CptDve’s Guide to MSWindows Virtualization for Daoc (on Linux! Maybe works on Mac, too.)

EDIT: For performance reasons, I have switched from “vmplayer” to KVM via qemu with GPU-passthrough more than 8 months ago, but it requires to have special hardware for that (2 monitors and an 2nd video card, which can be an old one that you already retired). Because most of you don't want to upgrade their hardware, I will keep the description of the vmplayer settings (with the mouse etc) here. If you have a second monitor, an old video card and a fitting PCIe slot, scroll to the middle of this post (Option 2: kvm via qemu with GPU-passthrough) for a more performant solution.

Pretext (important read for... reasons):

This is no quote but a highlighted pretext wrote:There is actually no reason for daoc to run on a virtual machine as a Linux or Mac user, as the client itself runs natively on all systems via WINE (which is not an emulator, but rather a runtime environment that provides all the system related ms-windows stuff like self-implemented DLLs a program might expect from a real ms-windows, and translating the MSWindows systemcalls to Unix commands, which makes it run on Linux natively in the end). This was possible for more than TEN YEARS already, but now we are forced to use windows.

The reason why we have to switch from WINE to a full virtualization method is the new uthgard launcher. It is using dotnet4.6 for cryptographic reasons (login via token), which is said to be not working on WINE. This is partly false, as I was able to successfully install dotnet4.6 via winetricks recently. But even then I still get the message ‘An error occurred during a cryptographic operation’ when using the launcher.

I really hope this gets solved somehow sooner or later on a newer version of the uthgard launcher by using a different way, because it is a real waste to not run daoc on Linux natively (which is very resource friendly and comfortable), when daoc itself is actually fully supported but just the uthgard patcher/launcher isn’t. I don’t regard the following guide as a long term solution, but rather as a temporary workaround. The way we have to do this for now is to virtualize a computer with emulated hardware inside of your actual OS, installing a REAL mswindows on top of it and running the uthgard launcher there. This is actually not acceptable for me, and there are a million of reasons why people do not want to use windows (the most obvious one being freedom). Even though it is 2017 and it was possible to daoc without it for 10 years, we are now forced us to use it. In fact it is the only way to run uthgard until they change the method of the connection chain.

I encourage the devs and coders (/wave thekroko) to not use this guide as an excuse to stop considering a better solution, because this is nothing else than installing windows. Please remember the ideals of the open source project called DOL, in which you were a part of(?). It is more than just a relative of the Uthgard project; without DOL, there might have been no Uthgard at all. To some degree, DOL is the father of Uthgard. I don't ask to make the Uthgard project open source, the only thing I ask for is to make it accessible for people of the open source community. Thank you, if you are reading this!

Now back to the topic! I tried a few virtualization methods (there are quite a few already) and the most common choice was Oracle’s Virtualbox, because the free version is (or by now maybe 'was') fully open sourced. Sadly, I had no luck in getting hardware acceleration in VirtualBox, so my video card was not used at all and everything (even 3D stuff) had to be calculated on my CPU, which made playing games impossible on my rig. I heard of others using VMware Workstation, but I was put off by their ridiculous licensing prices. Then I noticed it is possible to run it on the free “vmplayer”, if you are not deterred by changing some config files manually. Hardware acceleration is working here!

Old Option 1: vmplayer (if you dont have a second video card)

1. Install the package of your distribution's repository that contains the "vmplayer".
   To do this, you should consult the wiki of your Unix distribution regarding VMware. The most critical part is the patch level of your kernel: as maintaining the free version of the vmplayer is not VMware’s first priority, it will not work with the most cutting edge unstable or custom kernel from testing, and right now not even on the normal stable kernel (on Ach Linux) without the use of some patches, which should be described on the wiki pages of your distribution. After installing, you should check if it works with your kernel by launching "vmplayer".
   
   
2. Install any mswindows iso (>=win7) you want on the vmplayer.
   I think you can get a ‘free’ win10 copy from MS themselves, if you don’t mind the permanent “Activate Windows” watermark on the desktop. It is actually like a permanent trial version from MS and apparently they will never shut it down.
   
