Hi folks. It's me, one of the guys behind the Jazz 1 patch that fixed Orbitus among other things.
I am a Linux user, and a great lover of both Jazz Jackrabbit games.
Jazz 1 is easy-peasy on Linux, GOG provides a pre-set-up DOSBox download (I do wish they used DOSBox-staging instead of upstream DOSBox which hasn't been updated in years, but I digress) – however, Jazz 2 is slightly harder.
Only slightly harder, mind you.
Let's take a look.
PREPARATIONS Whatever distro you may be using, your first port of call is to install
Winetricks. If your package manager is working at all, it will automatically install any dependencies for you (even Wine itself, if by some miracle you don't have it already).
The next important thing is to fetch the Jazz 2 installer from your GOG downloads page. Note, do
not get the Galaxy installer. Use the offline / "backup" installer. And download it – but don't run it. That comes later.
The final setup stage is to download
cnc-ddraw. You
can run the game without this, but you may experience bugs and visual imperfections.
POURING YOURSELF A GLASS... Open Winetricks, and use its (pretty intuitive) UI to make a new Wine prefix, by selecting the option
<Create a new wineprefix> and clicking OK.
A Wine prefix is just, basically, another instance of Fake Windows. If you maintain several different ones, it'll make specific configuration a little less painful. My Jazz 2 Wine prefix is just called Jazz2, which means it lives in ~/.local/share/wineprefixes/jazz2
When Winetricks is done setting you up, all you have to do is select the Winetricks option to
<Run an arbitrary executable (.exe/.msi/.msu)> and point it to GOG's offline Jazz Jackrabbit 2 installer. Follow the onscreen instructions. I personally would change the install folder to C:/Games/Jazz2, for simplicity. (This is the file path Wine is tricking the programme into thinking it's using – the actual path would be ~/.local/share/wineprefixes/jazz2/c_drive/Games/Jazz2)
Okay, nearly there.
Extract the contents of the cnc-ddraw.zip into your Jazz 2 install folder. This may replace a DLL or two.
Finally, in Winetricks, choose the
<Run winecfg> option. It will open a little Windows-style config window. Go to the Libraries tab, and in the little box, type in ddraw.dll
ddraw will appear in the little list below the box. Highlight it and click edit – choose
<Native then Builtin>, and click OK.
Helpful image. Congratulations, the game should run nicely. There should be a handy-dandy shortcut in your launcher (or Start Menu, if you're still using the Windows lingo). Just use that to run the game. You're all set. The level editor, Jazz Creation Station, should work too!
But, what if you want to tweak your experience a little more? (And as a Linux user, of course you do.)
FURTHER REFINEMENTS By default, the game will appear slightly blurry on your (presumably) high-def monitor. You can work on this, once again with our old friend Winetricks, by choosing the
<Run explorer> option. Then navigate through your Wine filesystem into your Jazz 2 folder, and find
cnc-ddraw-config.exe. Double-click it to run it.
Helpful image. You will see a nice, friendly little window with all sorts of options. Tinker with them as you wish, but my own setup (which I recommend) is:
—Display Settings— Presentation: Windowed
Maintain aspect ratio: YES
Enable VSync: NO
Adjust mouse sensitivity: YES
Lock cursor to window / screen: YES
—Advanced Settings— Renderer: OpenGL
OpenGL shader: Shaders\nearest-neighbor.glsl
Limit frame rate: YES
Enable windowboxing / integer scaling: NO
Show window borders in windowed mode: YES
Remember window position and size: YES
—Compatibility Settings— Limit game speed: Sync with monitor refresh rate
Fix broken Alt-Tab: NO
Unlock additional screen resolutions: YES
Force high FPS / Fix stuttering on Freesync/G-Sync: NO
Fix bad performance and sound issues: NO
Fix invisible videos / UI elements: YES
... But by all means, play with these settings to achieve the result you want.
In theory, someone cleverer than me could put together a downloadable Bash file to automate 90% of this, but personally I think there's value in teaching someone how to set it up for themselves – particularly since such Bash scripts have existed in the past, and have broken with time.
The only additional thing you'll need to do is handled by the game itself – updating to the latest version of JJ2+. There's a friendly update screen when you start it up. And make no mistake, you should always update when given the chance. The Plus team does great work.