Linux Noob and World of Warcraft

[Trident5]

First im completely new to linux im dual booting and using Ubuntu 7.10 my hardware

Intel dual core 2.4
4 gigs of memmory
1.5 terabytes of Hardrive space
Nvidia 7300gs 512 megs 16x

i installed ubuntu in like 12 mins very impressive..anyways to the issue...i found some helpful links and was able to get World of Warcraft up and running in a few hours after install and updates its working fine i just have these 2 issues.

First: Under video setting inside wow i only see 1x as an option no 2, 4, 6 etc... dont get me wrong its working video looks nice not lagging but no higher settings.

Second: im using it in full screen NOT windowd if i shrink or i guess alt esc to go to ubuntu my sound goes in the game and wont return until i restart the game..i did try in windowd mode and when i clicked out side of the wow window it did same thing again after restarting the program sound came back..

If you have any suggestions or a solution please put in step buy step im a complete noob to linux this is my first time using.....

[guns1inger]

Ubuntu's gfx drivers aren't the latest or greatest versions, so the first thing I would do is update to the latest official drivers.

[Trident5]

i did use the synaptic program to do the updates...plus i installed a program called Envy that scanned and found new drivers at least i assume it did.. i installed envy hopeing that would help resolve the issue but still same problem

[disturbed1]

Set wine to use alsa and not oss. You can do this by clicking on Applications - Wine - Configure Wine. Click on the audio tab, uncheck OSS and check ALSA.

Gusty's nVidia driver is just fine, the 2 releases from nVidia since the one included with Ubuntu Gusty do not add anything new pertaining to your video card* nor Desktop computers. *Some nVidia 6,7,8 series cards with certain PCIE/AGP chipsets, motherboards, and CPU combonations experienced lockup problems, this was fixed. But, if this was an issue for you, I'm guessing you would have posted about it

Look through these links to see if you can find any tips/tricks
http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=world+of+warcraft+site%3Aubuntufor...=Google+Search
^^ Yes theres a lot of links, but something on the first page should help out

[Trident5]

thanks for the sugestion looking through all the links cant seem to find anything that refers to the video issue im having.. again when im inside wow i hit esc, bringing up there menu i select video and then go to Multisampleing the only thing there is a 1x card option mine is a 16x card...although video is working faster should be better ..

[disturbed1]

It may be a feature that just is not emulated. WoW being a windows game, it actually runs through Wine, which just emulates some of the API calls of Windows, not all of them. If WoW was actually programed for Linux, it would be there. Wine doesn't do all of the Direct9.0c API features, only a couple, and only about 80-95% of directx 8.0 is correctly emulated. Such is the case with the Quake and Unreal series, which is written in OpenGL and fully Linux native. These games run like a dream. The only windows games I have personal experience with is Call of Duty 2, which runs as well as I could expect, and The Sims (1+2+expansions), which does not run. Consequently, it's the only reason my girlfriend sticks with a dual boot system.

Take a look also here http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=9429 , wine's page for WoW. Here's the direct link to the appDB, which has a decent list of what works, and does not. http://appdb.winehq.org/ also check out the gaming and leasure section of the Ubuntu Forums, and/or The Ubuntu Gamers Arena

In other words, we're lucky a made for Windows game even run in Linux I am surprised there isn't some kind of hack or hidden setting you can enable to turn on higher sub sampling/multi sampling/anti aliasing. A petition and many cries have gone to Blizzard over the years to port the app to Linux, but nothing has ever come about.

[Trident5]

Wow seems to be running quite well i fixed the audio issue buy an internal setting inside the game...The video still well only show the 1x but its running smooth so thats all good...One other thing has popped up its pretty random from time to time it freezes up the game only not linux and i have to shut wow down restart its all good again. I also did decide to give Cedega a go well dam its jerky and sluggish i was expecting alot more from this product.. Mabe im not setting somthing right but as for now WINE wins hands down