I've put together a Wine wrapper for Saints Row 2, allowing it to be played on Linux almost like a native game & with no Wine knowledge required.

Simply run the build script to create the wrapper. If the installer files are not alongside the wrapper build files then the path to them will need to be specified either by passing it as an argument to the build script with -respath="<path>" or by setting an environment variable named WINEWRAP_RESPATH containing it. You can change the path to build the wrapper in and the name of the wrapper directory with the -buildpath= and -dirname= arguments. The build path can also be set with the WINEWRAP_BUILDPATH environment variable.

The output will be a directory containing the game set up within a preconfigured Wine prefix, along with its own copy of Wine, extracted game icons, documentation, and start script(s). From there simply run the start script to play. The start script also includes options for creating a shortcut, configuring the wrapper etc.

(to uninstall simply delete the game directory and any shortcuts you created, and the game's user data directory in ~/.local/share if you don't want to keep your saves & settings)

User data is stored under ~/.local/share/saintsrow2

Full details are in the readme.txt and release notes. Here is the download link:

saintsrow2_wine.tar.xz
(57 kB, SHA256: c7bf7bec25297bd4623a11c6e2acf022367dab47c77249b253637a3448e87dad)

Last updated 2021/07/11

The wrapper uses Wine 6.0. Wine and Winetricks will be downloaded automatically if not present; to avoid redownloading for other scripts the downloaded Wine package will be stored in ~/.cache/winewrap

In addition to Wine and Winetricks, Wine Mono will also be downloaded. This will be stored in ~/.cache/wine to save having to redownload it if it's needed again for something else.

If anyone runs into problems with this let me know by posting in this thread, Adamhm's Linux Wine Wrappers - News, FAQ &amp; Discussion and/or The "Judas&trade; does this run in Wine" thread v1.173.

GOG's framerate limit hack is disabled by default, but this can be toggled via the script's menu.

For more of my Linux Wine wrappers check out post 3 in this thread: Adamhm's Linux Wine Wrappers - News, FAQ &amp; Discussion

Bumping for a big update: I've converted the Gentlemen of the Row .bat file into a Bash script for use on Linux, and it's now included with my wrapper. Using it is pretty idiot-proof: access the start script's menu and select the GotR option. It'll automatically put all of the files in the right place so it'll be ready to play as soon as it's done :) It also includes the ability to download and extract Gentlemen of the Row automatically, although you can manually download it if you'd prefer (download "Gentlemen_of_the_Row_Saints_Row_2_Super_Mod_v1.9.2.rar" from http://idolninja.com/sr2.php & extract it into the gotr directory).

In case anyone wants to use it with the Steam version here's a download link for the GotR install script by itself: GotR_Linux.tar.xz
(11.9 kB, SHA256: 5c99c7bc8512930f6f40f8475883ccb34fa83f1e08b545a5dd3d4175d70139fa)

Just drop it into the GotR directory and run it, then move the mod files to the game dir when it's done. It requires Wine with Wine Mono in order to work so make sure that's installed before you try using it.

The script has not been 100% tested (there's a hell of a lot to go through) so there might be some bugs - a *lot* of very boring copy+pasting was involved so it's quite possible some mistakes were made - but it all seems to be fine from what I've tested so far. As usual, post here if you find any problems.

I do not use Linux but its great to see support like this :)

I also saw your post on the official SR forums about that; If not done already you might want to post this over here: https://www.saintsrowmods.com/forum/

Its kind of THE hang out place for SR modders; including idolninja.

Thank you adamhm!

Hello adamhm,

Thank you for putting this together. It is relatively simple to do with your script. I opted to try this on my LinuxMint 18.1 Cinnamon 64 bit box since GOG offered it for free briefly, otherwise I would not have taken a chance on buying it. I'm having problems with it. It is barely playable at the moment. It feels sluggish, maybe laggy is a better word. This make driving and aiming really challenging and almost not possible. Intermittently but regularly enough, keyboard input either momentarily doesn't work, or not at all depending on the situation.

I don't know how to access the script's menu to disable GOG's framerate limit hack.

And I have not tried setting UseGLSL to disabled. This is from internally in the game?

I also have not installed the Gentlemen of the Row mod. I assumed it had nothing to do with fixing the game and more to do with adding mods.

