World of Warcraft MoP 5.0.x, openSUSE 12.2 x86_64 & Wine 1.5.x very low FPS on decent hardware

fakemoth · November 17, 2012, 4:25pm

Hello, trying to get some help here maybe I can narrow this down. Well, the long intro - I totally abandoned Windows 8 on my desktop a week ago and went only for openSUSE my fav distro; very happy with it, solved almost everything with lots of work envolved as I had two software RAID 1 arrays and had to do some mambo jambo to transfer everything and rebuild on linux, sound issues, graphical issues, you name it. But it’s fine now. Only thing that I can’t get quite right is Wine and some wingoz apps (dropped the photoshop also for GIMP - the infamous text problem got on my nerves, tried CS4,5,6 32/64bit portable or not - nothing). This thing (wine) and the sound system in linux scares the hell out of me - I rather setup any server that you can think of than deal with these two…

The need - all my family plays World of Warcraft, me included, so got to have it.
The issue - it installs, it runs, but with very low FPS.
The real problem - nothing seems to help and … there are some weird things going on.

My hardware (in Windows for example I could play at once WoW and say Heroes IV with no problems - medium settings):

In Linux I get now max 20 FPS in areas were I had minimum 60 FPS, and around 30 FPS in zones were I had at least 100. So quite a big difference.

I tried:
-to be edited

Pls tell what other info should I provide to nail this thing. Thank you!

fakemoth · November 17, 2012, 5:04pm

Some settings you have here, can’t edit my post so i can improve on it. Pls an administrator/moderator delete the first post. TY.

Hello, trying to get some help here maybe I can narrow this down. Well, the long intro - I totally abandoned Windows 8 on my desktop a week ago and went only for openSUSE my fav distro; very happy with it, solved almost everything with lots of work envolved as I had two software RAID 1 arrays and had to do some mambo jambo to transfer everything and rebuild on linux, sound issues, graphical issues, you name it. But it’s fine now. Only thing that I can’t get quite right is Wine and some Wingoz apps (dropped the photoshop also for GIMP - the infamous text problem got on my nerves, tried CS4,5,6 32/64bit portable or not - nothing). This thing (Wine) and the sound system (ah, my mic still doesn’t work) in linux scares the hell out of me - I rather setup any server that you can think of than deal with these two…

The need - all my family plays World of Warcraft, me included, so got to have it.
The issue - it installs, it runs, but with very low FPS, so kind of no entertainment there only headaches.
The real problem - nothing seems to help and … there are some weird things going on.

My hardware (in Windows for example I could play at once WoW and say Heroes IV with no problems - medium settings):

In Linux I get now max 20 FPS (low settings) in areas were I had minimum 60 FPS (ultra settings), and around 30 FPS (low settings) in zones were I had at least 100 (on ultra settings). So quite a big difference. The game runs now in directX as with OpenGL I got only a few fps higher in an older Wine version, but with the cost of a lot of artifacts and really no quality settings (almost everything greyed out in the game). Now I don’t have any other problems but the FPS - in a 25 person RAID it dropes under 15 so it becames unplayable in certain situations. Now I’m on Wine 1.5.17.

I tried:
-http://www.wowwiki.com/Wine
-http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=25610 (there is a guy there that says he got more than in Windows, tried his method to no avail)
-lot of other “advices” that I found googling and I can’t remeber now;
-stopped the desktop effects, run in a window screen, full screen, changed resolutions for testing (BTW I play at 1680x1050) etc etc
-almost all the combination in the games interface - it seems that the view distance is somehow responsible, as it is the only setting that influences the speed of the rendering. Antialiasing & Anisotropic Filtering in fact increase the frame rate or at least no effect at all if you can believe it! This is really fishy… But at least I play with them maxxed out.
-no problems with the video driver:
**glxgears -info
12412 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2482.025 FPS
12932 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2586.347 FPS
13611 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2722.041 FPS

fglrxinfo
display: :0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series
OpenGL version string: 4.2.11931 Compatibility Profile Context**

