Cool, thanks for that; it won't fix that wine can't detect it when I'm setting up the virtual drive, but when I finally reach the point of installing Wushu, that might save me a headache or two.

@booman Just back to say that I installed Mint and game seems to work

BUT

EXTREMELY slow. It took 6mins (on the clock) to get to the login page, and I've been stuck on entering game for 10mins now. Any ideas why?

Info:
Nvidia is on (nvidia-settings works, it shows my card, it also shows in the bottom right of screen)
bumblebee & primus are installed successfully (can use optirun with no error)
While the game (launch) is running through terminal, I get 1 error = failed request: GLXBadDrawable. Maybe this is why it's slow?

I'm going to try with optirun and/or with Wine 1.7.47, maybe this fixes it. I'm waiting first to get inside the game to make sure it's on minimum settings. Still not loaded after this comment LOL

update: I know for certain the game CAN load immediately on the laptop because it worked while I was on win7. It has to be some configuration thing

Update:
It now works fine. Wow. I'm just speechless. No more 30min to load the game. I haven't changed anything, just started again. Maybe just the first load ever of the game that takes ages?

Side notes:
- I tried using optirun vs not using it on both intel and nvidia selected through nvidia-settings (so 4 combinations in total). Conclusion is that optirun doesn't seem to do anything. I mean running something with optirun or not produces the same results. It "starts" also when intel is selected.
- Changing between intel and nvidia is visible (and works) only through nvidia-settings. The gpu is indeed turned off when intel is selected, according to optirun --status.
- Also did a PC shutdown to rule out the 30min-load being a per-boot process. It still worked fine, i.e. fast, on reboot.

I am overall slightly confused about the entire behavior; will have to check how much the battery lasts and so on but nevertheless, IT F*** WORKS

Basically everything was in slow motion; where I mentioned 6min is at the screen that follows after clicking "start game", where a loading bar is supposed to popup at the bottom. I was stuck before that bar showed up. Then (still slow overall), I waited more than 10min for my char to load at the screen after you type username/password; stuck after I pressed "enter game" but before map and in-game interface showed up.

For settings I used everything as in your guide, so the older Wine version. Haven't gotten to trying a newer one since it works perfectly now.

I still don't know why optirun doesn't do anything but I don't really care anymore lol

@booman Hey, I'm back. Game doesn't start since last patch update -_- I'm stuck again at the same screen before the loading bar, as explained in post #46. Also tried using the latest wine to no success and both the landscape and the old login interfaces (it asks you to choose when starting game since last patch).

Any chance you could take a look at it, maybe one needs a new/extra pack for the game to work?

I'm thinking it's because of the 'new' Snail Game Protect which should launch at the exact moment the game gets stuck (and it looks like it doesn't). Just a reminder, I'm talking about the EU AOW with the latest patch being ch8.

@booman Well I googled around and I see people saying the guard system is impossible to use in a virtual machine because it's some sort of 'root' program(?); but then I also see others saying to try harder or try virtualbox

What I did is simply let the launcher update itself. I believe the 0.0.1.175 you're referring to is the US AOW, not the EU which is at 0.0.1.074. They should have the same guard system but the US version is ahead with the patches, therefore the solution might not be the same for EU now.

yes, of course. I need any help in making it work again xD if it's possible.

i could try things too, but i don't know what

So you did everything exactly the same as basically 2 years ago? Same wine version, same installed packs, etc?

So how exactly did you get past the screen with red '????' ?

I re-downloaded latest installer and I get that screen and it's stuck; whatever I click, it ends. Was using the exact same Wine and settings as in this guide; also tried Wine 1.8.

Note that "POL_Install_registered_fonts" does not exist; I only chose POL_Install_RegisteredFonts instead and still get that screen. Are you sure you didn't do anything different?

Wine 1.8, 1.8-staging, 1.9.7, 1.5.19 (all x86)

• POL_Install_corefonts
• POL_Install_d3dx9
• POL_Install_gdiplus
• POL_Install_physx
• POL_Install_RegisteredFonts
• POL_Install_tahoma
• POL_Install_wininet
• POL_Install_xact

Windows XP, with graphics setup as in the guide

=> still stuck when installing in that screen with red ????