[g45] Half-Life 2 won't start under WINE

[Allan MacKinnon]

Binary package hint: wine

Using an up-to-date Jaunty Alpha4

I installed Half-Life2 under WINE, ran it, and when it was about to finish the loading screen it took me to Ubuntu's login screen. So it apparently forced a logout.

System specs:

Acer Aspire AM5700-E5720A
http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10117827&catid=&test_cookie=1

Tell me what information to provide and I will.

[lspci]
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation 4 Series Chipset DRAM Controller [8086:2e20] (rev 03)
     Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0152]
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:2e22] (rev 03)
     Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0152]

[Ben Crisford (bencrisford)]

Are you sure HL2 is compatible with Ubuntu?
Also how sure are you that your system specs match HL2 recommended specs?

If you are sure that you have the required specs, and HL2 is compatible I will confirm this, but as a PC gamer myself, this sounds like a hardware problem.

[Allan MacKinnon (theforkofjustice)]

HL2 needs to be compatible with WINE, not Ubuntu. It's one of the Ubuntu Team's duties to make WINE compatible with Ubuntu. I was able to get HL2 working under WINE in Intrepid but Intrepid doesn't work on my new machine. Jaunty does work on my new machine but it is also in development so bugs exist. This is one of them.

My new computer is a quad-core that more than meets the recommended spec for HL2 (link to it was in first post). I'm only using my Intel On-board graphics so it isn't a driver issue with Nvidia or ATI. Since game performance isn't the issue I wouldn't expect the video card to be the source of the problem but with newer machines I wouldn't be surprised if there was a correlation. No evidence that the hardware is the source yet, though.

The problem is that it is forcing my session to logout. This is not typical behaviour of a failing program. 'Proper' failing means a program crash and Ubuntu being sent a crash report. There should be no reason for a session crash to the logout screen when loading HL2 in WINE.

http://appdb.winehq.org/

As you can see from that link, HL2 and most/all Valve games work flawlessly under WINE.

[Scott Ritchie (scottritchie)]

If this is still happening, it's almost surely a driver issue and not a Wine bug. Wine runs as a normal user process and shouldn't be able to kill the entire X session. I've taken a guess and refiled the bug against xserver-xorg-video-intel, however if this is not your driver it'll need to be retargeted again. Thank you for reporting!

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Hi theforkofjustice,

Please attach the output of `lspci -vvnn`, and attach your /var/log/Xorg.0.log (and maybe Xorg.0.log.old) file from after reproducing this issue. If you've made any customizations to your /etc/X11/xorg.conf please attach that as well.

[This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Allan MacKinnon (theforkofjustice)]

It still exists with Alpha 6 and I have yet to try the beta.

My graphics chipset is Intel GMA X4500HD so it may very well be my driver and it is a very new system so the drivers probably aren't up to speed with my hardware. I've read on the Beta release page (http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/jaunty/beta) that there were various problems with some Intel chipsets, too. Chalk up another one.

If there is any workarounds post them here :)

[Allan MacKinnon (theforkofjustice)]

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[Allan MacKinnon (theforkofjustice)]

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[Allan MacKinnon (theforkofjustice)]

Just did some more looking around on my graphics chipset. I saw these two mentioned:

Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X4500HD (Intel® GMA X4500HD)
Intel® G45 Express Chipset

I have no idea on the difference between the two. Anyway here's Intel's info page on it, so maybe you can figure it out:

http://www.intel.com/products/desktop/chipsets/g45/g45-overview.htm

[goto (gotolaunchpad)]

I experienced the same problem with HL1, but i use nvidia.

[Allan MacKinnon (theforkofjustice)]

@goto

I had a problem like that a while back in either Ibex or Hardy but it was WINE back then and not the hardware drivers. I guess it's different this time.

[Luka Renko (lure)]

Please also check for error messages in /var/log/gdm.log or /var/log/kdm.log

[Ben Henny (bhenny)]

I have the same problem. I'm running Jaunty and have an Intel x4500HD. I attached my gdm.log, which has an error message in it. If you need any other information let me know.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

[This is an automatic notification.]

A new major version of the -intel driver is now available in Karmic.

This version includes a major reworking of the acceleration
architecture, which resolves a huge number of issues. We do not know
whether it resolves the issue you reported.

Would you mind testing Karmic Alpha-2 and seeing if it is still a
problem? CD ISO images are available here:

  http://cdimages.ubuntu.com/releases/karmic/

If the issue can still be reproduced on karmic, please report here with
your findings, and attach a fresh Xorg.0.log from your test, and we will
be able to forward the bug upstream.

Otherwise, if the bug no longer exists in Karmic, let us know that as
well.

In the off chance you encounter different bugs while attempting to test
Karmic, please report those as new bug reports.

[Allan MacKinnon (theforkofjustice)]

Well, it's not forcing a logout on Karmic. The game is refusing to start.

The partition I made for OS testing isn't large enough for Half-Life 2 and I'm not sure if other games will cause the same crash. Lemme install StarCraft or something to my Jaunty partition and let me get back to you. If they cause a crash too then I can use that to test Karmic.

[Allan MacKinnon (theforkofjustice)]

On Jaunty, StarCraft caused a logout once but only after I exited the program. However, on following plays the game played flawlessly.

Oh, and the game I used in my last post (the one that wouldn't start) was The Ship which uses the Source engine.

Can't think of another game that will fit on 1.5GB that I can use to test this. Steam games and most other modern games are so much larger than 1.5GB

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Well, good news at least the X crash is fixed.

Care to give some additional details about how the game is not starting? When you run it from the command line does it output any errors? Anything in log files? Without knowing what error it's encountering, I'd be tempted just to assume it is not an X issue. Maybe if you include a fresh /var/log/Xorg.0.log, ~/.xsession-errors, dmesg, and /var/log/gdm/:0.log one of those will have something useful.

[Allan MacKinnon (theforkofjustice)]

I just installed a brand new NVidia GTS 250 (1GB GDDR3 = Sweet) so I don't know how I can change things to help.

That being said, the new card may be &^$%ing good but it's also &*%^ing crashing my system. I lost Vista entirely (will need reinstall) and I'm hesitant to use it on Linux because I want a working OS dangit.

I'm useless now fellas :(

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Hrm, alright well sounds like we're at a dead end for troubleshooting this further. If you can reproduce the issue and provide a more descriptive explanation of the problem, reopen the bug and we'll investigate further.