The Secret World Legends Forum

Is there really nobody else interested in this?

The secret world supposedly has an advocate but he has never said a word nor has anybody else but the 2 or 3 people here who'd like to get it to work. I am aware this game is far less popular than eg. GW2 but would it really be too much for someone with a bit more experience than we have to chime in and at least offer an idea or 2 on how to get this to work?

It really feels like the people over at WineHQ as well as here took one look and then decided it doesn't work and left it at that.

...fair comment about the so called 'advocate' for this app
proving epic fail is acceptable (for advocates) ; I'd nuke
their advocate status personally....

..looking at the bronze medal results in winehq against the latest
wine-devel branch for the -release- version of this title, and what
it's doing wrong there in linux, I wouldn't expect this to run in
macosx at all in crossover/wine (and if it did, run very very poorly)...

I'm disappointed as well. I speak for about 10 of my friends that play The Secret World. We have been following Linux status for TSW since release and prior. I'm looking forward to reading updates from individuals with more experience in WINE, etc.

well, seems like, up to now, the game is unplayable. I´d love it if it would work, but at the moment it just doesn´t....

maybe it will work in crossover versions yet to come?

let´s hope for the best.

I'd love to see this work, too. It's weird too because Age of Conan is running with a Bronze rating (http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/browse/name/?app_id=4233) and it's the same engine :(

maybe it has game specific internet protocols that crossover doesn't accept?

in that case we would need a lot of pledges to get the codeweavers to officially support the game and build crossover in a way that these protocols would work.

well, i found the trial version and have got the client patcher running. so its downloading.
strange thing is, that the thing is redrawing frames. meaning i have to move the window to see how far the download has progressed. did you have the same problem?

Well after installing the newest direct x versions and waiting the download, I at least get into the game menu. Everything is flickering (there was a error message at the beginning telling me that my drivers are outdated and would need to be upgraded) and some parts of the menu are not drawn. I will now try to see how the gameplay looks.

...

The textures are garbled (guess that is a shader problem, because I have encountered it before in "Dead Space"). Some shadows and light sources are not drawn correctly. that makes it very difficult to make anything out.
Maybe its because I try the trial version but I seem only able to play as a woman.....

I would really apreciate it if some crossover staff guy could help with this one. Maybe some regedit stuff could help against these errors.

It is interessting to see that the game in itselfs works (gameplay, character creation, sound etc.). The errors are just some shader/lightning and framerate errors which could be rectified if someone with more knowledge of regedit would try his look with this game.

I am hopeful that this will be working properly soon.

I am going to play around with regedit a bit and see what happens.

well after putting in these commands in regedit the textures have become better. there is no wrong coloring anymore, but there is now very bad interference over the whole screen through the lightning effects.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Direct3D]
DirectDrawRender=opengl
OffscreenRenderingMode=fbo
PixelShaderMode=enabled
RenderTargetLockMode=textex
UseGLSL=enabled
VideoMemorySize=512

I am now trying to find out what could rectify that.

Exactly the same phenomena I have. I will reproduce your steps to see whether it really is the same.

a bit later:
I can start the launcher and it starts up scrambled as before but when I force a redraw (move the window around) it redraws correctly with even the buttons in the right place and clickable. This is far more than just a little bit better afa the launcher is concerned; it is actually useable now. You are a hero, sir!

It doesn't do redraws so to get an updated window I keep moving it around the screen but that is still worlds better than before. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the game itself where I get the login screen and can even enter the password and click the login button (it is offset to the top a bit so need to click the top half of the button). But this is where it ends for me. I don't see the character selection screen and can't seem to click anywhere to select anything though I wouldn't actually know as I remember from playing the game that the music doesn't change between all these screens. Only once the player is in the proper game does the music change dependent on the area one is in.

Btw. there is no difference at all (for me) between running it in a simulated desktop or not. Having a desktop window open makes the testing easier though as I can just move the desktop window to the foreground after having switched to another program.

