http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20177
--- Comment #22 from John P Sims jsims2359@gmail.com 2009-10-06 00:09:59 --- wine-1.1.30-360-g95eb435 OpenAL version string: 1.1 ALSOFT 1.9.563
I got UT3 working finally.
You must edit ~/My Games/Unreal Tournament 3/UTGame/Config/UTEngine.ini and set "PumpWindowMessagesWhenRenderThreadStalled=True"
Audio now works using both Generic Software and Generic Hardware. Whew!
The setting was put in place as part of a UT3 patch under the [ISVHacks] section.
Still, this is only required if you don't export WINEDLLOVERRIDES="openal32=n". So there is still some delta here between the native and the builtin.
Mass Effect actually has sound and probably has had sound the whole time. The Bink intro videos were causing the lockup, not the sound. The symptoms were almost identical. Apparently, ntdll is being fussy and starts doing the 60 second wait over and over again.
That just leaves Frontlines: Fuel of War. It behaves exactly (and I mean exactly - terminal output and everything) like UT3 did, but it doesn't have any [ISVHacks] to tinker with. So it just hangs. Kaos Studios had this same problem last year - http://planetfrontlines.gamespy.com/fullstory.php?id=148860 - supposedly it's since been fixed via patches. I'm still hacking at it, tho. I'll see what I can dig up.
Again, all of these problems go away and no workarounds are needed if you export WINEDLLOVERRIDES="openal32=n", except for Mass Effect, it should crash either way. Ugh.