**glxinfo | grep direct
direct rendering: Yes
GL_AMD_draw_buffers_blend, GL_AMD_multi_draw_indirect,
GL_ARB_draw_indirect, GL_ARB_draw_instanced,
GL_EXT_copy_buffer, GL_EXT_copy_texture, GL_EXT_direct_state_access, **

Pls tell me what other info should I provide to nail this thing. We have a happy marriage: I’m a DK and my wife is a hunter, but if she doesn’t get her daily kills my life becomes weird Thank you!

ketheriel · November 17, 2012, 9:13pm

I suppose the main reason is because all the optimized shader stuff that is done by hardware under DirectX lands up on the CPU in Linux. Maybe you should knock on Blizzards door to make a native client.

nightwishfan · November 17, 2012, 11:42pm

Is it possible to run WOW in opengl mode? You might get better performance. Though you should ignore any Ubuntu specific parts this page might help?
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WorldofWarcraft

Also ensure that graphics drivers are optimal. I do not know if you find better performance on open source or proprietary drivers.

fakemoth · November 18, 2012, 12:06pm

As stated, I did try. But I only got 2-3 FPS more and everything looked horrible (no quality options, all greyed out). There is more to it: in the inventory, wardrobe and login screen there were graphical errors, well… like no character; and most of the game looked like a huge bug lol. The opengl setting in config.wtf and the launching parameter is old stuff now.

As for the graphics drivers the proprietary always worked better for me. Tried the radeon driver, and it doesn’t even deserve a mention here. But why do you ask, is my glxgears score low? I don’t have anything to compare to, I mean like my video card and same conditions.

I can’t believe this game got Platinum on the wine page… if someone thinks it deserves it, please post here with everything you have done. And no, Blizzard will not make a Linux client even if I ask them

purevw · November 19, 2012, 3:23am

What desktop do you use? If you’re running compiz in gnome or KDE’s desktop effects, that puts a fair strain on the graphics. Disabling all the desktop effects when I game made a huge difference in frame rate. I had an HD 6870 and now use a 7870. Either of them could run X-Plane 9 at 1920 x 1080 resolution, and do it quite smoothly. But it only runs well after I disable desktop effects.
One difference between our situations is that X-Plane runs as a native Linux program. I don’t run wine. I’m not experienced with wine, so I’ll let someone else jump in concerning that.

fakemoth · November 19, 2012, 7:57am

This has been tried to no effect; please, people read the long post, that’s why is there, not to try what I have already tried. The desktop is KDE.

fakemoth · November 22, 2012, 7:20pm

Any ideas?

purevw · November 23, 2012, 9:53am

Actually, what I found at winehq was that it got a bronze for openSUSE 12.2 and the tester stated that he had several times that the computer froze and he had to do a forced reboot, but that may fall back onto the desktop effects, as I get random freezes when they are enabled. It received platinum for other flavors of Linux.

I assume that if the frame rate was normal on that machine under Win 8, the hardware is OK.

Exactly what fglrx driver (version and source) are you using and how are you installing it? Are you creating an rpm file or doing a “generic” installation. It’s just an opinion, but I prefer the generic installation, done in run level 3. Are you doing a complete uninstall and rebooting before you re-install? What kernel and what architecture do you run? It is not really necessary as the installer does it, but I usually run “mkinitrd” after the install, just to see the output, to verify that fglrx is the driver used. Do you have “KMS” turned on or off? I assume that you already know that any time there is anything other than a minor kernel upgrade, the fglrx driver has to be uninstalled and re-installed.

In the Catalyst Control Center (amdcccle), do you have it set so that the GPU does the scaling or the monitor (default) does it?

What does your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file look like? That file is not necessary in 12.2 if I remember correctly, but it is created when you run “aticonfig --initial”

Is there anything unusual in the log files at /usr/share/ati?

If you are starting WoW from a menu or icon, try starting it from a terminal (as your regular user) to see if any pertinent messages post. You might also run the game for a bit and run dmesg in a terminal right afterward to see if there is any info there.

