I have been struggling to get Witcher 2 to work, on and off for months. I have yet to be able to even start the game. The farthest I've gotten is to launcher screens with options.

First of all, I would love to know why they went out of their way to make a 64-bit crash reporter when the game is only 32-bit. The game should be 64-bit in this day and age. The issue is that I had to edit the script to start the crash reporter as it couldn't start up with the 64-bit binary.

For the libraries, I read that I could use the Steam 32-bit library collection using LD_LIBRARY_PATH. I did use it and it finally managed to get the launcher working, but it crashes on game start saying:

*** BREAKPAD CRASH ***
/home/lunac/The Witcher 2 Assassins Of Kings/game/CrashReporter.i386: error while loading shared libraries: libgtk-3.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
/home/lunac/The Witcher 2 Assassins Of Kings/game/CrashReporter.i386: /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.20' not found (required by /home/lunac/The Witcher 2 Assassins Of Kings/game/CrashReporter.i386)

It reports the libgtk-3.so.0 even though I used:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$HOME/lib32-steam:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:."

Strangely enough, it finds all the other 32-bit libraries there (which it reports are missing if NOT using LD_LIBRARY_PATH) but it seems to ignore at least libgtk-3.so.0 .

I've asked in this forum and the Witcher 2 port devs for a list of the exact version of everything used, particularly libraries, but I haven't even got a response so far. So I'll ask here again for an exact list of what libraries and binaries needed.

I keep wondering if I should trade this game for something that actually works, like the Deponia series, since this has been looking hopeless for months.

Can you post a few details about your system, mainly: Distro, which graphics card, drivers and version you are using, and lastly did you download the game from Steam or GOG?

***System Hardware:

x86_64 Intel Core i5-4670 CPU @ 3.40GHz GenuineIntel

VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Haswell Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 06)
Subsystem: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd Device d000
Kernel driver in use: i915
Kernel modules: i915

HD Graphics 4600
Shader Model 5.0
OpenGL 3.3 on Linux
OpenCL 1.2 Support
Hardware Acceleration
Intel Clear Video HD (CVT HD)
Intel Quick Sync Video (QSV)

Dynamic Video Memory Technology (Unlisted MB)

RAM: 8 GB

HDD: 1 TB

***System Software:

Linux Slackware 14.1 64-bit , with 32-bit compatibility libraries ( [url=http://alien.slackbook.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=slackware:multilib]http://alien.slackbook.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=slackware:multilib[/url] )

Linux Kernel 3.10.61

- Kernel Drivers

i915

intel_agp

- Software Drivers

xf86-video-intel-2.99.910

Mesa-10.0.3

s2tc-lib compressed textures support

***Game Software:

Current: gog_the_witcher_2_assassins_of_kings_1.1.0.5.tar

Prior: gog_the_witcher_2_assassins_of_kings_1.1.0.4.tar + gog_the_witcher_2_assassins_of_kings_1.1.0.5 Patch. I'm unsure about these last numbers, as I deleted them for just taking up lots of space and crashing in the same way.

Really, thanks for the response! It's the first response I've ever gotten about this game after months of testing and asking!

From the System requirements page on Steam:

MESA based drivers (e.g. "nouveau", "radeonsi") are not currently supported.
Intel integrated graphics are not currently supported.

You have a great CPU and the right amount of memory but the integrated graphics cannot handle many games, especially graphically intensive ones such as Witcher 2.

Currently the best budget friendly cards to play such games are the Nvidia GTX 750 Ti (good enough for W2 on medium) and the Nvidia GTX 960 (W2 playable on high details at 1920x1080).

I hope this helps :-)

Yes! Thank you! That does help.

It just means I will keep it until I can play it or trade it in for something I like.

For me it runs with Mesa based radeon driver since Mesa 10.3 (both Radeon HD 5850/5870). I think Mesa may not be the problem in the first place. An upgrade from your rather old 10.0 to a more recent version otherwise could help a lot. The same goes for the kernel, a more recent version will bump performance a lot, but don't expect wonders since your integrated graphics are rather slow. Perhaps it is enough for a proof of concept though.

Although I don't run Slackware, for Fedora I can tell that I needed some additional dependencies to be installed, especially concerning 64-bit machines:

SDL2
SDL2_image
alsa-plugin-pulseaudio (since Witcher 2 runs with ALSA)

All of them i686 or whatever it is called in Slackware. There may be more to go.

I've switched very recently to Linux Mint "Rosa". I have the i386 versions of those and more, but it's still not running, and what's worse, the Crash Reporter was compiled against an older version of GLIBCXX (3.4.20), I think, so it's not even reporting the crash.

