Perfect World International Tips

This info is applicable for both Linux and Mac OS X versions of CrossOver.

Main thing to know when trying to play Perfect World using CrossOver is: do not use CrossOver 11.x for playing (yet), stick to CrossOver Games 10.3 instead.

Sad fact is that since Wine 1.3.9 (which CrossOver 10.3 had been based on) there were some bugs introduced which severely affect PW gameplay.

These bugs are:

a) Keyboard input lag - reaction to key presses might be delayed up to about a second, and rapidly press/release key sequences are lost most of the times. It is known bug in Wine introduced by AJ, which also affects other apps like Photoshop CS5, but how long would it take to fix it is still unknown (AJ hadn't provided any info on the topic).

b) Several regressions that cause huge FPS dropdowns. These are due: (1) Wine had gained an ability to correctly handle vsync for Direct3D apps, and the game do not honor user-supplied setting to disable vsync and always instructs Direct3D (and, thus, Wine and host OpenGL driver) to have it enabled; (2) Wine had been extended to be able to use one specific OpenGL extension which - possibly - could provide user with some benefits in future, but for now using this extension leads to a noticeable slowdown, said to be "due to slow extension implementation in GPU drivers from both major vendors". It is possible to workaround both of these using registry setting which is specific to CrossOver 11.0.3+. I would post detailed description here on request.

As soon as new version of CrossOver would be released which would incorporate fixes for bug (a) - it would be quite possible to use CrossOver 11.x to play PerfectWorld.

No matter what is the CrossOver version you want to use, you would have to install some additional software into the bottle in order to get the game working. Here is a list of the steps you would have to take, sorted in the order that is strictly required to follow, or you would face some other problems making the bottle "broken":

1) Create a brand-new CrossOver bottle using Bottle Manager, name it anyway you like.

2) Proceed into "Install software" dialog and install the following software in the exact order specified:

a) Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime 2005

b) Microsoft DirectX Runtime - Modern

c) Core Fonts

3) Copy the game installer files (or - in case you have it - the folder containing the already-installed game) into the drive_c folder of the bottle.

3a) In case you had copied the game installer files: run the installer using "Run a Windows Command" dialog box. Don't forget to specify the bottle you had used at steps (1) and (2) as an active bottle to run the windows program in.

4) Open up "Run a Windows Command" dialog, chose the bottle you had used on previous steps, select file named "<A folder you had copied the game to>/element/elementclient.exe" as the windows program you wish to run, but instead of pressing "Run..." button press the other one, saying something like "Create a launcher...". It would allow you to create a handy icon in your host system "Start menu" which you would use in a future to start up the game.

5) Do the same steps as you did at step (4), but now select "<A folder you had copied the game to>/launcher/Launcher.exe" as the name of the windows program you wish to run/create launcher for. Unfortunately game launcher/patcher doesn't work (mostly) under CrossOver and Wine, but it might be fixed by future game updates or CrossOver releases. In case a fix would come, this link would one to use when the game would refuse to log you in saying that the client version you have is outdated. Be sure not to use this launcher to start the actual game up as it wouldn't work most of the times resulting in a complete hang that would require you to terminate all the processes inside the bottle ("Force quit the bottle"). 

6) Once again: to start up the game use the launcher you had created at step (4). To get the game performing more stable you may wish to use "Wine Configuration" dialog for the bottle you had created at step (1) and set the bottle to use "Virtual Desktop" mode, and then tell the game itself to be run in "Windowed" mode. It would look a bit weird as it would appear that you have a "MS Windows like" window placed inside your host OS "normal window", but the stability would benefit greatly.

7) Currently game update process isn't working under Wine for the most part. At the best case you would have launcher successfully update/patch the game, but the duration of the process would be extremely long. For example, updating game client from version 117 up to version 120 took about 12 hours on PC equipped with 8 core CPU and 8GB of RAM with 20Mbps broadband internet connection. Doing the same update on a slow netbook equipped with AMD C50 CPU and 2GB of RAM took about 15 minutes. So, to summarise, quickest way ATM to "update" the game client is to copy the already updated version from  a PC running native OS. In case you would like to took a bumpy road updating the game under CrossOver - be sure to use version 11.0.3+ for updating and don't forget to install native HTML rendering engine 6 or 7 into the bottle. Launcher won't even start up otherwise. In case you had been lucky enough and got launcher/patcher window appear and ask you about the method it should use to do the update - select "Auto" and pray for the best. Be sure not to move the mouse cursor over the launcher window as it would result it patcher hanging forcing you to use "Force quit the bottle" command and starting the process all over again.