HOWTO: Run Anarchy Online in Linux
Updated: August 20, 2004
The instructions on this page are no longer necessary. All patches have been applied many Cedega versions ago.
Finally! Linux users who play AO can now
rejoice for it is possible to play the game from Linux! Here is the screenshot that marked the
beginning of it all. Currently, the only way to run AO is to
patch Cedega CVS. The AOLinux project is the result of many weeks of
dedicated work. I hope that you will find it useful. Stop by #cedega on
irc.freenode.net and say hi. It's also not a bad place for
unofficial help with Cedega in general.
The thread on the official Anarchy Online forum is:
https://forums.anarchy-online.com/showthread.php?s=ca37658c2cc55312eec5c6e6fa7da980&threadid=321249
https://forums.anarchy-online.com/showthread.php?s=ae4970ba5a7c5de64fb436662d5879b5&threadid=320124
On the Transgaming forums:
http://transgaming.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=640
Disclaimers: This howto including images and patches are copyright 2004 Marius Grigoriu. Not responsible for breaking your Cedega install or other damage to your PC or data. Your mileage may vary. Certain restrictions apply. If you wish to duplicate anything from this howto please contact me for permission at:
Step 1: Download InstallAOCedega.sh
Thanks to ElmerFudd from #cedega for making this. It is based on WineCVS.sh and works very similar. Check out the Cedega CVS howto for general info about getting setup. InstallAOCedega will grab the latest source available on CVS and automatically apply all of the newest patches released by me. It is a great tool to stay current with all the updates.
Always run, as root:
sh InstallAOCedega.sh upgrade
Once InstallAOCedega has completed for the first time, you need to run aocedega as your normal user to generate ~/.aocedega/ directory to complete the install:
aocedega
If you don't want to use this script, you can get the patch list and apply them yourself. The rest of this howto will assume that Cedega has been installed to the default location with InstallAOCedega.sh
Step 2: Install Anarchy Online
The easiest way is to just copy your AO directory from your Windows drive into the Cedega CVS C drive. By default, this location is ~/.aocedega/c_drive/
It is beyond the scope of this howto to explain the procedure for mounting your Windows drive and copying your data over.
The other method is to pop your game CD in and run the installer, or use the downloader. Since Cedega CVS does not have the licensed InstallShield components that the official binary package does, it might not work. If you cannot copy the game off of your Windows driver or send it over the network to yourself, your best bet is probably to get the Cedega 4.0.1 from Transgaming to install, and copy AO from the Transgaming_Drive to the Cedega CVS drive.
Step 3: Download and install Microsoft Visual C Runtime Library
Note: Not all versions of msvcrt.dll will work. This is the file that is packaged with Cedega 4.0.1. Redistributing with permission.
Download msvcrt.dll and put it in ~/.aocedega/c_drive/windows/system32
Step 4: Run Anarchy Online for the first time and setup
Go to your new AO directory. Run the game.
aocedega anarchy.exe
ATI users: When it comes time to select the driver, choose the T&L HAL. The other one does not seem to work. Windowed mode might not work for you.
The intro movie used to work, but not now.
Step 5: Have fun!
Now you can play AO in Linux too!!
Troubleshooting:
The loading screen shows, it freezes before into music is played!
You are probably using the ALSA sound driver. I have had much better luck using OSS. Edit your ~/.cvscedega/config so that it looks like this under the WinMM section:
;"Drivers" = "winealsa.drv"
"Drivers" = "wineoss.drv"
Sometimes there is a short screech right before the game loads then nothing happens!
See the the issue above.
After I select a character my terminal gets flooded with fixme:msvcrt:__CxxFrameHandler... !
The file msvcrt.dll is not installed in a location that the game can find. Make sure the filename is correct and that its readable, etc. Its easiest to just put the file in your AO directory right next to anarchy.exe
Timeline (for historic purposes):
The thread on the official Anarchy Online forum is:
https://forums.anarchy-online.com/showthread.php?s=ca37658c2cc55312eec5c6e6fa7da980&threadid=321249
https://forums.anarchy-online.com/showthread.php?s=ae4970ba5a7c5de64fb436662d5879b5&threadid=320124
On the Transgaming forums:
http://transgaming.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=640
Disclaimers: This howto including images and patches are copyright 2004 Marius Grigoriu. Not responsible for breaking your Cedega install or other damage to your PC or data. Your mileage may vary. Certain restrictions apply. If you wish to duplicate anything from this howto please contact me for permission at:
marius csh rit edu
@ . .
