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Title: The Witcher 2 in Wine
Shmerl 4 Jul 2021
I just tired running TW2 in Wine+dxvk to compare performance to eON port, but it simply crashes on startup now.

The only error I see looks like this:

0114:fixme:rawinput:RegisterRawInputDevices Unhandled flags 0x230 for device 0.

Did anyone manage to run it with recent Wine?

I'll probably open a Wine bug about it.

Last edited by Shmerl on 4 Jul 2021 at 6:12 pm UTC
Shmerl 5 Jul 2021
OK, it works after installing d3dcompiler_47 with winetricks.

dxvk loads the GPU more evenly, so performance looks better than eON in the starting scene (max settings, ubersampling off, 2560x1440, Sapphire Pulse RX 6800 XT):

eON (OpenGL)

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dxvk (Vulkan)

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Last edited by Shmerl on 5 Jul 2021 at 1:30 am UTC
Shmerl 5 Jul 2021
Interestingly, with this beast of the GPU, ubersampling option actually becomes viable and when it's enabled framerate is still quite good (it reduces framerate practically in half):

It really improves visuals in the game:

Ubersampling on:

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Last edited by Shmerl on 5 Jul 2021 at 1:40 am UTC
Ehvis 5 Jul 2021
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I tried to play it in Proton a while back, but it turns out it had on major problem. TW2 needs a patch (hex edit) to make it work on ultrawide screen. That patch works fine for the native version, but in proton it wouldn't run. Which was unfortunate because the native version becomes really unstable at high resolutions+settings (runs out of memory every 60-90 minutes).

Ubersampling was nice to look at, but I opted out of it because it turned my GPU fan on and the silence was much nicer than the visual improvement.
Shmerl 5 Jul 2021
PC Gaming wiki recommends using widescreen fixer: https://github.com/dlrudie/WidescreenFixer/releases

I don't have such monitor, so I never tried it.
Ehvis 5 Jul 2021
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Quoting: ShmerlPC Gaming wiki recommends using widescreen fixer: https://github.com/dlrudie/WidescreenFixer/releases
As far as I could tell, not working with Wine.

The irony is that Witcher 1 did fine in ultrawide for the 3D part and only needed a fix for the cutscenes.
Pangaea 6 Jul 2021
Is it just me, or does the lighting in Witcher 2 look really weird, or awkward? I recall the shadows were quite odd too. Thankfully that was miles better in Witcher 3. I tried every setting imaginable in TW2 to fix them, but nothing would really do much.

Would be cool if you got it running better in Wine+DXVK though.
Shmerl 6 Jul 2021
The lighting is just different in TW2 - I don't think you can do anything about it. It didn't bother me that much.
Pangaea 6 Jul 2021
Didn't really bother me, I suppose, but it looked so strange and unnatural.

Then again, wasn't Witcher 2 much easier to mod, because CDPR released proper modding tools for it? RedKit2 or something like that. Considering the amount of lighting mods for TW3 (I've not tried any, because I like the default game, mostly), it wouldn't surprise me if there are some of those for TW2 as well. Don't think I used any mods for that game. Or maybe some minor visual ones. Been too many years now, and for some reason I didn't enjoy the game as much as Witcher 1 or Witcher 3. It felt more free and open to me, instead of the locked chapters/area system. Well, that was there in TW1 as well, but that game was such a gem :heart:
Pangaea 8 Jul 2021
Quoting: The_Aquabat
Quoting: PangaeaI didn't enjoy the game as much as Witcher 1 or Witcher 3
I enjoyed as much as Witcher 3, also I think it's a lot more difficult especially the first bosses like the Kayran and Letho. Bosses are a lot more difficult imho.
Yeah, that's a fair point. I recall struggling a lot with those bosses. And of course hated all those blasted QTEs!! Thank goodness they didn't make that mistake for TW3.

All Witcher games has the problem that you eventually get madly overpowered, though. Less so in the first one really, and oddly enough the "problem" is arguably worst in TW3.
Shmerl 8 Jul 2021
Yeah, that's why I play TW3 on max difficulty, but even then towards the end of the game Geralt is pretty OP.
Ehvis 8 Jul 2021
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Turned off the QTEs in my Dark replay. Killed Letho in one try that time around. Not so difficult when you know the game.

And yes, TW3 is only really worth playing on Death March if you care about interesting combat.
Pangaea 8 Jul 2021
Quoting: EhvisTurned off the QTEs in my Dark replay. Killed Letho in one try that time around. Not so difficult when you know the game.

And yes, TW3 is only really worth playing on Death March if you care about interesting combat.
If I recall, you couldn't turn them off entirely, but only to a light version? That is what I did, which made the Kayran fight doable and less sucky. The special trap helped too.

Letho died, and in all playthroughs of TW3 I have imported that save, so I've never seen his cameo in TW3. Not a big miss as he was an ass anyway. Felt right to kill him after all the crap he did.
wojtek88 8 Jun 2022
Welcome back! In 2018 I've switched to Nintendo Switch from Linux gaming and I've completely abandoned it. Now I am back as I've purchased... Steam Deck :heart:

And here is the question - does anyone managed to run Witcher 2 on Steam Deck? Seems Virtual Programming port doesn't start, same if I force Proton Experimental or newest stable.

Any verified advice will be appreciated!
Shmerl 8 Jun 2022
As above, you might need that native d3dcompiler_47 override for it to work. I haven't tested it without it recently.

I haven't worked much with Proton, but there is protontricks apparently which can help setting up such override similiarly to how winetricks does it (it does use winetricks underneath).

Last edited by Shmerl on 8 Jun 2022 at 6:14 am UTC
Avehicle7887 10 Jun 2022
Quoting: wojtek88Welcome back! In 2018 I've switched to Nintendo Switch from Linux gaming and I've completely abandoned it. Now I am back as I've purchased... Steam Deck :heart:

And here is the question - does anyone managed to run Witcher 2 on Steam Deck? Seems Virtual Programming port doesn't start, same if I force Proton Experimental or newest stable.

Any verified advice will be appreciated!
I don't own a Steam Deck but If I had to hazard a guess as to why the native port isn't running is due to missing 32bit dependencies.

I think the Windows version would run better on the Deck than the native version could.
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