JSGME on Linux/Wine

[Abody]

Hello,

Before I go into detail regarding what I have tried with JSGME to apply a mod, I thought I'd ask the community if anyone running SH4 - Wolves of the Pacific ( or any SH version ) inside of a Linux/Wine compatibility layer is able to apply mods?

TIA

[Aktungbby]

Abody!:Kaleun_Salute:

[Abody]

<s> :Kaleun_Cheers:

[Rockin Robbins]

You know, on Ubuntu, Linux Lite, PC Linux, Mint and others, I have not got SH4 to work at all under Wine. I'd be interested in knowing how you tweaked Wine to get SH4 to run at all. Eventually, I expect Microsoft to be so draconian that running Windows any further will be unthinkable. I'd love not to lose SH4 when that happens.

Right now my Linux solution is a copy of Windows XP running in VirtualBox. It's good but not ideal because I can't let XP see the Internet without potential problems. Sure, they'd have to penetrate hardware and software firewalls, plus anti-malware and anti-viral software, but being owned is possible there.

As it is now Microsoft is sneaking all the malware/spyware features of Windows 10 into Windows 7, 8 and 8.1. As a matter of fact, if you own one of those operating systems, chances are Microsoft has already downloaded the entirety (over 4 GB worth at your expense!) of Windows 10 onto your machine without your knowledge or permission. Google is your friend. Check it out and verify) Your operating system is becoming malware. It no longer is the customer serving platform to run all your software from. Its primary function is to deliver advertising and mine you for information they can sell and not give you any option to opt out or share the revenue.

[Abody]

Hello Rockin Robbin,

I will gladly dispense of all knowledge I have to get SHx running in Wine for you on your Linux system, just ask your questions. I would even go as far as shelling into your box (not root user) and doing it with you side by side. It's really not that hard, just frustrating at first as error messages are squashed by adding DLL components with ./winetricks --gui.

SH4 has been running for 4 days now ( I play in realtime ) without error or crash. It is using all of my graphics hardware ( GTX760 x 2 ) for incredibly smooth ( 200+ fps ) gameplay. I will post a ytube clip using vokoscreen so you can see for yourself.

[Jimbuna]

Welcome to SubSim Abody :sunny:

[Abody]

Figured out the issue gentlemen. "#1 Real Environment Mod" is now enabled.

If I can help anyone just speak up.

<add>

I need to break a ungratefulness habit and post 'Thanks' to Mikemike47 for the following line in his Common Errors (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=2116262&postcount=3) guide. :03:

I move folders around until modname\data level is achieved. ............The mod I was trying to use is not structured as such and no /data directory existed.

[Rockin Robbins]

Awesome!

[Abody]

It's dark but that's because I like the night. ;)

Switch it to 1080p HD for best presentation.

yTube clip (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsSk7V7gijQ)

[ColonelSandersLite]

Your vid is marked as private.

[Abody]

Don't know what to say. Just checked video settings on Youtube and it's set to Public?

Your not missing much. It's a very boring video of surface running at night. I just wanted to show the fps performance with SH4 in Wine.

[Rockin Robbins]

Okay, here's what I've done. Hope my memory works because I'm at work on a Windows computer right now. I installed Wine in Ubuntu 15.04 and found it was v2.6(?). Also found there were later versions not in the Canonical repositories.

So I downloaded Play on Linux, which opened up the newer versions. I downloaded the latest version of Wine.

So let me install Silent Hunter 4 tonight and see what kind of errors I encounter and we'll go from there.

For the benefit of those not familiar with what we're doing here, Ubuntu Linux is very different from Windows. Even the disk format is different and all data is encoded to the disk entirely differently than Windows. Windows formatting systems are FAT, FAT32, there's another new FAT for large flash drives, and NTFS, the most common format for hard drives. Apple has their own separate formatting for hard drives. And Linux uses mostly ext1, ext2, ext3 and ext4.

These disk systems are not campatible. However Linux has FAT, FAT32 and NTSC routines built into the operating sytem so it reads and writes to Windows partitions like a native. Windows, typically for Microsoft, pretends Linux partitions don't exist and even refuses to give the disk drives a drive letter. Thank you Mocrosloth--fine citizen of the world.

WINE, which stands for Wine Is Not an Emulator, is a similar system to Linux' ability to read Microsoft disks, that allows the Linux operating system to use compatible .dll files to execute Windows programs without using an emulator or virtual disk. Direct use of compatible .dll files gives WINE much better speed than a virtual disk.

One thing that is very useful is that the WINE developers realized that "compatible dlls" aren't perfectly compatible. But if you own a copy of Windows you can tell WINE to substitute the real article dll for their "compatible" one to get greater compatibility. I think (guess really) that we'll be doing some of that here.

When we're done we will have Silent Hunter running in a foreign, totally free, totally open, non-commercial software whose mission statement includes the fact that your computer belongs to you and that you have unrestricted right to manage it as you see fit.

This is worth some trouble to create and we'll end up with cookie cutter instructions so you can do the same thing. Pardon all the technical language we'll be spewing. When we're done you can do this and tell Microsoft to go away and come back when they've learned some respect.

[ExFishermanBob]

Sorry to have come to this late - I have been running SH3 under PlayOnLinux in Linux Mint (basically Ubuntu) under both Cinnamon and Trinity (KDE3) for about 6 months now with no problems at all, and will be happy to help. In fact, I developed the Radio Text Exchange toolkit and THAT runs under both Linux and Windows, against both Linux and Windows versions of SH3.

