Running Future Pinball on Linux with Wine

WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT

Future Pinball is a free pinball simulator created by Christopher "Black" Leathley, helped by the community which have created a lot of great tables.
You can get more info and download Future Pinball at Future Pinball official site and get free tables at FPRelease.

Unfortunately, Future Pinball only runs on Windows XP and Vista, so I've created FPWine.
It's an attempt to install Future Pinball on Linux using Wine.

NEWS

• 2009-08-14 : FPWine v1.9.2

Just a small release with a correction in FP download location.

• 2009-01-02 : FPWine v1.9.1

Just a small release with a correction in FP setup download checkup.

• 2008-12-29 : FPWine v1.9.0

There is a new version of Future Pinball : 1.9.
I've also updated FPWine to use again native crypto dll as its reduce tables load time.

• 2008-03-26 : FPWine v1.8.1

There is a new version of Future Pinball : 1.8.
I've updated FPWine, and changed the naming sheme to follow Future Pinball releases.

• 2007-11-14 : FPWine v0.9.49

Kill .fpwine processes when restarted, as FP doesn't quit correctly under wine.

• 2007-08-28 : FPWine v0.9.44

With Wine 0.9.44, urlmon.dll is not needed anymore.

• 2007-08-06 : Future Pinball 1.7 is out, and so FPWine v0.9.42b is out too

I've just install the new FP 1.7, it seems to run as well as it was with previous version

• 2007-08-06 : FPWine v0.9.42 : Dlls overriding changes and some cleanup

Set native dlls only for Future Pinball.exe.
Improve --noauto switch.
Using WINEDEBUG=-all during installation.
removed hardcoded .fpwine

• 2007-07-06 : FPWine v0.9.40b : Dlls overriding changes, menu entry

I now set dlls overriding in registry instead of passing them in command line each times.
The script also modify menu entries generated by FP setup to disable debug trace (which may slow down the game), and open linux native browers for support forum. There is still some menu entries not working correctly (manual and uninstall)

• 2007-07-04 : FPWine v0.9.40 : new script with wine 0.9.40

I've added an automatic sound configuration, and the script now create a cfgFP launcher to run winecfg with FP wineprefix.
Some script cleanup as well.

• 2007-06-25 : FPWine v0.9.39c : Set alternate VBscript installation

I've done some cleanup in the script, and now install vbscript with vbs56men.exe from Microsoft website.

• 2007-06-25 : FPWine v0.9.39b : textures are now OK

Thanks to Louis Lenders who post on AppDb, there is a way to make textures working during the gameplay by adding native urlmon.dll.
I've added this dll in FPWine.

• 2007-06-19 : FPWine v0.9.39 released !

This is the first version of FPWine, and it have been successfully tested with - you guessed it - wine 0.9.39.
I'll try to follow wine versions to release future FPWine versions.

INSTALLATION

Wine

Wine must be installed on your system :)
Linux distros often provide Wine with their package manager, but I recommend you to use the lastest version directly from WineHQ

3D acceleration

As Future Pinball is a 3D game, you must have a functionnal 3D acceleration.
FPWine detects it and warns you if 3d acceleration isn't present.
Please refer to your linux distribution documentation to setup 3D acceleration with your video driver.

FPWine

• Download install script.
• Make the script executable (chmod +x fpwine in a console).
• Execute the script (./fpwine in a console), you may be prompted for some options if you run with --noauto switch.

TROUBLESHOOTING & ADVANCED STUFF

FPWine can also be run with --noauto option, which will ask you several questions (it's mainly usefull for testing against new wine versions with different configurations).

If you're using an older version of Wine <0.9.44, you'll need to run with --noauto option and install native urlmon dll.

If you're using an older version of Wine <0.9.39, you'll need to run with --noauto option and install natives crypto dlls.

FPWine uses by default a custom wine prefix (.fpwine), so it won't break your existing wine configuration.

FPWine needs some external files and tries to download missing files not present in the same directory.
Here is the full list:

• FuturePinballSetup_v1.9.20081225.exe : Future Pinball setup file.
• DCOM98.EXE : Microsoft Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) for Windows 98.
• vbs56men.exe : Microsoft Windows Scripting Host : VBScript only.
You also need urlmon.dll with wine <0.9.44 and crypt32.dll and rsaenh.dll with Wine <0.9.39.

There is a support topic for this script on FP forum, go there and I'll try to help you.

