Back to running games in Wine this week. If I keep up this pace I should be done in around a years time…
Peggle ExtremeWindows
Peggle Extreme is available to everyone for free through Steam. It’s a special selection of stand-alone levels for Peggle based around Half-Life, Portal and Team Fortress 2, having originally been released for those who pre-ordered The Orange Box (ahhh, the memories).
Back when I first played it the limited graphical options weren’t a problem, but no that I am using a widescreen monitor the stretching is a little off-putting. Fortunately the game can be played in a window.
Arch
The first problem I ran into was actually all to do with Steam. Originally the game had appeared on the My Games list, but when it was made available to everyone it was removed, to install it you had to use the Peggle Extreme game page. However due to problems with the Steam browser and Wine, clicking on the button does nothing. To get it working I had to download it in Windows, then copy the file named ‘peggle extreme content.ncf’ found in Steam/steamapps to the same folder in Linux (~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Steam/steamapps). Peggle Extreme then appeared on the My Games list and Steam synced the files. If when you try to launch the game it says it’s unavailable, right-click on the game and to to Properties, on the Local Files tab click Verify integrity of game cache…, this should solve the issue.
I only encountered one problem with the game itself, it defaults to Full Screen which made the game appear in one corner of the screen. What made things more difficult was that the buttons were still located full screen, fortunately they highlight when you hover the mouse over them so it wasn’t too difficult to ‘feel’ my way through to Options where I could turn off full screen. Since then I have also found out that you can simply press Alt-Enter, and the game will turn into a window (and back again if you want). This doesn’t solve the problem but I’ve found I actually prefer playing in a window.
Once I was past that problem the game ran perfectly, responsive and vibrant.
Ubuntu
In Ubuntu things went even better, the game ran fine both in full screen and windowed.
Conclusion
It’s only a short game but my experiences with it tally up with those listed in the WineAppdb for Peggle Deluxe. It’s a nice game to play and best of all it’s free, good for those who don’t own the Deluxe version, and for those who do it provides some extra levels.
Icons
I don’t tend to use desktop icons for Steam games, I prefer to just use the My Games list. But maybe some of you would, I didn’t find any Peggle Extreme icons, but since I don’t own Peggle Deluxe there are some nice ones that can easily be substituted:
Source
Source
BraidWindows
These last two I bought through Direct2Drive. With Braid I just got a simple installer which could be a benefit compared to other avenues.
One small problem I’ve had in Windows is that after playing Braid, the next time I start my computer the screen defaults to a smaller resolution setting, the same one Braid was using.
Arch
Install ran fine, but displayed an error right at the end. Made no difference to the game.
I ran into several display problems, firstly the game does not like Alt-Tab, it causes the screen to stick. The game also defaulted to 800×600, which looked very poor (most noticeable on the keyboard icons and text), and on exiting the game I had to resize the desktop resolution. So as above I ran it in a window which worked much better, the game resolution remained the same though until I forced it by changing the launcher. I added the following to the end of the path:
-windowed = Forces the game to run in a window.
-width 1280 -height 1024 = Forces a particular resolution.
Aside from that things ran fairly well, I did notice a slight stuttering at times but when I checked the FPS counter (press 0, zero) it didn’t seem to register. It was so faint it was almost subliminal, so it didn’t affect me too much whilst playing but I never encountered anything like it in Windows where the game ran extremely smoothly. It also seemed to me that v-sync was not working, there was some slight tearing on the backgrounds when the screen was moving fast, the two issues could be related.
Finally, the icon for Braid did not appear. I couldn’t find an icon file in either my Arch directory or the Windows one so I assume it must be tied to the .exe, in the end I just used one from the list below.
Ubuntu
In Ubuntu it had the same error at the end of installation, but the icon did appear this time.
Aside from the taskbars staying on the screen (which I think it related to my general problems with Ubuntu) I didn’t run into any full screen or resolution issues. For some reason post-processing was disabled (the game scans the computer when it starts to decide how to set this, the resolution settings and the optimum FPS), playing without it meams certain effects are disabled:
Post Processing Off
No world effects whilst rewinding time, just a slight change in colour.
Post Processing On
Screen fades to grey-scale and shimmering effects appear for higher rewind speeds.
It was easy to force it on though, adding -60FPS to the end of the launcher disables the scan at startup, enables post processing and sets the optimum FPS to 60. Braid actually has quite a few interesting options, have a look at the readme file in the Braid directory for a list.
Performance was the same as in Arch, mostly good but still with that slight stutter.
Conclusion
Apart from the issues with full screen Braid worked well in both Linux systems. The stuttering would be an issue for me, but might not even happen for you, I’m not sure what I can do about it though. Shame, otherwise I would have been completely happy.
Icons
We really are spoilt for choice when it comes to Braid icons. David Hellman, the man who created the art work for Braid, has released tons of samples on his website, everything from character and object icons to animated gifs to wallpapers and much more besides. Not all of the stuff is square which can cause stretching, so you may have to edit some of them. But there’s a lot of choice and all of it is high quality.
Bus DriverWindows
Downloading from Direct2Drive provides you with a zip file containing the sort of stuff you’d find on an installation CD.
Arch
The actual installation went perfectly, following that though was the part I was dreading, activation. I copied my key and pasted it into the box, then clicked ‘Activate Online’. The bar raced across the screen and within just a few seconds the game was activated.
The makers of Bus Driver made the strange decision to split the graphics options. The first lot are found in the launcher, the rest are in-game, and only a few are accessible in both. Still, that’s got nothing to do with how it runs, the answer to that is great.
No problems whatsoever.
Ubuntu
Ditto.
…
Conclusion
All I can say is wow, this has definitely been the best game so far. Absolutely no problems on any of the systems despite the software requiring activation (one of the biggest problems encountered when using Wine in Linux), this game unquestionably deserves it’s Platinum rating. Sadly I can’t measure the actual performance but I certainly didn’t notice any differences compared to my experiences playing the game in Windows. It has been a breath of fresh air, if all games ran like this I’d definitely consider switching over completely.
Icons
The more obscure the game the less likely there are alternate desktop icons, so once again I’ve brought out my digital paintbrushes and easel and knocked up this quick one with an image taken from the Bus Driver website:
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