Step 1: Download InstallAOCedega.sh
Thanks to ElmerFudd from #cedega for making this. It is based on WineCVS.sh and works very similar. Check out the Cedega CVS howto for general info about getting setup. InstallAOCedega will grab the latest source available on CVS and automatically apply all of the newest patches released by me. It is a great tool to stay current with all the updates.
Always run, as root:
sh InstallAOCedega.sh upgrade
Once InstallAOCedega has completed for the first time, you need to run aocedega as your normal user to generate ~/.aocedega/ directory to complete the install:
aocedega
If you don't want to use this script, you can get the patch list and apply them yourself. The rest of this howto will assume that Cedega has been installed to the default location with InstallAOCedega.sh
Step 2: Install Anarchy Online
The easiest way is to just copy your AO directory from your Windows drive into the Cedega CVS C drive. By default, this location is ~/.aocedega/c_drive/
It is beyond the scope of this howto to explain the procedure for mounting your Windows drive and copying your data over.
The other method is to pop your game CD in and run the installer, or use the downloader. Since Cedega CVS does not have the licensed InstallShield components that the official binary package does, it might not work. If you cannot copy the game off of your Windows driver or send it over the network to yourself, your best bet is probably to get the Cedega 4.0.1 from Transgaming to install, and copy AO from the Transgaming_Drive to the Cedega CVS drive.
Step 3: Download and install Microsoft Visual C Runtime Library
Note: Not all versions of msvcrt.dll will work. This is the file that is packaged with Cedega 4.0.1. Redistributing with permission.
Download msvcrt.dll and put it in ~/.aocedega/c_drive/windows/system32
Step 4: Run Anarchy Online for the first time and setup
Go to your new AO directory. Run the game.
aocedega anarchy.exe
ATI users: When it comes time to select the driver, choose the T&L HAL. The other one does not seem to work. Windowed mode might not work for you.
The intro movie used to work, but not now.
Step 5: Have fun!
Now you can play AO in Linux too!!
Troubleshooting:
The loading screen shows, it freezes before into music is played!
You are probably using the ALSA sound driver. I have had much better luck using OSS. Edit your ~/.cvscedega/config so that it looks like this under the WinMM section:
;"Drivers" = "winealsa.drv"
"Drivers" = "wineoss.drv"
Sometimes there is a short screech right before the game loads then nothing happens!
See the the issue above.
After I select a character my terminal gets flooded with fixme:msvcrt:__CxxFrameHandler... !
The file msvcrt.dll is not installed in a location that the game can find. Make sure the filename is correct and that its readable, etc. Its easiest to just put the file in your AO directory right next to anarchy.exe
Timeline (for historic purposes):
- Pre-Jan 2004: Nothing works. Cannot even open login window or use the downloader to get the game.
- Jan 15: Started work on AO in Linux. Submitted patch that implements an API to enable the downloader and patcher to function.
- Jan 17: Sent a patch that fixes a problem with OCX controls in dialog windows. Login window works, but no html rendering.
- Jan 23: Patch to mimic Microsoft weirdness that AO was strangely dependent on. Fix allows login app to launch clientr.exe
- Jan 27: Workaround for ATI driver bug.
Able to login indoor playfields only. Ingame objects not loaded. Example - Break from AO
- Aug 7: Fixed incomplete API to allow ar.dll's ObjectArchive to find the create function necessary to instantiate game objects. Indoor playfields work perfectly.
- Aug 8: Fix to conform to a somewhat undocumented feature of DirectDraw where a chain of mipmaps is created even if the mipmap count is not specified. Able to zone into outdoor playfields and run around. Massive texture corruption on all mipmap levels > 0.
- Aug 9: Fixed problem in mipmap implementation. Mipmapping works indoors and out. AO stable enough to say Hello World from Linux. Said hi to an ARK.
- Aug 10: Announced to official Anarchy Online forums.
- Aug 12: First AO Linux HOWTO released
- Aug 18: Fixed infinite loop in d3dgl preventing some people from playing the game
- Aug 22: Wineserver request fix to allow ClickSaver to find AO window
- Thanks to the Wine project
for laying the foundation for everything.
- Thanks to Transgaming for focusing on the needs of games
- Extra special thanks to Pete H from Transgaming for answering my noob questions about debugging wine.
- ElmerFudd for a wonderful script to handle all of the details of
applying patches and compiling