Wizardry 8 (245450)

[Rabcor]

Compatibility Report

• Name of the game with compatibility issues:: Wizardry 8
• Steam AppID of the game: 245450

System Information

• GPU: Radeon 610M/RTX 5080 Max-Q
• Video driver version: Mesa 25.3.3-6 / nvidia-open 590.48.01
• Kernel version: 6.18.6-2-cachyos
• Full System Info: Gist
• Proton version: 10.0-4

I confirm:

• that I haven't found an existing compatibility report for this game.
• that I have checked whether there are updates for my system available.

Issues & Reproduction

• 3D Setup Utility does not work (requires mfc42). To properly read available resolutions and bit depth the Wiz8Extender is also required (Windows 11 has the same problem with bit-depth & resolution, but I feel like this is something proton should be able to tackle).

• Across all proton versions and also on windows, there is a bug when using the OpenGL renderer where some menus have this grid pattern rendered on top of them. I'm not sure if any wine or proton setting can fix it, but my understanding is that the cause is the game using outdated GL_CLAMP setting and this needs to be changed to GL_CLAMP_TO_EDGE to resolve it. This can be done by modifying the game's OpenGL dll file, I use this command to do so from the Wizardry8/Dll directory:

  printf '\x2f\x81\x00\x00' | dd of=srDD_OpenGL.dll bs=1 seek=12827 count=4 conv=notrunc
  

  • Reproduction: Configure the game to use the OpenGL renderer by configuring 3DVideo.CFG in the game base directory:

    3DVideo.CFG

    OpenGL
    1024
    768
    32
    DirectSound3D 7+ Software
    

    Then start the game, you will see the grid in the main menu.

• DirectSound3D Hardware Support fails to fully initialize so software audio modes must be used or some sounds will be missing. (this is also a problem on Windows 11)

  • Reproduction: The best way to test this is to install mfc42 to gain access to the game's 3D Setup Utility, then within that utility select DirectSound3D Hardware Support and press the test sound button. A popup will tell you if the device initialized correctly or not, it seems to accurately detect that the device initialization was faulty.
  • Testing it in-game is trickier because only some sounds are missing, the sounds I noticed tended to be broken were multiple monster noises in combat (monster movement sounds and generic monster noises they make when it's their turn seemed to be broken a lot) and the dracon breath sound effect. So a winning strategy for this might be to start a new game with a dracon race character, enter combat and use the dracon breath attack to see if it makes any sound.

• When the game is configured to render on OpenGL the in-game BIK cinematics will not play, and will instead crash the game. They work fine on DX7 (wined3d) renderer, this is a regression, the cinematics worked well on 8.0-5 with OpenGL, but were similarly broken on 9.0-4 so the issue must have been introduced between 8.0-5 and 9.0-4 and remains in 10.0-4.

  • Edit Note: When I was testing, 8.0-5 always worked fine on OpenGL besides skipping the startup sirtech logo cinematic. However durin glater retesting I discovered that 8.0-5 does not consistently render cinematics with OpenGL even if my earlier testing looked like it absolutely did. In other words, mileage on whetehr 8.0-5 will do this right may vary, but the breakage on 10.0-4 and 9.0-4 remain consistent.

  • Edit Note 2: I have found a reliable workaround that makes OpenGL work on all 3 versions of proton. Just run this command: protontricks 245450 -q renderer=gdi and it will work on all 3.

  • Reproduction: To test this, configure the 3DVideo.CFG in the game base directory like so:

    3DVideo.CFG

    OpenGL
    1024
    768
    32
    DirectSound3D 7+ Software
    

    After which you only have to launch the game and press the Introduction button at the top of the main menu, this will play a BIK cinematic, if it renders then in-game cinematics can be considered confirmed working. For a second test to verify without a shadow of a doubt, start a new game, it will play a different cinematic.
  8.0-5, 9.0-4 and 10.0-4 BIK rendering tests

  • 10.0-4:
    • DX7: Renders Normally
    • OpenGL: CTD
    • Glide2x: Freeze
  • 9.0-4:
    • DX7: Renders Normally
    • OpenGL: CTD
    • Glide2x: Renders Normally
  • 8.0-5
    • DX7: Renders Normally
    • OpenGL: Renders Normally or CTD (Not sure why, it's like sometimes the game starts up wrong and it will CTD on them)
    • Glide2x: Sound Only
  • There is also a company logo bik that plays at game launch that seems to run on altered logic. Do note that this cinematic is the least important cinematic in the game and so long as it doesn't crash the game getting past it in any way should be considered a success.
    • 10.0-4:
      • DX7: Renders Normally
      • OpenGL: Sound only
      • Glide2x: Untested
    • 9.0-4:
      • DX7: Renders Normally
      • OpenGL: CTD
      • Glide2x: Untested
    • 8.0-5:
      • DX7: Renders Normally
      • OpenGL: Skipped or CTD (Not sure why it sometimes skips and sometimes crashes, no real pattern to it)
      • Glide2x: Untested

• There is a bug with rendering some of the 2D GUI elements (ddraw based 2D rendering, so problem must be in wined3d) in the game which creates permanent ghosting in the background behind those elements, although the main feature of the element (typically text) will render correctly on top of the corrupted background. It doesn't seem to happen to all users,, but it happened to me on both my GPUs, on all proton versions including 10.0-4 and every version prior, on wayland and on x11.

