Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Games Entertainment

Myth II Linux Demo 135

Posted by justin++ from the can't-wait-to-fire-this-up dept.
CrysMeth writes "Loki has just released a demo version of Myth II for both x86 and PPC Linux. Get it here. I'm getting closer and closer to just reformating my Windows drive to ext2fs (to hold all the new Linux games. ;) " Now that I've downloaded it, I have no issues Slashdotting it :) This will be the first Loki game I've tried - I'm curious to see what it's like. And while we're on the subject, Loki seems to have redone their website..
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Myth II Linux Demo More

Myth II Linux Demo

Comments Filter:
  • the Alpha and SPARC versions? Give me a Alpha Linux version and I'll buy a copy or two, or more...

    LONG LIVE ALPHA!
  • Finally, a game that actually looks GOOD on the Linux platform. It doesn't require a 3D accelerator, it doesn't need a p3-500, it doesn't need 128mb of ram, and it looks GREAT.

    The demo is fully playable for both Multiplayer and Single (one level each but still).

    Great game, well worth the dl :)
  • I have a libc5 distribution (old Slackware), and neither of the binaries work on me. I have succesfully run other software and games (like Hopkins playable demo, Q3Test (it is glibc2 based, IIRC?)) using the glibc2 libraries that came with StarOffice (using LD_LIBRARY_PATH to point to the Office50/lib directory), but I've had no luck with this Myth2 demo using those, it just gives me a blam (and video memory protecting if I'm root, but it doesn't change video mode at any point). I also tried downloading a glibc2.1 rpm package, and use the libraries from there (again with LD_LIBRARY_PATH pointing to where I extracted them with rpm2cpio and cpio), but it behaves the same. If I don't use the correct (g)libc libraries with the binaries, all that changes is that it doesn't detect my home directory, so it goes to worse (expected). I have 32MB RAM, 266 MHz AMD K6, so it shouldn't be the lack of horsepower (yes, Q3Test was an "experience" with only 32MB RAM ;). Anyone have suggestions (other than "upgrade whole system to glibc2" (too much work) or "buy a new modern distribution" (I have thought about it))?
  • Certain kinds of games have the player
    immersed in the game, and -only- the game
    for many hours.
    Other kinds of games have the player into
    the game for a few minutes here, doing
    something else for a few minutes there,
    etc.

    It's the former "take over your computer and
    a significant percentage of your life" type games
    where folks will tolerate a reboot, even some
    signifcant install issues.

    The main problem with linux as the os for this,
    is that it's going to be hard to come up with
    and installer that works for everybody.
  • Well, to be fair, Direct3D isn't a proprietary API, it's just not cross-platform. I'm rooting for OpenGL (and Mesa, natch) because it's a cross-platform API with a srtong future on XFree86.

    Since Direct3D supports a wide number of cards, and anyone can write a driver/game for it, I don't think it's really proprietary, is it?

    Just a thought. I can be even-handed because I haven't sat in front of a Windows box in over 3 months. Hee. ^_^

    -zack

  • Agreed (Score:1)

    by ry4an ( 1568 )
    I just want to say that after the download I had the game up and running in seconds. What's more as an avid mythII-er I noticed that on this box (AMX K6-233 - shitty Video) it ran much faster than on windows.

    Congrats loki on an excellent conversion.
  • 421 Sorry, ftp.linuxgames.com already has 20 users logged on. Try again in 10 minutes
  • No offense guys but I am yet to see apps for X that are decently designed. Most are either good looking and bad functioning or vice versa.

    Honestly, if someone came out with a (don't shoot me) Visual Basic type app where you can design your interface smoothly, it would make a world of difference.

    If you want to compare take a look at the best of the best apps for Windows for Usenet downloading (text AND files), Forte' Agent. Now compare that to the best Usenet program for X (I forget the name - it's been so long since I actually used linux it's not even funny). You'll see a major major difference in both look, functionality, speed, and even features.

    If there IS some sort of Visual Basic type app for X, please someone speak up so I can learn this language and get myself OUT of Windows.

    8Complex
  • FYI FASA [fasa.com] itself wasn't purchased by Microsoft. Microsoft only purchased the computer games division - FASA Interactive Technologies [fasainteractive.com](FIT) and it's parent company VWEG (makers of the Virtual World [virtualworld.com] pods). FASA was a major shareholder in them, but FASA themselves is not owned by Microsoft. Though they did just announce [fasa.com] a deal to be acquired by Decipher so they can become a bigger force in the gaming industry. So M$ may have the rights to the computer game versions of FASA's games, but at least the paper versions won't be tainted by Redmond. I do agree though that the chance of MW3 or any game based on a FASA license being ported to Linux now is extremely slim as is a port to any OS not made by M$. It's really a shame though as I'd bet that games based on Battletech such as MW3 and the Shadowrun universe (cyberpunk with magic) would probably be popular with Linux users.
  • Did that.. that worked... yet the README says 2.1 for RH 6.x.. which I have.. wierd. Cool game though.. might give me reason to start gaming again.
  • http://loki.linuxgames.com/~loki/myth2-demo-x86.ta r.gz is the only site i could find that wasn't lagged to hell (for how long? :). i can't even access the loki page, so i don't know if this is their default download site or a mirror.
  • I survived a /.'ing!

    or maybe

    I beat the /.'ing to MY data!