I can’t recommend a good benchmark program, but I can tell you that glxgears is not something to put your faith in as far as real testing is concerned. As an example, your test shows around 2500 frames per second, which seems unrealistic. On my 7870, I get around 60 frames per second and I have no problems even with games that stress the system. Everything is very fluid. Changing between a small window and full screen in glxgears doesn’t affect the frame rate on my machine. That is likely inaccurate.

To troubleshoot, you could install armegatron and play it for a while. It is a tron light-cycle type of 3D game that displays the frame rate as you play. Since it is Linux native, that might at least eliminate a few possible sources of problems. If it doesn’t run well, chances are that it is a “non-wine” problem. If it runs well at full screen, chances are that the WoW problem lies with wine, or configuration of wine or WoW. Again, I get 60 frames per second and the motion is completely fluid.

Here are a couple of links. The unofficial Radeon Linux driver bugzilla is at: Unofficial AMD Linux Bugzilla Main Page You may find a bug report there that has something to do with your problem.

There is also a wiki for the driver at: Main Page - cchtml.com that may be a supply of good info.

Please post the details of what I requested and everyone can get a much better idea of your environment.

fakemoth · November 28, 2012, 5:53pm

Hello, sry for the late reply but it seems I didn’t get any mail regarding this topic… just happened that I dropped by for a check Anyway I tried:
-running wow with debugging turned off in wine (no problematic error messages, but I read it can seriously affect some games) - it improves but only with a few frames (under 5); this one I notice when I ran the game from the command line, in which case btw the FPS is half compared to running from the shortcut, don’t know why.
-using the driver (I do reboot after each install/reinstall) from ATI/AMD, generic install AMD Catalyst™ 12.10 Proprietary Linux x86 Display Driver 12.10 10/22/2012
-changed in (amdcccle) and let the GPU do the scaling, it was the monitor the monitor (default); no effect
-don’t know anything about KMS but I read it is default in 12.2
-very ugly game that armagetron lol, but with default settings @ 1680x1050 I get over 1110 FPS wich seems fine, because the game doesn’t seem too 3d intensive, and my HD6950 still kicks ass
-but for old times sake I also played the old tux racer with a minimum of 240FPS, default settings, only changed the resolution and AA
-wine is now 1.5.18
-openSUSE 12.2 Mantis x86_64 KDE 4.8.5, XOrg 11 everything updated
-3.4.11-2.16-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Sep 26 17:05:00 UTC 2012 (259fc87) x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Some files:

(tried in xorg some options that “should” enable acceleration - no use cause I have 3d acceleration already it seems)

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "aticonfig Layout"
    Screen      0  "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0" 0 0
EndSection

Section "Module"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
    Option        "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
    Option        "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
    Option        "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
    Driver      "fglrx"
    BusID       "PCI:5:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0"
    Device     "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
    Monitor    "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
    DefaultDepth     24
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Some outputs:

lsmod |grep fglrx
fglrx                4728342  84 
amd_iommu_v2           19097  1 fglrx
button                 13906  1 fglrx

mkinitrd

Kernel image:   /boot/vmlinuz-3.4.11-2.16-desktop
Initrd image:   /boot/initrd-3.4.11-2.16-desktop
Root device:    /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD1500ADFD-00NLR5_WD-WMAP41923144-part1 (/dev/sda1) (mounted on / as ext4)
Resume device:  /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD1500ADFD-00NLR5_WD-WMAP41923144-part3 (/dev/sda3)
modprobe: Module hid_generic not found.
WARNING: no dependencies for kernel module 'hid-generic' found.
Kernel Modules: thermal_sys thermal processor fan pata_jmicron pata_atiixp ata_generic scsi_dh scsi_dh_rdac scsi_dh_hp_sw scsi_dh_emc scsi_dh_alua xhci-hcd hid-logitech-dj 
Features:       acpi plymouth block usb resume.userspace resume.kernel

Thank you for taking interest in this!

purevw · December 7, 2012, 8:44am

Hello, sry for the late reply but it seems I didn’t get any mail regarding this topic…

That seems to be a common problem. I often do not get notices for topics I’m subscribed to here.

