Windows VST GUI not refreshing

[Quirq]

I'm having problems with GForce Software's M-Tron Pro IV. It works fine except that the GUI doesn't refresh/update when you turn knobs, press buttons etc. In Carla, if I destroy the GUI window and then reshow it, the new knob positions etc show but it's a pain having to hide/show the window, especially when browsing for sounds.

Using it via yabridge, the GUI does sometimes refresh, but it's tens of seconds after a GUI element has been changed, so not at all helpful.

I'm on UbuntuStudio 22.04 LTS, so was using Wine 6.03. I've just installed 8.14 from WineHQ and it's no different. Has anyone any ideas on how to fix it so that the GUI updates when it's interacted with?

[glowrak guy]

I would try the linux Reaper demo, and it's windows version in wine, from a live dvd of AVLinux,
which has wine, wineasio, yabridge, and a linux Reaper demo setup by default. If those don't get the knobs working,
you'll likely need different synth plugins.
Cheers

[Linuxmusician01]

Since they ask 149 GBP for that I can't help you since I'm definitely not gonna pay that amount of money to try and install it on my computer, ha ha. So: what @glowrak guy said.

And, since you're paying customer, you might try to get support from them. However, chances are slim they are gonna reply to a question about Linux.

Good luck and let us hear if you got it solved.

[Quirq]

Ah, I was hoping it might be a known, general issue with GUIs.

I would try the linux Reaper demo, and it's windows version in wine, from a live dvd of AVLinux,
which has wine, wineasio, yabridge, and a linux Reaper demo setup by default.

I downloaded both Windows and Linux versions from the Reaper site and neither worked any differently to how it had in Carla using the .dll with Carla's Wine bridges, or in Carla using the .so and yabridge.

f those don't get the knobs working, you'll likely need different synth plugins

M-Tron isn't a synth and there's no viable alternative to it. I'll go back to using M-Tron Pro when noodling/writing and only use M-Tron Pro IV for tracking (it has feature upgrades that increase the authenticity of the sound).

Since they ask 149 GBP for that I can't help you since I'm definitely not gonna pay that amount of money to try and install it on my computer, ha ha.

Completely understand. I paid a small fraction of that as an upgrade: fortunately it's still possible to use M-Tron Pro v3 alongside IV, so I'll probably fall back to using the old version most of the time.

And, since you're paying customer, you might try to get support from them. However, chances are slim they are gonna reply to a question about Linux.

Maybe I'll contact them when I'm in a better mood (got a week off work, so of course I'm now feeling ill!). I've been a loyal customer for probably getting on for 20 years, having owned the original M-Tron, Oddity, VSM, M-Tron Pro, now M-Tron Pro IV and a large number of M-Tron expansion packs. And in all that time I've been using them on Linux without any problems until now But as you say, I'll probably get short shrift if I email support and mention the L word...

[tavasti]

Ah, I was hoping it might be a known, general issue with GUIs.

I think I've seen similar problem with some plugin, but don't have any solution to it.

M-Tron isn't a synth and there's no viable alternative to it. I'll go back to using M-Tron Pro when noodling/writing and only use M-Tron Pro IV for tracking (it has feature upgrades that increase the authenticity of the sound).

If you want to use it, have second computer running windows, and use it with audiogridder.

[Linuxmusician01]

I would try the linux Reaper demo, and it's windows version in wine, from a live dvd of AVLinux,
which has wine, wineasio, yabridge, and a linux Reaper demo setup by default.

I downloaded both Windows and Linux versions from the Reaper site and neither worked any differently to how it had in Carla using the .dll with Carla's Wine bridges, or in Carla using the .so and yabridge.

Hmmmm. You sure the same version of this plugin does work on a Windows machine? Could be a bug in that new version. But then again: the Windows version of Reaper probably also uses Wine for it's plugins. You could also try a virtual machine running Windows...

[Sylnox]

Usually when you get this behavior it's because the plugin requires dxvk. It's needed for a lot of newer JUCE-based plugins. I have Oddity 3 and OB-E running on Linux and they are like this so I imagine M-Tron is as well. What you need to do is set up a new wine prefix (to avoid messing up your existing prefix in the event that you have things installed that don't work with dxvk), then install dxvk in that prefix by following the instructions here: https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk. It requires a newer version of Wine but you've already installed the version from WineHQ which will work. Once it's set up, uninstall M-Tron from your default prefix and run a prune with yabridge. Finally, install the plugin to your dxvk prefix, add the new vst folders with yabridgectl, and sync.

