Let's fix Steam!

[Scott Ritchie]

Steam has had a serious problem for quite some time, failing with a
strange debug assertion error popup at the dreaded 27% mark.

What's interesting, however, is that Steam works perfectly in Crossover
4.1 - since I don't think Steam is supported, this is not due to a
special hack, and the failure in Steam therefore represents a serious
regression in Wine.

This, quite simply, will be a really cool app to get working again.
Plus, we'll need it to try out Half Life 2 once you awesome Direct3D
boys finish up your work :)

So, where do we go about this?  The installer demonstrating the error
can be downloaded easily from http://www.steampowered.com/ - however,
I'm not sure if it's plausible to run a regression analysis since there
are no patches available against the direct crossover version of Wine.
At this point, I'm not even sure which file has broken, although I do
know that it's one we've had problems with in the past based off of IRC
conversations.

If anyone could follow up with more info, particularly about the
specifics of the error, I'm sure we'd all appreciate it greatly.

Thanks,
Scott Ritchie

[Stefan Dösinger]

> Steam has had a serious problem for quite some time, failing with a
> strange debug assertion error popup at the dreaded 27% mark.

It would be great if steam worked with wine. I did some testing some time ago, 
and Steam seemed to work except of this problem. I used cvscedega to work 
around the 27% Problem and after that I ran it with wine.

It worked quite fine, registration, game registration, game setup and game 
start. I had MSIE installed and had to use a few native dlls(cryptography 
dlls and IE friends) but it seemed to work fine with wine.

The next problem was not wine releated and is somewhat harder to fix. Steam 
turned out to be really download hungry. I just installed it and updated Half 
life and Steam had pushed 100 MB through my internet line. I've a download 
limit of 600 MB wich is really a small limit. One day I trashed my wine 
installation and didn't re-install steam afterwards.

If I find some way to download these things at school I can help you with 
fixing steam!

Stefan Dösinger

[Stefan Dösinger]

Am Dienstag, 8. März 2005 12:41 schrieb Scott Ritchie:
> Steam has had a serious problem for quite some time, failing with a
> strange debug assertion error popup at the dreaded 27% mark.

Just an update to my mail sent 2 minutes ago: I downloaded steam, ran it with 
wine(cvs from 3/6/2005) and it WORKED without doing anything special. I 
should have tried before sending this mail.

Wine just told me that it has to download the mozilla active X control and 
crashed because of a missing dll(MSVCR70.dll). I'll get this dll and do some 
more testing.

Stefan

[Stefan Dösinger]

Am Dienstag, 8. März 2005 12:41 schrieb Scott Ritchie:
> Steam has had a serious problem for quite some time, failing with a
> strange debug assertion error popup at the dreaded 27% mark.
>
> What's interesting, however, is that Steam works perfectly in Crossover
> 4.1 - since I don't think Steam is supported, this is not due to a
> special hack, and the failure in Steam therefore represents a serious
> regression in Wine.
>
> This, quite simply, will be a really cool app to get working again.
> Plus, we'll need it to try out Half Life 2 once you awesome Direct3D
> boys finish up your work :)
>
> So, where do we go about this?  The installer demonstrating the error
> can be downloaded easily from http://www.steampowered.com/ - however,
> I'm not sure if it's plausible to run a regression analysis since there
> are no patches available against the direct crossover version of Wine.
> At this point, I'm not even sure which file has broken, although I do
> know that it's one we've had problems with in the past based off of IRC
> conversations.
>
> If anyone could follow up with more info, particularly about the
> specifics of the error, I'm sure we'd all appreciate it greatly.

Well, another update on Steam:

Steam runns indeed nice with wine. I don't know why it works all over the 
sudden, but it works ;-)

These are the problems I found:

*Microsoft Internet explorer needed: I didn't get the builtin shdocvw working. 
The automatical download of the Mozilla active X control didn't work. I 
downloaded it manually and installed it but it still didn't work

Can someone give me a hint how I make the builtin shdocvw work?