    I'm glad I have both a) a cable modem and b) amazing luck to have seen this about 30 seconds after post. So I'll beat the /. effect and grab it fast/first :-)

    But the shirts would be a good comedy geek item.
  • Yet another sign of the push for the desktop... actually I would be quite pleased if Linux took off as a gaming platform; it would increase the availability of (a) sound card drivers (b) 3d drivers (c) good Linux games.

    Now if only someone would port MechWarrior3 to Linux...


    Currently it looks like Mesa/GLX will be the default 3D API for Linux; it will be nice to have just one 3D API to support.


    I expect some enterprising souls made an 'inverse wrapper' i.e. wrapped a Direct3D layer on top of Mesa.
  • Funny though, consider that GLide or whatever 3dfx calls their API is available for Linux. Just that very few souls use it for straight GLide.. More people are using it as a Mesa implementation :-D

    Down with proprietary API's! That includes GLide, Direct3D.. =)

  • Blam! (Score:1)

    by Natty ( 51284 )

    I downloaded the demo yesterday when Happypenguin gave word of it, but now that I finally get around to running it, it only say blam! I'm running a glibc 2.1 system, Redhat 6. The readme doesn't say anything about the meening of Blam! Anyways generally games do more then print out a 4 letter word right? I meen this isn't American television! What does blam meen? I like the word blam blam blam!

    blam!!!!!!!!

    Is blam supposed to be a fun word? I think it's a fun word.

  • Here's a wish list of things that could (and should) be ported over to Linux. These are the remaining "musts" before I lose my Windows box:

    Alpha Centauri

    Adaptec's Easy-CD Creator software

    MS Money (hey, you want snow, go to the arctic, right?)

    Photoshop

    All of these still don't have a Linux equivalent (yeah, I like GIMP, but it's still not in the same league as Photoshop). The big one for me is MS Money, though; I really like how powerful it is and all the features it has (lemme alone). I left off Starcraft 'cause that plays reasonably well under WINE. I also didn't include future games that I'm waiting on 'cause I'm hoping that Loki will catch all of the really good ones (or that they'll be by id).

    ----

  • How about "/.'ed and alive (but, alas, not the server)" for those who were /.'ed off the net...

    or "Linux-driven, proven /. resistant to 100 HPS" for those survivors with battle-tested operating systems (replace "Linux" with FreeBSD, etc, as needed).

    or "Stress-tested by the /. effect" for that network administrator harried look (must muss hair and miss a night's sleep to wear this one).

    or, for the wayward journalist, "Flame and /. resistent". Journalists will want to wear this for the photo that accompanies the column to intimidate the would-be flamer. ;)
  • There I was, happily watching the intro, and starting to drool slightly when the window vanishes, and my xterm sayeth:
    BUG! (Segmentation Fault) Going down hard...

    "Bugger."

  • i got the demo and i was really impressed, it was quality and it looks really nice. I have also purchased Civ3 lately, and even though i dont really like the game, it was put together really well. Now lets see, ill have Myth 2 (when it comes out), Civ3, Quake, Quake 2; that is 4 games. hrummm, plus StarCraft which runs very well under wine. That is basically 5 games that are of very good quality (well starcraft is only pretty good quality due to the fact that you have to run it with wine). I am glad to see Linux becoming more of a gameing platform, im sure it wont be long before someone makes a distro tuned for gameing. Now only if support for openGL was improved upon.

  • Sure, there are mirrors--they are listed on Loki's site, which keeps getting /.'ed like crazy. But here are the FTP sites listed:

    ftp://ftp.linuxberg.com/pub/Loki/ [linuxberg.com]

    ftp://happypenguin.org/pub/loki/myth2/ [happypenguin.org]

    ftp://download.linuxlords.com/pub/de mos/myth2/ [linuxlords.com]

    Loki is going to be adding more as time goes by. If you have a good connection free, e-mail them and let 'em know...and if you have a spare Origin2, send it to 'em, too--their server needs a break... :-/

    Kinda sucks, too. Spent all that effort redoing the Loki site, and nobody gets to see it. *sigh*

    Ethelred [surf.to]

  • Awesome.
    As soon as I say the demo available I snaged it.
    It is pretty awesome. And I am currently running it on the minimum requirements (a P133)
    I just need to find some 'net servers to play on to see how multiplayer is.

