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Divinity: Original Sin may soon work with Mesa drivers

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Divinity: Original Sin [Official Site] is one game that the stable open source Mesa drivers currently cannot run without hacks, but it looks like the Mesa team has been testing it.

Just today a commit was sent in to Mesa which mentioned "drirc: Allow extension midshader for Divinity: Original Sin (EE)". It's interesting to see game-specific changes like this, as some games will sadly need them.

You can see the commit here, which has already landed in Mesa-git. You can see the actual bug report about it here.

Hopefully with this patch landed, it means more people can enjoy another highly rated Linux-native game on open source drivers. It might still need other hacks to run, as previously it needed more than one change.

While this is only changing a config file to have this game-specific change in by default, it's still nice that users don't have to look up what to do to get it working.

I cannot test it personally, as I don't have an AMD card to test with. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Joeyboots80 Jan 8, 2017
Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: Joeyboots80I look forward to playing this as I have had it for over a year but have nt tried it yet due to the fact that I use mesa. Thanks for this news Liam. ^_^

This won't solve the issue fully. The workaround for Mesa helps, so you can as well apply it today.
Thank you for the clarification Shmerl.
soulsource Jan 8, 2017
Just to clarify:
You can play Divinity: Original Sin right now with stable Mesa, and you don't need any patches to mesa to get it running.
All you need is to set the environment variable allow_glsl_extension_directive_midshader=true, and you'll need to LD_PRELOAD the preload-shim linked in the upstream bug report (link.

Step by step guide:
1) Download the source for the LD_PRELOAD shim
2) Compile it using the command given inside the just downloaded patch file. This will give you a divos-hack.so file.
gcc -s -O2 -shared -fPIC -o divos-hack.{so,c} -ldl
3) Copy the just created divos-hack.so file to your Divinity: Original Sin game folder (the subfolder called game, within the install path)
4) now, from said game folder, run Divinity using the following command:
allow_glsl_extension_directive_midshader=true LD_PRELOAD="divos-hack.so" ./runner.sh

Edit:
Thanks, cRaZy-bisCuiT, for bringing this up. The instructions above are for the GoG version of PoE. For Steam multiplayer and overlay support you'll need to preserve Steam's LD_PRELOAD settings when launching the game, meaning that you'll have to run it through Steam. To do this, first create the divos-hack.so file as above, and then go to the preferences of Divinity: OS in your Steam Library (right click on the entry -> Preferences), and open the "Set Launch Options" dialogue. There, put the following:
allow_glsl_extension_directive_midshader=true LD_PRELOAD="divos-hack.so:$LD_PRELOAD" %command%
It might be necessary to give the full path to divos-hack.so for Steam (I haven't tested it, as I bought the game on GoG).


Last edited by soulsource on 11 January 2017 at 1:24 pm UTC
Shmerl Jan 8, 2017
I also recommend setting this for the game, otherwise it will clutter your $HOME:

HOME=${HOME}/.local/share
Liam Dawe Jan 8, 2017
Quoting: soulsourceJust to clarify:
You can play Divinity: Original Sin right now with stable Mesa, and you don't need any patches to mesa to get it running.
This is my point, some sort of hacks are needed. This is one step towards letting it run without manual work.
crt0mega Jan 8, 2017
After all it's just a new default entry for .drirc o_O I don't get the hype.
Liam Dawe Jan 8, 2017
Quoting: crt0megaAfter all it's just a new default entry for .drirc o_O I don't get the hype.
The point is as stated, not making users resort to hacks to get a game working on open source drivers.
crt0mega Jan 8, 2017
Quoting: liamdaweThe point is as stated, not making users resort to hacks to get a game working on open source drivers.
I know ... but changing a configuration value should not be called "hack" IMHO. DriConf isn't a driver hacking tool either, it's a configuration utility.

Edit: More informations about DRI's configuration infrastructure


Last edited by crt0mega on 8 January 2017 at 12:43 pm UTC
xavi Jan 8, 2017
So... can I play it on Debian 8 with Intel HD4000 ?

Thanks
Liam Dawe Jan 8, 2017
Quoting: crt0mega
Quoting: liamdaweThe point is as stated, not making users resort to hacks to get a game working on open source drivers.
I know ... but changing a configuration value should not be called "hack" IMHO. DriConf isn't a driver hacking tool either, it's a configuration utility.

Edit: More informations about DRI's configuration infrastructure
Let's not get pedantic about semantics. The end result is the same, users don't have to fuss around and search around for solutions.
crt0mega Jan 8, 2017
Quoting: liamdaweThe end result is the same, users don't have to fuss around and search around for solutions.
I agree. Let's hope Larian makes the next step which renders this hack unnecessary.

Edit: About unnecessary things – was it really necessary to drag this discussion to Twitter and even change my message by cherry-picking and ignoring the term "IMHO"? :|


Last edited by crt0mega on 8 January 2017 at 1:54 pm UTC
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