   
3. Install vmware-tools on the guest system by using the menu option in the vmplayer frontend
   
   
4. Resolve mouse issues by adding some lines in the .vmx file of the virtual machine you created
   As there occur some issues in mouse catching applications like 3D games, you need to open the .vmx (it’s somewhere in /home/user/vmware) and add/change the following line:

   Code: Select all

   vmmouse.present = "FALSE"
mouse.vusb.useBasicMouse = "FALSE"                             
usb.generic.allowHID = "TRUE"

   
   I am not 100% sure if that was all that I added to it, so there might have been one or two other options. Tell me if you notice any troubles here.
   
   
5. Install a browser of your choice and follow the steps on uthgard.org to install the client and launcher
   All you need is a browser, dotnet4.6, vcrun2015 (x86), the daoc client and the uthgard launcher. Don't bloat up your virtual machine.
   
   
6. Adjust position and size of vmplayer's window to get a 'windowed fullscreen' experience
   Don’t do this manually with your mouse, but use some command like wmctrl to be able to script it, as you will need to reposition the window every time you start the box + after the character selection screen. After finding out the correct position and size (position to be hiding vmplayer’s menu bar on top, and size to be not overlaying your tint panel on the bottom of your Linux desktop if you have one), you need to launch the game (connect to uthgard) and select the correct settings in the login screen for your adjusted vmware-window (full screen and the resolution needs to be the size of your vmplayer’s window). My wmctrl command to adjust the vmplayer window to "borderless fullscreen"-feel looks like this:

   Code: Select all

   wmctrl -r "uthgardbox - VMware Workstation 12 Player (Non-commercial use only)" -e 0,-4,-57,1924,1107

   
   (its 2 pixels on the left and right because of the border of the window, and the height is shortened because I want to keep my tint panel on the bottom. 57 pixels is the height of the menu bar of the vmplayer's window, which i want to hide by positioning it above the screen). You will have to adjust this here and there because I am sure you use different window managers with different menu bar sizes.
   
   To fully tab out of the game AND the whole virtualized mswindows, you will now have to use CTRL+ALT instead of ALT+TAB. It takes a while to accustom to it, but ALT+TAB will just send you to the desktop of your ugly windows box, which you want to see least as possible.

NEW Option 2: kvm via qemu with GPU-passthrough (second monitor and video card required)

1. Check if your CPU + Motherboard support Hardware Virtualization and IOMMU
   For Intel, its called VT-d or VT-x: https://ark.intel.com/Search/FeatureFil ... s&VTD=true
   For AMD: Bulldozer generation and up should be compatible, but better check for yourself.
   
   If you are not sure about your motherboard, no problem. We are going to check it by enabling the iommu-option in your bootloader. Plugin your 2nd video card in your free PCIe slot and then add "intel_iommu=on" to the options in the entry of your bootloader (location depends on your bootloader, mine looks like this):
   

   arch.conf wrote:title Arch Linux
   linux /vmlinuz-linux
   initrd /intel-ucode.img
   initrd /initramfs-linux.img
   options root=PARTUUID=48053146-731f-4cca-a25e-02ec93a0a177 rw intel_iommu=on
   

   
   If you are using GRUB, it could be like this: GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="... intel_iommu=on"
   Dont forget to rebuild your cfgs and bootimage, initramfs, etc, then reboot.
   
   Run lspci -nnk and look for the BUS IDs of both of your GPU. It should look like this:
   

   lspci -nnk wrote:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GP107 [GeForce GTX 1050 Ti] [10de:1c82] (rev a1)
   Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation GP107 [GeForce GTX 1050 Ti] [10de:11bf]
   Kernel modules: nouveau, nvidia_drm, nvidia
   01:00.1 Audio device [0403]: NVIDIA Corporation GP107GL High Definition Audio Controller [10de:0fb9] (rev a1)
   Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation GP107GL High Definition Audio Controller [10de:11bf]
   Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
   Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel
   
   ...
   