I can’t see anything wrong with your setup, but I do have a question.

How many desktops do you have running? OpenSuSE defaults to 2 desktops when installed. I have never had use for that feature and always drop down to a single desktop. I wouldn’t think it would have that much of a negative effect since you have disabled desktop effects.


-3.4.11-2.16-desktop

I haven’t run the “desktop” kernel very often. I typically use the “default” kernel, as I use server boards (vintage 2006) in all my machines. Again, I can’t see where that would have a negative effect either. The “Desktop” kernel is supposedly optimized for desktop machines. I’m just trying to find differences in our setups. I’m running kernel 3.6.9-default. Our graphics cards are similar (69 series compared to my 78 series), but yours should be a bit faster. I have two dual core Opteron CPUs running at 2.8GHz and you have 6 cores running at the same speed, with the capability to “turbo” up to 3.3GHz. Your machine should do much better than mine.

I’m not a gamer, so I have to ask: MoP is Mists of Pandaria? It’s only $30 at Best Buy. I may get a copy and try my luck on my machine. Others say that it works on their machines, so I am curious. Maybe if I get some first hand experience with setup and debugging, I might be of more help.

rbarsoianu · March 29, 2013, 8:19pm

Hy,

I’m also running wow on OpenSuse 12.3, KDE, latest wine, NVIDIA card thou (570). OpenGL mode of wow is now fixed, everything works (yes u do have some settings turned off) but the overall quality of the game is still extremely good. For me, swithing from DirectX to OpenGL brought 30-40 fps, not 2-3. Currently the game runs maxed out on settings at : 160+ fps on classic world (capitals included), 60-90 fps in pandaria, and 30-45 fps in intensive battles, such as sha fights. Just edit your config.wtf to use OpenGl, install the latest drivers from Ati, currently the 13.3 beta (who finnaly have a changelog in which they state that they support Kernel 3.7 and 3.8 - AMD Catalyst™ 13.3 Beta 3 for Linux), and also add the SET processAffinityMask “x” in your config.wtf, in your case, the processor having 6 cores (unless i’m mistaking) the x should be 63. Also delete any apps / dll’s / windows components you may have installed in wine throu winetricks.

I will post some screens so you can check out the quality of OpenGl and the FPS it gets.

fakemoth · April 12, 2013, 9:46pm

**** forum, not a single notification… I am now on latest opeSUSE 12.3 but I don’t want to use beta drivers, just a personal thing/long experience. So they are 13.1 latest stable. After the upgrade to the OS and the regular updates (wine is now 1.5.27), also had to reinstall the drivers, the game doesn’t even start in D3D, it freezes at login and have to reset the machine. So switched to OpenGL no other problems, but still getting 17 fps in towns an around 6-8 in a Sha fight!!! This is no joke this is just stupid, my Lenovo notebook scores double with a crappy CG!

Tried SET processAffinityMask no use (it is also deprecated I guess); a hexacore indeed. Can’t delete stuff cause I’m also in need of PS. Purevw yes this is about Mists of Pandaria. Known for the easy graphics, my microwave owen could run that… Bought recently Trine 2, Half Life, Team Fortress 2 and tried Xonotic and Urban Terror for example. All the native games fly, man I got like 300FPS… wth is wrong? BTW did also a reinstall all the 16GB I mean. Same.

