Help with games, please.

[dedanna1029]

Oops sorry, missed the spoiler on that.

[dubigrasu]

I have installed playonlinux and installed Age of Empires III
So far it has been a painfull experience. No messages and when I click the icon nothing happens.

On Playonlinux (POL) menu, AOE3 is described as having full compatibility (5/5) so I gave it a go myself.

First of all I copied the disc content to hardisk. I always do that, wine doesn't handle perfectly installers from disc (especially multiple discs), and if you also have a crappy DVD unit or the disc itself is scratched the whole process could be a bitch.

I'm not gonna describe every step I took, some of them are pretty self explanatory.
Here I go:

POL will download and install some of the things it needs, like in this case vcrun6, directx9 and Wine.
It doesn't matter if you have already an Wine installed. POL may need another version for the game is installing.
In this case Wine 1.3.9 was required.

When done, POL will ask what version of the game you have. Since I have the game's content on the hardisk, I choose Digital download.
Point POL installer to the folder where you have the disc copied and choose setup.exe not autorun.exe. (Sometimes autorun will try to do some other unnecessary things and it may even fail the installation.)
The AOE installer is starting:

Choose Express install and Install for all users.
Enter the serial.
Wait the installer to do its job and when asked about restarting the computer (yeah, right) choose No and click Finish.
The AOE installer now is finished but POL's installer is still running:

And here I ran into a problem. Although I clicked Finish, the AOE installer was somehow frozen (you can see something still going on in the taskbar) preventing the POL installer to continue.

You can hunt and kill the AOE installer using top/htop but don't bother, from POL main window Close all Wine processes.
This will kill the frozen (but finished) installer and allow POL to continue.

A couple of things to do are left.
Enter the amount of memory you graphic card has, and create optionally the shortcuts.

As you can see, there is already an icon on the desktop put there by the game installer, this one is no good. Delete it, and if you still want an icon on desktop now you can add it from POL wizard. You can choose both options.
Successful installation.

Now is the time to replace the original executable age3.exe with an unoriginal one.
Go to the hidden .PlayOnLinux folder in you home and navigate to /wineprefix/AOE3/drive_c/Program Files/Microsoft Games/Age of Empires III folder where the game is installed and replace the original executable.
(If you don't, the game will endlessly ask you to insert the AOE disc even if the original disc is inserted/mounted)
After the successful replacement you will be prompted to accept the EULA and after that the game will (OH, FINALLY) really start:

Watch the movie:

And play:

If you want to play it in a window,

you can do that by altering wine's settings from POL' menu (Configure this application).

While I'm not gonna keep it (I just don't like RTS games) I must admit that it has nice graphics and seems interesting.

So' that's it. While it doesn't have a 5/5 compatibility like they say, is not that hard to instal after all.

[viking60]

Did you copy all the CD's to the same folder? Or did you make three folders?
Anyway I copied all into the same folder and started according to your description.
The first thing that happens when pressing AOL3 is that main window completely grey (hung). When I forcefully close it the installation starts!
So no I am at the part where you - the lucky one - can go back to POL main window and kill all wine processes. I don't have a main window
So htop here we come......
Grr found nothing there so I just logged out. Uninstalled POL and deleted the .playonlinux folder. Then I reinstalled.
Same thing; I had to forcfully shut down the main window then POL starts to download the dependencies as described. I am now at the Digital Download version prompt.
And the installing of the game starts. It all looks good - but I need a smart way to finish it when POL never stops after the install is finished. Any other method that does not involve the main window?
I think I am going for the "restart my computer now" option.....
Nothing - the eternal installation progress bar will not disapear and I have no icon in POL The one on the desktop does not work as described.
Are you using the POL version from the Mandriva repos or are you using version 3.8.8 dubi?
Edit:
I actually managed to start the game with the CD in the in the slut. Looked nice but no XML fonts. So I guess the origanal loading of dependencies is fubared. Basically it is still installing in the background and when I close it it is gone.
Buggy!

[dubigrasu]

Try first to simply start again Playonlinux (another instance) to get that main window. Maybe it works.
This never hapened to me...problems with the windows installers yes, but with POL itself no.Have no idea what's going on.

[dubigrasu]

(I copied the content on a single folder yes.)
I'm using the latest version of POL from here: http://www.playonlinux.com/script_files ... 8.8.tar.gz but it shouldn't matter much, I had previously the Mandy's last version but it kept bugging me about the available new version.

If you want to use this new version, just extract it somewhere and run the playonlinux shell script inside. It won't be integrated in the menu though.
Of course uninstall the old one.

What else what else...try to delete any trace of previous failed attempts when starting afresh.
This means the AOE entries from POL main menu/window, those executable we talked about earlier (if any) and the wineprefixes created for AOE.
You don't need to delete the whole .PlayOnLinux folder. Just the one named AOE3 from wineprefix folder.

If you try to kill the installer with htop search for a long command containing setup.exe.

[viking60]

Hmm I wonder if my Wine installation could disturb POL.....

[dubigrasu]

No. Whatever you do in your main Wine doesn't affect POL. You can delete the whole .wine folder and POL will still function. They are totally separated and applications installed with POL are also totally separated from one another.

Anyway, I would say that before trying again something with AOE3 or any other game you must fix POL itself.
There is something fishy there.
You can try to install something else first. Something light like Photofiltre from the Graphic Section. The app is free, is automatically downloaded, no tricks no nothing. Just to make an idea if everything is working properly.

That is, if you didn't suffer enough

[rolf]

Thanks, Berserks, this is all very helpful for someone in my position.

Now is the time to replace the original executable age3.exe with an unoriginal one.

Where does the unoriginal age3.exe come from?

[dubigrasu]

Search/Google for something like Age of empires no cd.

[rolf]

Got it.

[dubigrasu]

Found a 3.8.8. version on MIB:
http://mib.pianetalinux.org/MIB/2010.1/ ... noarch.rpm

[viking60]

Yup It works here too now.
Installed the MIB version. And picked the icon in POL option. I Just finished a game and it works like in Windows. The only irritating thing is that compiz thing when I move the mouse on the upper left corner SO I thing I will go to metacity before playing the next time.

Great stuff dubigrasu - you are hereby promoted to Gaming-berserk!