*** BREAKPAD CRASH ***
The-Witcher-2-Assassins-Of-Kings-Enhanced-Edition/game/CrashReporter.x86_64: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.20' not found (required by CrashReporter.x86_64)

*LDD on the binary reports everything is in order:

linux-gate.so.1 => (0xf77b0000)
libGL.so.1 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/mesa/libGL.so.1 (0xf7729000)
libSDL2-2.0.so.0 => ./libSDL2-2.0.so.0 (0xf7615000)
libSDL2_image-2.0.so.0 => ./libSDL2_image-2.0.so.0 (0xf75ed000)
librt.so.1 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/librt.so.1 (0xf75e4000)
libdl.so.2 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0xf75df000)
libfreetype.so.6 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libfreetype.so.6 (0xf753f000)
libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6 (0xf740b000)
libopenal-eon.so.1 => ./libopenal-eon.so.1 (0xf73a0000)
libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 (0xf72b8000)
libm.so.6 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0xf7272000)
libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 (0xf7255000)
libpthread.so.0 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0xf7239000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0xf708a000)
libglapi.so.0 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libglapi.so.0 (0xf7072000)
libXext.so.6 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libXext.so.6 (0xf705f000)
libXdamage.so.1 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libXdamage.so.1 (0xf705b000)
libXfixes.so.3 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libXfixes.so.3 (0xf7055000)
libX11-xcb.so.1 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libX11-xcb.so.1 (0xf7051000)
libxcb-glx.so.0 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libxcb-glx.so.0 (0xf7039000)
libxcb-dri2.so.0 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libxcb-dri2.so.0 (0xf7033000)
libxcb-dri3.so.0 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libxcb-dri3.so.0 (0xf702f000)
libxcb-present.so.0 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libxcb-present.so.0 (0xf702b000)
libxcb-sync.so.1 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libxcb-sync.so.1 (0xf7023000)
libxcb.so.1 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libxcb.so.1 (0xf7001000)
libxshmfence.so.1 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libxshmfence.so.1 (0xf6ffe000)
libXxf86vm.so.1 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libXxf86vm.so.1 (0xf6ff8000)
libdrm.so.2 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libdrm.so.2 (0xf6fea000)
libasound.so.2 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libasound.so.2 (0xf6ef3000)
libpulse-simple.so.0 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libpulse-simple.so.0 (0xf6eee000)
libpulse.so.0 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libpulse.so.0 (0xf6e9f000)
libXcursor.so.1 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libXcursor.so.1 (0xf6e94000)
libXinerama.so.1 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libXinerama.so.1 (0xf6e90000)
libXi.so.6 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libXi.so.6 (0xf6e7f000)
libXrandr.so.2 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libXrandr.so.2 (0xf6e74000)
libXss.so.1 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libXss.so.1 (0xf6e70000)
libwayland-egl.so.1 => ./libwayland-egl.so.1 (0xf6e6d000)
libwayland-client.so.0 => ./libwayland-client.so.0 (0xf6e61000)
libwayland-cursor.so.0 => ./libwayland-cursor.so.0 (0xf6e57000)
libxkbcommon.so.0 => ./libxkbcommon.so.0 (0xf6e1b000)
libpng12.so.0 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libpng12.so.0 (0xf6df3000)
libjpeg.so.8 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libjpeg.so.8 (0xf6d98000)
libtiff.so.5 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libtiff.so.5 (0xf6d25000)
libwebp.so.5 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libwebp.so.5 (0xf6cd4000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0xf77b2000)
libz.so.1 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libz.so.1 (0xf6cba000)
libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libXau.so.6 (0xf6cb6000)
libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libXdmcp.so.6 (0xf6caf000)
libpulsecommon-4.0.so => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/pulseaudio/libpulsecommon-4.0.so (0xf6c3f000)
libjson-c.so.2 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libjson-c.so.2 (0xf6c34000)
libdbus-1.so.3 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libdbus-1.so.3 (0xf6be9000)
libXrender.so.1 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libXrender.so.1 (0xf6bde000)
libffi.so.6 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libffi.so.6 (0xf6bd7000)
liblzma.so.5 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/liblzma.so.5 (0xf6bb0000)
libjbig.so.0 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libjbig.so.0 (0xf6ba1000)
libwrap.so.0 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libwrap.so.0 (0xf6b97000)
libsndfile.so.1 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libsndfile.so.1 (0xf6b25000)
libasyncns.so.0 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libasyncns.so.0 (0xf6b1e000)
libnsl.so.1 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libnsl.so.1 (0xf6b04000)
libFLAC.so.8 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libFLAC.so.8 (0xf6ad0000)
libvorbisenc.so.2 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libvorbisenc.so.2 (0xf6958000)
libvorbis.so.0 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libvorbis.so.0 (0xf692c000)
libogg.so.0 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libogg.so.0 (0xf6923000)
libresolv.so.2 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libresolv.so.2 (0xf690a000)

*Running saferun gets this:

./saferun.sh: 15: shift: can't shift that many

*I'm in a much better position to fix things now with Linux Mint, and things should be much more compatible.

