SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 4 Episode I

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 4 Episode I

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Running the game with Wine/Proton
By djcj
How to start the game on Linux using Wine/Proton
   
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Launching with Proton
There are 3 issues you will encounter when you try to run this game with wine:
  • the launcher requires Java (the game itself doesn't)
  • the game needs a native version of d3dcompiler_47.dll
  • launching the game from Steam totally messes up the sound

I assume you have already activated Proton for all games so you could install this game on Linux.

Open a terminal and move into the directory of Sonic 4:
cd "$HOME/.steam/steam/steamapps/common/Sonic the Hedgehog 4 EP 1"

Rename (or delete) the old launcher and download a launcher I have written that doesn't require Java or any other extra runtime (source code is available on Github):

Now you need to download a real native version of d3dcompiler_47.dll, because the game doesn't launch with the one that comes with Wine. We can get it from the Firefox setup file. Download the Windows 32 bit .exe setup file from Mozilla's homepage and extract it with 7z:
7z e 'Firefox Setup xx.x.x.exe' core/d3dcompiler_47.dll

To launch the game set the library search path and start it with Proton's wine command. You can launch it from Steam too, but that messes up the sound and I don't know how to fix that. Make sure the Proton directory name matches the one you have installed.
proton="Proton 4.11" export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$HOME/.local/share/Steam/steam/steamapps/common/$proton/dist/lib:"\ "$HOME/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/pinned_libs_32:"\ "$HOME/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/lib/i386-linux-gnu:"\ "$HOME/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/usr/lib:"\ "$HOME/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu:"\ "$HOME/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/pinned_libs_64:"\ "$HOME/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/amd64/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu:"\ "$HOME/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/amd64/usr/lib:"\ "$HOME/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/amd64/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu" "$HOME/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/$proton/dist/bin/wine" \ "$HOME/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Sonic the Hedgehog 4 EP 1/SonicLauncher.exe"

Of course you can also try to launch the game with your system's version of wine.
9 Comments
sOmbre 23 Feb @ 1:17pm 
Still work, thank you very much for this return to the future ; )
RIP Ozzy The Godfather Of Metal 9 Jan, 2024 @ 8:47am 
Or run the game and then pour yourself a glass of wine and play.
phispi 18 Nov, 2021 @ 2:39pm 
No sound problems with Proton 6.3-7 when directly starting from Steam after replacing SonicLauncher.exe and adding d3dcompiler_47.dll. Thanks!
AI Chat Bot 26 Jan, 2020 @ 3:08pm 
Thanks!
OSA413 7 Jul, 2019 @ 4:36am 
Another option: get the dll from Krita (it's a GPLv3 program).
It is located in setup_file -> bin -> d3dcompiler_47.dll
djcj  [author] 6 Jul, 2019 @ 8:18am 
Great, looks like Steam thinks links from Mozilla are dangerous, so they get removed. I've changed the description.
OSA413 4 Jul, 2019 @ 7:15pm 
Firefox setup link is dead.
OSA413 19 Jun, 2019 @ 5:21am 
P.S. 2 - I've applied a tweak before that fixed sound issues in Puyo Puyo Tetris/Champions, probably this can help.
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/359#issuecomment-435579267
OSA413 19 Jun, 2019 @ 5:05am 
Thank you very much for this guide.
P.S. - No sound problems on Proton 4.2