   02:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GK107 [GeForce GT 640] [10de:0fc1] (rev a1)
   Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. GK107 [GeForce GT 640] [1043:83f3]
   Kernel modules: nouveau, nvidia_drm, nvidia
   02:00.1 Audio device [0403]: NVIDIA Corporation GK107 HDMI Audio Controller [10de:0e1b] (rev a1)
   Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. GK107 HDMI Audio Controller [1043:83f3]
   Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel
   

   
   So 01:00.0 is the BUSID of my main GPU, while 02:00.0 is the BUSID of my secondary, older GPU that i want to use for Daoc. We can now check if an iommu_group was created for our secondary GPU:
   

   Code: Select all

   [david@arch ~]$ ls -lha /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000\:02\:00.0/iommu_group/devices/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Feb 14 14:47 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 0 Feb 14 14:46 ..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Feb 14 14:47 0000:00:01.0 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Feb 14 14:47 0000:00:01.1 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Feb 14 14:47 0000:01:00.0 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Feb 14 14:47 0000:01:00.1 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Feb 14 14:47 0000:02:00.0 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.1/0000:02:00.0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Feb 14 14:47 0000:02:00.1 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.1/0000:02:00.1

   
   If you don't see this, iommu/vt-d was not enabled or your motherboard might not support it.
   
   
2. Fix the IOMMU Grouping with a custom built Kernel
   As you can see in the last "ls -lha" check, we currently have BOTH GPUs in the same IOMMU group (GTX 1050 TI in 01:00.0 and GT 640 in 02:00.0). We don't want this, because the system cannot share hardware between Host and Guest, if they are in the same IOMMU group. In order to split them up, we need to use a custom build Kernel that allows us to change this.
   
   On Arch Linux, the package we require is called "linux-vfio" (i am using both linux-vfio and linux-vfio-lts in case the usual one gets killed by updates). If you have pacaur, all you have to do is "pacaur -S linux-vfio" and then wait for 1-2 hours, while the kernel is being compiled.
   
   After compilation, check your new bootloader entry for the new kernel and add the options "intel_iommu=on" and "pcie_acs_override=downstream". This looks different depending on your bootloader, but in my "/boot/loader/entries/" I copied the file "arch.conf", named it "arch-vfio.conf" and edited to use the new image, initramfs and more options:
   

   arch-vfio.conf wrote:title Arch Linux VFIO
   linux /vmlinuz-linux-vfio
   initrd /intel-ucode.img
   initrd /initramfs-linux-vfio.img
   options root=PARTUUID=... rw intel_iommu=on pcie_acs_override=downstream
   

   
   
   Now BEFORE you reboot and test it out, you should install the DKMS (Dynamic Kernel Modul Support) version of your video card drivers, or they wont work on your custom kernel. The name of the DKMS drivers for nvidia are called "nvidia-dkms" on arch linux. They will automatically reinstall the drivers and generate new bootimages/initramfs whenever there is a new update.
   
   Reboot, select the new bootloader entry and pray that your video drivers are working. If it was successful, check your iommu grouping again. It should now look like this:
   

   Code: Select all

   ls -lha /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000\:02\:00.0/iommu_group/devices/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Feb 14 14:57 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 0 Feb 14 14:57 ..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Feb 14 14:57 0000:02:00.0 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.1/0000:02:00.0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Feb 14 14:57 0000:02:00.1 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.1/0000:02:00.1


   
   We did it! the BUSID from our main GPU (GTX 1050 TI) is gone from the iommu group, and we only have the BUSID from our older GT 640 left.
   