Here is the config.wtf file, can’t see something wrong:


SET readTOS "1"
SET readEULA "1"
SET readScanning "-1"
SET readContest "-1"
SET locale "enGB"
SET showToolsUI "1"
SET accounttype "MP"
SET readTerminationWithoutNotice "1"
SET installLocale "enUS"
SET enterWorld "1"
SET hwDetect "0"
SET videoOptionsVersion "5"
SET gxApi "OpenGL"
SET gxWindow "1"
SET gxMaximize "1"
SET accountName "xxxxxxxxxx@gmail.com"
SET mouseSpeed "1.25"
SET ChatMusicVolume "0.29999998211861"
SET ChatSoundVolume "0.39999997615814"
SET ChatAmbienceVolume "0.29999998211861"
SET VoiceActivationSensitivity "0.39999997615814"
SET Sound_MusicVolume "0.20000000298023"
SET Sound_AmbienceVolume "0.60000002384186"
SET farclip "800"
SET shadowTextureSize "2048"
SET textureFilteringMode "5"
SET terrainLodDist "450"
SET componentTextureLevel "0"
SET realmName "Stormscale"
SET gameTip "42"
SET Gamma "1.000000"
SET Sound_NumChannels "32"
SET Sound_EnableReverb "1"
SET Sound_EnableHardware "1"
SET weatherDensity "1"
SET maxFPSBk "200"
SET particleDensity "40"
SET wmoLodDist "400"
SET terrainTextureLod "1"
SET launchThirtyTwoBitClient "0"
SET environmentDetail "75"
SET graphicsQuality "2"
SET reflectionMode "0"
SET groundEffectDensity "40"
SET groundEffectDist "110"
SET Sound_SFXVolume "0.69999998807907"
SET gxMultisample "2"
SET Sound_MasterVolume "0.5"
SET maxFPS "200"
SET gxFixLag "1"
SET projectedTextures "1"

Joeg1484 · June 29, 2013, 6:14pm

I tried to use regular Wine to play Wow and Steam (Before there was a native client) and ran into nothing but problems. I finally broke down and decided to pay for Crossover. Its $39ish initially and then $29 a year and has installers for Wow that work without issue. And the performance is light-years better than regular Wine because they have optimized “Bottles” for the games they support that includes Windows files specifically compiled for the game being played.

That said, I play Wow on almost the same hardware as you, although using an Nvidia 570 GTX, and get 50-80 FPS anywhere in the game. The only slight drop I saw is when I went to Pandaria and the first couple of quests with all the things flying around dropped down to about 40-45 fps.

So, I would recommend a couple of things… Spend some money on a good, Linux supported video card (Nvidia) and also spend a little money on a good Wine wrapper like Crossover. You WONT be disappointed with both.

Oh, btw, I can play using the D3D9 driver (DirectX 9) with most of the “Bells and Whistles” enabled… Below is my Config.wtf file.

Also, as a side note, Steam Games (Half-Life 1 and 2 with both episodes installed) run better in Linux than on my sons Windows 8 laptop with my hardware with Full AA and AF and bloom set. He has an ATI card in his Windows machine and its **** on that OS too :-D.


SET locale "enUS"
SET installLocale "enUS"
SET hwDetect "0"
SET videoOptionsVersion "5"
SET gxApi "D3D9"
SET gxWindow "0"
SET gxMaximize "0"
SET gxTripleBuffer "1"
SET graphicsQuality "3"
SET Gamma "1.000000"
SET readTOS "1"
SET readEULA "1"
SET Sound_MusicVolume "0.80000001192093"
SET Sound_AmbienceVolume "0.60000002384186"
SET Sound_EnableSoundWhenGameIsInBG "1"
SET farclip "800"
SET particleDensity "60"
SET rippleDetail "1"
SET reflectionMode "0"
SET groundEffectDensity "64"                                                                                                                                            
SET groundEffectDist "160"                                                                                                                                              
SET projectedTextures "1"
SET shadowTextureSize "2048"
SET textureFilteringMode "3"
SET terrainLodDist "450"
SET wmoLodDist "400"
SET terrainTextureLod "1"
SET worldBaseMip "1"
SET componentTextureLevel "0"
SET weatherDensity "1"
SET readScanning "-1"
SET readContest "-1"
SET readTerminationWithoutNotice "-1"
SET enterWorld "1"
SET mouseSpeed "1"
SET accounttype "MP"
SET ChatMusicVolume "0.29999998211861"
SET ChatSoundVolume "0.39999997615814"
SET ChatAmbienceVolume "0.29999998211861"
SET VoiceActivationSensitivity "0.39999997615814"
SET realmName "Cenarion Circle"
SET gameTip "130"
SET uiScale "0.64999997615814"
SET useUiScale "1"
SET Sound_ZoneMusicNoDelay "1"
SET gxMultisample "4"
SET shadowMode "1"
SET lastCharacterIndex "2"

Good Luck!!!
Joe

mario_vazq · August 6, 2013, 8:10pm

I want to clarify some information about the issues the guy that opened the thread has. Sadly I had the same issues on my AMD Llano laptop and was unable to found a way to fix them.