Just checked this out since I'm running Mint "Rosa" too, the game runs fine, although I think I know what your issue is.

If you extracted the game manually, follow this guide:

1) Go to your "Witcher 2/game/CookedPC" folder
2) Open a terminal in this folder, paste this command and run it: cat pack0.dzip.split* > pack0.dzip
3) When done, again in terminal paste and run: rm pack0.dzip.split*
4) Now you can launch your game :-)

This was something that already happened to someone else here on the forum and the above fix was suggested.

How are we running the same stuff and I still can't run it!?

I ran those commands successfully, but now I just have even more errors! How!? Why!? WTF!?


libGL error: failed to open drm device: Permission denied
libGL error: failed to load driver: i965
*** BREAKPAD CRASH ***
The-Witcher-2-Assassins-Of-Kings-Enhanced-Edition/game/CrashReporter.x86_64: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.20' not found (required by CrashReporter.x86_64)


What I understand from this is that something is drm-encrypted, and my MESA version was not compiled with the i965 driver loaded in the options, while the game was compiled with it loaded.

I'm not even sure who to report this to.

Maybe the handful of mint libraries I found on these forums to fix it are now getting in the way and I should just reinstall the whole thing and try again? Did you install anything specific for it?

Maybe it's a hardware issue? My chipset? My motherboard?

Do I reinstall mint from scratch, which took me nearly 3 days (sporadic) configuring to get it working right? Not all that much of a problem, but only worth it if it's likely to fix it. Maybe it would be easier to just reget all the basic stuff Mint comes with at the start ... not sure how.

The libGL errors could be related to your Mesa drivers, as of yet I don't have an answer to that, the GLIBCXX error still persists though, can you go in the "Witcher 2/game/CookedPC" folder and check for a file called "pack0.dzip"? It should be about 12GB big.

12 GB? No, it's 10.5 GB (10,515,200,574 bytes) according to Thunar's checking system. I downloaded Witcher 2 again just a couple of days ago.

Maybe I'm missing 32-bit Mesa altogether. I'm a little worried it might remove some of 64-bit Mesa and xorg (recently did that with xorg, but fixed it). I'm not sure which of the dozens of Mesa versions to install. Which did you use for this?

Ok 10.5 that's fine, was just making sure the terminal commands worked correctly.

I'm using an Nvidia card (doesn't use Mesa drivers), so can't help much atm. However I have an Intel HD Graphics GPU too so I can set up a similar environment as yours in the coming days.

Your problem is not related to encryption, DRM means Direct Rendering Manager which is a part of the graphics infrastructure.

I think the DRM driver is just not loaded properly and therefore the game won't launch. Please try to install 32-bit Mesa.

I love acronyms that can mean 10 different things in the same field.

I did try to install 32-bit Mesa, and I'm still recovering from the mess it caused. Luckily from my experiences in messing with it on Slackware, I knew x-server could be easily fixed by just reinstalling xorg (again, the rest of the mess I'm still managing).

So please, be very specific about the Mesa and SDL libraries I need. Mint's list of software is huge, and the search is terrible. If you have specific apt-get commands, please relieve me from the madness of 32-bit compatibility hell and tell me.

http://community.linuxmint.com/software/browse

Ok so I've tested Witcher 2 with Mint 17.3 - Mate Edition and I did this exactly step by step:

1) Installed Witcher 2 normally to my 'home/username/W2' folder. - Took about 15mins to finish, it's a big game.

2) Download and Extract the following archive witcher_2_libraries_linux_mint.tar.gz in your "Witcher 2/game" folder. - This will save you time from installing the missing libraries.

3) Next I've created a bootable USB containing the Mint 17.3 iso (can be an optical disc doesn't make a difference).

4) Loaded the Linux Mint 17.3 Disc in "Live Mode" and waited for it to load the desktop.

5) Mounted the hard drive and browsed to where the game was installed and ran the 'start.sh' file.

Game worked without having to do anything else, performance wasn't very good since the Intel HD chip isn't that strong, but the game runs without errors.

Regarding Step 3: The game would run no different if you choose to install Mint to the hard drive, I simply ran it in Live Mode because it's the quickest way to test the game with intel graphics.


Below you can find an attached screenshot of the game running.