing several of the games that were %100 and it was buggy as hell.

So, not to get down on it. But unless you have the $5 to blow (which isnt that big of a deal) give it a shot, but dont expect it to be %100.. or even work for that matter.

Suicide
Click to expand...


Thanks... The min is 3 month subscription I think, so $15 bucks. Do you remember what version you were running?
 
It was quite awhile ago. But looking at the website it doesnt look like a lot has changed. Other than the fact that its a min of 3 months. I just grabbed it and went forward. But every game i tried was buggy. And these were all listed as Fully supported.

Wouldnt hurt to try to. Just saying to get your hopes up tooo high.

Suicide
 
This does have me curious. I might just download this and try it out. I will let you know what i find!

Suicide
 
Please let me know how it goes for you. PE derailed my complete move to linux on my laptop.
 
Please keep in mind that MindArk doesnt support either Linux nor Mac, so any support cases would be worthless.

Also, it might be against the EULA.

I should prolly lock this, but as i dont know about any official word from MindArk on this matter i will let it run for while, but please someone wanting to use this contact support and ask so we can it cleared up.

For now dont blame anyone but yourself if you try it and things messes up and/or your account get's locked.
 
Is MA really as lock-happy as the forums lead me to believe? I've never seen a game site so full of paranoid people. It's like that episode of The Twilight Zone where the kid can do whatever he imagines, and his tv-land family are scared to death of making him upset.

I understand the stakes are a bit different in PE than any other "game". I'm just wondering if locking of accounts is as common as it sounds.

Anyway, thanks for leaving this open a bit. Being able to run PE on WINE would be great, and most companies would be happy to have more potential users with no additional effort: I would hope that MA will at least remain OS agnostic. Of course we're not going to expect them to support any issues.

I have my doubts, though. PE is flaky enough on "pure" windows, so i have a suspicion the dll emulation layer wouldn't hold up to the challenge, particularly for D3D.
 
I really dont think MA will be all that unhappy if someone works out how to play PE smoothly under linux.

"Hey, Mindark, I've just done this work and now your potential playerbase is expanded by around 10 million people"

MA : "Oh, thanks. You cant get it to work on a Macintosh too can you?"

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
 
Well, Since this is not locked yet, update. I have installed fedora and susbscribed to get the transgaming software. I am installing it now and will start the download of PE.

Will let you all know what happens.

MB or Marco. If this is doing anything against the EULA please let me know and I will discontinue this experiment. Just was curious and wanted to try it out.

Suicide
 
I tried to get PE to work on Mandrake about a year ago. Maybe you can get further than I did. This is the error I got while trying, not sure what program I was using to emulate windows other than WINE.

[br]Click to enlarge[/br]
 
So far no Joy.

I have been having problems with the installer. The first time it worked perfectly. But when it got to the download part it hosed up.. Gonna log on and play for it bit. I will get back to testing soon.

Suicide
 
Spider said:
I tried to get PE to work on Mandrake about a year ago. Maybe you can get further than I did. This is the error I got while trying, not sure what program I was using to emulate windows other than WINE.

[br]Click to enlarge[/br]
Click to expand...

Well, I think you need a program like the one Suicide is trying that actually implements the DirectX API.

And thanks Suicide for trying it out ;)
 
CareBear said:
Well, I think you need a program like the one Suicide is trying that actually implements the DirectX API.

And thanks Suicide for trying it out ;)
Click to expand...

Yeah. the other one had an area to install DX and what not. This one i cannot find. So i think i might have to *gasp* read the directions. I am going to work on it a bit now. Updates as i get them

Suicide
 
Suicide said:
Yeah. the other one had an area to install DX and what not. This one i cannot find. So i think i might have to *gasp* read the directions. I am going to work on it a bit now. Updates as i get them

Suicide
Click to expand...


Directions are for maps, Instructions are for manuals and programs. :laugh: ;)
 
Interesting...

So i was trying to load via cedega and was having no luck at all. It would install it but then when it got to the point of loading the CL it would just go away.

So i loaded up WINE thinking maybe the problem was that IE was required. Because IE is what the client loader uses exclusively. Funny enough, i tried the installer with WINE and it actually worked better than it did with Cedega. Problem is when it got to the point of contacting the server to download the software it couldn't connect. I am currently behind a protected Firewall. So this doesnt surprise me.

When i get home i will try this again and see how far i can get. I am wondering that when i get the software downloaded cedega might run a bit more smoothly. But time will tell.

More updates to come all you linux weenies! :)

Once this plays out i am going to try and load a fully supported game with cenega to test and see if it is really as good as they say.