Well, what you are writin is interesting.

I installed the whole thing in a XP bottle with crossover 11.3.0. Will try to do the whole thing in a vista bottle too (maybe that will help with the "outdated driver" problem).

I found that I had to run the game in a windowed mode (wine cfr) with a simulated desktop that needed to be bigger than 1024 x 768 (as that is the default resolution of the game). A 1600 x 900 would do.
I also used the "run" command within the applications menu to add the "-doublebuffer" tag behind the .exe file.
Additionally you have to install DirectX 9 via the crossover installer. Also I tried getting the videos to run via Flash Player but that didn´t work. Maybe the Windows Media Player would help?

There is another very strange thing I found. When typing in your Username, the field where you type is already filled with some chars, so you have to delete there first. I guess that this was your login problem. So click on the username field, delete the whole content and than type in your username (I can´t see the username field unless I click on it). Do the same with the password. Then the login should work and you should reach the character creation screen.

hope i can help. Tragically I don't know enough about the regedit (maybe there is a way to disable some of the shader and lightning effects via regedit so the graphic gliches could be rectified).

I have to be quick now, my trial account will be running out in a day or two. 😉

avarchillion

I contacted Funcom re a possible license to test this...if and when I get a response I'll report back. I'll send you a friend request to pass on the serial if we get one.

lol...I am doing the opposite of you :) I have been doing all of my stuff in a vista bottle and just now decided to switch to an xp one (mainly because one of the directx installers can't be installed in vista). I followed the instructions for Age of Conan in this thread:

• create a new winxp bottle, and install the following ;

Microsoft Directx Runtime - Modern (in Runtime Support Components
of cxinstaller GUI)

DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer (in Community Supported
Applications of cxinstaller GUI)

• set a library override for shlwapi.dll to native in the Wine
  Configuration libraries tab

...now install the AoH client stub itself -- the above is enough to
get
the update manager running/visible and the patching process running
;
here endth my insights, as the thing is still patching =)...

plus I installed a new dhcpcsvc.dll and added that as native in the config (was another thread in AoC).

Can't test properly as the servers are down but the patcher ran (same redraw problem as usual but moving the window worked) and the game started with the normal problems of having a screwed up login screen. It did try and contact the servers after entering the login information and it did show the error screen of not being able to contact the authorisation servers properly (weelll...sort of properly). 1024x768 will probably be the max with the driver problem the game reports but if I can get it working at that resolution I'd be quite happy for the moment.

Btw. when you debug this you can look in the application directory,eg. Bottles/The Secret World xp/drive_c/Program Files/Funcom/The Secret World/ and you can find several logs in there that often show errors that happened during the last runs. Mine contain quite a few lines of
[1108/124931:ERROR:extension_service.cc(1163)] Failed to parse manifest for extension

I just put a video up on youtube that shows how the game looks in an XP bottle (those are usually better than vista, so they are my default bottles) on my iMac:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8g9Mxypx2A&feature=youtube_gdata_player

you see that its mostly a shader/lightning problem. everything else seems to work.

Here an example of how it runs on my machine (just the game, not the patcher). I don't know whether it is the same problem you seem to have. I haven't yet applied your changes though so they may make it look a bit/a lot better.

One thing I did notice despite all the green :) is that running around is a lot faster than in Parallels...so if we get it to work it might actually be playable unlike in Parallels where it runs like molasses at ~3 to 5 fps.

Yea, I tried it in Parallels, too. It was a bad idea.

@eveline, did you create that video with your vista bottle or via bootcamp?

The greenscreen looks really strange. I "only" had the lightning issues but at least I could still see something.
Do you know why there is such a difference between your setting and mine. We both use an iMac, Mac OS X 10.8.2 and crossover 11.3.0.

this is really strange.