    Loki is definitely doing a great job of getting
    Great Games over to a Great Operating System. Keep up the work guys!!!

    Unlike everyone else I won't be deleting my winblows partition because I don't have one!
  • The last one I seem to recall was Battlespire from Bethseda. And that was 1997, AIR. And was a buggy pice of crap to boot.

    Not that I won't take a look at TES: Vanguard when (and if) it ships, mind you. Daggerfall was a hoot. A massive time suck of a hoot.
  • We were discussing something like this over on the alt.eq NG during the beta test. This was after the obvious problems that EQ had with co-existing with the OS.

    I like the idea. I remember getting DoomII on CD, and being able to play directly from the CD was an option. Now we have 52x drives, and every freaking game requires a 450MB install.
  • If it has been that long since you have used linux, no wonder you have never seen a good X app...

    Abi Word
    Grip (ripper/encoder for mp3 creation, CDDB lookup and asynched ripping and encoding, very nice)
    Eterm :-)
    Xcdroast
    gaim
    gnomeicu
    ...

    the list goes on...

    granted the MFC toolkit does not look bad, while straight Xlib _can_ look shitty, you always have gtk (and to be fair, qt)

    and regarding a visual basic..
    get glade...

  • That link is the most usefull thing to come from my post. Wow. I've gotta start saying blam in my quake deathmatches. Blam! Blam! BLAM! blam! Blam! blam blam blam!!!!!!!!

    God is that a cool word

  • Demo downloading now, probably won't play it myself, but I know someone who was desperate for this thing -- give it to them tomorrow (well, later today)
    Good mirrors, BTW -- 100K (kilo_bytes_!) per second to me in the UK

    The only part of Gimp which isn't in the same league as PotatoShop is the colour-handling. For those of us who don't use dead trees in our work, that's no loss at all. I have the option here, if I like, to use PS4, but I prefer Gimp.

    I think end-users will be presently surprised by the steps forward in 1.2
    when we finally switch from crazy-feature-addition mode to bug fixing :)

    PS Some bias expressed here, as a known Gimp developer :)

    PPS If you don't like the interface, buy a mouse with the right number of
    buttons, and repeat after me "Easy to learn != Easy to use".

    Nick.
  • Yes, blam is a very fun word.
    its a thing from bungie, used it since marathon, its the equiv of saying "I fragged you" but blam is much nicer. It was, until recently, the code-name for Halo, bungie's newest game, and also, to speak for one of bungie people i talked to at macworld expo, Blam! is just a cool word.

    I think you agree.


    Pfhor
  • There are SCSI utilities that allow this. (Your CD-ROM drive isn't SCSI? Then I don't know what to say. Except, "get a better drive").
  • You're talking about Glade.

    It allows interface design without forcing you to code in a bastardized language, and produces Real C (or C++, or Perl, or Ada) Code using a nice widget set (GTK) to boot.
  • Yes, but they won't do a (or are the words "publish their" more appropriate?) linux port... worried about support costs.

    Last time I checked, at least.
  • Certainly true, though porting to X is often not very pretty. Getting good performance from such a port can be hard, too. Sam Lantings and the other Loki devs do a good job there. (Yipeee -- it even supports ESD sound.) I just hope they keep signing the contracts to do the ports. Linux and games is a good mix (both are geek toys :)) and Loki's work will do good things. Oh, and Loki's even nice and supports GPL'd stuff: see SDL, which appears to be what Loki's using inhouse as well. (try 'strings myth2_demo_2.0 | grep SDL). SDL's a pretty slick library. Check it and the demos out. Amazingly quick and beats dealing with a lot of the junk you normally have to deal with for X.
  • "blam" seems to mean you don't have enough memory.

    When I first tried it,I had 16 megs of physical memory. I had two 64 meg simms I have been meaning to put in. I put them in, and now the game plays.

    By the way, even though I put in 128 megs, the computer only sees 32. That is all the bios detects, and, thus, that is all that Linux sees. Now I know about append="mem=128M", and I tried that, but it doesn't work. It crashes because, apparently, that's all the computer sees. Does anyone have any ideas what I can do?

    Maybe surplusauction sent me the wrong simms. If simms are called 16x32, does that mean that there should be 8 chips on the top and 8 on the bottom?

    (I wonder whether this will be moderated up, for being informative about blam, or migrated down, for the off topic questions.)
  • Sheesh, what is that three or four Linux binaries?

    They should at least port it to FreeBSD (x86 and Alpha).

    For that matter if they ported it to NetBSD, they'd at least have their game running on tons of platforms :^)
  • > You proabley ran the glibc 2.1 binary and only have glibc 2.0 (or vice versa)

    I saw the same problem, but when I tried the other binary, it got stuck already at the bungie intro. And it takes a -9 to kill it.

