Linux Mint v19.2 Released (on Aug 2nd 2019)

I just figured I would mention, I recently was playing around with...



... on Linux Mint v19.2-Cinnamon and I was attempting to get some of my older Windows games working on Linux (basically Mafia/Mafia II and a recently obtained copy Alan Wake which was given away free from Epic Games store earlier this month), since there are not many games I want to replay, and, in short, it worked with my brief testing. a quick note: someone who plays plenty of games on their PC, especially new-ish games, can pretty much stop reading what I am typing since while Wine supports a fair amount of Windows games/programs it does not support everything so using Linux Mint/Wine probably won't be a option for these kinds of people.

it's nice because now I don't have to mess around with loading up Windows which makes using Windows even less and less needed for me as even with VirtualBox (basically runs Windows within a virtual machine under Linux) I won't need to use that as much now as I can run the Windows based Foobar2000 from within Linux now which is what I used to convert audio formats and it's solid for general audio playback etc.

I installed 'Wine' (the one that reads... "This package installs the stable version of WINE from WINEHQ, along with desktop files nad libraries for WINE to work properly. This is the recommended way to install WINE within Linux Mint.") from the Software Manager, which is easy to do, then follow the on screen instructions which are pretty straight forward for some basic setup. you can access some basic Wine stuff like configuration etc from the standard start menu > Wine > *then select your option* if needed.

but keep in mind not all Windows programs/games work with Wine, but it seems a decent percentage do as you can use the following site to see if your game or program works with Wine... appdb.winehq.org/

I even got my wireless XBox360 controller working, which was detected automatically with Wine, as I was surprised as I thought it was going to be somewhat of a pain to get working as with games like the two I mentioned above, Mafia/Mafia II, I prefer to use mouse+keyboard in general (like for walking/running/shooting stuff since it's more precise than a analog stick) but when you hop into vehicles the XBox360 controller is a better option than using a keyboard for driving around and I can now do that which is how I played it on Windows a while back.

with that said... while most of the stuff was pretty straight forward I did have to install 'winetricks' (done through the 'Software Manager' built into Linux Mint) which is what I used to install PhysX (from terminal type... 'winetricks physx' (without the ') and hit enter) which Mafia II requires that to be installed to work (the file it downloads specifically is "PhysX-9.14.0702-SystemSoftware.msi"). for Alan Wake I had to switch Wine's default mode of 'Windows 7' to 'Windows 10' to get that one working which I made it so only the alanwake.exe file uses the Windows 10 mode (everything else by default uses 'Windows 7' mode) as without doing that Alan Wake did not load up into the game basically and gave a error. but once I tried the Windows 10 mode, I could load into the actual game itself and play it.

also, while this might not apply to many reading this, since I got a dual screen setup (PC monitor for general use and TV for playing videos/movies on etc) I noticed when I first loaded up my games they default to loading on the TV side when I want them on the PC monitor side (I found a temp work around for that which ill explain later). but anyways, when loading up Alan Wake it suggested it lower some graphics settings (basically the game suggests some settings so things work more optimally but I usually find these tend to screw over visuals without too much of a performance increase etc in general) which when I agreed it changed resolution etc which screwed up things visually as things got out of whack and I could not really do anything so I just pressed the reset button on the PC thinking it would go away and upon a reboot I tried running the game again to the same effect. so I kind of assumed it was a Alan Wake game configuration issue causing it. so I ended up finding the games configuration file, which is located here... "c:/users/*UserNameHere*/My Documents/Remedy/AlanWake_EGS_Version" (also the saved game files for the game are located in that folder) and then editing the 'resolution.xml' file to put the resolution back to 1920 x 1080 (also where it says 'fullscreen' that should be '1' and not '0' otherwise it will attempt to run in windowed mode I am pretty sure) at which point things displayed properly on the TV screen and I could actually exit the game like normal so I could resume nomrla use of Linux in general. but anyways, once I sorted that I then figured out temporarily disabling the TV forces the game to load up on the PC monitor, which is what I want. it can be done through Linux Mint Cinnamon's 'Display' which you just select the one you want to disable, which in my case is the TV, and move that green check mark slider to the left (it's green currently which is enabled) and click APPLY which will temporarily disable the TV so only the PC monitor is active. then loading up the games I go to the PC monitor like expected. once done, and you want your TV side working like normal again just reverse the slider so it enables the TV and click apply and things are back to normal with your dual screen setup.

but I suspect many reading this, for the little that do read this, won't have to worry about the 'Display' thing because most won't be using a dual screen setup like I am and it will just work straight up since you only got one screen. I suspect there might be a way through Wine somehow (which would be a more preferred method) to force it to the PC screen without having to temporarily disable the TV display but at least what I am doing works good enough for now.

also, to get the Alan Wake game data in the first place, since Wine does not seem to like the Epic Games program/installer itself, I had to load up a virtual machine using VirtualBox, which I got Win10 running, and then installed the Epic Games software, logged into my account which the Alan Wake game is linked to(which I got for free during the free give away to anyone who wanted it earlier this month (normally the game is $14.99)), then downloaded the game data (about 9GB worth), then found it's installation folder, transferred the game data out of the virtual machine to my actual machine that I am running Linux Mint on and from there I can just directly run the games main EXE file, which uses WINE to load it, and the game works. so I don't need any of that crap from Epic Games on there and I can just simply make a backup copy of that game data for future use on Wine.

as far as Mafia/Mafia II... I just simply copied over the installed game data (which I still had on one of my hard drives from a previous Windows install) for both games and basically ran the games main EXE files to play them. although I copied them to a 'Games' folder within the Wine section on my SSD but that might not be required. but normally, if you got standard installation files for your games/programs you can just install them using Wine, sort of like a typical program installation on Windows, and then load the game that way which would be more typical. but I saved some time by just copying over previously installed game files I had on a previous Windows installation before switching to Linux a while ago.