I'm trying to run Blood-over-, a 2006 Windows XP game, on Linux Mint 22.3. It starts, but character models are invisible and most buttons other than movement crash the game. Proton through both Steam and Bottles behaves the same way.
The terminal repeatedly reports an unknown XSkinMeshHeader template, along with a dmsynth error. Wine has no DLL overrides configured. Where should I start?
That XSkinMeshHeader message looks like the best lead. It's coming from Wine's DirectX file parsing, and the missing character models make it worth investigating, though the message alone doesn't prove what causes the crash.
Try a fresh Wine prefix and test a DirectX 9 runtime through Winetricks. Keep it separate from your current setup so you can compare the results and undo the experiment easily. Winetricks being installed doesn't necessarily mean the game has those components installed in its prefix.
Since Proton already gives you the same symptoms, switching launchers alone may not fix this. You could still try a newer GE-Proton build through a launcher such as Heroic, with 32-bit support enabled, but treat it as another test rather than a guaranteed fix.
Check Wine's application database for this specific game, even if it isn't listed in ProtonDB. A report for the same game might mention a needed runtime or override. If there isn't one, don't assume settings for another XP game will carry over.
I'd capture the full terminal output from launching the game through the crash, not just the repeated lines. Note the Wine version and exactly which button triggers it too. The sound-related dmsynth message might be separate from the model problem, so it's hard to diagnose from that line alone.
Answers are reviewed before publication.
c91+wordphase_704:
Check which prefix Winetricks is targeting before installing anything. A launcher may use a different prefix from the one Wine uses by default.