    -Lars
  • >Your CD-ROM drive isn't SCSI? Then I don't know >what to say. Except, "get a better drive")

    Or use the SCSI emulation of hte linux kernel..

    CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDESCSI
  • Just like to drop a note that Myth and Myth II have developed a widespread community over the past 3 years or so. Some of the sites to visit if you have more interest in the game are Myth Townhall [clanplaid.net] and Myther.com [myther.com]. Another interesting item to note is that bungie.net, the game server, runs entirely on Linux and supports over 40000 users.

  • Remember to buy it when it's ready!



    ---
    Have a sloppy night.
  • PhotoShop for Unix has indeed been out forever. I seem to recall Irix and Solaris being two of the supported platforms. The problem is that it is some ancient version like 3.0.5 or possibly even 2.0, and it costs more than the Mac or PC versions, which are now up to version 5.5.

    I'm starting to use GIMP a bit for web graphics just to avoid waiting for my Mac to start up, but the interface really could be better.

    Don't get me wrong, it is a useful program and I am grateful to those who have put so much work into it, but it is not quite up to par with recent versions of PhotoShop for professional graphic design.

    I guess it's those little submenus that get to me. It's hard to get the mouse to slide into the right submenu.
  • we finally switch from crazy-feature-addition mode to bug fixing :)

    Any other veteran developers here as disturbed by that comment as I am?
  • For that matter if they ported it to NetBSD, they'd at least have their game running on tons of
    platforms :^)

    With the same binary!!!!? 'Dem NetBSD folks sure are amazing, even the machine code is portable. :-p
    --
  • I believe Yellow Dog Linux (aka black lab linux, aka terrasoft) was responsible for working with Loki for the ppc linux port. Gives me another reason to get linuxppc r5 on this powercenter again.
    check www.yellowdoglinux.com

    Pfhor
  • This is a horrible idea.

    Many early PC games did this. (I'm talking
    like early..Sierra's first game, oh I forget
    the name. It involved crossing a desert, and
    finding a magic pair of shoes with the word
    Shazam on them.

    Also I recall a game for the XT called "BigTop"
    which had its own OS.

    The reason it's a horrible idea is...you're
    stuck with their OS!

    Why lose all the benefits of your
    shiny new kernel and system? Do you really expect
    your game publisher to provide updates for your
    TNT2.9a, which has a compatibility problem with
    your ATA/66 controller and celerons? They
    will not. I'll just burst your bubble now.

    Especially because Games tend to push technology,
    it's hard to imagine a game publisher keeping up
    on drivers and OS issues enough to create their
    own distribution. Really Hard.

    Additionally, you may want to reboot, but the
    vast majority of Linux users love linux
    (in part) because frequent reboots are not
    necessary.

    In short this is like replacing a horse's front
    legs with wheels. It looks cool, but won't
    get you where you want to go.
  • Well, I share a little of this concern, but mostly it's OK because we have Linux-style stable vs. unstable series. If you want a WORKING version of Gimp, you have to live with last years feature set for now, just like 2.0.x versions of Linux didn't have nice 2.1.x features.
    Just like kernel 2.0.x, the stable Gimp version does get fixes during the life of the development version, but no additional functionality is planned in that series. Personally I hope the next stable Gimp can ship this year, but that's just my personal opinion.

    Nick.
  • Looks like a very carefully crafted port of the game. It even runs in a 640x480x8 bit VNC window! Loki definitely know what they're doing. I will buy this not only because it's an appealing game, but because it'll probably be of historical value at some point :-) (first successful commercial game for Linux)
  • "blam" isn't very informative or helpful. I got the same message and have 96 Meg ("free" agrees)
    in this RH5.2 Linux machine. I found no log file or other clues in either the invocation directory or anywere under ~/.loki.
  • PPS If you don't like the interface, buy a mouse with the right number of
    buttons, and repeat after me "Easy to learn != Easy to use".

    I'd be the last person to criticize a free software project, since I'm long overdue to do some serious contributing, but I only agree with your statement above if you allow '!=' to be "isn't necessarily". Just reading the posts in this thread, it seems that there's a consensus that while Gimp and Photoshop are in the same league, the interface for Gimp is holding it back. It isn't more powerful by being obscure.


    I've never used Photoshop personally, but I've seen it used (a web guy at work is showing me some of the tricks), and I have tried to use Gimp. I have a right-mouse button, but the menus within menus within menus is error prone when you're not careful. It's a very impressive program, but a bit confusing to find things in. There's something to be said for using a program, not using it for a while, and not having to re-learn it again when you go back to it. But hey, I'm biased, I'm a UI developer :).


    Feel free to mail me for my thoughts specifically; I wish I had time to help out somewhere, but where I work my time is completely used up right now. I'd love to give feedback and advice, but I don't have time to write code. Take that at whatever value you want to give it.


