Edit: Additional testing, including installation through Origin.
Now I just need to make it run in a completely reproducible manner! I dare say this would be at least a Silver rating if it can be made to reliably tun in the first place.
Test system: CrossOver 12.1.2 Linux, openSUSE 12.3, 2x Opteron 2435, 16GB RAM, NVIDIA GTX590 with 313.xx drivers.
Bottle configuration: Origin installed using existing Origin CrossTie.
How was it installed?
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Installed from DVD, updated using Origin and game launcher.
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Installed through Origin.
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Make sure your Origin bottle is set up and updated, then start Origin and log in.
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If running installer from DVD, ensure Origin is running before installation. Aside from some redrawing issues the game will install with no problems.
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Install/update game using Origin. Your download speeds will probably be abysmal (between general Origin suckage and WineHQ bug 31438 [Link]), but it will eventually complete.
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EAProxyInstaller.exe will hang and require manual killing (WineHQ bug 29876 [Link]).
It's installed. Now what?
This is where it all gets horribly unreliable. If you launch the game from Origin it is virtually guaranteed to silently crash. Origin doesn't detect the fact the game has crashed, necessitating a restart of the Origin bottle. I'm going to have to generate some debug logs and see what is going on with that.
Most reliable method I found:
- Configure Origin bottle to use a Wine Desktop (optional?)
- Launch Origin (this is half the battle!), log in, wait a minute or so.
Note: Origin will often hang or crash when you attempt to start it. Expect this.
- Run Task Manager
- Run SimCity.
- This is still hit and miss - still got the occasional silent crash or issues with WineD3D. More stuff to try and generate logs for.
If SimCity crashes (which it will), quit the bottle and start again.
- The game launcher may have to do 2 update passes (one each for game and data), and can be /slow/. If it fails to connect to the server the retry button doesn't appear, so you will have to restart SimCity by hand if that happens. You may also have to manually restart SimCity after each update pass, as it may fail to restart.
I can't believe it. It launched! What seems to work?
- The tutorial.
- Sound/music.
- Graphics appear to be flawless at default settings.
- Could connect to server and generate a region/city.
- Did not experience lag with gameplay, although this may be due to not ramping up the settings and/or throwing enough hardware at the problem.
- Heroes and Villans expansion can be installed and used.
- Installation via DVD or Origin.
What wasn't tested, didn't work, or had problems?
- Entering a city is very slow. I haven't played the game on Win32, so I don't know whether this is a game problem or Wine problem.
- My test city did not sync to the cloud. Not sure if Wine, the game, the servers or Origin is the culprit (could be any or all of the above).
- Did not test any of the multiplayer functions (chat, sharing between cities, etc.).
- Did not attempt to use full screen
- Changing graphics settings from Low/minimum appears to cause SimCity to crash.
Now, time to upload a couple of screenshots... and spend the next couple of days seeing if I can generate some useful debug logs!
-- Hendikins