   
3. Grabbing the 2nd video card away from the host system
   Now we have the problem that the host system doesn't know that this video card is supposed to be used by another system. So if we want to keep the card for our guest system, we have to claim it before the kernel starts:
   
   Add the kernel module "pci-stub" to the MODULES="..." section in "/etc/mkinitcpio.conf" like this
   

   Code: Select all

   MODULES="... pci-stub"


   
   
   Check the PCI-IDs of both the VGA and the Audio device of your secondary video card with "lspci -nnk":
   

   02:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GK107 [GeForce GT 640] [10de:0fc1] (rev a1)
   Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. GK107 [GeForce GT 640] [1043:83f3]
   Kernel driver in use: nvidia
   Kernel modules: nouveau, nvidia_drm, nvidia
   02:00.1 Audio device [0403]: NVIDIA Corporation GK107 HDMI Audio Controller [10de:0e1b] (rev a1)
   Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. GK107 HDMI Audio Controller [1043:83f3]
   Kernel driver in use: sda_hda_intel
   Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel
   

   
   
   Now we can grab both devices 10de:0fc1 and 10de:0e1b before the kernel does by adding another option to our boot entry:
   

   arch-vfio.conf wrote:title Arch Linux VFIO
   linux /vmlinuz-linux-vfio
   initrd /intel-ucode.img
   initrd /initramfs-linux-vfio.img
   options root=PARTUUID=... rw intel_iommu=on pcie_acs_override=downstream pci-stub.ids=10de:0fc1,10de:0e1b
   

   
   
   Rebuild your initramfs, reboot and check if the kernel modules are active for your card with "lspc -nnk":
   

   lspci -nnk wrote:02:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GK107 [GeForce GT 640] [10de:0fc1] (rev a1)
   Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. GK107 [GeForce GT 640] [1043:83f3]
   Kernel driver in use: pci-stub
   Kernel modules: nouveau, nvidia_drm, nvidia
   02:00.1 Audio device [0403]: NVIDIA Corporation GK107 HDMI Audio Controller [10de:0e1b] (rev a1)
   Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. GK107 HDMI Audio Controller [1043:83f3]
   Kernel driver in use: pci-stub
   Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel
   

   
   
   With this kernel driver, we are able to release the video card for a guest system once we fire it up. To make this happen easier, you should create this script and save it as /usr/bin/vfio-bind (don't forget to run "chmod +x /usr/bin/vfio-bind" afterwards to make it executable):
   

   Code: Select all

   #!/bin/bash

modprobe vfio-pci

for dev in "$@"; do
        vendor=$(cat /sys/bus/pci/devices/$dev/vendor)
        device=$(cat /sys/bus/pci/devices/$dev/device)
        if [ -e /sys/bus/pci/devices/$dev/driver ]; then
                echo $dev > /sys/bus/pci/devices/$dev/driver/unbind
        fi
        echo $vendor $device > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/vfio-pci/new_id
done


   
   
4. Installing qemu and preparing to install Windows
   Install qemu (pacman -S qemu) and create a folder where you want the whole virtual system to be. Navigate to that folder
   
   Create an container for your virtual hard drive like this:
   

   Code: Select all

   qemu-img create -f qcow2 -o preallocation=metadata,compat=1.1,lazy_refcounts=on win.img 120G

   
   
   To install a windows iso on it, you need to add two iso images to this folder:
   virtio-win.iso for virtual IO drivers: https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/vi ... io-win.iso
   win10.iso to install windows 10 from: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/hel ... windows-10
   
   Figure out if your secondary video card supports BIOS or UEFI. If your video card is a BIOS card, you can just continue using this guide with SEABIOS. If you have an UEFI card, you might be forced to use a method called "OVMF" (https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=162768) and change this script slightly. Regardless you should check if it just works like i propose to you.
   
5. Setting up monitors and creating the KVM script
   
   The connected cables of my monitors look like this:
   GTX 1050 TI---DVI-D-Cable---------------leftMonitor
   GTX 1050 TI---HDMI-Cable---------------rightMonitor
   GT 640---VGA-Cable---DVI-D-Adaptor--leftMonitor
   While my virtual windows is not running, both monitors get signals from the 1050TI to display my extended linux desktop. Whenever this script is started, the first thing that happens is that the x-server stops using the DVI-D Cable, which makes the left monitor go black and wait for a signal. Once qemu-system has started, it will get it's signal from the VGA cable, so you will have windows on your left side, and linux on your right sided monitor.
   
