Dawn of War 2 is the successor to the popular Dawn of War strategy game. Unlike the predecessor, this game focus on small squad tactics. You control small squads, and a lot of the gameplay focus around moving strategically while making intelligent use of cover and squad abilities. Fans of the Warhammer 40k franchise will appreciate the atmosphere of the game, which really give you a good 40k feel.



The guide will explain how to setup Steam in PlayOnLinux so that you can install and play the game in steam.

NOTE: Dawn of War 2, along with both expansions, are now available for Linux on Steam. The Linux version runs perfectly and so you probably don't need to install the Windows version as explained in this guide, simply get the Linux version from Linux Steam.

Note that this guide will let you play Dawn of War 2 as well as the expansions Chaos Rising and Retribution.

Tips & Specs

To learn more about PlayOnLinux and Wine configuration, see the online manual: PlayOnLinux explained

Arch Linux 64-bit
PlayOnLinux 4.2.4
Wine 1.7.26

Setup PlayOnLinux

Launch PlayOnLinux and select 'Tools' and 'Manage Wine versions'

In the new window that appears, scroll through the 'Available Wine versions' box to find '1.7.26' and click on the right pointing arrow to install it, afterwards it will appear on the right side under 'Installed Wine versions'
If you have a 64-bits system, make sure you have selected the 'Wine versions (x86)' tab above, although it works well on 64-bit as well to my experience, I just will not cover it in this guide



Just close the window. Back at the main PlayOnLinux window, select 'Install'

Click on 'Install a non-listed program'



Select 'Install a program in a new virtual drive'



Name the virtual drive "Steam_DOW2"



On the next window, select 'Use another version of Wine', 'Configure wine' and 'Install some libraries'



On the wine selection window, select the 1.7.26 version and click 'Next'. Make sure you select '32-bits window installation' if you are on a 64-bit system, although as mentioned earlier, it should also work using a 64-bit virtual drive if so desired.



When the wine configuration window appear, select the 'Graphics' tab, and click the checkbox for all four options. Make sure that you set the resolution to your desktop resolution. My desktop is at 1920 x 1080, so I set that for the wine virtual desktop resolution.



Note: Even though the language is Norwegian in my screenshot, the layout will look the same for you

Next we will do a workaround for an issue with the Steam overlay. For some people it appears to be fixed, but there are still people reporting it as an issue on WineHQ, so it is best to disable the Steam overlay.

Now select the 'Libraries' tab, and under 'New override for library:' type in "gameoverlayrenderer" and click 'Add'



Now find and select it on the list below, then click on 'Edit'



In the new window that appears, select 'Disable', then simply click OK to close the wine config window.



When you come to the selection of libraries, select:

• POL_Install_msvc80
• POL_Install_steam

Then click Next

You have to go through the Steam install process manually. I always prefer to install Steam by using this library in PlayOnLinux since it takes care of the missing font issue in Steam, while also installing the corefonts library so it looks better than just a manual Steam install.

Just click Next



Click to accept the license, pick your preferred language, and just let it install to the default location and click Install



When the Steam installation is finished, make sure you uncheck the box for starting Steam, we do not want to start Steam at this point.

After you have unchecked the box for starting Steam, you can click on Finished



When it asks you for the install file to run, click on 'Cancel'



The virtual drive has already been set up by this point and there is no need to run any install file. Now back at the main PlayOnLinux window, click on 'Configure', it does not matter what game shortcut is selected when you click 'Configure' so don't worry about that.

On the left side, find the virtual drive you just set up, it will be listed with the same name you typed in during set-up. Look for 'Steam_DOW2'. Select the virtual drive, then click 'Make a new shortcut from this virtual drive'



Check the screenshot above for reference. It is very important that you select the virtual drive you just set up before clicking to make a new shortcut.

Select Steam.exe and click next. Name the shortcut "Steam-DOW2" then click 'I don't want to make another shortcut' and click next.



Now click on the 'Display' tab on the top. Change 'Video memory size' to reflect your GPU memory.



At this point you can close the PlayOnLinix configuration window and start Steam from the Shortcut in the main PlayOnLinux window. First Steam will update



Then you can log in to your Steam account



Now just find the game in your game library, and click Install



As mentioned previously, if you own the expansions as well, you can install and play them as well.

Once the game is done installing, you can play it from Steam.

Note about graphic issue

I have noticed one little problem with some smoke effects in the game. They appear very blocky and pixelated. Within the game, go into Options and then select Graphics. Find the setting for "Effects Fidelity" and set this to Medium. This seem to remove the pixelated appearance of some smoke effects.

You can check the screenshot below to see Effects Fidelity marked, as well as the settings I use to play the game on my laptop with an Nvidia Geforce GTX 670 MX card. The game runs smoothly on these settings.


Screenshots