Gothic on Linux: Notes & Tips

**Game Information**
Title	Gothic
Year	2001
Developer	Piranha Bytes Software GmbH
Graphics API	DirectX 7
Audio API	DirectSound3D, DirectMusic

Runtime Environment

Wine version: Proton: 8.0-5 (Proton 9 throws Access Violation errors)

Prefix architecture: 64-bit

DXVK

DXVK is included in Proton 8.0-5 but is really old v2.3.

I placed the new DXVK into the game system folder.

d3d11: d3d11.dll and dxgi.dll

Notes

Added dgVoodoo2 library:

ddraw.dll
d3dimm.dll

Selected the workshop release from beta participation, so is possible to use mods from the Steam Workshop.

Workshop subscribed to fix few issues with the game:

In the launch options I put the following arguments:

WINEDLLOVERRIDES="ddraw,dinput,dxgi,d3d11,dsound=n,b" DXVK_HUD=fps,version,scale=0.6 DXVK_FRAME_RATE=30 %command%

The dinput.dll is a special library, converts DirectInput 1-7 (dinput.dll) to DirectInput 8 (dinput8.dll) for older games.

The version included with the game is v1.0.16.0 buty is possible to find a new version on the GitHub page.

Music

Winetricks required: directmusic

Gothic 1 uses Microsoft’s DirectMusic system for its soundtrack playback. The game’s original audio engine relied on DirectMusic to handle its dynamic, layered music themes. This is why running Gothic 1 on modern systems (or Linux/Steam Deck) often requires installing DirectMusic DLLs or using mods that replace it.

On Steam Deck & Linux: Gothic 1 won’t play music unless DirectMusic components (dmusic, dmloader, dmstyle, etc.) are installed via Protontricks

3D spatial sound (EAX2) can be restored using DSOAL

IMPORTANT: dsound.dll and dsoal-aldrv.dll need to be placed in the system\autorun folder.

Troubleshooting

Issue: Game reverts back to Miles Fast even after EAX restoration software is installed and enabled • Link

Fix: Gothic doesn't see dsound.dll wrapper from EAX restoration software.

Create pre.load file, which orders game to load dsound.dll wrapper.

Open a text editor.
Write exactly dsound.dll to document.
Save the document exactly as pre.load to <path-to-game>\System\.
Launch the game, change sound provider to Creative EAX 2 and quit. Relaunch the game and check if sound provider is still the same.

Notes

Users with Union (SystemPack 2.0) patch need to put dsound.dll (and dsound.ini) to <path-to-game>\System\autorun).

Users with old SystemPack installed have to change FixMss=1 to FixMss=0 in SystemPack.ini configuration file. SystemPack uses own implementation of restoring surround sound, which is purely software and because of that EAX restoration software will not make effect if FixMss is set to 1.

Did you know?

The d3dimm.dll library is related to Microsoft’s Direct3D Immediate Mode, part of the DirectX 1–7 era graphics APIs. It was used by older Windows games to access 3D rendering functions before the modern retained-mode Direct3D pipeline was introduced.