Frontlines: Fuel of War Guide

Frontlines: Fuel of War is a First Person Shooter with full vehicle support and large multi-player maps. It is very similar to the Battlefield franchise and has a single-player story mode.

Most of the weapons included are your typical FPS selection, but there are two radio controlled explosives and stunning special effects that will draw you into the game.

Follow my step-by-step guide on installing, configuring and optimizing Frontlines: Fuel of War in Linux with PlayOnLinux.

Note: This guide applies to the Retail version of Frontlines: Fuel of War. Other versions may require additional steps.

Tips & Specs:

To learn more about PlayOnLinux and Wine configuration, see the online manual: PlayOnLinux Explained
http://www.gamersonlinux.com/forum/forums/playonlinux-explained.25

Mint 14 32-bit
PlayOnLinux: 4.2.1
Wine: 1.7.6

Copy Game Files

Frontlines retail should have two DVD's with critical game files.
PlayOnLinux usually has problems mounting the second DVD when installing games, so I will show you how to copy everything to a folder on the desktop.

Create a folder on your desktop
Name it Frontlines
We will delete later when the game is installed

Insert Frontlines DVD 1
Right-click and click Open

Copy all of the files from the DVD to the new "Frontlines" folder on your desktop

Insert Frontlines DVD 2
Right-click and click Open
Copy all of the files from DVD 2 to the new "Frontlines" folder on your desktop
If a window pops up and asks to "over write" just click "skip"

When the copying is done, all of the game files should now be in the "Frontlines" folder on your desktop.

Installing Wine

Launch PlayOnLinux
Click Tools
Select "Manage Wine Versions"

Look for the Wine Version: 1.7.6
Note: Try using stable Wine 1.8 and 1.8-staging

Select it
Click the arrow pointing to the right

Click Next

PlayOnLinux will automatically download it and save it in this directory:
/home/username/.PlayOnLinux/wine/linux-x86

Note: username is where you put your login name

Its a good idea to backup this directory to another computer because you won't have to keep downloading wine versions when you need them.

Extracting

Downloading Gecko

Installed

Wine1.7.6 is installed and you can close this window

PlayOnLinux Setup

Launch PlayOnLinux
Click Install

Click "Install a non-listed program"

Click Next

Select "Install a program in a new virtual drive"
Click Next

Name the virtual drive: frontlines
Click Next

Select all three options:

• Use another version of Wine
• Configure Wine
• Install some libraries

Click Next

Select Wine 1.7.6
Click Next

Note: If you are running a 64-bit system, PlayOnLinux will prompt if you want to use a 64-bit or 32-bit virtual drive.
Always select 32-bit virtual drive.

Wine Configuration

Application Tab
Windows Version: Windows 7
Click apply

Graphics Tab
Check "Automatically capture the mouse in full-screen windows"
Check "Emulate a virtual desktop"
Desktop Size: 1024x768
Click OK

Installing Windows Packages/libraries

Check all of the following packages:

• POL_Install_corefonts
• POL_Install_dxfullsetup
• POL_Install_tahoma

Each package will automatically download and install.
Frontlines does require physx and dotnet, but it installs and plays just fine without having them pre-installed.

Click Next

Installing Frontlines: Fuels of War

Do Not select "CD-ROM" option
The installer will crash every time!

Select "Select another file"
Click Next

Click Browse

Navigate to the "Frontlines" folder on your desktop
Locate the setup.exe file
Select it and click open

Confirmation
Click Next

Click Ok

Click Install

Select "I accept the terms..."
Click Next

Enter game key provided in the box
Click Install

The installer should run just fine and install the whole game without and issues

PlayOnLinux Shortcut

Select FFOW.exe
Click Next

Name your shortcut: Frontlines FOW
Click Next

Select "I don't want to make another shortcut"
Click Next

Configure PlayOnLinux

Back to PlayOnLinux
Click Configure

General Tab
Leave everything as default
Feel free to test newer versions of Wine by clicking the +
Change versions of Wine using the drop-down-menu

Display Tab
Direct Draw Renderer: opengl
Video Memory Size: The amount of memory on your video card
Offscreen rendering mode: fbo

Wine Tab
After an installation I alway click "Windows reboot" before launching the game

Launching Frontlines: Fuels of War

Back to PlayOnLinux
Select Frontlines FOW
Click Run

Note: Clicking Debug will output errors and bugs in a console for troubleshooting

Optimizing Frontlines

Click options

Click Video

Aspect ratio: play with these settings until the game fits your screen properly
Screen size: Adjust to fit your Linux desktop and/or improve game performance
Overall Quality: Pre-sets for game quality and can improve or hurt your frame rates

Depending on what your video card can handle, these 3 settings will allow you to have a smooth enough frame rate to play Frontlines.
Further changes can be made under the advanced tab.

