http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=30902
Bug #: 30902 Summary: Arcania: Gothic 4 fails to start (hangs on startup) Product: Wine Version: 1.5.6 Platform: x86 URL: http://www.gamershell.com/download_63874.shtml OS/Version: Linux Status: NEW Keywords: download Severity: normal Priority: P2 Component: -unknown AssignedTo: wine-bugs@winehq.org ReportedBy: gyebro69@gmail.com Classification: Unclassified
Created attachment 40514 --> http://bugs.winehq.org/attachment.cgi?id=40514 plain terminal output
Both the demo version and the full version of the game hang after starting, without displaying anything. The Arcania.exe process is just sitting there, seems to idling (1-3% CPU usage). Terminal output doesn't reveal much about what's going on. There are messages from the game engine, always ending with the line 'Baked PC'. It doesn't matter if I let the installer install the required components (DirectX, Physx, VC++), or I install them via winetricks (with latest Wine version the game needs Physx and Xact audio libraries). I also tried the followings to no avail: - different Wine profiles (XP/Vista/Seven) - newer version of Physx, downloaded from Nvidia - forcing the game to run only on 1 core (taskset -c 0) - installing Windows Media Player 10 (videos, including intros are stored in wmv format)
Some of the testers in AppDB agree that the problem must be due to the copy-protection used by the game (Securom). I'm not sure about that. I tested with the Gamersgate version of the game. - the original version (without patches) contains Securom 8.1.8 (release date check + hardware based DRM). Activating Gothic 4 with this particular Securom version worked under Wine 1.5.6, but the game hung afterwards. - the first patch for the game changes DRM to the less restrictive Securom 7.42.xx. Applying this patch didn't change the behaviour, the game hangs after starting. - the latest official patch for the game removes Securom (actually it is still there, but they made it inert). The same problem exists with this patch as well. - I also have the standalone expansion for Gothic 4 (ArcaniA: Fall of Setarrif), which is completely DRM free. It behaves in the same way as the original game with Securom.
The problem can be reproduced with the demo version as well (~1.7 GB download size). The demo indeed contains Securom. The attached log file was created by starting the expansion, just because it is DRM free. Although terminal output always ends with the 'Baked PC' message, using +loaddll revealed that Physx dlls were loaded afterwards.
Fedora 17 x86 Kernel 3.4.0-1.fc17.i686.PAE Nvidia 250 / driver 295.59 X.Org X Server 1.12.2 gcc version 4.7.0 20120507 (Red Hat 4.7.0-5) (GCC)