Windowed mode on PlayOnLinux (wine)

[Laninho]

Hi,

I've recently switched from windows 10 to Ubuntu, so I'm still adapting to it.
I managed to make DH work through PlayOnLinux 4.2.5 using Wine 2.13-staging.
But, the thing is that I can only play it on full screen mode. Well, someone is probably thinking: what is the problem with that? The issue is that I can't alt+tab. I can't even press ALT without having to kill the application. I found out that I only have this kind of issue on PlayOnLinux when the application is on fullscreen.
I tried to set up a few options on steam itself, going on properties and set launch options such as -16bpp and -sw. I even went to the game folder and changed its settings.cfg to force the windowed mode but I was unsuccessful.

Can some gentle soul help me out on this endeavour?

Of course, the game is playable, but I really wish I could press alt+tab every now and then.

Thank to you all.

edit: I know that there is an option on the game launcher to launch it windowed. The game requires that I set it to 16-bit color mode to change it to windowed from fullscreen. The problem here is that I just don't know how to do that. I've tried to change it on steam but it was ineffective, and I can't just open properties and change the compatibility because I'm not on windows.

EDIT2: issue fixed as mention on my last post.

 

[mccarty.geoff]

Ctrl+Super(windows)+D will minimize all applications and show desktop. Ubuntu does allow program switching but, if a full screen application is the only thing running than you cannot alt+tab to desktop as you could with windows. Everyone complained when this was enabled by default due to redundancy. You may use compizconfig settings manager (CCSM) to reset the 'show desktop' option in the windows manager. I'm not sure what you mean by "I can't even press ALT without having to kill the application". The Alt key shouldn't kill an application but, it may in conjunction with another key/button which can be deactivated through CCSM.

You may force wine applications to window through winetricks > default prefix > change settings > enable virtual desktop modes. In order to change Ubuntu to use 16 bit color depth by default you will need to create/edit a file in /etc/X11/ called xorg.conf. If you use a nvidia display driver than you must edit it's appropriate linux configuration file instead. The file should contain:

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
Device "Configured Video Device"
DefaultDepth 16
EndSection

Therefore the easiest solution is to just use ctrl+super+D. ubuntuforums.org and askubuntu.com are invaluable resources for solutions with Ubuntu OS and it's variants.

 

[Laninho]

@mccarty.geoff thanks for your reply.

I'm not sure what you mean by "I can't even press ALT without having to kill the application". The Alt key shouldn't kill an application

I'm sorry. I didn't express myself properly. English isn't my first language and sometimes it can be rather challenging to write down my thoughts. I meant that whenever I press alt+tab when playing DH it just freezes the game screen and I can't properly switch between applications. The game keeps running, audios/music keeps running and etc, the mouse cursor is still on screen but I can't interact with the game screen anymore so I'm forced to kill it by pressing alt+f2 and typing 'xkill'. If I press only the ALT key, it opens the command menu (or something like that), making my game freeze like I explained before.

I tried ctrl+super+D but it didn't work. It took me to my desktop screen like it supposed to but when I try to go back to DH, my screen is still frozen. Leaving me no choice but to kill the process.

Just to clarify my problem: I only get this problem when playing games on fullscreen through wine. If I play CK2 using linux steam client I can alt+tab without concern. That's why I wanted a way to play DH on windowed mode.

 

[Laninho]

You may force wine applications to window through winetricks > default prefix > change settings > enable virtual desktop modes.

This solved my problem. I just set the option to emulate virtual desktop and set resolution to 1440x900 (my max monitor resolution). Now I can launch DH on fullscreen, but it doenst crash or freeze when switching between applications (alt+tab).

Thank you, my friend.

Edit: because the game is windowed I can't use my cursor to move the screen around, but I can use the arrow keys for that. I guess it's a fair trade.

 

[mccarty.geoff]

Now, I'm stuck on "it opens the command menu". Sounds like a either a bad installation of wine or non-standard settings because programs shouldn't freeze when put to sleep than run again. I don't use PlayonLinux so maybe thats what is opening a 'command menu'? Not that I am suggesting that this command menu maybe freezing the game state. If you want further diagnosis than I need your computer harware specifications and OS/relevant software versions.

Only problems with Wine are that it lacks a fast fragmenting paging file and uses to much CPU cycles compared too Windows. If you're satisfied with virtual desktop than that is okay. Happy to help.

 

[Laninho]

I'm using Ubuntu 15.04. When I press alt key, it pop-ups a menu on the top bar of my screee, on which it says 'type your command'. It's some kind of shortcut.
PlayOnLinux is wine for dummies. It provides a graphical interface for wine, making it easier for noobies like me to install and configure wine.
But I managed to solve my 'freezing' issue when using alt+tab by doing one of your recommendations -- enabling wine virtual desktop. So, once more, thank you very much.

 

[mccarty.geoff]

Oh yeah I remember that. That was annoying and amongst other stupid default software and configurations the reason I switched to Lubuntu. You can disable and edit the "HUD" though this method:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/122209/how-do-i-modify-or-disable-the-huds-use-of-the-alt-key
Doubt that would fix the freezing issue on minimize/sleep. I don't trust a wrapper like PlayonLinux though it's configuration can probably be modified to correct this problem. Vanilla Wine is as easy to install as 'sudo apt-get install wine' and afterwards you have all of your windows applications in a start menu directory (in Lubuntu/LXDE) and windows executables are functional.