  • Reproduction: Just start the game and either start a new game or load a save, once in-game the HP number digit display for the player characters are affected surfaces, simply move the cursor over the HP digit area and you should see this kind of ghosting effect. No special game configuration is required since the 2D GUI surfaces are always rendered the same way no matter how you configure the game. Here's how the hp bar looks (with the glitched hp display)
    

• Experiencing relatively frequent CTDs (within 1 hour of play) when using OpenGL with any proton version from 5.13-6 to 10.0-4

  • Reproduction: Just try playing for about an hour, when I did this testing I was located in Arnika, and I had crashes even if for the whole time I stayed in relatively the same spot so it was quite guaranteed to happen eventually no matter what, 5.13-6 seemed to last longer than newer versions without crashing. No Log for this (yet)

Logs

steam-245450.log proton 10.0-4

3DVideo.CFG content:

OpenGL
1024
768
32
DirectSound3D Hardware Support

Actions:

• Watched sound-only sirtech logo startup bik.
• Saw opengl grid bug in main menu.
• Loaded Save
• Ran around a bit until I entered combat
  • The creature movement sounds were silent
  • The creature hit sounds were silent
  • Various other sounds were silent
  • Used Dracon Breath, verified that like i said it was silent.
• Exited to Main Menu just after using Dracon Breath
• Played introduction cinematic & experienced immediate CTD

Additional Info

I have verified that I get similar results no matter which of my two GPUs I am using.

In 10.0-3 there was a bug with vertical cursor movement, but it seems to have been fixed in 10.0-4

For users who want help configuring the game to get the optimal experience on Linux, I have created a steam guide for doing so here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=216229528

It should help you navigate around all the issues I have mentioned and get the game to an optimally functioning state, or as close as you can with whatever setup you have.

[Arucard1983]

Since it was a Glide game primarily, it won't be easy to install a Glide wrapper, like nGlide ?

[Rabcor]

Edit: just to clarify, the above comment is nonsense because

• The game is not primarily a glide game, it has 3 roughly equally well supported renderers, DX7, OpenGL and Glide2x. It just defaults to glide2x but it's actually the worst of the 3 because it only works at 16-bit depth which results in banding.
• The game already ships with nGlide (no doubt night dive's idea) and this does work pretty much out of the box.

@Arucard1983 it actually defaults to these settings:

Glide2x
800
600
16
Miles Fast 2D Positional Audio

Rather than the ones I suggested, and as I said earlier, it works out of the box like that. But I had issues with correcting the resolution with Glide2x as the api. nGlide seems to be installed as a part of the game, if you right click it in the steam library it has a 'configure nGlide' button.

I am uncertain if it can really be used though because I tend to get some error about the video device not supporting the resolution, which is why I recommend the settings in the OP instead.

Edit: The error is caused if I configure the 3DVideo.CFG file to use a 32-bit depth,. I will update the OP to suggest this alternative.

[Rabcor]

Got the 3DSetup utility working like this: protontricks 245450 -q mfc42

However, it will only show the game's supported resolutions and only at 16 bit depth :P so configuring it via nGlide or directly editing the CFG file is still better.

I thought it might be worth mentioning that similar issues plague the windows version (follow link in OP for more details)

The game is actually easier to get running on Linux.

[TheDromundKaas]

I cannot confirm 0 issues. For me, the ingame map is basically empty. I've seen videos on how it should look, and the map is not completely empty in those videos. The marker for the party is displayed, and the map can be zoomed and moved using the ingame map controls, however, basically no area around the party is displayed, even when is has been visited.

The requested gist
steam-245450.log

Sample screenshot on how the map looks (on the left):

[kisak-valve]

Hello @TheDromundKaas, please copy your system information from Steam (Steam -> Help -> System Information) and put it in a gist, then include a link to the gist in this issue report. Also, please add PROTON_LOG=1 %command% to the game's launch options, reproduce your issue and attach the generated $HOME/steam-$APPID.log to this issue report as a file. (Proton logs compress well if needed.)

[CyberKiller40]

I couldn't get the cutscene videos to play correctly. DirectX7 display plays only sound with a black screen, Glide plays the video but cropped in a small fragment of the screen. This is not optimal.

[Rabcor]

To be completely honest, the steam version of this game (e.g. night dive version) is garbage, night dive's modifications to it have introduced nothing but issues to it.

It's so bad that even on windows a guide like this is still necessary just to get it to run for quite a lot of users. Night Dive is just a pure garbage company, a troll company if anything since literally the only thing they do to games they buy the rights to is break them a lil bit and re-release them.

Also the game not working in above comments might possibly be a regression, I mean the initial post was on proton version 3.16 so if someone's trying to get it to work, it's worth trying to go back to older proton versions (such as 3.16)

I could maybe retest it soon.

[CyberKiller40]

I can't say I'd agree with that, ND's work on Quake, Doom 64, Turok and Forsaken is stellar.

Good point on checking an older Proton version though, I'll see if I'll find the time to look at that myself too.

[Rabcor]

I have done thorough retesting of this game (I have played about 10 hours in it spread over a few proton versions and am still doing so) and have done some analysis on the issues on the latest proton version (10.0-4), and a few versions back from it, with accompanying 4 new issues and reproduction methods for them, I updated the original post with this, although the format of symptom/reproduction in separate sections was not suitable so I took slight liberties with the compatibility report form.

I have never been able to reproduce the map rendering problem that @TheDromundKaas had in 2021, if someone can tell me a way to reproduce it I would be grateful. The map rendering is likely always handled with wined3d so it's possible you need a specific proton version to reproduce it.