Suicide
 
Well all linux peeps. I am currently downloading the game. So it should be interesting. But i have to say. Farther than i got when i was using the cenega tool. Soooo... I would say it doesnt work.

I will let you all know what happens when i get the game downloaded.

Still waiting to hear if this is any sort of violation with the EULA.

Suicide
 
No need to download it. Assuming a dual-boot PC, mount your NTFS drive and copy the folder across. Then figure out how to set it up in cedega.

ClientLoader worked fine under Wine, but not under cedega. So, I had to add the command line options and launch PE.exe directly.

It loaded, and I got around 0.25 fps :)

Apparently, my graphics card wasnt working properly. glxgears showed a very low FPS (<500). It was stuck in software mode for some reason. So, I changed the configuration to use agpgart. Then, glxgears put out a healthy ~2000 fps.

So, my graphics was working, BUT cedega didn't like it. Attempting to load Half Life 1 seemed like my processor was 60mhz. So, pE didn't work either.

Good thing I got cedega off a friend for free. No point paying $15 for something that doesn't work at all. Perhaps I'll get an NVIDIA card one day, and it will work.

I also tried dx9wine, but, curiously, that only supports DirectX 8 :rolleyes:
 
Hey I'm on Digg too. Kevin Rose of the old "ScreenSavers" TV show started that site.
 
What about vmaware? Has anyone tried with that?


I also would love it if MA would support PE under Linux-BUT I don't see it happeneing anytime :(
 
Suicide, how did it go?

It doesn't surprise me that Cedega doesn't work and WINE does a bit better. I as a matter of course "Uninstalled" Internet Explorer from my XP laptop as soon as i had FireFox installed, and encountered numerous functionality problems in PE and especially the client loader that were clearly due to IE not being officially installed. Of course IE doesn't really go away, as is clear from the Windows Update functionality, so i think that's why PE works at all.

For a company that saddled themselves so completely with the MS platform, i find it ironic they don't use standard cut-and-paste widgets and other niceties: sort of defeats the whole purpose of putting your eggs all in one basket, so to speak.
 
<Edit:> I will try some stuff and log it in this post.
some things I have tried in this post.
1. look for missing DLLs
2. Dump all errors from cedega and discect
3. Latest Stable Release of wine

note: All tests are performed on clientloader.exe. PE.exe does not seem to launch when ran by itself.
</Edit>

I had Project Entropia working under linux fine back in version 7.0. (cedega version 4.3.2) I used to play entropia ALOT when I used windows and in version 7.0. But since the latest entropia updates ive had to live without it. I have used linux for 2 years and am certified in Redhat. I have had not the slightest bit of luck.

Wine Gets all the way to the updater and then dies. (wine version 0.9)
Cedega Dies the momment you start clientloader.exe with it.

I have wrote support tickets and whatnot to transgaming in the past instead of even giving me any advice they responded "good luck on your own" so I tried just that. I ran Clientloader.exe in cedega and this was the only missing library which showed up in the debug

Code: 
warn:module:BUILTIN32_dlopen cannot open .so lib for builtin mfc71loc.dll: libmfc71loc.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
trace:module:MODULE_LoadLibraryExA Trying so-library 'C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\MFC71LOC.DLL'
warn:module:MODULE_LoadLibraryExA Failed to load module 'C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\MFC71LOC.DLL'; error=2

For those of you who dont know this DLL control is depriciated usually it is all located in MFC71.dll expecially the english version. So in other words adding that library would be pointless.
Conclusion: Entropia is not missing DLL's. Cedega and wine has everything it needs module wise.

For the next test I will dump all errors and warnings to a logfile to see what could possibly be going wrong....

Well without flooding this post with errors, it looks like there are alot of Proc errors, and interprocess errors relating to how cedega executes files. Meaning Cedega does not emulate windowsXP well enough to handle every little bit of Process information relating to Project Entropia. (overflows, underflows, input output errors, general processor errors)
Conclusion: Cedega cannot run Entropia 8.0 until the developers of cedega update the interprocess relations.

It is true that entropia worked with an old version of Cedega meaning that an update of Entropia killed its compatibility with cedega.
VU 7.6.3 applied 28 Sep 2005
An update has been applied to Project Entropia.

* Client stability enhanced.
Click to expand...
Is probably where compatibility with cedega went downhill.

With that being known I am updating WINE to the latest CVS version, We know for sure that WINE can run ClientLoader.exe to the update screen. We also know WINE 0.9 beta does not work so hopefully the CVS will have better luck without having to tweak some code.