I have done this with both the Steam version and the CD version, so it is perfectly possible. In fact, I have had no CTDs at all under the Linux installation. I have GWX and SH3Commander and JSME working with no problems. I've been itching to try out SH5, but have not as it requires me to log into UBI...well, you get the idea.

Basically, that means I'm more than happy to help (although currently, I'm S. of Iceland about to engage a convoy).

[ColonelSandersLite]

If it would help you two out, I can give you access to my teamspeak server. Just lemme know via PM and I'll send you the details.

[ExFishermanBob]

Ah - now I've never got teamspeak to work under Linux properly.

[Rockin Robbins]

I have Ubuntu 15.04 running the Unity GUI right now but have MATE, KDE, Gnome, Lubuntu and several other GUIs available. I think my present favorite is KDE but I'm surprised how good Unity has gotten. LXDE is just fast and lean. Actually I never stay with one GUI all the time because I love variety. It's as if we could run the Windows 98SE, XP, Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1 GUI at will just by logging out (no need to reboot) and logging in after selecting how we want our screen to look.

I like Ubuntu based distros because of the huge size of the repositories, and Linux is Linux. If you don't like something it's child's play to change it. So you can't really say the distros are all that crucial. The Ubuntu family includes Debian (the parent of all Ubuntu derivatives) and Mint, ElementaryOS (great version), PCLinux, Linux Lite and several more. All this Mint vs Ubuntu conflict is stupid because one can use all the goodies of the other anyway.

Okay, I installed Ubuntu 15.04, Shutter for screenshots, Kazam to record screen video, WINE 1.6.2 and of course I always install Synaptic Package Manager because I don't like Ubuntu Software Center holding my hand all the time. It's creepy.

So I plugged my Silent Hunter Wolves DVD into the DVD drive, navigated to it with Nautilus, the default file manager for Ubuntu (I prefer Dolphin but Nautilus will do for now), right-clicked setup.exe and chose open with WINE.
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa293/RockinRobbins13/Screenshot%20from%202015-12-17%20195629_zps3qtz76d4.png


It installed with no problems whatever! That's a first. When I tried with Ubuntu 10.10 it was no joy at all with errors that I'm sure could have been corrected but I couldn't get a handle on it at the time.

http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa293/RockinRobbins13/Screenshot%20from%202015-12-17%20194256_zpscxqs4bgc.png

At one point I was installing Kazam with Synaptic Package Manager at the same time WINE was installing SH4. No sweat.

http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa293/RockinRobbins13/Screenshot%20from%202015-12-17%20194818_zpstduovioo.png

So I ran SH4. It started up! And ran! And I had my first problem. Looks like SH4 wants to run 1024x768 and scale itself really strangely. The mouse can click semi-accurately to the left side of the screen but has a considerable offset when trying to click on the right side of the SH4 screen.

Set the video options to run SH4 in a window. No joy. Set SH4 to run at my native 1600x900 full screen. No joy. And SH4 is changing my Linux screen resolution to 1024x768.

It's a small problem and I'm sure if I bumble around a bit I'll come up with a solution.

http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa293/RockinRobbins13/Workspace%201_001_zpsk18uwo46.png (http://s196.photobucket.com/user/RockinRobbins13/media/Workspace%201_001_zpsk18uwo46.png.html)

Pretty exciting!

[Rockin Robbins]

Inside ./wintricks I was able to select that game and specify the resolution for it to run at (1900x1060 for me) when doing ~$ wine /home/abody/SH4/sh4.exe

http://i.imgur.com/Tr4QiIi.png

Wooo hooo! My instinct was right but I'm trapped in an Android screen keyboard right now and it's sucking out my will to live... Nothing worse than being a 10 finger typist and being stuck with just two thumbs.

Edit: I had been looking at that menu just minutes before and thinking that the virtual desktop would prevent the real desktop from having its resolution changed. Nice to see the old brain still comes up with correct hunches once in awhile.

Now I have a pop-up telling me that the disk I used for Linux is running out of space. Pardon me while I transfer it to a higher capacity disk drive. I'll be working on Windows while I do the migration....

[Rockin Robbins]

http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa293/RockinRobbins13/Workspace%201_004_zpsbbcqa8ro.png

Ahhhhhhh! THAT's more like it. Nice static display whilst watching the scroll bar think it's in Windows XP! Color me guarded excitement.

http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa293/RockinRobbins13/Workspace%201_006_zpscznncaok.png

Now we're talkin!!! The game is actually running and it's time to take her out of the slip at Pearl. This is v1.4 and I haven't installed U-Boat Missions yet. I'll probably have to go through a lot of bullschnitzel with Ubi to be able to reinstall my CD again so it may take a little time. What a lousy decision it was to download the U-Boat Missions add-on. They just torture you and remind you NEVER to buy another Ubi game. And to this day I don't own SH5 for that reason. I punish bad behavior. What you are willing to pay for you will get more of.

I'm running the game 1024x768 with kinda medium graphics, no post-processing or anything. This is proof of concept and no indication of how good the game can be made to look.

Okay, it's also my first time using Kazam desktop video recorder and I have to do some tweaking there too, but even though the video quality doesn't reflect how good the game looks I'll post anyway because it is the very first time I'm running Silent Hunter 4 on Linux. This is not a virtual machine. This is not an emulator. This is Silent Hunter 4 running in Linux!

Neal, how can we make it possible to actually post the video itself in the post? Just about every forum does that nowdays, like RCGroups.com as an example.

Silent Hunter 4 running in Ubuntu 15.04! (https://youtu.be/ebE7BKVxymA)