*No keyboard without Desktop mode. It seems like wine doesn't pass the Steam 
Windows to the Window Manager(KDE / KWM in my case). To make the keyboard 
working I have to use the Desktop mode. Managed = N doesn't work.

*I can't move the Window in Managed mode. With Desktop and Managed = N it 
works.

*Steam sometimes causes crashes if I cancel it with Strg+C.

I didn't try to play any game because of the download limit problem mentioned 
in my previous mail. I'll report tomorrow on this.

Cheers,
Stefan

[Stefan Dösinger]

Hello,
I forgot to cc this one to the list!
> Steam has had a serious problem for quite some time, failing with a
> strange debug assertion error popup at the dreaded 27% mark.
>
> What's interesting, however, is that Steam works perfectly in Crossover
> 4.1 - since I don't think Steam is supported, this is not due to a
> special hack, and the failure in Steam therefore represents a serious
> regression in Wine.
>
> This, quite simply, will be a really cool app to get working again.
> Plus, we'll need it to try out Half Life 2 once you awesome Direct3D
> boys finish up your work :)
>
> So, where do we go about this?  The installer demonstrating the error
> can be downloaded easily from http://www.steampowered.com/ - however,
> I'm not sure if it's plausible to run a regression analysis since there
> are no patches available against the direct crossover version of Wine.
> At this point, I'm not even sure which file has broken, although I do
> know that it's one we've had problems with in the past based off of IRC
> conversations.
>
> If anyone could follow up with more info, particularly about the
> specifics of the error, I'm sure we'd all appreciate it greatly.

Yet another update:

I managed to play something(Ricochet and old Half life). Installations was 
painless(IE6 is needed, builtin shdocvw with mozilla activex control doesn't 
work). I have to set winver to win98 to make the IE6 control work.

I downloaded hl and ricochet and played it(single player / server with no 
other players). The graphics worked nice with OpenGL, no surprises here. The 
problems I encountered were:

*The games lock up on exit. No error message, wine-preloader just uses 100% 
CPU time.

*I got a stange error on the secound start. Wine crashed and showed a lot of 
pthread_* functions. I can't reproduce the crash so no log. Sorry.

*Gaming get unstable if I turn of the internet connection. Say, does Steam 
download sounds & levels on demand during playing? The half-life folder's 
size is only 13 MB compared to ~500MB to the old version's folder.

*I can't get offline mode working.

*The keyboard and window management problems reported yesterday

Cheers,
Stefan

[Scott Ritchie]

On Sun, 2005-03-13 at 10:02 +0100, Stefan Dösinger wrote:
> Hello,
> I forgot to cc this one to the list!
> > Steam has had a serious problem for quite some time, failing with a
> > strange debug assertion error popup at the dreaded 27% mark.
> >
> > What's interesting, however, is that Steam works perfectly in Crossover
> > 4.1 - since I don't think Steam is supported, this is not due to a
> > special hack, and the failure in Steam therefore represents a serious
> > regression in Wine.
> >
> > This, quite simply, will be a really cool app to get working again.
> > Plus, we'll need it to try out Half Life 2 once you awesome Direct3D
> > boys finish up your work :)
> >
> > So, where do we go about this?  The installer demonstrating the error
> > can be downloaded easily from http://www.steampowered.com/ - however,
> > I'm not sure if it's plausible to run a regression analysis since there
> > are no patches available against the direct crossover version of Wine.
> > At this point, I'm not even sure which file has broken, although I do
> > know that it's one we've had problems with in the past based off of IRC
> > conversations.
> >
> > If anyone could follow up with more info, particularly about the
> > specifics of the error, I'm sure we'd all appreciate it greatly.
>
> Yet another update:
>
> I managed to play something(Ricochet and old Half life). Installations was 
> painless(IE6 is needed, builtin shdocvw with mozilla activex control doesn't 
> work). I have to set winver to win98 to make the IE6 control work.
>
> I downloaded hl and ricochet and played it(single player / server with no 
> other players). The graphics worked nice with OpenGL, no surprises here. The 
> problems I encountered were:
>
> *The games lock up on exit. No error message, wine-preloader just uses 100% 
> CPU time.
>
> *I got a stange error on the secound start. Wine crashed and showed a lot of 
> pthread_* functions. I can't reproduce the crash so no log. Sorry.
>
> *Gaming get unstable if I turn of the internet connection. Say, does Steam 
> download sounds & levels on demand during playing? The half-life folder's 
> size is only 13 MB compared to ~500MB to the old version's folder.
>
> *I can't get offline mode working.
>
> *The keyboard and window management problems reported yesterday
>
> Cheers,
> Stefan