Higher settings = More detail, lower frame rates
Lower settings = Less detail, higher frame rates

Conclusion: I was half expecting a Battlefield clone with Frontlines: Fuels of War, but then I was quickly drawn into the game and really enjoyed the intense action. The A.I. was fairly smart and reacted accordingly... of course some of them would run right up to your face, but the action seemed realistic and challenging.

The visuals were amazing and I loved the open maps with lots of cover. There was always a hiding place or something to take cover behind. The singleplayer campaign was very "thought out" and kept me wanting to go back and play some more.

Screenshots:

 

High Res Screenshots:

 

Great guide as usual, Booman.

I bought this game on Steam a few days ago (it was on sale for a few bucks) and I was trying to download it when I found out about the problem with the updated Steam client we are talking about in another thread.

I suppose (well, I hope) it will work also with the new 1.7.8 version which should fix the bug because at the moment there are no news of a patch for the older Wine releases.

 

Its pretty fun!
I really wish they had a cooperative multi-player mode for online... It would be a lot of fun in my LAN Parties.

I'm sure it will run fine in 1.7.8 when the Steam fix is released

 

I can confirm now that the Steam version works well with Wine 1.7.8.

There are, however, a couple of glitches:

It takes almost 2 minutes to start and this is a first for a Steam game, although I have a similar issue with all four games of the series WRC FIA World Championship Rally (DVD version).

Secondly, at first I could turn the mouse look left and right only to a limited degree: I fixed changing the mouse sensitivity setting.

Overall it seems, from testing it only for about an hour, a very good game from the same guys who created the terrific Homefront.

 

Oh, I didn't realize these guys also created Homefront.

When you say "start" do you mean loading the game or loading a level?

I almost never have the mouselook problem anymore since Wine has that Display checkbox about capturing mouse in fullscreen windows.
The only times I do is when I press the Print Screen button on the keyboard. Sometimes the mouse will lock after that, but all I have to do is click on the screen again and the mouse is back.

 

I meant clicking the "PLAY" button on Steam.

There is no delay loading a level.

Regarding the mouse look glitch, the first thing I did was what you suggested but it didn't work.

That option was very useful with to solve the same problem with Crysis, a game by the way I was able to install only after following your excellent guide.

 

Interesting, I've never had a problems with game loading after clicking "Play"
Very strange. Have you checked the debug?
Of course I'm running the retail version, so it didn't have this problem.

Are you using a virtual desktop? I don't think the mouse setting helps much unless you are using a virtual desktop.

 

I always use a virtual desktop.

I never really thought about checking the debug; I'll do that as soon as I get home.

Having said that, even having to wait a couple of minutes to start, as long as the game runs smoothly I don't see any reason to complain.

When I started with Linux, back in 2006, the introductory book I bought to understand what I was dealing with basically said that I should forget about running big PC games, but there was a small program called Wine which made possible, tinkering a little, to use Notepad and even, brace yourself, to play Windows solitaire!

In other words the progress the Wine guys have been able to achieve is simply astonishing and I am very grateful to them: in fact I bought Crossover 3 times even if I don't need it just to support the project, although now I think also a donation to PlayOnLinux is in order.

 

Yeah post it if you find anything suspect.
Remember to post it in the PlayonLinux forum so we don't clutter this post.

Yeah, I originally tried Battlefield 1942 about 6 years ago on my Fedora 8 server.
I wasn't impressed at all. The installation went perfectly, but the game had way to many graphical artifacts to even play.
Now I realize it was probably my ATI drivers because I was running a Radeon 9600 Pro.
On top of that I didn't know anything about libraries.

Wine has come a long way and I thank Crossover and Cadega for making Wine a for-profit company so developers can be paid to work on it.
I'm not sure whats going to happen in the long-run, but Windows games seem to run pretty good these days and now I dedicate most of my free time to testing them.