Before I test the CVS I will test the latest stable release of wine to date (0.9.4)
http://img507.!!!!!!!!!!.us/img507/2463/entropia3mb.th.png

Looks promising it stops exactly at the FTP screen meaning it could just be a internet problem on my end.. A quick restart of my networking process and.... TWO HOURS LATER
http://img247.!!!!!!!!!!.us/img247/6156/entropia13ri.th.png

fully updated entropia, dang update took forever to download. This is pretty far wine version 0.9.4 Good thing we know about the proc errors in cedega or else we would still be messing aroudn with that. DOH I tried to join the server and it complains about directx 9. Might as well look that up now.

Ill make another post when I have time to look up directx 9. Oliver Stieber was working on a directx9 patch the last i heard. this little 4 hour project is fun!

Conclusions: Cedega does not work with project entropia due to interprocess relations. Wine stable release 0.9.4 which was released christmas eve gets entropia to the log in screen. DirectX 9 is now halting up the launching process im thinking a x11drv override will do the trick but I must goto a movie right now so BRB in three hours!
 
Last edited:
I think that I was using trying CrossOver Office on one of my attempts to get PE to run in Linux. I know there was another software package that I was trying that is similar to Cydega but I can't think of the name of it atm. I know you got the software for free as long as you ran the forums, faq and howto on the game you were trying to get running under Linux. I will try to remember it or get lucky with google. Other things I tried based on linux help sites were using the DCOM98 files and installshield. Here is a link to be more specific Franks Corner.
 
Has anyone did it the hard long way and used VMware?
 
Digit said:
Has anyone did it the hard long way and used VMware?
Click to expand...

Well.. VMWare really isnt running it on linux, it would be running it in a virtual windows environment in linux. But it probably would work until you loaded the game itself.

The problem with this is you need ActiveX to load the CL. Thanks the pain in the ass part of it that kinda got me stuck. I am in australia right now. So i will pick this up again when i am not having fun!

Suicide
 
Digit said:
Has anyone did it the hard long way and used VMware?
Click to expand...

That's actually the short easy way.

If the problem is: Run PE on Linux
and the solution is: First run Windows on Linux and run PE on Windows.

Then as you can see, that's really something of a cheat. Using the cedega or wine tools is the correct way to do it, at least until MA offer a native linux client. Speaking of which, I think I'll throw a support case over to them and see what they say.
 
No headway yet. It appears that Clientloader.exe recognizes the directx9 that wine comes with because when I click on the client status in the login page there it says the machine passes that test. Meaning PE.exe has yet another directx9 test that it does pre launch. Either that or its looking for a library in dx9 that aint there.... I've exausted all my options in the stable release. I doubt the CVS will give anything to new considering its only been like 7 days since the release of 0.9.4..

Ill continue to look and tinker but it looks like MindArk will just have to consider whether or not to expand their playerbase.
 
The only way for MA to expand their playerbase is word of mouth and advertising. The two land auctions seem to have helped a bit. As for MA making it useable by Linux and Mac users, they are on their own. The game engine that PE was built on is DirectX specific. This could be the reason why even with Wine you aren't getting it to run. Check my screenshot in one of my earlier posts to see the error I got when I tried to run PE in Linux. The clientloader does verify that DirectX is installed and up to par but when you click the launch button a render error occurs because DirectX isn't installed.
 
Dirk said:
That's actually the short easy way.

If the problem is: Run PE on Linux
and the solution is: First run Windows on Linux and run PE on Windows.

Then as you can see, that's really something of a cheat. Using the cedega or wine tools is the correct way to do it, at least until MA offer a native linux client. Speaking of which, I think I'll throw a support case over to them and see what they say.
Click to expand...


Well the thread said "running PE on Linux" I didn't think that ment running it on Wine based products only. I guess it depends on the school your from. Cuz if you get down to it then using wine is still considered running it on linux since WINE is not an emulator.

Still even if it would run under vmware I would be happy :) .
 
Screw the clientloader. Simply mount your NTFS partition and copy the directory. Or, if on a separate PC, consider burning it to a DVD... Or put the whole thing in a .zip, get a generic FTP server software and move it to the home directory, and download it from your linux machine.

Congratulations, you just saved 2+ hours of downloading :)

Figure out how to add PE.exe to cedega (it CAN be done, despite the idiotic interface), and add this command line option in the appropriate section in the profile configuration (replacing your username and password ofcourse):
-nUSERNAME -pPASSWORD -i812 -df -col32 -bw10000 -v85 -k2

If you have an ATI card (like me), you will now get to see the pE loading window, but it will probably never finish loading. This is due to cedega's amazing lack of support for ATI cards.

Otherwise, you can now play pE in linux. Some/all textures may be screwed though.

As for VMWare, it cannot emulate a DX9-compatible graphics card (yet) so don't bother.
 
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