[Linuxmusician01]

Usually when you get this behavior it's because the plugin requires dxvk. It's needed for a lot of newer JUCE-based plugins. I have Oddity 3 and OB-E running on Linux and they are like this so I imagine M-Tron is as well. What you need to do is set up a new wine prefix (to avoid messing up your existing prefix in the event that you have things installed that don't work with dxvk), then install dxvk in that prefix by following the instructions here: https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk. It requires a newer version of Wine but you've already installed the version from WineHQ which will work. Once it's set up, uninstall M-Tron from your default prefix and run a prune with yabridge. Finally, install the plugin to your dxvk prefix, add the new vst folders with yabridgectl, and sync.

Thank you very much for clearing this up. I can simply install dxvk in Ubuntu (20.04) via my package manager. Is that not recommended?

[Sylnox]

Usually when you get this behavior it's because the plugin requires dxvk. It's needed for a lot of newer JUCE-based plugins. I have Oddity 3 and OB-E running on Linux and they are like this so I imagine M-Tron is as well. What you need to do is set up a new wine prefix (to avoid messing up your existing prefix in the event that you have things installed that don't work with dxvk), then install dxvk in that prefix by following the instructions here: https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk. It requires a newer version of Wine but you've already installed the version from WineHQ which will work. Once it's set up, uninstall M-Tron from your default prefix and run a prune with yabridge. Finally, install the plugin to your dxvk prefix, add the new vst folders with yabridgectl, and sync.

Thank you very much for clearing this up. I can simply install dxvk in Ubuntu (20.04) via my package manager. Is that not recommended?

That package is not available on Linux Mint but as far as I can tell it just downloads an old version of the DLLs and runs a script that copies them to your default wine prefix. You may not want to do this because there are a few plugins that don't work when dxvk is installed (Synapse Audio specifically). And the DLLs are not up to date. I've had good luck setting up a wine prefix specifically for dxvk, manually installing the latest dlls there, and then installing any plugins with the GUI issue described here in that prefix. Yabridge supports using multiple prefixes simultaneously so this setup works perfectly if using Yabridge. Manual dxvk installation is also very easy. You don't even need to run those commands in the linked github if you don't want to - just download the compiled dlls and stick the 64 bit ones in your wine prefix's system32 folder and the 32 bit ones in the SYSWOW64 folder (if anyone reading this doesn't know, no that is not a typo - 64 bit windows puts 64 bit libraries in the system32 folder), add the four dll overrides in winecfg, and you're good to go.

[Linuxmusician01]

Thank you very much for clearing this up. I can simply install dxvk in Ubuntu (20.04) via my package manager. Is that not recommended?

That package is not available on Linux Mint but as far as I can tell it just downloads an old version of the DLLs and runs a script that copies them to your default wine prefix. You may not want to do this because there are a few plugins that don't work when dxvk is installed (Synapse Audio specifically). And the DLLs are not up to date. I've had good luck setting up a wine prefix specifically for dxvk, manually installing the latest dlls there, and then installing any plugins with the GUI issue described here in that prefix. Yabridge supports using multiple prefixes simultaneously so this setup works perfectly if using Yabridge. Manual dxvk installation is also very easy. You don't even need to run those commands in the linked github if you don't want to - just download the compiled dlls and stick the 64 bit ones in your wine prefix's system32 folder and the 32 bit ones in the SYSWOW64 folder (if anyone reading this doesn't know, no that is not a typo - 64 bit windows puts 64 bit libraries in the system32 folder), add the four dll overrides in winecfg, and you're good to go.

Thanks again for the detailed info. So am I right in assuming that dxvk installs old dll's? And if so, doesn't Windows itself have trouble running these VST with its newer dll's on board?

P.S. I've been using Linux and Wine for many years and didn't know that 64 bit Windows pust 64 bit libraries in the system32 folder. So also thanks fro clearing that up.