   Here is the script that I am running in order to fire up my virtual windows. You will have to adjust some of the options, for example the amount of memory you want to give away to windows (-m number) or amount of cores you have totally (cores=4).
   I also added my microphone and a second USB-Keyboard (the lines with: "-usb -usbdevice") to the passthrough, so I could install windows with the keyboard on the first bootup.
   
   

   Code: Select all

   vfio-bind 0000:02:00.0 0000:02:00.1

xrandr --output DVI-D-0 --off

QEMU_ALSA_DAC_BUFFER_SIZE=512 QEMU_ALSA_DAC_PERIOD_SIZE=170 QEMU_AUDIO_DRV=alsa
qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -m 8192 -cpu host,kvm=off \
-smp 4,sockets=1,cores=4,threads=1 \
-device vfio-pci,host=02:00.0,x-vga=on -device vfio-pci,host=02:00.1 \
-vga none \
-soundhw hda \
-usb -usbdevice host:1532:0111 \
-usb -usbdevice host:17a0:0305 \
-device virtio-scsi-pci,id=scsi \
-drive file=/home/david/kvm/win10.iso,id=isocd,format=raw,if=none -device scsi-cd,drive=isocd \
-drive file=/home/david/kvm/win.img,id=disk,format=qcow2,if=none,cache=writeback -device scsi-hd,drive=disk \
-drive file=/home/david/kvm/virt.iso,id=virtiocd,if=none,format=raw -device ide-cd,bus=ide.1,drive=virtiocd

xrandr --output DVI-D-0 --mode "1920x1080" --rate 60 --left-of HDMI-0

   
   
   When you execute this script, you should be able to install windows with your keyboard like this. Once you installed Windows 10 successfully, you can delete the line "-drive file=/home/david/kvm/win10.iso,id=isocd,format=raw,if=none -device scsi-cd,drive=isocd \" from the script. For a better keyboard (and mouse) solution, also delete the second "-usb -usbdevice" line and install the same version of "Synergy" on both Windows and Linux: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synergy_(software)

.

Mouse issue:
Virtual Machine -> Removable Devices -> <your mouse> -> Connect

This allows you to use mouse software like Razer Synapse inside the vm, but you need a separate mouse for the host.
It also removes the crazy mouse behaviour you will have with panning.


If your hardware supports it you can also use gpu passthrough with kvm.
This option is a lot more stable than vmware.

Parallells should work similar to vmware on mac, might even work a little bit better.

A bit late to the party, but thanks a lot for this. It's greatly appreciated.

I got Uthgard to work correctly in Virtualbox and a W7 guest as well, with 3D acceleration enabled (but no passthrough, so I suppose it's just using my CPU graphic chipset).

The mouse was behaving erratically with Mouse Integration on, but disabling it solved the issue. However, it created another one that is not specific to the DAOC window: the cursor sometimes stops moving in the Y or X direction (never both simultaneously), as if there were invisible blocks and walls popping up, and these blocks can disappear and move randomly. I believe, for some reason, Virtualbox is not getting mouse events in some cases when Mouse Integration is off, blocking the cursor from moving in a certain direction, but I haven't identified the cause. The game is very much playable, but this ruins the experience and would get you killed if the issue kicks in during a PVP fight.

Connecting the mouse USB device directly to the guest in a similar way Liss posted above would allow using the real drivers for your mouse, and in my case it solved this problem, but then you totally lose control of the host machine until the guest is shut down, no multitasking.

Performance was surprisingly good with an average rig. My CPU is probably 4 or 5 years old and I only assigned 4 GB of RAM to the VM.

I wish the launcher or an alternative launch method could work with Wine. I am disappointed that this was not considered worth the time by the Uthgard team and therefore no progress was done in one year. It's a regression caused just by the mandatory launcher since DAOC itself works perfectly with Wine, and there would probably be some ways to improve the situation.

Some significant progress regarding the mouse issues described above. As I said, all issues disappear if I directly "attach" the USB mouse device to the guest VM, as it is then recognized as a real mouse and not a generic one, and uses the proper drivers. The movement is much smoother and performant, as in "native" feeling, as opposed to the generic Virtualbox cursor even neglecting the above issues. But the drawback is there is no mouse for the host anymore, so no multitasking and no control over Linux applications until the VM is shut down.