Did you try the latest version?  Did you install IE with Winetools?  I
still can't get past my "no text visible" error that I linked to with a
screenshot earlier.

Thanks,
Scott Ritchie

[Stefan Dösinger]

> Did you try the latest version?  Did you install IE with Winetools?  I
> still can't get past my "no text visible" error that I linked to with a
> screenshot earlier.

I use Wine CVS from yesterday, steam updates itself automatically. I installed 
MSIE manually into a fresh wine installation.

I can see all the text in steam(at least I don't miss anything). I can send 
you my config files, etc if you need it.

My DLLoverrides:

General:

"advapi32"	= "builtin"
    "shdocvw"	= "native, builtin"

"msvcrt"	= "native, builtin"
    "advapi"	= "builtin"
    "urlmon"	= "native, builtin"
    "advpack"	= "native, builtin"
    "shlwapi"	= "native, builtin"	;shlwapi.dll.GetLongPathNameWrapA
    "wininet" 	= "native, builtin"

Steam Appdefault:
    		"mshtml" = "native, builtin" ;could crash steam
    		"crypt32" = "native, builtin"
    		"msvcrt" = "native, builtin"
    		"shlwapi" = "native, builtin"
    		"shdocvw" = "native, builtin"
    		"shfolder" = "native, builtin"
    		"shell" = "builtin, native"
    		"wininet" = "native, builtin"
    		"urlmon" = "native, builtin"
    		"wininet"	= "native, builtin"

I have to run Steam in a Desktop window, otherwise I can't type anything.

Stefan

[Scott Ritchie]

On Sun, 2005-03-13 at 10:47 +0100, Stefan Dösinger wrote:
> > Did you try the latest version?  Did you install IE with Winetools?  I
> > still can't get past my "no text visible" error that I linked to with a
> > screenshot earlier.
>
> I use Wine CVS from yesterday, steam updates itself automatically. I installed 
> MSIE manually into a fresh wine installation.
>
> I can see all the text in steam(at least I don't miss anything). I can send 
> you my config files, etc if you need it.
>
> My DLLoverrides:
>
> General:
>
> "advapi32"	= "builtin"
>    "shdocvw"	= "native, builtin"
>
> "msvcrt"	= "native, builtin"
>    "advapi"	= "builtin"
>    "urlmon"	= "native, builtin"
>    "advpack"	= "native, builtin"
>    "shlwapi"	= "native, builtin"	;shlwapi.dll.GetLongPathNameWrapA
>    "wininet" 	= "native, builtin"
>
> Steam Appdefault:
>    		"mshtml" = "native, builtin" ;could crash steam
>    		"crypt32" = "native, builtin"
>    		"msvcrt" = "native, builtin"
>    		"shlwapi" = "native, builtin"
>    		"shdocvw" = "native, builtin"
>    		"shfolder" = "native, builtin"
>    		"shell" = "builtin, native"
>    		"wininet" = "native, builtin"
>    		"urlmon" = "native, builtin"
>    		"wininet"	= "native, builtin"
>
> I have to run Steam in a Desktop window, otherwise I can't type anything.
>
> Stefan

Hmm, I think I will need your config files, I've been playing around
with this for hours and can't quite get it.

