Diablo II LOD Under Wine mini-HOWTO

Last updated Sat July 7 2001

This Diablo II Under Wine HOWTO was used a basis for this mini-HOWTO

Index

System requirements

Does it really work?

Indeed it does. And it works pretty darn good too.
I've played all the way from ACT I to ACT III without a single crash, visual glitch, etc...

The performance is pretty much the same as in Windows, although when there are alot of things going on, it tends to slow down on Linux.
This is probably because Windows' DirectDraw drivers are far more optimized than Wine's.

Oh and it'll probably need more ram than in windows too.

Installation

If you already have Diablo II installed on a Windows FAT partition, you may skip to the Playing section.

However, if you want to install Diablo II from scratch - without the need of Microsoft Windows, read on...


Step 1
First, download and extract the d2-lod-1.08-wine.tgz file to one of your wine drives. This example will use /usr/share/wine-c which comes default with the above RPMS with the d2-lod-1.08-wine.tgz saved to the users home directory on the system.

Eg:
cd /usr/local/wine-c
tar xzvf ~/d2-lod-1.08-wine.tgz

This will create a "Diablo II" directory with executables and a few DLLs. (Patch 1.08 is applied as well)


Step 2
Append this userdef.reg to your wine userdef.reg file (located in ~/.wine/). If you don't have a userdef.reg file, you can download the sample one and use it if. (Lines that are bold must be edited if you are using another wine drive or custom setup)


Lines that must be edited...
"DiabloIICD"="d:"; Change "d:" to your CDs drive letter
"InstallPath"="c:\\Diablo II" ; Change "c:\\Diablo II" to where you extracted the d2-1.06-wine.tar.gz file
"Program"="c:\\Diablo II\\Diablo II.exe" ; Same as above but add "\\Diablo II.exe" at the end
"Save Path"="c:\\Diablo II\\save\\"; Same as above but add "\\save\\" at the end



Step 3
Get your 3 Diablo II CDs, the Expansion CD, and copy the following files from the CDs to your "Diablo II" directory:

(note: /mnt/cdrom is standard, unless it has been changed)
cp -a /mnt/cdrom/d2*.mpq /usr/share/wine-c/Diablo\ II/
(If you don't copy the d2music.mpq file you will have to mount your play cd before playing)


Step 4
Make sure that you have read and write permissions to the c:\Diablo II\save directory.
Eg. this will make root the owner, wine the group which is install with the above rpms, and everyone to have write access to the Save directory. 
	chown -R root /usr/share/wine-c/Diablo\ II
	chgrp -R wine /usr/share/wine-c/Diablo\ II
	chmod 775 /usr/share/wine-c/Diablo\ II	
	chmod 664 /usr/share/wine-c/Diablo\ II/*
	chmod 777 /usr/share/wine-c/Diablo\ II/Save
	chmod 666 /usr/share/wine-c/Diablo\ II/Save/*

Playing

Make sure the Play CD is mounted, unless you have d2music.mpq in your Diablo II folder.
Enter the directory where you have installed Diablo II and type:

Eg. with the above RPMS you can make a launcher in a panel or shortcut with 
"/usr/share/wine-c/Diablo II/Game.exe"
or you can use this wine format as well 
nice -5 wine game

Why the "nice -5" you ask?
Well, I have found that the game runs much smoother if you set wine's priority a little lower than
the X servers priority, which is usually priority 0.
(nice -5 means "priority 5" (not -5))

FAQ

1. When I move the mouse outside Diablo II ...
The virtual panning kicks in and you get pissed off.
There's an easy fix.
Just set "DXGrab" to "Y" in your wine config.
note: this does not work for many users



e-mail me if you have any comments or suggestions for updating this page.