After trying to install Ubuntu 24.04.1, and failing again and again, yet my laptop suddenly had certain functions back which didn’t work anymore under Windows 10, I must admit that I might be unwelcome here now: I tried another distro (elementary) which apparently is based on Ubuntu, so see me as a cousin.
I am very happy with Linux in stead of MS, I even found ways to install ancient games. Now anxiously waiting for it to be installed it was quite the anti-climax when it didn’t start!
I’ve been messing with computers since the 90’s, but I am relatively new to the Linux world.
So let me explain: I came across Lutris, which uses Wine to install my game for me ( Civilization 4 Complete GOG), it went surprisingly simple. The first time I launched I saw the normal loading screen and all seemed to go well. Then it flickered and I was back in the OS homescreen. Since then nothing happens when I press launch. Problem is also there isn’t any error, so apart from trying some other options in the configure menu to no avail, I have no clue what could cause this… Anyone here is savvy in this and a civ player like me, that can relate?
Well, I’ve found very old sites discussing this but the solutions I read about couldn’t be the problem since e.g. the dlls missing, I already found in my directory. Please if anyone knows what can cause this, with ideas I might find solutions…
Sorry, if this is too offtopic, but I didn’t know where to ask
CivIV working fine on Mint22 here, and helped another user on huge thread about 9 days ago sounds driver-y, like your CivIV is trying to use OpenGL instead of vulkan.
Please help us out and tick off the basics for us (see posted Sticky at the top of the forum)
Lutris debug log (including the version of lutris)
Game launch log
I’ve not used ElementaryOS so I can’t advise specifics for that distro. However, please check graphics drivers, and WINE etc. against Lutris pre-reqs.
Thanks I have the feeling it should be something relatively simple, since it was so easy to install
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa && sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386 && sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y nvidia-driver-535 libvulkan1 libvulkan1:i386
That would install drivers?
You sure it won’t do harm?
I’ve got a six year old medium laptop with a ‘virtual’ graphics card. Radeon R5, I figured since elementary OS recognised it immediately and I installed the OS with the option of installing third party drivers that would be handled already.
To be honest, I know a lot of stuff but am so new with linux based that I don’t really know where to get those logs…
For more info on logs, read the sticky thread at the top of the support forum. Short version: Close lutris if it is running, then run “lutris -d” from a command line for debug mode. For a game log, right click on your game, select “show logs” (then run it if you didn’t already).
Don’t install those Nvidia drivers, they won’t do anything for you
You seem in need of more Linux guidance than Lutris guidance. Like I said - ElementaryOS isn’t something I’ve used and will have its own quirks.
The R5 Radeon is a pretty old integrated graphics chip made by AMD. Normally AMD chips use a driver called “amdgpu”, but you might be stuck with the older “radeon” driver (with limited vulkan support).
Last thing of note - Integrated graphics of that era shares RAM with the system, so if you’re trying to run a modern game on 4GB RAM or less, you are always going to hit problems.
yeah, I understand all that thanks. I’ll do it the thing is just that I am rusty, I actually was a fan of the old ways back when screens had two colours only, I loved dos, I had an MSX back in the days and an Amiga500… but after years of windows I haven’t used many things.
I just need nudges though
lutris -d just tells me no such command … when I start it normally I simply click a pictogram, not sure where it would be on the drive, didn’t find a directory with the name.
The game log is following though:
Started initial process 76 from gamemoderun /home/tgp1/.var/app/net.lutris.Lutris/data/lutris/runners/wine/wine-ge-8-26-x86_64/bin/wine start /unix /home/tgp1/Games/civ4/drive_c/GOG Games/Civilization IV Complete/Launch Civilization IV.lnk
Start monitoring process.
gamemodeauto:
gamemodeauto:
gamemodeauto:
fsync: up and running.
wine: RLIMIT_NICE is <= 20, unable to use setpriority safely
wine: WINEARCH set to win64 but ‘/home/tgp1/Games/civ4’ is a 32-bit installation.
gamemodeauto:
Monitored process exited.
Initial process has exited (return code: 256)
Exit with return code 256
…and I notice it is a probelem that it’s 32 bit. In the meantime I will try to find out how to change this.
Thanks for any other advice in advance
I actually got it running!!
But terribly slow, which doesn’t make sense to me since this laptop is much faster than anything needed for this game. With an AMD8 quad core and 8gb ram, it shouldn’t be a problem that the radeon isn’t a ‘real’ video card.
I changed the wine settings to fix 9.0 and changed the dxvk2.4.1 to 1.9.2… and it suddenly started
Any ideas why it’s way too slow to play, also a setting?
Your error “WINEARCH set to win64 but ‘/home/tgp1/Games/civ4’ is a 32-bit installation,” is weird as the installer creates a 64 bit prefix. So you fixed that…not sure why that even happened.
Like I said about the old R5 driver - the vulkan support is limited, so latest isn’t for your laptop.
Congrats anyway
I think the prefix is somehow broken, so install another copy and just change vulkan version as a starting point.
As for lutris not being in your path…what version did you install?
Probably a sandbox version, hopefully flatpak - they will create launch icons. In the case of flatpak, you have to launch the flatpak manually to add debug.
flatpak run net.lutris.Lutris -d
You might have to tweak the graphics options for it to run a little better - tends to default to high detail.
After that you’re down to finding a more optimal combination of WINE runner and drivers.
As otherwise suggested, you can disable DXVK etc in the game options and see if it runs any better with default directx->openGL renderer
sounds driver-y, like your CivIV is trying to use OpenGL instead of vulkan.