Tis magic.

My understanding it's a combination of this: Game engine quirk, Wine D3D to OpenGL translation layer and driver implementation. According to the OpenGL spec what the driver returns is undefined if the value is outside of the bounds. The patch adds a range check which normalizes out of bounds values (I think). The reg key toggles the check on as it comes with a slight performance hit. Not to mention that for a while The Witcher was the only reported program that had the issue.

Oh, WineHQ now has official pre-built OS X packages for Wine Devel & Staging courtesy of the Staging people. Just found out about it the other week.

Does that mean Shadow Watch works for you under Wine?

It's listed as garbage on WineHQ, although with a very old Wine version.

Game: Shadow Watch
Installer MD5: be075ed9fa2e689a63d837b79b54c477
WineHQ AppDB link: https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=4800
CodeWeavers link: n/a
Distro: Mac OS X El Capitain 10.11.4
Kernel version: Darwin 15.4.0 (Build 15E65)
Graphics card: Nvidia GeForce 320m
Graphics driver & version: OS Default
Wine version(s) tested: Wine 1.9.5/Wine Staging 1.9.7 via Wineskin Winery

Install notes: No redistributable components needed - just install & play. Set ddr=gdi in Winetricks if graphics corruption or screen flickering is seen.
How well does it run: Almost perfectly
Details: Intro cutscene and logo cutscene don't play on launch. Saving and loading games works as expected. Only the intro mission has been played so far, but there have been no other problems observed, otherwise.

On Wine 1.9.5 the log is filled with the message "fixme:msvcrt:MSVCRT__wsopen_s : pmode 0x01b4 ignored". On Wine Staging 1.9.7 this also happens, but the message, "err:d3d:swapchain_gdi_frontbuffer_updated Trying to blit a mapped surface." is also seen.

Too late! :P

That has been fast. Thank you!

I guess I can live with the missing cut scenes when the rest of the game works. :)

No problem! I've had the game working well under WINE 1.5.31 and WINE 1.7.50, as well as in CrossOver 15.x, too. I haven't had the chance to get more in-depth into the game though, so YMMV of course. :)

Game: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Installer MD5: 1f0694e57f09c8b45e6c94023203ef0b setup_pop_sands_of_time_2.0.0.4.exe
WineHQ AppDB link: https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=19551
CodeWeavers link: https://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/crossover/prince-of-persia-sands-of-time

Distro: Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon 64bit
Kernel version: 3.19.0-58
Graphics card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 750Ti
Graphics driver & version: Proprietary 364.15
Wine version(s) tested: Wine Staging 1.9.5 via PlayOnLinux, CrossOver 15.1.0

Install notes: Just install & play.
If using PlayOnLinux, run the game from/create a shortcut for "PrinceOfPersia.EXE"
How well does it run: Perfect
Details: Tested with virtual desktop and CSMT enabled.
Having fog effects enabled will cause issues & you won't be able to see anything (this happens on Windows with certain setups too). To fix this, edit Hardware.ini in the game's main directory (after starting the game for the first time & creating a profile) and setting the following lines as so:

ForceVSFog=1
InvertFogRange=0

It was also mentioned in one of the WineHQ reports that water effects have similar issues; these changes may or may not fix that. I played for a few hours (~33% completion) with these changes applied and did not encounter any issues though.

Game: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
Installer MD5s:
0a87d2db1640623f8cac9debb1fb8984 setup_pop_warior_within_2.0.0.9-1.bin
b428099ce0f8bf8c2050e8864a1bbfc1 setup_pop_warior_within_2.0.0.9-2.bin
4eac8a2c7831fe2469d41fe86561d581 setup_pop_warior_within_2.0.0.9.exe
WineHQ AppDB link: https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=29083
CodeWeavers link: https://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/crossover/prince-of-persia-warrior-within

Distro: Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon 64bit
Kernel version: 3.19.0-58
Graphics card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 750Ti
Graphics driver & version: Proprietary 364.15
Wine version(s) tested: Wine Staging 1.9.5 via PlayOnLinux, CrossOver 15.1.0

Install notes: Just install & play.
If using PlayOnLinux, run the game from/create a shortcut for "PrinceOfPersia.exe"
How well does it run: Perfect
Details: Tested with virtual desktop and CSMT enabled. Have only tested the game for a short while but appears to work just as well as Sands of Time.
As with Sands of Time, having fog/water effects enabled will cause issues & you won't be able to see anything (this happens on Windows with certain setups too). The fix is the same as for Sands of Time: edit Hardware.ini in the game's main directory (after starting the game for the first time & creating a profile) and setting the following lines as so:

ForceVSFog=1
InvertFogRange=0

Could I request you try testing Two Thrones, as well?

Much better when you actually see what happens in the game and do not get a black screen after a few seconds. :)

Thanks for digging out this solution!

Of course, as usual. :)

That reminds me of my problems with Startopia. Although the GOG version of the game is rated Platinum on WineHQ I cannot play it. The game starts, but the menus are invisible. The green text and buttons are not rendered. When I move the mouse or press a mouse button sometimes the green text is displayed for a fraction of a second, but way too short to read it or press a button.

Any ideas how to solve this problem?


Edit: I seem to be able to press the buttons, even when they are invisible. So some screenshots of the menus already may be enough to get a game started?

Game: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones
Installer MD5: a16789fa009ba262ee8c88fa0f86e7d9 setup_pop_the_two_thrones_2.0.0.5.exe
WineHQ AppDB link: https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=3788
CodeWeavers link: https://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/crossover/prince-of-persia-the-two-thrones

Distro: Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon 64bit
Kernel version: 3.19.0-58
Graphics card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 750Ti
Graphics driver & version: Proprietary 364.15
Wine version(s) tested: Wine Staging 1.9.5 via PlayOnLinux, CrossOver 15.1.0

Install notes: Just install & play.
If using PlayOnLinux, run the game from/create a shortcut for "PrinceOfPersia.exe"
How well does it run: Perfect
Details: Tested with virtual desktop and CSMT enabled. Have only played for a few hours but it appears to work perfectly.

I remember getting Startopia to run quite well, but I don't exactly recall what I did as it was a while ago. Have you tried setting useGLSL=disable? Perhaps running directx9 in winetricks?

I've already tried to install d3dx9_36, d3dx9 and directx9, in that order. Disabling GLSL also does not help.

But I've found the solution. :) In one of the reports on WineHQ there's a bug report about flickering menus with a workaround which fixes the invisible menus for me: Set OffscreenRenderingMode to backbuffer (winetricks orm=backbuffer).

After the installation of all the Directx libraries I'll have to check with a fresh installation if this setting alone fixes the menus. But that's for later ...