3 replies to this topic

[Bender647]

I've been trying to get my CNC games running under Linux using WINE.
 
For Generals/Zero Hour, GenTool works, but also, just redirecting all the ea and gamespy address strings found in the executables to server.cnc-online.net via the hosts file also works fine.  But, this method doesn't seem to work for RA3 or CNC3.
 
The cnconline.exe runs fine under WINE.  But when trying to connect in game, the backend server is never found.  Sniffing the network traffic, I don't see it even trying to contact the cnc-online server.  The log file looks like this:
 

----- C&C:Online Launcher Start -----
Game: Red Alert 3
Red Alert 3 Install Path: C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Red Alert 3\
Started game with: "RA3.exe "
Caught CREATE_PROCESS_DEBUG_EVENT from Red Alert 3. Detaching...
ERROR: game.dat process not found.

 
If I check which processes are running while the game is running, I do not see "game.dat", but the closest thing is:
RA3_1.12.game (C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Red Alert 3\Data\RA3_1.12.game -config C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Red Alert 3\RA3_english_1.12.SkuDef).
 
Hooking appears to modify a debugger path in the registry, but it doesn't not appear WINE actually follows it, and instead the game just runs normally.
 
If anyone has any ideas, I'll try them.  Or, if this is known impossible, that's fine too.

[Cervanthes]

yeah some peeps have made it work but usually not with the launcher if you come to our discord we can hit you up with smth experimental which you can try out 

[Bender647]

Thanks - I will look for you.

 

To summarize for others that may have come across this thread looking for Linux help - I got help from Cervanthes and Xads, and with some fiddling I managed to get this "experimental" solution running under Wine 7.4.  I was asked not to discuss the experimental tool in detail, so that ties my hands a bit, but I'll forward them a few hints they can share to linux users as they see fit.

 

Unfortunately, we were 100% unsuccessful in finishing an RA3 game without an out-of-sync error.  I think the best was about 10 minutes, but as soon as a lot of units got together it would always lose sync.  But, it did run so others may have better luck.

Edited by Bender647, 28 March 2022 - 07:37 PM.

[Bender647]

Another update - I managed to get the original cnconline.exe tool working under Wine 7.5 and completed a long game without mismatch.

Here's some help:

 

• Even though the game runs solo skirmishes just fine out of the box with the stock wine, you need to pull in some helpers to play online with the original cnconline tool:
  • Use winetricks to install "d9vk".  This is the new Vulkan wrapper for DirectX.  It also pulls in the Microsoft DX9 as a dependency, but I also tested just the d3dx9 by itself and it didn't connect without d9vk.
  • Don't bother hooking - WINE won't honor the registry entry.  Run the tool and manually launch.
• As a hint on the "experimental" tool - that one requires `winetricks d3dx9'.  And you'll need to manually use winecfg to set d3d9.dll to "native, builtin".  The built-in is necessary because the real MS DLL needs to be found.
  • Again, this solution always went out of sync in my testing.