From patch 5.0.4, Blizzard dropped OpenGL from the list of supported engines. While in previous expansions the opengl tag provides a substantial improvement, in MoP is either ignored completely, or is treated as DX9, bringing 0 FPS increase.
More sadly ATI hardware kind of sucks on wine. No matter if you are using proprietary or open source drivers, ATI and Wine are not a good mix.
I tried different distributions (Kubuntu, PCLinuxOS, Fedora). I also tried different Catalyst and open source drivers, also tried different wines from ones included in distributions to PlayOnLinux, all distributions were KDE but with the Effects even off, have same crappy 8-12 framerate. Even tried XFCE once, also no luck.

I found recently a link to a repository that has optimized wow patches, but needed to be compiled manually. I’m gonna test that during the week. More info about the repo WoW optimizations on Wine for Linux - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft

I’m gonna check Crossover as Joeg suggests and see if can get a boost from it.

mario_vazq · August 12, 2013, 11:47pm

I made more testing on WoW MOP client, wine and Linux and came with some satisfactory results on my AMD powered laptop. First gonna give the comparative numbers, and then the solution that worked for me, so others can try it out. All numbers were done in Good quality to keep bench as fair as possible.

Catalyst version on Windows was 13.4, on Linux was 12.10 I think.

Now what I did was:

Install the 32-bit version of OpenSUSE or your distribution of choice. Forget Linux 64-bit, since Wine apparently has an issue with it, or with the Win64/Win32 implementation.
Install Wine 1.6. MOP has issues with older versions.
Catalyst binary of course.
On the WoW WTF/Config.wtf file, replace the D3D9/D3D11 with OpenGL (attention to caps). As my results show is still there.
Launch the game.

Note: D3D11 (DX11) is still not supported in Wine. If you try that, Wine will crash.

user · September 10, 2013, 10:49am

"Now what I did was:

Install the 32-bit version of OpenSUSE or your distribution of choice. Forget Linux 64-bit, since Wine apparently has an issue with it, or with the Win64/Win32 implementation.
Install Wine 1.6. MOP has issues with older versions.
Catalyst binary of course.
On the WoW WTF/Config.wtf file, replace the D3D9/D3D11 with OpenGL (attention to caps). As my results show is still there.
Launch the game."

It worked. Great!

diablo 3 gold

fakemoth · August 1, 2014, 11:37am

No use in further testing WoW on Linux: my conclusion after years of playing World of Warcraft, with Wine in openSUSE = low framerate whatever you do. If you can take it (I personally hate it) fine, if not don’t try it. But this is riculous, posted bugs, tried everything, asked in the forums and such on winehq.org to no avail; I mean now I have 2 x R9 290 and I am running the blazing fast & extremely stable openSUSE 13.1 and I have almost the same FPS…

It’s just the way Wine works, no use for me whining around (sic) about it.

Still hoping that the clowns running Blizzard will allow the team to make a Linux client, as: they develop on linux, they run linux on their servers, they already have a linux client for “internal” use, reported py Phoronix and others for a long time. But I guess we will get a Hearthstone client (that “not so interesting” Magic the Gathering ripoff…).

Miuku · August 1, 2014, 11:44am

You could always run Windows in a Xen passthrough VM

bonedriven · August 23, 2014, 10:56pm

Don’t ever think VM is any good for game. Anyway, haven’t you tried playonlinux. It is indeed a very good frontend of wine. I couldn’t install nothing with wine alone, but with playonlinux most things are easy to install.