    Rick Sanders (a.k.a. Tatara)
    rsanders@csli.stanford.edu


    PS: That having been said, it's still a damned cool program.


    PPS: Dumb question: are there tools in Gimp for really basic stuff like a rectangles or circles? Feel free to respond with an 'RTFM', because I haven't, I just tried hunting around for it and failed to find it.

  • Re:Linux bundled with the game? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    how would one save games, though?
  • I've played both Myth and Myth II from a masqed box, no problem. I don't know about more than one. Running a client on a masqed box doesn't require any special setup. Running a server just needs one port forwarded [tsmservices.com].
  • There's an option for cdrecord (-pad, I think) that will
    pad audio tracks to even lengths...
    I've used it several times with no problems (noise, etc.).

    Then again, you could be talking about something entirely different...

    --Kevin
    popeslack@linuxstart.com
    (hope this isn't a duplicate...)


    =-=-=-=-=-=
  • There isn't a great deal of difference between "not cross-platform" and "proprietary" when the company that makes the platform makes the API. Of course, someone could write a wrapper, but they better have a good lawyer. It's much like saying, "No, Glide isn't proprietary; it's just not cross-chipset." No one would say this. You can write a game with Glide, but it's still proprietary.

    As far as being able to write a driver for Direct3D, you would get in some serious trouble writing a Direct3D driver for Linux (if such a thing were possible). I'm not sure you're even allowed to call something Direct3D without MS's permission, much like you can't call something OpenGL compliant without passing SGI's tests (why Mesa isn't called OpenGL).

    In short, being tied to the product of the company that created it makes Direct3D proprietary, much like Glide is proprietary to 3dfx.
  • Ah that's too bad someone felt a need to moderate that down. Ya know if I used a simple regexp such as s/linux/NT/, it would have been moderated up. Bah humbug.
  • The manual for the motherboard says that it takes them. It should take either 2 or 4 of them.
  • Hey hey campers.
    I am happy to report a 100% successful test of mythII on a lowly p133/48MB on rh5.1 using the *2.0 executable.
    The movement is a little choppy on occasion when there is too much going on and sometimes the camera doesn't respond to the keyboard, but I am sure that that is only my inexperience with camera control.
    Overall I am extremely happy to see AOGBQ (any other game but quake) on Linux.
    On a seperate note, I have played the game on an iMac before (for a short time) and the port is exactly the same.
    I am incredibly impressed with the software renderer; same detail as the Mac version and I have nowhere near the power of the iMac I played it on!
    And finally, I would like to note that on my now outdated GUS MAX sound card (basically useless in winXX) the sound quality was flawless. Man, I love Linux for its GUS support.

    kudos to Loki!! You got yourself a customer here.
  • Uhm, by definition, Direct3D is proprietary. Yonks ago, Brian Hook went on about this. To sum it up, if you can't change the spec then you can't call it open.

    OpenGL is just that, Open. There is a method in place for reviewing and expanding the OpenGL standard. There are things like committees(sp?) and people like developers and IHV's sit on it.

    There is no such method for Direct3D. If you want D3D to change the way you (possibly an IHV or developer or chipset manufacturer) want it to, you don't have the same amount of luck.

    The bottom line: D3D goes whatever way MS wants it to. OpenGL's direction is not dictated by SGI however. That's probably the best summary I can make.
  • Try putting the unit in guard mode (default key 'G') and then ordering it to attack the space the unit you want dead is standing on (default: ctrl-click). Missile weapon troops often underestimate their range and will try to get closer when it's not necessary.
  • I agree. I hate booting. Someone sent me a Protel file 5 days ago to look at. I haven't done so yet because that would mean rebooting into windows.

    However, if someone built a custom pc with tvout, a couple of joysticks, etc which booted quickly (using OpenBIOS of course) and defined a spec for it, that could make a pretty neat gaming console. Companies who make Linux games simply have to repackage them for it.
  • I was having the same little annoyance and running it as:

    nice -n -10 ./gameexecutable

    I have neither a terrible fast nor slow machine (AMD K6 233) and a priority of -10 seems to be just right for myth to get all the CPU it wants and esd to get all it needs. YMMV.
  • There's Visual TCL as well, though that works under windows too if I'm not mistaken.
  • Can you Say DVD boys and girls?

    You could fit a massive ammount of OS and game on one DVD disk...
    Here's a thought... why not have One disk on DVD to boot your machine...
    then additional games you could buy on cd after it's booted?

