Is this still an issue in curent git (1.3.5)?

no answer since 2 years. This bug could be closed as ABANDONED

Unfortunately I'm unable to test if the root cause (STARTUPINFO.lpTitle being NULL after calling GetStartupInfo), as MGE has been changed to not make that call anymore. Checking Wine's source, it's difficult to tell if it's still being set to NULL.

OK, let's close as abandoned, then.  You can reopen if you find the old version and want to pursue this.

Closing abandoned.

Closing.

It has been closed as ABANDONED, but I think this is still a problem in recent versions of Wine. Maybe it would be good to REOPEN it?

This is an important fragment (2013-06-26) of the discussion concerning Morrowind Graphics Extender and Wine from official MGE forums:

"But actually launching the game with MGE is impossible: if we set Wine to use native d3d8/dinput8 dlls so that MGE is enabled, it'll then fail to find the 'real' dlls which it loads during initialization. Thing is, MGE explicitly tries to load those dlls from system directory (normally \windows\system32 on 32-bit machine), but in Wine those DLLs are just stubs: Wine tries to load them, looks for overrides, see that they're overridden, and tries to load native libs again, which is obviously not the desired behavior. However, through some experimentation, I've found out that LoadLibrary() can happily load Wine's "proper" dll.so libraries. So...

This patch enables MGE to look for "MGE_WINEDLLPATH" environment variable and try to load d3d8.dll.so and dinput8.dll.so from there. Failing to find the variable it'll revert to the original dlls in system directory. Thus, users launching the game on Linux under Wine will now be able to see the MGE in its full glory :)

On Ubuntu, the value for this variable would be /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/wine for 32-bit Wine prefix and /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu on 64-bit Wine prefix, though the latter is not tested since pretty much any other prerequisites (DirectX, .NET, etc.) currently only work with 32-bit Wine prefix. G
enerally, it's whatever directory that contains d3d8.dll.so and dinput8.dll.so."

I recommend looking through the whole thread: http://sourceforge.net/p/morrgraphext/discussion/866295/thread/422538db

(In reply to comment #7)
> It has been closed as ABANDONED, but I think this is still a problem in
> recent versions of Wine. Maybe it would be good to REOPEN it?
> 
> This is an important fragment (2013-06-26) of the discussion concerning
> Morrowind Graphics Extender and Wine from official MGE forums:
> 
> "But actually launching the game with MGE is impossible: if we set Wine to
> use native d3d8/dinput8 dlls so that MGE is enabled, it'll then fail to find
> the 'real' dlls which it loads during initialization. Thing is, MGE
> explicitly tries to load those dlls from system directory (normally
> \windows\system32 on 32-bit machine), but in Wine those DLLs are just stubs:
> Wine tries to load them, looks for overrides, see that they're overridden,
> and tries to load native libs again, which is obviously not the desired
> behavior. However, through some experimentation, I've found out that
> LoadLibrary() can happily load Wine's "proper" dll.so libraries. So...

I can confirm this in wine-1.7.11 (didn't try the patch though..)

(In reply to comment #8)
...
> I can confirm this in wine-1.7.11 (didn't try the patch though..)

Could you attach a debug trace/logs from this version? Maybe it'd help to solve this issue.

I currently don't have Morrowind, so I can't test this out.

Well, I was able to get it to run with MGE, but the screen is black when doing so.

WINEDLLOVERRIDES="*d3d8=n,b;*dinput8=n,b" wine Steam.exe

lsof shows it loading the mge dll:
[austin@localhost Steam]$ lsof | grep d3d8
wineserve 23313        austin  297r      REG              253,4    479232  9961495 /home/austin/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Steam/steamapps/common/Morrowind/d3d8.dll
Morrowind 23635        austin  mem       REG              253,4    479232  9961495 /home/austin/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Steam/steamapps/common/Morrowind/d3d8.dll

but, as I said, there's a black screen. I'm not sure that we support overriding the d3d libraries in this way.

any wined3d guy care to comment?

(In reply to comment #11)
> but, as I said, there's a black screen. I'm not sure that we support
> overriding the d3d libraries in this way.
> 
> any wined3d guy care to comment?

If it calls into d3d9.dll I think that should work in principle. Calling directly into the D3D DDI won't.

(In reply to comment #12)
> (In reply to comment #11)
> > but, as I said, there's a black screen. I'm not sure that we support
> > overriding the d3d libraries in this way.
> > 
> > any wined3d guy care to comment?
> 
> If it calls into d3d9.dll I think that should work in principle. Calling
> directly into the D3D DDI won't.

Well, it seemed like it was a regression, working in wine-1.4.1, but not in recent wine. I started a bisect, but wasn't getting good results. After a reboot, it works fine in wine-1.7.11-114-g6f498c4.

Command used was:
WINEPREFIX=~/.wine-mge/ WINEDLLOVERRIDES="*d3d8,*dinput8=n,b" wine Steam.exe -applaunch 22320

(In reply to comment #13)
> (In reply to comment #12)
> > (In reply to comment #11)
> > > but, as I said, there's a black screen. I'm not sure that we support
> > > overriding the d3d libraries in this way.
> > > 
> > > any wined3d guy care to comment?
> > 
> > If it calls into d3d9.dll I think that should work in principle. Calling
> > directly into the D3D DDI won't.
> 
> Well, it seemed like it was a regression, working in wine-1.4.1, but not in
> recent wine. I started a bisect, but wasn't getting good results. After a
> reboot, it works fine in wine-1.7.11-114-g6f498c4.
> 
> Command used was:
> WINEPREFIX=~/.wine-mge/ WINEDLLOVERRIDES="*d3d8,*dinput8=n,b" wine Steam.exe
> -applaunch 22320

So you say it's fixed even though you had to use these overrides parameters? Does Morrowind Overhaul (it uses MGE) work now? http://www.ornitocopter.net/morrowind-overhaul/

(In reply to comment #14)
> (In reply to comment #13)
> > (In reply to comment #12)
> > > (In reply to comment #11)
> > > > but, as I said, there's a black screen. I'm not sure that we support
> > > > overriding the d3d libraries in this way.
> > > > 
> > > > any wined3d guy care to comment?
> > > 
> > > If it calls into d3d9.dll I think that should work in principle. Calling
> > > directly into the D3D DDI won't.
> > 
> > Well, it seemed like it was a regression, working in wine-1.4.1, but not in
> > recent wine. I started a bisect, but wasn't getting good results. After a
> > reboot, it works fine in wine-1.7.11-114-g6f498c4.
> > 
> > Command used was:
> > WINEPREFIX=~/.wine-mge/ WINEDLLOVERRIDES="*d3d8,*dinput8=n,b" wine Steam.exe
> > -applaunch 22320
> 
> So you say it's fixed even though you had to use these overrides parameters?

My understanding is that those DLL overrides are expected to be required. From get_load_order() in dlls/ntdll/load_order.c:
    /* first explicit module name */
...
    /* then module basename preceded by '*' */
...
    /* then module basename without '*' (only if explicit path) */
...
    /* if loading the main exe with an explicit path, try native first */
...
    /* and last the hard-coded default */
...

> Does Morrowind Overhaul (it uses MGE) work now?
> http://www.ornitocopter.net/morrowind-overhaul/

I was testing on my laptop with a not very powerful intel chip. The initial loading screen shows the 'Morrowind Graphics Extender' message, and lsof indicates that the dll is loaded. I didn't check for improved graphics (since my settings are pretty low anyway).

I didn't try Morrowind Overhaul.

Closing bugs fixed in 1.7.12.