Unfortunately, Virtualbox does not allow to attach or detach an USB peripheral to the guest using key combinations, so you basically need your mouse in the host to attach and detach. Bummer: you can't use the mouse in the host after having attached it to the guest.

Or you can use a Bash script that does the job, and assign it to a key combination in the host. The below script checks if the mouse is directly attached to the guest, and if so, it detaches it (thereby restoring control over the host) and shows a notification in the host OS accordingly. If the mouse is not attached directly, then it finds its UUID (weirdly, I've observed that the UUID can change over time, so I had to add a few lines to identify the correct UUID from the script), attaches it to the guest, and sends a notification in the host OS.

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh

# Toggle between attaching and detaching the G9x mouse USB device directly to the Virtualbox "W7 Gaming" guest VM, which solves many issues with mouse behavior in the guest, including 3D applications. However, mouse control is lost in the Linux host while the mouse is directly attached to the guest, so this script allows cycling through both states.

# Sometimes, the mouse's UUID changes, so it is not optimal to have it fixed in the script. Instead, the script finds the correct UUID using 'VBoxManage list usbhost' and assigns it to a variable.

TOGGLE=$HOME/.vbox-toggle-usb-mouse-ATTACHED
VM=6f675f5c-0995-4c33-a478-3c87ffaafd6c

if [ ! -e $TOGGLE ]; then
    VBoxManage list usbhost | xargs echo -n > $TOGGLE
    MOUSE=$(cat $TOGGLE | grep -o -P '.{0,174}G9x{0,1}' | cut -c1-36) # The Logitech G9x's UUID is located 174 characters before "G9x" in the output and is 36 characters long
    VBoxManage controlvm $VM usbattach $MOUSE
    notify-send "G9x directly attached to guest VM"

else
    MOUSE=$(cat $TOGGLE | grep -o -P '.{0,174}G9x{0,1}' | cut -c1-36)
    rm $TOGGLE
    VBoxManage controlvm $VM usbdetach $MOUSE
    notify-send "G9x detached from guest VM"
fi

Now, I assigned the execution of this script to RCtrl+PgDn. When the Linux host has the focus (i.e., when the mouse is "detached" from the guest), it will attach the mouse to the guest and fix all VM-related cursor issues described in my previous post. When the guest as the focus (i.e., when the mouse is "attached" to it), however, I cannot execute a bash script located in the host with a key combination. This is why I used Rctrl+PgDn as a shortcut: RCtrl is the default key to make the guest lose focus in Virtualbox, so technically I just have to hit RCtrl followed by RCtrl+PgDn and that's it.

This is fairly complex and suboptimal, but it works fine, and is actually easier to use than it looks once correctly set up. The RCtrl+PgDn almost acts as an Alt+Tab between host and guest.

Important note
Virtualbox's Mouse Integration still has to be disabled before attaching the mouse to the guest, or the erratic behavior will persist when panning (I believe Mouse Integration makes the mouse behave like a tablet pen, so the coordinates are not working properly when in the game). It is only to do once when the VM is started though, not every time the mouse is attached or detached.

All in all, this is ugly and complicated, but it works on my machine with a native feeling for the mouse. I couldn't use vmplayer, so this is good news for me. I would trade everything for an Uthgard launcher working with Wine, don't get me wrong, but this is still better than a horrendous dual-boot.


[Edit: updated the code to the following because I encountered an issue with grep and newlines, probably a software update that broke it]

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh

# Toggle between attaching and detaching the G9x mouse USB device directly to the Virtualbox "W7 Gaming" guest VM, which solves many issues with mouse behavior in the guest, including 3D applications. However, mouse control is lost in the Linux host while the mouse is directly attached to the guest, so this script allows cycling through both states.

# Sometimes, the mouse's UUID changes, so it is not optimal to have it fixed in the script. Instead, the script finds the correct UUID using 'VBoxManage list usbhost' and assigns it to a variable.

