[Wine] Re: Getting Alibre Design to work...

[bigseb]

Got alibre running BUT the display area is greyed out. This makes it unusable. Good news: apparently this is the furthest anyone has ever got to getting Alibre to run in Wine. So maybe more progress can be made. 

I email Alibre support regarding this and sent a couple of screenshots. This was their reply:

"In order to most effectively use Alibre Design, your video card, its drivers, and your DirectX installation must be working correctly. Following these directions should solve any display or video performance issues you might experience.


Does your video card meet the requirements for Alibre Design? Alibre uses DirectX 9.0c for maximum performance and stability. However, many older video cards and drivers do not support this standard and in some cases, the only option is to purchase a new video card for your computer. Your video card must support:

    * 64 MB of video memory or more (128 MB or more recommended)
    * DirectX 9.0c or higher (Windows Vista includes DirectX 10)
    * DirectDraw Acceleration
    * Direct3D Acceleration
    * AGP Texture Acceleration


Alibre recommends cards from the following series:

    * nVidia FX 5500 series or better
    * ATI Radeon 9000 series or better
    * Intel 82815 Graphics Controller or better


Alibre recommends against:

    * nVidia Quadro cards of any version
    * Cards which claim to be optimized for OpenGL - Alibre uses DirectX and will not benefit from this


Even if you have a recommended video card, your drivers must be up-to-date. DirectX 9.0c was released in August of 2004 and as a general rule, if the video card driver is older than August 2005, then it will most likely not run. Here is how to determine the age of your drivers:

   1. Go to the Start Menu and select Control Panel.
   2. Click on System.
   3. Go to the Hardware tab > Device Manager > Display adapters.
   4. Right-click on it and select the Properties > Drivers tab.
   5. Go to your video card manufacturer's website and see if they have a newer driver than the one that you are currently using. If there is a newer driver, please install it. Most graphics cards are from one of these three manufacturers:
          * ATI: http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html
          * Intel: http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/
          * nVidia: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx

Your DirectX version must be 9.0c (for Windows XP) or 10 (for Windows Vista). If you have an older version of DirectX, please browse to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/ to download the latest update. If you are unsure which version you have, please follow these steps:

   1. Open the Start Menu
          * If you are running Windows XP, select Run. Type "dxdiag" in the Open box, then hit Enter.
          * If you are running Windows Vista, type "dxdiag" in the Search box, then hit Enter.
   2. If you receive a dialog box about digital signatures, select Yes.
   3. In the System tab, the last line in the ”System Information” section will tell you the version you are running. Alibre needs 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904) or higher.
   4. Go to the Display tab to test the DirectX capabilities.
   5. Make sure that these are all enabled:
          * DirectDraw Acceleration
          * Direct3D Acceleration
          * AGP Texture Acceleration
   6. Also, please run these two tests:
          * Test DirectDraw
          * Test Direct3D
   7. Click the Save All Information button at the bottom of the DirectX screen and attach the *.txt file to the support incident. We will use the file to help determine your operating system, video card and video card driver, and other information in case the previous steps did not solve your display issues.


You must also make sure that your color depth is set to 16-bit or higher and your resolution is 800x600 or higher.

   1. Right-click on your desktop and select Display Properties. Go to the Settings tab and change the color depth to 16-bit or higher, and make sure that your screen resolution is 800x600 at a minimum (1024x768 or higher is recommended).

If you are still having display issues, it could be that your video card does not support AGP Stencil Buffering, which is a new requirement in version 10 to implement Fast Views.

   1. In the Home Window, go to Tools > Options and select the Display tab.
   2. Change the Advanced 2D rendering option to "Disabled".
   3. Close and reopen Alibre.


We hope this helps. If you need any clarification or have any further questions, just let us know and we will be happy to help."


Perhaps this can help shed light on the matter. I will continue to experiment myself however all input is welcome. Personally I feel the directx9c may be the cause of it not running properly, not 100% certain though.

Apropos screenshots... how do I attach images. They might be useful.