Box86 and Wine on RPi4

George

@mth75 thanks for the update. I did see Mesa got updated to 20.3.4, but haven't updated my script modules yet. So many moving pieces in this! Are you still experiencing crashes where you have to start the game multiple times before being able to run a game?

Regarding Thimbleweed Park, I've never played it, but the web site says that it's compatible with Linux. Perhaps using a Linux version through Box86 would work better. I don't know the installation process though.

- George

mth75

@george said in Box86 and Wine on RPi4:

@mth75 thanks for the update. I did see Mesa got updated to 20.3.4, but haven't updated my script modules yet. So many moving pieces in this! Are you still experiencing crashes where you have to start the game multiple times before being able to run a game?

Yes, still the same behaviour but less frequently. I suspect Box86.

@george said in Box86 and Wine on RPi4:

Regarding Thimbleweed Park, I've never played it, but the web site says that it's compatible with Linux. Perhaps using a Linux version through Box86 would work better. I don't know the installation process though.

The Linux version is 64bits (sadly) ... so I'm trying my luck with a 32bits GOG Windows version.

mth75

@george said in Box86 and Wine on RPi4:

I did see Mesa got updated to 20.3.4, but haven't updated my script modules yet.

I'm curious if you'll notice any difference. My RPi4 as you know is build in the C= Plus4 case, with a Pimoroni Fanshim which kicks in at 68C. For example, the AGS adventure game Chronicles of Innsmouth always throttled the SOC (T above 80), the difference I now notice is almost 8 degrees C. This means that some component has become a lot more efficient.

George

@mth75 said in Box86 and Wine on RPi4:

Yes, still the same behaviour but less frequently. I suspect Box86.

It could be Box86, but there are so many things going on and are in early development, like the Mesa Broadcom driver.

Early on in my testing, I saw a problem with one of the games I was testing. Through a ton of debugging, I believe I narrowed down the issue to an ARB vertex program test that Wine passing on to Mesa. I filed a bug with Mesa:

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/issues/4018

I may have been able to workaround the issue using the following Mesa override in the command line:

MESA_EXTENSION_OVERRIDE="-GL_ARB_vertex_program"

Perhaps give that a shot and let me know if you see any improvement in reliability. You may of course see a change in performance, either good or bad. Let us know.

- George

mth75

@george Hi George, I didn't notice any difference.

George

Another thing possibly worth trying is adding the GL logging flag to the command line:

LIBGL_DEBUG=verbose

See: https://docs.mesa3d.org/envvars.html

Along with removing the WINEDEBUG and adding BOX86_LOG, that should provide a good amount of logging to help determine where things are crashing. Ala:

LIBGL_DEBUG=verbose BOX86_LOG=1 LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/opt/retropie/supplementary/mesa/lib/" setarch linux32 -L ...

I've seen several conversations on Box86's Discord where it is suggested to disable DynaRec. Perhaps give that a shot as well.

- George

George

I've started to test out FluidSynth as a replacement for Timidity. I've come to the conclusion that while running Timidity as a daemon is good for convenience, that convenience is nullified if all sound stops working after a day.

I've run several tests with Timidity. Whenever Timidity is used to play MIDI sound, after a day or so of inactivity, all sound will stop functioning properly. Restarting the Timidity daemon rectifies the situation without requiring a reboot. But that is a hassle.

Timidity also seems to be fairly old and not actively developed, whereby FluidSynth is actively developed (though the version with Raspberry Pi OS may be a bit out of date).

The downside with FluidSynth is that it does not look like it will run in daemon mode out of the box. The options are as follows:

Create additional scripts that will run FluidSynth as a daemon. This would require much more testing to make sure it doesn't cause the same problems as Timidity.
Add extra lines to ports scripts that will launch FluidSynth when starting a game. Though I suppose this could actually have been done with Timidity as well.

FluidSynth does have some options that should improve performance on Raspberry Pi, like changing bitrate and polyphony. I did some research on Timidity has some options as well, including the option to turn off Reverb. Reverb might actually be what is causing the hangup on the sound. Perhaps Timidity just continues sending reverbed audio and convolving the signal ad infinitum, that might cause some issues.