Maybe it's something stupid I did like forget to include something at
compile time (I have all the build depends, I think, unless a new one
got added recently.)

Thanks,
Scott

[Stefan Dösinger]

Am Sonntag, 13. März 2005 11:13 schrieb Scott Ritchie:
> On Sun, 2005-03-13 at 10:47 +0100, Stefan Dösinger wrote:
> > > Did you try the latest version?  Did you install IE with Winetools?  I
> > > still can't get past my "no text visible" error that I linked to with a
> > > screenshot earlier.
> >
> > I use Wine CVS from yesterday, steam updates itself automatically. I
> > installed MSIE manually into a fresh wine installation.
> >
> > I can see all the text in steam(at least I don't miss anything). I can
> > send you my config files, etc if you need it.
> >
> > My DLLoverrides:
> >
> > General:
> >
> > "advapi32"	= "builtin"
> >    "shdocvw"	= "native, builtin"
> >
> > "msvcrt"	= "native, builtin"
> >    "advapi"	= "builtin"
> >    "urlmon"	= "native, builtin"
> >    "advpack"	= "native, builtin"
> >    "shlwapi"	= "native, builtin"	;shlwapi.dll.GetLongPathNameWrapA
> >    "wininet" 	= "native, builtin"
> >
> > Steam Appdefault:
> >    		"mshtml" = "native, builtin" ;could crash steam
> >    		"crypt32" = "native, builtin"
> >    		"msvcrt" = "native, builtin"
> >    		"shlwapi" = "native, builtin"
> >    		"shdocvw" = "native, builtin"
> >    		"shfolder" = "native, builtin"
> >    		"shell" = "builtin, native"
> >    		"wininet" = "native, builtin"
> >    		"urlmon" = "native, builtin"
> >    		"wininet"	= "native, builtin"
> >
> > I have to run Steam in a Desktop window, otherwise I can't type anything.
> >
> > Stefan
>
> Hmm, I think I will need your config files, I've been playing around
> with this for hours and can't quite get it.
>
> Maybe it's something stupid I did like forget to include something at
> compile time (I have all the build depends, I think, unless a new one
> got added recently.)

Config file and system.reg is attached. I didn't do anything special when 
installing wine. Do you have the needed fonts? I copied C:\windows\fonts from 
a Windows XP system some time ago and I have all the font's in my X 
installation.

Can you send me the screenshot again? I've lost the mail in which you sent it. 
As far as I can remember it occured during account creation, right? I created 
my account some time ago. I just clicked on the "new account button" and I 
see 9 lines of text and only a few pixels of the 10th line. Strange...

Stefan

[Tim Schmidt]

Hey guys, sorry to intrude, but I've been out of the Windows gaming
scene for longer than I can remember.  I own copies of Half-life and a
few other games, but am I to understand that they can be played (for
free?) through steam?  I see that you can purchase a few games through
steam as well ( I remember hearing about it some time ago...  most of
the work done on it was done by the bittorrent guy right?).