This was my newly created xp bottle (running on a MacPro 3,1, 2008 model, Radeon HD 5870, on Mountain Lion) and I have no idea where that green overlay is coming from. Also, this was the first time I got into the game ever so maybe the new CrossOver release or Funcom changed a few things. Before, I had nothing but a black screen after the login and no amount of waiting or clicking around would change that.

A Raedon HD 5870? Hm, maybe thats the reason. I have an ATI Raedon HD 4850 with 512 MB.

The "VideoMemorySize=512" tag I wrote about earlier, of course has to be exactely the same size as your graphics card.

well at the moment it seems that we have to wait and hope that someone with more regedit knowledge than I can help us. I posted the whole thing in the advocats forum and some guys over there are going to use their skills to get this to run.

Its really funny. All the essentials of the game seem to run flawlessly. Only that stupid lightning/shader thing keeps the game from having an silver/gold status.

Yes, I had changed the VideoMemorySize to 1024 which is the memory size in the card. I'll do another test with your settings in a minute (as soon as the real life stuff is out of the way :) ).

Well, I am a lot more hopeful now than I was in the beginning. You know a lot more than I do about settings already and we have gotten lot further than before.

So...I added your settings and did the test (still xp bottle only) and those changes made the char. creation screen visible (was black for me) but the green overlay was a lot more pronounced. The loading screen builds perfectly now (it is meant to start in grey scale and more and more colour is added until it shows in full colour) which is nice. If I didn't have this green overlay, it would be almost playable.

Going to be testing it pretty soon once it finishes downloading. About 40 minutes left.

Great work everyone! I'm following this forum EXTREMELY CLOSELY along with several IRL friends that play The Secret World. We are looking forward to a silver/gold status so we can make the jump to Linux; after I test it myself first at that point. Thank you all for your great work thus far and looking forward to further developments!

well, I personally am using a mac, so is eveline. So if we get the game to run on our machines it still might have trouble with different linux settings.

anyway i have to set up a new trial account by now. this only 3 days free thing is a bit of a bother. 😉

Good stuff! We would definitely commit to purchasing subscriptions for Linux if it was playable with relative ease. I just don't have enough experience with trying to get games to run in Linux to even attempt it. I've just been scanning forums all over the interwebs about the progress on this game within any environment other than Windows. We really want to migrate away from the OS; decided as a guild/gaming community to make a stand.

I've lost interest in the game since the guild I was in sacrificed friendliness to satisfy somebody's insecurity towards open-minded discussion, but I do have a lifetime subscription. If anybody needs any specific testing or logs on a Linux system (specifically Gentoo), just ask.

So, I changed a few options and now its running better (still not good) and I know a bit more about what is most likely causing the problems.

First go into regedit. There go here: HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Wine/Direct3D
And there create a new string called "Multisampling". Set it to "enabled". That makes the lightning errors less obtrusive.

Next go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft.
There create a new key called "DirectDraw" and in it create a string "ForceRefreshRate". Setting it to 60 makes the menu blink less.

Anyway, the main problem with this game seems to be that they, for the first time ever, are using a new anti-aliasing mode called TXAA. I don't know if it is supported within crossover but i doubt it.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6069/nvidia-posts-geforce-30479-beta-drivers

Another thing is SLI and crossfire. The Secret World is based on those systems and they are known to flicker and garble text and all that.

Anyway I am going to try this script setting soon when I find the time. Seems to work a bit better than crossover:

http://www.playonmac.com/repository/app.php?script=1204

avarchillion

lol, I went and installed PlayOnMac and The Secret World won't even start :) It crashes shortly after the patcher ends and the game starts.

well, you have to install direct x separately, than it should not crash anymore. also use the wine 1.5.17 build.
the graphic glitches encountered in crossover are gone in playonmac but the game is so extremely laggy that it is unplayable.....

I hope that crossover (which uses the wine 1.4.1 build) will update its wine version soon. maybe than those graphic glitches will be gone?