[Sylnox]

Thank you very much for clearing this up. I can simply install dxvk in Ubuntu (20.04) via my package manager. Is that not recommended?

That package is not available on Linux Mint but as far as I can tell it just downloads an old version of the DLLs and runs a script that copies them to your default wine prefix. You may not want to do this because there are a few plugins that don't work when dxvk is installed (Synapse Audio specifically). And the DLLs are not up to date. I've had good luck setting up a wine prefix specifically for dxvk, manually installing the latest dlls there, and then installing any plugins with the GUI issue described here in that prefix. Yabridge supports using multiple prefixes simultaneously so this setup works perfectly if using Yabridge. Manual dxvk installation is also very easy. You don't even need to run those commands in the linked github if you don't want to - just download the compiled dlls and stick the 64 bit ones in your wine prefix's system32 folder and the 32 bit ones in the SYSWOW64 folder (if anyone reading this doesn't know, no that is not a typo - 64 bit windows puts 64 bit libraries in the system32 folder), add the four dll overrides in winecfg, and you're good to go.

Thanks again for the detailed info. So am I right in assuming that dxvk installs old dll's? And if so, doesn't Windows itself have trouble running these VST with its newer dll's on board?

P.S. I've been using Linux and Wine for many years and didn't know that 64 bit Windows pust 64 bit libraries in the system32 folder. So also thanks fro clearing that up.

I'm not 100% sure but I'd guess the package does not have the latest binaries from the dxvk project. That said they'd they probably still work. It's just a question of whether you want dxvk installed to your default wine prefix (in which case the package will work, probably) or another prefix (in which case you should create that prefix and do a manual install there). The dlls in your Wine prefix as well as the dxvk dlls are not actually Windows dlls, they are special files that Wine provides as an interface between Windows applications and Linux. Often they are missing functionality from the native Windows dll or otherwise do not provide a 100% match to the behavior of the real thing. That's at least part of why not every windows app works with Wine. Actual Windows does not have issues with the Synapse Audio plugins or anything that needs dxvk on Linux.

[Quirq]

Usually when you get this behavior it's because the plugin requires dxvk. It's needed for a lot of newer JUCE-based plugins. I have Oddity 3 and OB-E running on Linux and they are like this so I imagine M-Tron is as well. What you need to do is set up a new wine prefix (to avoid messing up your existing prefix in the event that you have things installed that don't work with dxvk), then install dxvk in that prefix by following the instructions here: https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk. It requires a newer version of Wine but you've already installed the version from WineHQ which will work. Once it's set up, uninstall M-Tron from your default prefix and run a prune with yabridge. Finally, install the plugin to your dxvk prefix, add the new vst folders with yabridgectl, and sync.

Thanks ever so much for your response and the other detailed info in your following posts. Apologies for being so late in responding as well, things came up and I wasn't able to devote the time to this. I've just tried today, copying the files to the appropriate folders (again, thanks for spelling out exactly which files go in which folders) and adding the over-rides in winecfg.

Unfortunately, it hasn't worked I've updated yabridge as well and there's still no joy using it in Ardour. I was hopeful when you said other recent G-Force plugins need it. Unless of course it is the answer and it's something I've not done quite right (which is very much a possibility )

[Linuxmusician01]

Curious to see what's the problem I tried to install the demo version of GForce Software's M-Tron Pro IV. That won't even respond to clicking on the button 'Run Demo' to run the demo ha ha. Oh well...

[Garyg]

Just a thanks to Sylnox for his comments, helped me get dxvk up and running.

All the Windows plugins I want to really use but couldn't are now running fine (TENS from Klanghelm, Audiority's, the Klevgrand ones etc). Found a couple that still give issues, the Glitchpad demo from Linplug, BPBs DirtyVHS etc. Nothing important in the big scheme but worth noting.

[Garyg]

Curious to see what's the problem I tried to install the demo version of GForce Software's M-Tron Pro IV. That won't even respond to clicking on the button 'Run Demo' to run the demo ha ha. Oh well...

I had an issue with Imposcar2 for a while, mouse pointer would disappear when I hovered anywhere over the GUI. I managed to increase the GUI size to Large (normal by todays standards...) then it all worked fine... (that was default wine, not in a dxvk prefix)