    Hmmm... A QNX port? hehehe

  • A dialog box prompting a partition to be mounted (with filesystem-type detection) and a path prompt.
  • I've been thinking about doing something like this to show a software demo on computers without Linux.
    The trick would of course be the drivers (mainly sound and graphics). Is anyone working on such support? How good is the auto-detect/probing of hardware?
    I imagine installation would be much more user friendly if the system could largely configure itself in terms of hardware. Hmm. I guess good Plug and Play support would solve this...
    Sorry if I'm just rambling :-)
  • Any time when that might have worked is long gone. Nowadays when I run around in Quake 3 or Aliens Vs. Predator, I've usually got icq, wingate and netscape sitting in the background. I can't afford to make my computer into essentially a console (psx or saturn, not tty). Some developers hve me immensly pumped by planning support for external programs such as those, so getting immersed in a game doesn't mean getting cut-off from the net (IF, if, you don't want to, sometimes total immersive is good).

    I'm dying to play some old school Ultima 7, but windows has to be rebooted (AFAIK) for it to run b/c it has it's own mem-manager. BUT, I won't play it b/c having to reboot my machine for anything other than infernal Windows is something I will not do. ("I will not condone a course of action thats leads to rebooting chancellor"). I know, stupid for me to feel like this while using 98 on my main PC, but what can you do?

  • Why Easy CD? What's wrong with mkisofs and cdrecord?

    I ask because I'm genuinely curious. I haven't burned a lot of CDs, but I don't really see any value in any GUI utility vs. a simple-to-use CLI. Kinda like a GUI file manager vs. "mv" and "cp".

  • Mirrors? (Score:1)

    by Fict ( 475 )
    Mirrors anybody? =) Please?

    ------------------

  • Re:Blam! (Score:1)

    by bobz ( 1527 )
    > I assume this means it does not do much on glibc-2.1 systems (?)

    There are glibc2.0 and 2.1 versions in the tar file, so everybody (except libc5 folks, I spose) ought to be happy.
    --
    The Linux Game Tome [happypenguin.org]

  • Hmmm, I've never coastered or had a problem with mkisofs and cdrecord. Although, I've had to reboot to get at Soundforge to trim raw files to an even number of frames. I am sure there is software for unix that does that, but I still haven't found anything stable enough yet. Please, prove me wrong.

    btw, with cdrecord, I can do El Torrito discs, cd+ discs and a whole whack of other fancy things that (if my memory serves me correctly) Adaptec's Easy-CD can't do.

    But if you need a gui with drag on drop to make lazy cd's for you, that is none of my business.
  • I've pestered the author of cdparanoia to release a version that will rip data, but to no avail =(. He said it was possible to do it with the cdparanoia libs, but he wasn't interested. Anyhow, the reason I don't like cdrecord/mkisofs or even xcdroast is they won't backup (read: copy) cd's with non-standard tracks (read: playstation games).
    Other than that, they're fine.

    ------------------
  • MW3 on Linux won't likely happen, for one important reason: FASA is now owned by Microsoft. I don't think they'd be too big on MicroProse porting it to Linux (and I just can't see MicroProse doing it, or allowing Loki to do it).
  • Sorry if my post sounds like a flamewar waiting to happen, but what is this formating thing all about?

    As much as I dislike microosft, I always keep in mind that computers are supposed to be tools! (is that because I'm older than the average /. reader? ;)

    Sure I wouldn't use win95 to setup masquerading or any other service for that matter (even if those private networks or something like that are now officially a microsoft invention), but there's a reason why most games work in DOS DPMI, that's how you can expect the fastest resuts without the operating system being bothered about the way you mess with hardware.

    Oh well, if I don't get it, then let it be a -1 comment :-)

    ---

  • For the first year or so using Gimp, I didn't really see what the big deal was. But after reading the manual and playing with it seriously, I see why it can compete with Photoshop. I wonder if someone made a new interface for it to make it feel and work more like Photoshop, more people would convert.
  • Yeah, they certainly did, but still and all, if it hadn't been for Loki, we wouldn't even be talking about this now. I can really appreciate Myth TFL/Myth II from a purely gaming standpoint, because it truly is an excellent game, but I for one have serious doubt about Bungie's true code writing abilities. Myth II took a full SEVEN MONTHS to be fully fixed (V2 SLI patch, room switch lock-ups, options lag, etc.), which is just absurd. I'm amazed I put up with their shit for as long as I did--that game was literally the only thing that could crash my PC, and it must've done it 3 times a day on average. Hell, the first version had that nasty uninstall bug, which shouldn't have made it out of beta. I may be speaking out of my ass here, but I sincerely doubt Bungie could do the job Loki did with the game under Linux, and I hope they keep their paws off of future games (Oni, Halo, Myth III maybe?), because I have little faith in their ability to do the job themselves.