Here's my hardware specs:

---------------------------------------------

Kernel: 4.4.0-53-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 5.4.0)
Desktop: Cinnamon 3.2.7 (Gtk 3.18.9-1ubuntu3.3)
Distro: Linux Mint 18.1 Serena
Machine: Mobo: Gigabyte model: GA-890FXA-UD5
Bios: Award v: F6 date: 11/24/2010
CPU: Hexa core AMD Phenom II X6 1055T (-MCP-) cache: 3072 KB
flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4a svm) bmips: 33753
clock speeds: max: 2800 MHz 1: 1500 MHz 2: 800 MHz 3: 2800 MHz
4: 1500 MHz 5: 1500 MHz 6: 800 MHz
Graphics: Card: NVIDIA GM107 [GeForce GTX 750] bus-ID: 01:00.0
Display Server: X.Org 1.18.4 drivers: nvidia (unloaded: fbdev,vesa,nouveau)
Resolution: 1920x1200@59.95hz
GLX Renderer: GeForce GTX 750/PCIe/SSE2
GLX Version: 4.5.0 NVIDIA 367.57 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio: Card-1 NVIDIA Device 0fbc driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 01:00.1
Card-2 C-Media CMI8738/CMI8768 PCI Audio
driver: snd_cmipci port: 9e00 bus-ID: 06:06.0
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.4.0-53-generic
Network: Card: Intel 82574L Gigabit Network Connection
driver: e1000e v: 3.2.6-k port: cf00 bus-ID: 04:00.0
IF: enp4s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives: HDD Total Size: 2000.4GB (11.5% used)
ID-1: /dev/sda model: WDC_WD2002FAEX size: 2000.4GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 805G used: 199G (27%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda7
ID-2: swap-1 size: 17.18GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda8
RAID: No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 22.5C mobo: N/A gpu: 0.0:32C
Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info: Processes: 218 Uptime: 12 min Memory: 1199.6/16045.4MB
Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 5.4.0
Client: Shell (bash 4.3.461) inxi: 2.2.35

------------------------------------------------

Is my hardware not fast enough for this game? Or do I need to do something to make it play better?

Thank you for your time and effort.

It's in the release notes in the docs directory - run the start script with the menu option like so:

./start.sh menu

I'm thinking of changing all of my wrappers to start at the menu by default & adding a new create shortcut option in the menu (with shortcuts defaulting to "play" unless other options are specified). Edit: I did, new versions up now This is a Wine setting, it needs to be set from Wine's registry editor (accessed from the script menus). Under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Direct3D (you'll need to create the Direct3D key), create a string value named "UseGLSL" and set it to "disabled". The difference is minor at best though so it's probably not worth the effort. It's just a very popular mod, although it does include some minor fixes. Looks ok here, CPU is maybe a little weak. I played using an i7 2600k with GTX 750 Ti, also tested for a few minutes on an i3 6100 with integrated graphics (it worked on that but as you'd expect its performance wasn't very good).

I'd also suggest disabling vsync too if you haven't already. The main problem is that it's a pretty poor quality port & tends to run poorly even on Windows. Edit: Another thing you can try is rebooting after running the build script before you try playing it

Have you installed Wine's dependencies (it's easiest to install the system's Wine package to get them all in one go)?

One more thing: make sure you have the 32-bit versions installed as the Wine version used here is 32-bit & needs 32-bit libraries.

With the latest update this should now perform a bit better on systems using the open graphics drivers :)

Firstly, absolutely awesome job, taking a badly ported console game that was badly ported to linux, and making it playable for newbies on Linux.

I'm having a few issues though. With the sound quality. All sound output from the game sounds awful. I'm wondering if that is related to 2 lines that came up at the end of the console during the script operation:

regsvr32: 'DllRegisterServer' not implemented in DLL 'xaudio2_8.dll'
regsvr32: 'DllRegisterServer' not implemented in DLL 'xaudio2_9.dll'

And how would I go about fixing this?

Plus, and this is a secondary, but much wanted, when I add the GOTR patch through the menu, my game won't launch past the "powered by" page. The mod doesn't seem to be loaded either because its the defauilt splash screen not the GOTR replacement.

Thanks.

You should either have replied to one of adamhm's posts or posted in the discussion thread mentioned in the first post in this thread.

Someone needs help and I am not knowledgeable enough. See above!

Sorry my bad.

Those are normal; the sound issues are probably a system configuration or dependency issue. What distro are you using, and did you make sure to install Wine's dependencies?

Have you tried running the start script from the terminal & checking to see if any error messages are displayed when you try to install/configure the GOTR mod?

Hey, thanks for the reply.

Sorry for taking so long. I agree with you about the sound issues, after I posted the message I got the same sort of distortion in something else that I was running.

As for what distro I was running, also not sure, been jumping around a fair bit, trying to pick one that I'm really happy with, it was probably the latest Ubuntu. That being said, I've swapped over to Linux Mate (latest), and I'll give it another try.

Thanks for the advice on trying the script from the terminal.

Wine should have been fully up to date with all dependencies, the software installer seems to handle that quite well internally. Is there an easy way I could confirm that all dependencies are included, without checking for each one individually through the install manager?