Grim Dawn is an action hack-n-slash created by the makers of Titan Quest. Slaughter minions and bosses in a dark fantasy world of exploration, loot, hacking, slashing and a lot of skills! Do not miss this game! You will love the AAA experience from a small indie team who are very talented and passionate about Action RPG's!





Follow my step-by-step guide on installing, configuring and optimizing Grim Dawn in Linux with PlayOnLinux.

Note: This guide applies to the Steam version of Grim Dawn. Other versions may require additional steps.

Tips & Specs:

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

Mint 17 64-bit
PlayOnLinux: 4.2.6
Wine: 1.7.39staging

Wine Installation

Note: Versions of Wine older than 2.0.2 and Wine 2.12-staging no longer work with Steam

Click Tools
Select "Manage Wine Versions"


Select it
Click the arrow pointing to the right


Click Next

Downloading Wine


Extracting

Downloading Gecko


Installed


Wine 1.7.39staging is installed and you can close this window

Downloading Steam

Go To: http://www.steampowered.com
Click Install Steam


Do not click "Install Steam Now"
It will automatically install Linux Steam. Since Grim Dawn isn't made for Linux, we will download the Windows Steam instead.
click "Windows" under the green button


Navigate to your desktop
Click Save


Setup PlayOnLinux

Launch PlayOnLinux
Click Install


Click "install a non-listed program"


Click Next

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


Name you virtual drive: grimdawn
Click Next


Select all three options:

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

Click Next


Select Wine 1.7.39staging
Click Next

Select "32 bits windows installation"
Click Next


Configure Wine

Applications 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


Install Libraries

Check the following libraries:

• POL_Install_corefonts
• POL_Install_d3dx9
• POL_Install_tahoma
• POL_Install_vcrun2010
  
• POL_Install_vcrun2012

Click Next

Note: vcrun2015 will be installed later in PlayOnLinux configure

Installing Steam

Click Browse


Navigate to your desktop
Select: SteamSetup.exe
Click Open


Click Next

Click Next

Check: I accept the license...
Click Next

Click Next

Click Next

Click Install

Click Finish

More downloading, updating, extracting and installing


When Steam is done installing the login screen will pop up. You probably won't see any text because there is a font bug.
Click the "X" to close Steam login


PlayOnLinux Shortcut

Select Steam.exe
Click Next


Name your shortcut: Grim Dawn
Click Next


Click Next

PlayOnLinux Configure

Back to PlayOnLinux
Click Configure


General Tab
Wine version: 1.7.39staging
Arguments: -no-dwrite -no-cef-sandbox
This fixes the missing font and store problem


Display Tab
Video Memory Size: Select the size of Memory your video card/chip uses


Installing vcrun2015

Note: vcrun2015 has to be installed before first launch of Grim Dawn. Otherwise the game installs vcrun2015 for you and breaks Wine. If you accidentally launch Grim Dawn one time, you will have to delete the virtual drive and start over from the beginning.

Miscellaneous Tab
Click "Open a Shell"
Copy/Paste:

Code:

wget  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Winetricks/winetricks/master/src/winetricks

Press Enter

Copy/Paste

Code:

chmod +x winetricks

Press Enter

Copy/Paste

Code:

WINEPREFIX=/home/username/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix/grimdawn ./winetricks -q vcrun2015

Press Enter

Note: Replace "username" with your login

Close Shell

Close Configure

Launching Steam

Select Grim Dawn
Click Run


Click "Login to existing account"


Login


Steam Overlay

Steam overlay has been known to cause problems launching games.
Click Steam menu
Click Settings


Select "In-game"
Uncheck "Enable Steam Community In-Game"
Click OK


Installing Grim Dawn

Click Library
Select Grim Dawn
Click Install


Click Next


Click Next


Click Finish


Wait while Grim Dawn downloads

Click Play


Optimization

Click Options


Click Video
Change Window Mode to Fullscreen
Select Resolution to match your Linux Desktop

Adjust:
Anti-aliasing
Anisotropic Filtering
Texture
Shadows
Detail Level
Reflections
fX
Lighting
Weather

Enable/Disable:
Vertical Sync
Triple Buffering
Detail Objects
Post Processing
Depth of Field
Soft Particles

Click OK to apply settings


Rule of Thumb:
High settings = More detail, lower frame rates
Low settings = Less detail, higher frame rates

Conclusion:
Grim Dawn didn't have too many problems with my GeForce 550 Ti. Tested with Wine 1.7.39 staging and now everything runs beautifully with hardly any lag. There were a few times when the game slowed down because of all the minions in the screen. Lowering the anti-Alias and Anisotropic filtering helped. I also tried adjusting fX and Lighting to produce better performance while it didn't affect the visuals. There were a few occurrences where my character had invisible texture upon loading. Quitting the game and launching again would fix this problem.

Texture/Font Bugs:
There is some texture reload issues in Grim Dawn that can be resolved by adding launch option in Steam:

Code:

/d3d9

To fix any missing textures:

1. Configure
2. Wine Tab
3. Registry
4. Navigate to
   
   Code:

   [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Direct3D]

5. right-click Direct3D
6. Select New
7. String Value
8. Name:
   Code:

   CheckFloatConstants

9. Value: enable

Gameplay Video:


Screenshots: