I think I managed to get Mental Omega working on Ubuntu (specifically Kubuntu 22.04 with X11) with multiplayer working. I want to note that I am not an expert on WINE (or linux in general and first time post on a forum) but I wanted to share my steps. This is assuming you already have WINE and WINETRICKS installed.
These are the steps that I have used:
1. Setup Red Alert 2 on Windows and copy the files to transfer to Linux.
- You can do this step on Linux but I did it on Windows and transferred the files.
2. Create the prefix using your terminal with the command:
env WINEARCH=win32 WINEPREFIX="your_directory" winecfg
- your_directory is obviously your prefer directory. Depending where you installed it the game startup may take longer as I installed it onto another drive. A popup window should appear of the config.
3. Set your windows version to Windows XP and go to libraries to add ddraw (as native (windows)).
- You should go to graphics and select the "Emulate a virtual desktop" option but if you do, be sure to change the resolution higher than 1280x720 as the game will crash if it is set to default
4. Install the following components with the command:
WINEPREFIX="your_directory" winetricks --force dotnet45 xna40 vcrun2008
- I'm using force since WINE-stable does not work without that command. You may want to install dotnet45 separately as I had a problem with installing them all together. Use the same command but remove dotnet45.
You may run into a problem with sha#sum error, just follow the link to fix this: https://askubuntu.co...e-and-try-again
5. Go to your prefix directory and drop the Red Alert 2 files onto the C drive. Download the 3.0 files, 3.3.6 patch and music.
6. To access the game you type this into the terminal:
WINEPREFIX="your_directory" wine explorer
- A window should pop up, find your folder and open the client. The game should work with multiplayer. I used CnC-DDraw as the rendered.
Now there are issues with this and yours may vary
- If you DID NOT select virtual desktop, the game will still work but:
1. When playing on windowed mode, you CANNOT move the window or else the game will be aligned incorrectly.
2. When playing on fullscreen, you CANNOT alt-tab or else the games screen will be black.
- There are instances of the virtual window going black when leaving the menu, to fix this just go to the menu (ESC) and resume the game to fix the screen.
You can also add this on Lutris by adding the game and selecting:
- WINEPREFIX directory
- The executable (MentalOmegaClient.exe)
- The prefix architecture to 32-bit
Please share your results to see if you have managed to get your game working on your distro. I would love to see if anyone who has more experience with this come up with a better guide or steps for this to work. I love Mental Omega and although the Ubuntu Community for MO is almost non-existent, I wanted to upload something rather than have nothing. Thank you.
Edited by TeslaStormX, 07 July 2022 - 12:26 AM.
