Ship Simulator 2008 Tips

This is in no way a straightforward installation for myself with
a widescreen display and twinview enabled. Folks with native 4:3
aspect display hardware might have a better time of it, but even
so there are numerous other things to be done...YMMV depending on
your exact OS/platform setup.


Do note my original version is v1.0 and was subsequently patched
to 1.4.2 -- owners of CD/DVD media may experience a slightly different
progression to this below - just be aware differences -do- exist
between the various release versions.


Versioning & official patches:  There are multiple 'base' versions
of this game -- v1.0 : v1.1 : v1.3  -- the latest official patch
version is v1.4.2 at this time. If you plan on upgrading/patching
the version you have, be sure to grab the correct patch file. All
information related to these things can be found here.


Preparing a new bottle for installation: This may be optional for some
people depending on your setup, but it is the way I needed to go about
all this to get it working 'as expected'.


0. Start  cxsetup

1. Click on the 'Manage Bottles' tab





2. Click on the little '+' button above -- this will allow you to add a new bottle,
and pop-up a new window allowing you to do so.






4. In the 'Bottle name:' box, change it to something familiar...ie; shipsim
   In the 'Create from template:' box, use the drop-down arrow to select winXP
   Click on 'OK'  -- you will now see your new bottle in the list of available bottles.


5. Highlight your newly created bottle and click on 'Configure' =>'Control Panel'=>'winecfg' -- the Wine Configuration GUI will appear






6. Now click on 'Graphics' tab => tick  'Emulate a virtual desktop'






7.After enabling virtual desktop mode, you will see 'Desktop size' element becomes active => leave this at 800 x 600






8. Click on 'Apply' => 'Ok' => 'Ok"



9. With cxsetup still running, click on the 'Add/Remove' tab.









10. Highlight the bottle created above, and click on the 'Install software' button.

The Install Software GUI will pop-up, click on the 'Show all service packs and dependencies' button.








11. First you need to install Microsoft DirectX Runtime - Modern  => highlight this, click on
   'Next' and follow the prompts until installation completes => click on Finish.

12. Now using the same method, install Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable. Once this
    completes, and with the same bottle highlighted, click on the 'Install fonts' button to
    install the core fonts needed for shipsim to draw some menuing.


Having 'prepared' the bottle as so above, =now= you can actually install the game itself.

Note: I can only speak to the standalone executable v1.0 of this title. Folks with other
versions/media releases *may* find this all useful as a guide.


With the same bottle still highlighted in cxsetup, click on 'Install software' . The install
GUI will appear, click the 'Install other game' button => click 'next'







The following GUI will now appear;







Click on the 'Other installer file:' button, then click on 'Browse' to navigate to the
location of your ShipSim2008.exe installer file. Highlight the file, click on 'Open'
and then 'Next' ==> the installation should begin and completely normally. Exit cxsetup.


Game should now start and run.


Notes about applying official patches:

It is possibly =important= that you start the game once, unpatched, just to make sure
everything is working ok =before= attempting to upgrade/apply an official patch. If it
were me, I would now backup/archive the working bottle before applying any patch.There
are instructions on the archive function here .

Grab the patch you need from the official ShipSim2008 website here. Be careful to obtain
the correct version -- for my original v1.0 relese, I used the "Ship Simulator 2008 -
Update v1.x -> v1.4.2 (668MB)" patch. Once you have downloaded the file, copy it into
your shipsim bottle -- in linux, this will be;

~/.cxgames/shipsim/drive_c/Program Files/Vstep/ShipSim2008/


0. Start  cxsetup

1. Highlight the bottle you installed the game into

2. With the bottle you installed the game into highlighted, click on Configure => 'Control Panel'







3. Click on the 'Run' button => 'Browse' and navigate to the executable you copied in the step above,
   then click on 'Open' => 'Run' to apply the official update patch. Exit cxsetup.