I will say that Timidity sounds louder, so it may take time to get used to FluidSynth.

Anyway, lots of work to be done.

- George

zennit

Has anyone set this up with twisteros? Essentially my understanding is it has all the box86 wine etc in place so I’ve just created a simple script in the ports folder “wine game.exe” but I’m getting errors that seem the relate to x server and looking at @George scripts he’s got some dependencies and references in the ports script to handle that. I believe twister uses xfce, so my question is what additional dependencies do I need and what do I need to add to my ports script to resolve the x server issues? Really great work here thanks for creating this thread!

TedMaul

Would anyone perhaps be willing to post (brief) steps on how to get this working? I've tried compiling / installing scripts from git before and have a roughly 15% success rate, probably due to my own ineptitude. Any pointers would be gratefully received! Thanks in advance.

mth75

@tedmaul said in Box86 and Wine on RPi4:

Would anyone perhaps be willing to post (brief) steps on how to get this working? I've tried compiling / installing scripts from git before and have a roughly 15% success rate, probably due to my own ineptitude. Any pointers would be gratefully received! Thanks in advance.

Scroll back in this topic ... it's all explained.

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/post/247936

Folly

@tedmaul said in Box86 and Wine on RPi4:

Would anyone perhaps be willing to post (brief) steps on how to get this working? I've tried compiling / installing scripts from git before and have a roughly 15% success rate, probably due to my own ineptitude. Any pointers would be gratefully received! Thanks in advance.

You should be able to use the wget commands in this post :
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/28528/box86-and-wine-on-rpi4/109
And then install in the RetroPie-setup the same order.

If they don't work it's because of the RetroPie version.
This is what we did to get around the checks and install it anyway :
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/28528/box86-and-wine-on-rpi4/129
@George Is still busy with fixing this, I think.

If above is working, then you can also install these games ( I just fixed these for RetroPie version 4.7.7) :

wget -nv -O /home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/scriptmodules/ports/box86winegooniesremake.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FollyMaddy/RetroPie-Share/main/00-scriptmodules-00/ports/box86winegooniesremake.sh
wget -nv -O /home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/scriptmodules/ports/box86winemogremake.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FollyMaddy/RetroPie-Share/main/00-scriptmodules-00/ports/box86winemogremake.sh
wget -nv -O /home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/scriptmodules/ports/box86wineroadfighterremake.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FollyMaddy/RetroPie-Share/main/00-scriptmodules-00/ports/box86wineroadfighterremake.sh

shavecat

So i tried unistall and install box86andwine
And run again Heroes Of Might And Magic 3
but still crushes in diffrenet areas ...
someones had luck with that ?

Folly

@shavecat said in Box86 and Wine on RPi4:

So i tried unistall and install box86andwine
And run again Heroes Of Might And Magic 3
but still crushes in diffrenet areas ...
someones had luck with that ?

To find out what is wrong you have to check your logs in :
/home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/logs
Unzip your latest logs and read the logs with a texteditor.

shavecat

@folly
It just geting forzen ...
but i will check it thanks :)

TedMaul

@folly @mth75 thanks both, I'll give it a go!

Folly

@shavecat said in Box86 and Wine on RPi4:

@folly
It just geting forzen ...
but i will check it thanks :)

Do you have a good internet connection and is your pi cool enough ?

shavecat

@folly
Yes
The Temp' are fine...
and its just this game getting frozen , but i can still putty the pi .

Folly

@shavecat said in Box86 and Wine on RPi4:

@folly
Yes
The Temp' are fine...
and its just this game getting frozen , but i can still putty the pi .

So your box86wine install seems ok, but your game doesn't work.
It could be due to the updated versions of box86 and wine.
I think you will have to wait untill it is all updated to newer versions and try again.

shavecat

@folly
Yes like commandos 1/2 runs pretty good ;)
Thanks <3

mth75

@shavecat said in Box86 and Wine on RPi4:

Yes like commandos 1/2 runs pretty good ;)
Thanks <3

and with wine 6.1/6.2-devel and Mesa 20.3.4 they would run even better:-). A lot of games will not work (or without problems) ... but i'm fairly sure this is a matter of time. Determining which ones work is the nice thing!