--tim

On Sun, 13 Mar 2005 14:08:13 +0100, Stefan Dösinger
 wrote:
> Am Sonntag, 13. März 2005 11:13 schrieb Scott Ritchie:
> > On Sun, 2005-03-13 at 10:47 +0100, Stefan Dösinger wrote:
> > > > Did you try the latest version?  Did you install IE with Winetools?  I
> > > > still can't get past my "no text visible" error that I linked to with a
> > > > screenshot earlier.
> > >
> > > I use Wine CVS from yesterday, steam updates itself automatically. I
> > > installed MSIE manually into a fresh wine installation.
> > >
> > > I can see all the text in steam(at least I don't miss anything). I can
> > > send you my config files, etc if you need it.
> > >
> > > My DLLoverrides:
> > >
> > > General:
> > > "advapi32"      = "builtin"
> > > "shdocvw"       = "native, builtin"
> > >
> > > "msvcrt"        = "native, builtin"
> > > "advapi"        = "builtin"
> > > "urlmon"        = "native, builtin"
> > > "advpack"       = "native, builtin"
> > > "shlwapi"       = "native, builtin"     ;shlwapi.dll.GetLongPathNameWrapA
> > > "wininet"       = "native, builtin"
> > >
> > > Steam Appdefault:
> > >                     "mshtml" = "native, builtin" ;could crash steam
> > >                     "crypt32" = "native, builtin"
> > >                     "msvcrt" = "native, builtin"
> > >                     "shlwapi" = "native, builtin"
> > >                     "shdocvw" = "native, builtin"
> > >                     "shfolder" = "native, builtin"
> > >                     "shell" = "builtin, native"
> > >                     "wininet" = "native, builtin"
> > >                     "urlmon" = "native, builtin"
> > >                     "wininet"       = "native, builtin"
> > >
> > > I have to run Steam in a Desktop window, otherwise I can't type anything.
> > >
> > > Stefan
> >
> > Hmm, I think I will need your config files, I've been playing around
> > with this for hours and can't quite get it.
> >
> > Maybe it's something stupid I did like forget to include something at
> > compile time (I have all the build depends, I think, unless a new one
> > got added recently.)
>
> Config file and system.reg is attached. I didn't do anything special when
> installing wine. Do you have the needed fonts? I copied C:\windows\fonts from
> a Windows XP system some time ago and I have all the font's in my X
> installation.
>
> Can you send me the screenshot again? I've lost the mail in which you sent it.
> As far as I can remember it occured during account creation, right? I created
> my account some time ago. I just clicked on the "new account button" and I
> see 9 lines of text and only a few pixels of the 10th line. Strange...
>
> Stefan

[Scott Ritchie]

On Sun, 2005-03-13 at 12:56 -0500, Tim Schmidt wrote:
> Hey guys, sorry to intrude, but I've been out of the Windows gaming
> scene for longer than I can remember.  I own copies of Half-life and a
> few other games, but am I to understand that they can be played (for
> free?) through steam?  I see that you can purchase a few games through
> steam as well ( I remember hearing about it some time ago...  most of
> the work done on it was done by the bittorrent guy right?).
>
> --tim

Yes you can.  If you want to help us test it out, all you'll need is
your Half Life CD Key - Steam should download and patch up the rest of
everything.

That is, if I can get steam to work - still no text on the buttons makes
it mighty difficult to know what I'm doing.

http://tuzakey.com/~scott/steam.png

Thanks,
Scott Ritchie

[Stefan Dösinger]

Am Sonntag, 13. März 2005 22:13 schrieb Scott Ritchie:
> On Sun, 2005-03-13 at 12:56 -0500, Tim Schmidt wrote:
> > Hey guys, sorry to intrude, but I've been out of the Windows gaming
> > scene for longer than I can remember.  I own copies of Half-life and a
> > few other games, but am I to understand that they can be played (for
> > free?) through steam?  I see that you can purchase a few games through
> > steam as well ( I remember hearing about it some time ago...  most of
> > the work done on it was done by the bittorrent guy right?).
> >
> > --tim
>
> Yes you can.  If you want to help us test it out, all you'll need is
> your Half Life CD Key - Steam should download and patch up the rest of
> everything.
>
> That is, if I can get steam to work - still no text on the buttons makes
> it mighty difficult to know what I'm doing.
>
> http://tuzakey.com/~scott/steam.png

Does this also happen in Desktop mode? Steam has some problems with the Window 
Styles(I sent a mail a few hours ago).

Well, the buttons are " < Back", " Next > " and "Cancel". But that won't help 
much if you can't read the text.

Have you tried to set "ClientSideWithRender" and "ClientSideWithCore" in the 
x11drv Section to false? I have them enabled and if I disable them I can't 
see any text too(just noticed this).

Stefan