Any updates since the last post?

My game refuses to patch all the way through. I can't get the "Start" on the launcher. It just closes after scanning and "Processing RDB..."

I've also tried to copying the entire, most up-to-date, game files from my Windows build over to the Linux partition. It does the same thing and the launcher crashes after processing the files.

I've had zero luck with playonlinux or Wine by itself. Utilizing the CrossOver trial for Linux (ubuntu 12.04 lts) has been the furthest I ever got with TSW.

Error when running "clientpatcher.exe" or "patchersetup.exe"

"Unable to locate LocalConfig.XML in the client's installation folder."

However, it is in the folder.

Now I'm getting a complete hard lock-up after the launcher hits, "Processing RDB Hashes..."

I just installed the latest CrossOver and tried again starting from scratch. The clientpatcher still completely hard-locks my system at the stage "Processing RDB Hashes."

I'm at a loss.

My debug.log within the TSW folder shows these lines:

[1212/222301:ERROR:extension_service.cc(1163)] Failed to parse manifest for extension
[1212/222301:ERROR:extension_service.cc(1163)] Failed to parse manifest for extension
[1212/222301:ERROR:extension_service.cc(1163)] Failed to parse manifest for extension

@PadreAdamo: What kind of computer do you use?
I had no trouble with my iMac and the beta version of crossover 12. I will have to try again with the official crossover 12 version.

avarchillion

I have two. The one that I have been using is a alienated m17xR2 laptop. The alienated has been my testbed.

hm, just tried it again and had no trouble getting the patcher to work. the download crashed after a while but the game started well enough and i was able to log in.

by the way, do you know who made these very good looking screenshots in the screenshot section. those with the graphic glitches are mine but the others aren´t and i would really like to know how he got the game to work so well on his mac.

I have no idea. I've had nothing but trouble trying to get the game to even download data. My other PC is custom-built; have not had the time to throw Ubuntu on there yet.

How does the game run on your Mac, what's your fps like?

Have you tried getting it to run on Linux at all? I've had zero luck and I really don't know enough about utilizing wine, crossover, or even Linux to get it up and running.

well, on my mac i can get into the game menu and the gameplay itself. thing is, that i have to deal with horrible gaphic glitches that make the game unplayable to my knowledge.

watch the youtube vid I made:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8g9Mxypx2A&feature=youtube_gdata_pla
yer

so it is playable but barely.

And no I have not tried it via any kind of Linux version. I have basic knowledge of Linux but no computer running it at the moment. I prefer clicking things. 😉

I've seen and read on forums of people playing with no issues on Linux and Mac, after some tweaking. I will have to find those links and post back here.

that would be great! I said before, that the all those glitches are the result of a specific shader that doesn´t agree with crossover. Via PlayOnMac those glitches are gone (its likely that this is also true through PlayOnLinux). Tragically the framerate is so damn low, that it still is unplayable.

Keep me posted if you find something interesting.

What do you think is the cause of the poor framerate?

Bad internet protocolls? crossover has no trouble with the framerate just with some shaders while playonmac has no problem with the shader but their internet protocolls seems substandart.

hopefully there will be a way to get the good of both while not having to deal with the bad.

I'd guess the good pics are from sevae :)

I promised test results but I am having a basic problem with CrossOver 12 that has made it or at least certain parts of it unusable on my machine. If you want to help, it's this thread. I will be back for testing soon...I am a life timer in TSW, I am not about to give up on that game :)

I'm still having no luck whatsoever. Launcher crashes every single time even after scouring the internet for linux topics and fixes for The Secret World.

I have decided to switch to Linux Mint (Cinn. desktop) 64-bit. The game installed and patched with no trouble at all. However, when I double click the client patcher program, it says that it can't find "localconfig.xml" That file is in the directory, so I'm not sure what's going on here.

Well, I tried the unpublished crosstie and had no luck. Still the same graphic errors.....