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This is a problem I encounter with two of blizzard's newer games, StarCraft II and World of Warcraft. I can install them on my machine which runs Ubuntu 13.04 raring ringtail using wine 1.6-rc3. Both programs run on 1920 by 1080 resolution but at about 1 frame per second. I thought perhaps reducing the resolution would improve game performance, however attempting to do so only causes a portion of the screen to appear. I tried changing the resolution using the in game system settings menu and the configuration file. Both attempts have the same results. I don't see a bug on AppDB and both games have platinum ratings. Does anyone know how I can successfully change my game resolution?

screen shot of WoW

The black areas in the screenshot do not appear on my monitor. The blacked out portions only appear in when i took the screenshot.

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  • I would recommend to ask Blizzard tech support. They don't always resolve issue, but usually response quite quickly. Start here: us.battle.net/support/en/games/starcraft2 In case you won't find solution for your problem or existing won't work, you can use "Get Help" button in the bottom to submit your own request. Hope that helps.
    – Budda
    Jun 26, 2013 at 2:14
  • Try switching to the AMD or NVIDIA manufacturer's proprietary drivers. If you're using Intel graphics chipset, your performance isn't going to be great at any resolution.
    – Raimondas the Insane
    Jul 5, 2013 at 22:16
  • @MichaelHampton AMD doesn't prove proprietary linux drivers for legacy cards any more. The Open Source drivers are the only ones available. However, matching my desktop resolution to the ones in the configuration files for the games seems to be working as a temporary fix. Also, I found a nifty app called rovclock to overclock my graphics card for slightly better performance.
    – Nil
    Jul 5, 2013 at 22:33

2 Answers 2

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I found a temporary fix for this, but if anyone has a real answer to the problem, I will select it as answer.

World of Warcraft
I found that changing the game resolution settings either in game or by the configuration file don't actually change the game resolution but my desktop resolution. The result is that most of the game interface is now off screen beyond my reach.

If I erase the set resolution line of the configuration file, the game by default goes to my desktop resolution. This is where the solution I found lies. Before starting the game, change your desktop resolution. When the game runs in full screen mode, it will match the desktop resolution.

This seems like a round-a-bout solution. I found no one with the same problem on wine or on blizzard's forums (on their forums its always "we don't support linux so we wont acknowledge your question. Please stop mentioning wine, buy Windows"). This is why I'm inclined to believe that there is either another solution.

Starcraft II
I thought the solution for all newer blizzard games would be the same due to the similarities in the bug. However, the configuration of Starcraft II is a bit different. Instead of removing the height and width settings on the variables.txt file in your Starcraft 2, edit them to match your desktop resolution exactly. If it is off by one pixel, it will bug. It's possible that no one really wants to run these new games on old computers that can't handle full HD as well. That would explain why no one else has complained about this problem. I can navigate well through the game menus on this machine, but loading a level takes half an hour and once the level starts it runs close to 0 fps (the game quoted it at 0 fps).

Edit: The workaround for Starcraft II no longer works. I have yet to find another way to reset the solution under WINE.

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  • Your real problem is that Blizzard does not support running their games under WINE. It has little do with your actual hardware. Your performance problems have everything to do with, and if your getting 1fps at the settings you describe, its unlikely changing the resolution would help very much.
    – Ramhound
    Dec 10, 2013 at 17:06
  • @ramhound It actually helps with world of warcraft, I got it running up to 20 fps with the minimum hardware requirements. I've heard others have got it running at 60 fps with more modern hardware. Others have gotten SC2 to run fine under wine with better hardware, the lower resolution would be helpful to them, just not to me at the moment. Though the workaround to resize sc2 doesn't seem to work now....
    – Nil
    Dec 10, 2013 at 18:14
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I had seemingly the same issue running StarCrat II with Wine. The game display was too large for the screen, so that i could only see a portion of the game (top left corner, to be precise). I did not, however, experience problems with FPS, so I am not sure how to fix that.

The reason for me was a mismatch between the desktop and game resolution (standard resolution on SC2 was 1280x720 on my computer, whereas the dektop resolution was set to 1920x1080). Changing any of those so that they match fixed the issue.

I changed the game resolution in variables.txt, but if you want to tune the resolution down (for example to solve performance issues), I believe that reducing the desktop resolution before launching the game is necessary, unless someone finds a solution to automatically adjusting desktop and/or game resolutions as is done in Windows.

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