    PS> Their tech "support" is beneath contempt, I won't even start on that.
  • How about dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/tmp/cdimage bs=512

    (I have only tried this when the filesystem is 4.3bsd and cannot be mounted by linux.)
  • For some reason, this was segfaulting on my box, switching to windowed(--windowed) mode fixed it for me. Don't know why DGA wasn't working...
  • Just as a thought, I would say that most people who have an opinion on the GIMP's interface have only run it a few times and got annoyed when they couldn't figure out how to draw a box within three seconds of seeing the program. And the answer to your question is yes, there are both simple and powerful ways to draw simple or complex shapes, RTFM. I'll say the GIMP is very usable once you give yourself a chance to understand it. The _reality_ holding it back from heavy professional use is, like he said, the color handling.
    Also, it isn't the right mouse button, it's the center one that's the issue. The right number of buttons is 3.
  • As a thought, try "mem=127M", if that works dance and be happy. I don't remember exactly why but some mb's don't let you have all the ram.
  • Finally, got it downloaded.

    Not bad at all. Graphics were well done.

    The games AI is sort okay.

    I had a dwarf go attack someone on the walls. It actually went down the ramp on one side and went back up on the other side to get to them.

    But at the same time I sent warriors from outside the gate to attack the same archers and they went through the gate but ignored the ramp and sat there at the bottom of the wall on the inside and
    got shot.

    Graphics are very good, tried it in 1024x768 and it played fine.
  • On the VB type app... Take a look at VDK Builder [programmers.net]. This packoge has gotten ridiculous[ly little attention - it's really quite good.
  • Well, i'm pretty sorry to say this to you but...
    BAISICK was never intended to be a programming language to make big applications in. Because the architecture of the language is totally wrong to make big application in, better to call slang code you get lost after writing more than a couple of 1000 lines. When BAISICK was developed in the 70ies (i guess, maybe even earlier), the developers made it to be a handy stepup for the more complicated languages of that time.
    Now meecrowsoft tries to bring sometin' use in BAISICK by bringing Visual BAISICK, and putting object orientated thing in it, and to make a grap and glue interface around it. Well, while never using it, I can't imaging coming anything usefull out of it. Maybe you can grab and glue a nice interface in it, but that'll all.
    Tell me: why is most software in Waindoos still written in C? I havn't seen one big application written in Visual BAISICK.
    Well because linux is in more serious bissness (at least more than waindoos), where _real_ developers code and where _real_ highend-expecting users expect stable, non-exploitable and good programs, most applications you will see under linux are just coded in C. Thereafter, most coders who can C and write professional code don't need a graphical widget to know where to put the buttons.
    Linux is not the kind of os where everything just "can" (mostly due to it's multi-user nature).
    So if you want to write your BAISICK programs, you'd better stay a while with Waindoos, and make that os insecure. Maybe you'll convince some people to use linux instead of windows by showing off your newest Visual BAISICK programms.
  • there is a config for gimp 1.0.4 to bee more like
    photoshop, but i dont know where to find it, ive only used it on a friends box.

    to the one who does not like the right mouse button (something i like much better than going all the way to the top of screeen like in photoshop) the devel version has a menu button for all of that in the corner. panning with the middle mouse button is another advantage.
  • I agree with you 100%. Releasing the engine code and charging for art/sound/levels is a great way to go. Actually, I believe this is the route that crack dot com and Bungie took with their multi-player platform game, Abuse.

  • (!!!!)
    You're evidently not an old Bungie hand. blam is the secret word associated with the new game Bungie just demoed at Macworld. Not Myth III, not Oni- the one beyond _that_. I've seen a video clip of it running. It's astonishing.
    Could this mean that they will port Halo [bungie.com] to Linux?
    You guys don't know Bungie like us macsters do. They have games still producing fans and newsgroup traffic (alt.games.marathon- one of the few such newsgroups created just by reader demand) years after the game's release. They have tighter security than Apple, or the heyday of the Politburo- but they _tease_... and there have been hints of 'blam' for YEARS. It's gonna be big- it's been demoed finally- and this looks a lot like it's going to support Linux.
    Bungie _rule_. It doesn't surprise me at all that they're gearing up to give Linux the serious commercial support it deserves in gaming. They are bestsellers, really heavy hitters, and they don't do anything in a halfassed way. It looks like Linux is going to get equal status with Mac and Windows from Bungie. That's pretty big news.
    Me, I'm just tickled that Myth II supports _LinuxPPC_... I'd never held out much hope for people doing that. I'm happy even just hearing about it. :)
  • Great game, but it is nothing until you try some mutiplayer : ) BTW: If you wanna, do a find on me as "codetoad" : - )
  • When I try to run either the 2.0 or the 2.1 it crashes, and when i try it with -w and -s it still crashes. Even when i closed X and startx -- -bpp 8 (640x480) it still wouldn't work either way..here's some error msgs..:
    bash-2.02# ./myth2_demo_2.0
    08.01.99 13:46:59 Myth II running under Linux ------------
    Scanning for software devices...
    Found 1 to use
    video memory unprotecting
    video memory protecting
    bash-2.02# ./myth2_demo_2.1
    WARNING: Unable to find your home directory! argv0 = ./myth2_demo_2.108.01.99 13:47:03 Myth II running under Linux ------------
    9 Found 1 to use
    video memory unprotecting
    bash-2.02# video memory protecting

    bash-2.02# ./myth2_demo_2.1 -w
    WARNING: Unable to find your home directory! argv0 = ./myth2_demo_2.1
    08.01.99 13:47:18 Myth II running under Linux ------------
    Scanning for software devices...
    Found 1 to use

