Wine Reviews

DirectX 9.0c March 2008 redistributable on Linux with Wine

Written by Tom Wickline

Sunday, 23 March 2008 09:24

About DirectX

Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay, DirectSound, and so forth. DirectX, then, was the generic term for all of these Direct-something APIs, and that term became the name of the collection. Over the intervening years, some of these APIs have been deprecated and replaced, so that this naming convention is no longer absolute. In fact, the X has caught on to the point that it has replaced Direct as the common part in the names of new DirectX technologies, including XAct, XInput, and so forth.

Direct3D (the 3D graphics API within DirectX) is widely used in the development of computer games for Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Xbox, and Microsoft Xbox 360. Direct3D is also used by other software applications for visualization and graphics tasks, most notably among the engineering sector for CAD/CAM, because of its ability to quickly render high-quality 3D graphics using DirectX-compatible graphics hardware. As Direct3D is the most widely recognized API in DirectX, it is not uncommon to see the name DirectX used in place of Direct3D.

Wine configuration

This is with a clean configuration directory and running in a 1024x768 virtual desktop.

DirectX version installed: March 2008 DirectX 9.0c redistributable
Windows version emulated: 2000
Wine version tested: 0.9.58

$ winecfg

Once the .wine directory is built the configuration tool will start and you can set a virtual desktop in the graphics tab if you wish. This is a good time to also set your Audio driver in the Audio tab.

next up is to install a native mscoree.dll and streamci.dll into /system32 from a windows install and set them to native Windows.

You will need to set a large number of dlls to native for the install to work properly. Here is the full list of dlls that needs to be set.

[Software\\Wine\\DllOverrides] 1206264929
"d3d8"="builtin"
"d3d9"="builtin"
"d3dim"="native"
"d3drm"="native"
"d3dx8"="native"
"d3dx9_24"="native"
"d3dx9_25"="native"
"d3dx9_26"="native"
"d3dx9_27"="native"
"d3dx9_28"="native"
"d3dx9_29"="native"
"d3dx9_30"="native"
"d3dx9_31"="native"
"d3dx9_32"="native"
"d3dx9_33"="native"
"d3dx9_34"="native"
"d3dx9_35"="native"
"d3dx9_36"="native"
"d3dxof"="native"
"dciman32"="native"
"ddrawex"="native"
"devenum"="native"
"dinput"="builtin"
"dinput8"="builtin"
"dmband"="native"
"dmcompos"="native"
"dmime"="native"
"dmloader"="native"
"dmscript"="native"
"dmstyle"="native"
"dmsynth"="native"
"dmusic"="native"
"dmusic32"="native"
"dnsapi"="native"
"dplay"="native"
"dplayx"="native"
"dpnaddr"="native"
"dpnet"="native"
"dpnhpast"="native"
"dpnlobby"="native"
"dsound"="builtin"
"dswave"="native"
"dxdiagn"="native"
"mscoree"="native"
"msdmo"="native"
"qcap"="native"
"quartz"="native"
"streamci"="native"

You can set all the dlls in winecfg under the "Libraries" tab or just set the first dll "d3d8"="builtin" and then go to .wine/user.reg and find the DLL override section [Software\\Wine\\DllOverrides] and copy the above list under it.

Installing Directx

Download DirectX 9.0c March 2008 release from here.

The directx_mar2008_redist.exe executable will extract the installer files to a directory of your choice.

tom@tuxonfire ~ $ wine directx_mar2008_redist.exe
fixme:advapi:DecryptFileA "Z:\\home\\tom\\dx\\" 00000000
tom@tuxonfire ~ $

Now cd to the directory where you choose to extract the DirectX installer and run DXSETUP.EXE.

tom@tuxonfire ~ $ cd /home/tom/dx
tom@tuxonfire ~/dx $ wine DXSETUP.exe

Now we need to install gm.dls to test Direct Music, this driver file goes into ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32/drivers

Now lets run dxdiag.exe

tom@tuxonfire ~ $ cd /home/tom/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32
tom@tuxonfire ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32 $ wine dxdiag.exe
fixme:advapi:SetEntriesInAclA 1 0x33f79c (nil) 0x33f7d4
fixme:advapi:SetSecurityInfo stub

I have some screenshots of the DirectX test being run here: DirectX 9.0c on Linux with Wine they are the same, so why repost everything. ;)

You will notice in system32 d3dx9_24.dll up to d3dx9_36.dll is now installed, this really helps when you run into a game that needs these additional DirectX dlls.

Now you have the option to run most DirectX dlls in native or builtin mode, for example if you have a game that's crashing on the builtin Wine quartz.dll you can test the game with the native Windows dll to see if this will improve the situation.

Keep in mind d3d8, d3d9, ddraw will only work as builtin, and in most cases you should try to use builtin dsound and dinput. I have had limited success with (dsound and dinput) in native Windows mode btw... The reason why these dlls have to be used in builtin mode is there need for direct access to your hardware. direct music and direct play can be used in native windows mode in most circumstances.