TOGGLE=$HOME/.vbox-toggle-usb-mouse-ATTACHED
VM=6f675f5c-0995-4c33-a478-3c87ffaafd6c

if [ ! -e $TOGGLE ]; then
    VBoxManage list usbhost | xargs -0 echo -n | tr '\n' ' ' > $TOGGLE # Export the list to the .vbox-toggle-usb-mouse-ATTACHED file and remove newlines to allow grep later
    MOUSE=$(cat $TOGGLE | grep -o -P '.{0,235}G9x{0,1}' | cut -c1-36) # The Logitech G9x's UUID is located 235 characters before "G9x" in the output and is 36 characters long
    VBoxManage controlvm $VM usbattach $MOUSE
    notify-send "G9x directly attached to guest VM"

else
    MOUSE=$(cat $TOGGLE | grep -o -P '.{0,235}G9x{0,1}' | cut -c1-36)
    rm $TOGGLE
    VBoxManage controlvm $VM usbdetach $MOUSE
    notify-send "G9x detached from guest VM"
fi


I've been playing a few hours tonight, I can confirm the performance and mouse behavior were good enough, although I'd still prefer running Uthgard through Wine for obvious and multiple reasons. At least now I do not have to close all my applications and reboot anymore.

Kabouik wrote:I've been playing a few hours tonight, I can confirm the performance and mouse behavior were good enough,

Maybe https://symless.com/synergy would be something to consider if you don't want to attach a mouse?

It has been a little while since last time I did try, but I haven't noticed any changes with wine that would make it any easier to get it working since then.
However I have realized that the best option if we at one point should get it working would be to use something like Flatpak, for obvious reasons.

I always have had issues with Synergy, don't know why, but on different computers and attempts, I never managed to make it work properly. Obviously it's me doing something wrong, since so many people have no issue with it.

By the way, I am currently running DAOC Pendragon on Wine (because the launcher is compatible, I didn't even have to change a single setting or install a single library), and it's smoother on my 13" laptop with Intel HD (at least before throttling happens after the CPU starts to overheat, of course) than on my desktop computer with an HD7850 where DAOC runs through a Virtualbox VM. The performance is not that bad in the VM, but the cursor is a lot smoother in Wine. It is such a frustration that the Uthgard launcher is gimping us this much, I'll never get it over with, I'm afraid.

Hmm. Been having issues with Win 7 install on a decade+ old machine lately, and thinking bout emigrating again. Unfortunately i am pretty sure, given the weak performance in crowded areas, that this hardware won-t handle DAoC of any flavour in a VM. It really sucks to have to sit down and log in the middle of Midgard fz on a keep raid run because .stick breaks whenever passing through groups of mobs.

Could i be wrong about this machine? ¿Could it handle a VM Win session with the game running?

My non Windoze exp. is mostly with live Linux distros for old hardware, as i often find myself helping people even more impoverished than i get online to use social media and Youtube. And when i lend out my computer to sketchy folks i don-t want it coming back dirty. Not that poor people are necessarily sketchy... it-s their alternative medicine providers that concern me, and i-ve seen my lending machine pass through several hands before it got back to me the same day.

But i digress. Questions are probably just two:
1.Which Unix-based OSs would be recommendable for this hardware and purpose?
2.If any?

Current DAoC mount: http://www.userbenchmark.com/PCBuilder/ ... 17?tab=GPU
HP a6000la desktop running Win 7 build 7601 downloaded and updated from MS - couldn-t figure out an upgrade from factory Vista to 7, plus the HDD wasn-t original and was itself old. I dropped in a low hours older 500GB HDD and installed 7 from a USB key i made.
CPU 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 641 with HT - Cedar Mill
2GB RAM at 333 MHz
Mobo is an ECS 945gct-HM Livermore
Intel imbedded graphics - i have a discrete GPU but haven-t found a driver that will give me anything but black, even the mfgr-s purported long term catch-all driver.
The dormant Card is Radeon HD 6350 512MB PCIe Low Profile Video Card - i think it came out of a sff Dell; i thought it would work in this tower but doesn-t want to play ball. I have the proper adapter cable for DMS 59 to double VGA out, wouldn-t mind a dual monitor setup if it can handle it somehow, but not vital.
Monitor 17" 1440x900


Forgive the punctuation. This forum doesn-t like this keyboard and i-m not bothering to figure out how to transpose much on the fly.