DOWNLOAD

Lastest release :

Download FPWine v1.9.2

Archives :

Download FPWine v1.9.2 (2009-08-14)
Download FPWine v1.9.1 (2009-01-02)
Download FPWine v1.9.0 (2008-12-29)
Download FPWine v1.8.1 (2008-03-26)
Download FPWine v0.9.49 (2007-11-14)
Download FPWine v0.9.44 (2007-08-28)
Download FPWine v0.9.42b (2007-08-06)
Download FPWine v0.9.42 (2007-08-06)
Download FPWine v0.9.40b (2007-07-06)
Download FPWine v0.9.40 (2007-07-04)
Download FPWine v0.9.39c (2007-06-25)
Download FPWine v0.9.39b (2007-06-25)
Download FPWine v0.9.39 (2007-06-19)

CURRENT WINE SUPPORT STATUS

See Future Pinball AppDb page for more information.

It's important that you submit Test Data, comments or bug reports on AppDb, it will help us improving wine support for Future Pinball.

---- Section deprecated, Check directly on AppDb please ----

From Wine 0.9.48 to current Wine 0.9.49 :

• Processes are still alive when exiting Future Pinball, and can't run again if you don't kill previous processes.
• Vsync, Antialiasing and Anisotropic filtering doesn't work when set from the game. But setting this with your drivers settings works.
• In the video option, video mode for fullscreen mode are duplicated (for each vertical frequency available), but choosing one of possibles options give always same results.
• Sometimes, when playing a table, the first key you hit put the pause and you can't do anything.
• Some textures are rarely missing in the editor on a few tables (but are ok in the game).
• Sound doesn't work with hardware acceleration, must be set to emulation.
• Needs natives dlls for DCOM.

From Wine 0.9.44 to Wine 0.9.47:

• Processes are still alive when exiting Future Pinball, and can't run again if you don't kill previous processes.
• CHM help doesn't work.
• Vsync, Antialiasing and Anisotropic filtering doesn't work when set from the game. But setting this with your drivers settings works.
• In the video option, video mode for fullscreen mode are duplicated (for each vertical frequency available), but choosing one of possibles options give always same results.
• Sometimes, when playing a table, the first key you hit put the pause and you can't do anything.
• Some textures are rarely missing in the editor on a few tables (but are ok in the game).
• Sound doesn't work with hardware acceleration, must be set to emulation.
• Needs natives dlls for DCOM.

From Wine 0.9.40 to Wine 0.9.43 :

• Processes are still alive when exiting Future Pinball, and can't run again if you don't kill previous processes.
• CHM help doesn't work.
• Vsync, Antialiasing and Anisotropic filtering doesn't work when set from the game. But setting this with your drivers settings works.
• In the video option, video mode for fullscreen mode are duplicated (for each vertical frequency available), but choosing one of possibles options give always same results.
• Sometimes, when playing a table, the first key you hit put the pause and you can't do anything.
• Some textures are rarely missing in the editor (but are ok in the game).It's a jpeg loading problem.
• Sound doesn't work with hardware acceleration, must be set to emulation.
• Needs natives dlls for DCOM.
• Needs native urlmon.dll for texture displayed during gameplay.

With Wine 0.9.39 :

• Processes are still alive when exiting Future Pinball, and can't run again if you don't kill previous processes.
• CHM help doesn't work.
• Sound doesn't work well, must be disabled.
• Vsync, Antialiasing and Anisotropic filtering doesn't work when set from the game. But setting this with your drivers settings works.
• In the video option, video mode for fullscreen mode are duplicated (for each vertical frequency available), but choosing one of possible option give always same results.
• Sometimes, when playing a table, the first key you hit put the pause and you can't do anything.
• Some textures are rarely missing in the editor (but are ok in the game).
• Needs natives dlls for DCOM.
• Needs native urlmon.dll for texture displayed during gameplay.

With older Wine version (from 0.9.30 to 0.9.38 as far as I know) :

• Processes are still alive when exiting Future Pinball, and can't run again if you don't kill previous processes.
• Textures on the playfield aren't visibles.
• Textures on external sides of the pinball are missings.
• Sound doesn't work well, must be disabled.
• Future Pinball logo is all grey at the bottom-right edge.
• Table loading screen is not correct (texture issues).
• Editor have some drawing refresh issues.
• CHM help doesn't work. • Sometimes, when playing a table, the first key you hit put the pause and you can't do anything.
• Vsync, Antialiasing and Anisotropic filtering doesn't work when set from the game. But setting this with your drivers settings works.
• In the video option, video mode for fullscreen mode are duplicated (for each vertical frequency available), but choosing one of possible option give always same results.
• Some textures are rarely missing in the editor (but are ok in the game).
• Needs natives dlls for DCOM (DCOM98.EXE).
• Needs natives dlls for crypto (crypt32.dll and rsaenh.dll).