I cannot answer all your questions and cannot tell if your hardware could handle DAOC in a VM.

1. I am using Solus, which became a reputable alternative distribution for playing since it's Ikey Doherty, its dev, who came up with LSI (Linux Steam Integration), i.e., a bunch of fixes that are now available and popular on other distributions with a snap version. It works fine for me for playing DAOC in a Windows 7 guest, on both a desktop computer with AMD GPU (HD 7850) and a laptop with Nvidia GPU (MX 150). The game is smooth on both with max settings and 1920x1080. Note that I don't experience the cursor I reported above on the laptop, despite using the same Virtualbox file (but reinstalling GPU drivers once, otherwise I was facing the "Renderer creation failed" error), so I'll have to check if this issue is related to the AMD GPU.

2. I suppose you could try that, or any of the more mainstream distributions. The benefit of "bigger" distributions could be that you could try other VM softwares too, like VMWare, since they would likely be available in the repos.

The only advantage I have found for VMs so far, except for the fact that it's the only way to play Uthgard on a UNIX machine at the moment, is loading times are very fast. Faster than Wine tested for DAOC Live, despite using the same hard drive in both cases. The framerate iis probably better with Wine (not tested), no cursor issue at all, no painstaking instalation or need for fixes and workaround to miscellaneous issues, and a much better multitasking experience, but loadings are longer. I suppose running the game from a VM preloads some stuff in RAM that is not preloaded when running it with Wine. Or it is just that loading times became longer since 1.65.

Great,
I will report back if i set up Linux on here, and how it handles this game. Thanks for your reply

Veritaas wrote:[*] Resolve mouse issues by adding some lines in the .vmx file of the virtual machine you created
As there occur some issues in mouse catching applications like 3D games, you need to open the .vmx (it’s somewhere in /home/user/vmware) and add/change the following line:

Code: Select all

vmmouse.present = "FALSE"
mouse.vusb.useBasicMouse = "FALSE"                             
usb.generic.allowHID = "TRUE"

I am not 100% sure if that was all that I added to it, so there might have been one or two other options. Tell me if you notice any troubles here.

I doubt you will see this post, but it's worth trying.

After what I described above with Virtualbox, I'm finally forced to use VMware because Virtualbox changed their implementation of 3D acceleration and on my end it made it completely impossible to launch the game from the Uthgard launcher (the splash screen and game window never show up, although the processes are running). It used to work before this 3D renderer change in Virtualbox.

QEMU doesn't support 3D acceleration in Windows guests with virtio yet, so I think VMware is the only alternative, and I can confirm 3D acceleration works. Unfortunately, I'm getting this error with the mouse being used with relative coordinates instead of absolute, which makes the game unplayable. I have tried your settings above, but this didn't change anything. VMware tools are installed, but I still can't permanently grab the mouse into the VM with Ctrl+G, the window is escaped as soon as I move the cursor beyond the VM borders.

Apparently one version of VMware used to have an "Edit > Input > Optimize for games" option, but I can't see it in the latest VMware Player. This should be doable from the configuration file too I assume, but none of the additional options in the .vmx file you mentioned worked for me, so it would be great if you could share the full configuration here.

Thanks!

The option to make the mouse work correctly in 3D windows is:

Code: Select all

mks.gamingMouse.policy = "gaming"

Which should be added in the .vmx file. Somehow this option is not epxosed in the VMware Workstation Player GUI. That's all that's needed. The other options mentioned above in my post or in the first post are not necessary.

The mouse can then be released with "Ctrl-Alt" to access the host again. This keybinding might be customizable (though I haven't tried yet): https://www.ok2cqr.com/linuxsw/how-to/8 ... are-player