    BUG! (Segmentation Fault) Going down hard...
    Killed
    bash-2.02# ./myth2_demo_2.0 -w
    08.01.99 13:48:56 Myth II running under Linux ------------
    Scanning for software devices...
    Found 1 to use

    BUG! (Segmentation Fault) Going down hard...
    Killed
  • I think (sorry if I'm misinterpreting you) that you're assuming the same people/company makes the games and the engine (so the development of one can subsidize the other).

    Why make this assumption? Very different skills are involved.

    I'm starting a company to make a game engine. We're good coders, but we'll let other companies (who are good at the content part) make the games.

    I don't see how we can make money while making the engine open source. Suggestions welcome.

  • Bungie designed _all_ of it. If you want to be disrespectful of theme and mood and general game design, I hope you also have nasty words for Ion Storm ;) Now, if you have a problem PC, that's understandable. We're quite aware that PCs can blow at any seam, and it speaks well for Bungie that they did eventually fix things for you, since most people seem to have not had your particular problems. (snipe snipe snipe, vid vid vid)
    The point is, you're kind of outnumbered, and there's a lot of evidence to suggest that Bungie are generally terrific enough to compensate for not being total masters of the Windows PC. And that's what you're complaining about- Myth II was causing problems with advanced hardware under _windows_. Are you _sure_ that they'd find Linux that forbidding and impossible to code for? They've been coding for Macs for years, and Macs are well known to be totally subject to extensions madness, sort of the Mac version of all Linux boxes being randomly different and customised. This indicates a history of being ready to cope with more personalised boxes- it is _not_ necessary to assume a generic 'standardized' computer just to make good software, and the Linux movement will test that assumption severely- and I think Bungie will do well in its new environment.
    So there ;) oh, you call tech support? ;) *hehehe*
  • How did you get it to access esd? It said in the readme that it supported esd so I just ran it. No sound. Then I tried esddsp gameexec and still no sound. It worked just fine if I killed esd though.
  • I get much of the same thing only I get the home directory errors. I figure I should email loki with the strace on it.. 65meg d/l for a prog that won't run.. oh well.
  • My server got /.ed and all I got was this stupid T-shirt

  • Linux bundled with the game? (Score:4)

    by Hanno ( 11981 ) on Saturday July 31, 1999 @11:53AM (#1772227) Homepage
    Don't know if anybody else thought of this already, but I'd like to see something like a true "boot and play" game CD. One that brings its own OS, so to speak.

    The CD would include a stripped-down Linux distribution with all the libraries and drivers needed for the game. No installation of a complete system is necessairy - all you need to do is boot the CD (or copy a few files on your system's harddrive and run it with loadlin or lilo).

    When new drivers come along, the game manufacturer could update the files of its "distribution".
  • I agree. Gimp's "click the right button" interface is lousy. I still prefer Photoshop - I know that Gimp has the same tools, but with Photoshop, I actually find them...
  • Yes, yes, thats the spirit!
    It reminds me of one disk games on the Amiga (floppy that is :)
    Why should you be able to jump back and forth between your game session and word processing (could be useful when the boss arrives though).
    There would be a problem to support all the current & future hardware but there would be no problems with newer OS and so on.
    How large would the OS be with drivers for all graphiccards, soundcards, mouses, keypads, joysticks ......
    Maybe only 100-200 MB. That leaves 450-550 free for the game. But when this idea will be used DVD will be the media and then the OS part is just a tiny part.
    Would anyone care to test this idea? It must work.
    And in the DVD case there could be a lilo boot to make it run under win/linux and if HFS hybrid even Mac all from the same disk. That would be the day...
  • says it all, I got 120k/sec...
  • For "the development of one [to] subsidize the other", you don't necessarily need to be in the same company/be the same people. For example, you write your code and release it under an open source license. However, you then license out support to the company working on the content portion. The company that works closest to you (ie, pays you the most money) will get the best understanding of the engine, and therefore, can make the best game.
  • I called customer service, and was told that the simms only work right on motherboards with tx chipsets. Mine apparently has an hx chipset. They are letting me return them. I think I need to get a new computer, since this one is getting old, and I have had a number of problems with it.
  • What I meant was the DOS layer in win95, only using some of the win95 functionality like networking.

    Doesn't mean that the game will actually work in DOS6.22, but it's still closer than running the same game in win nt...

    ---

  • Actually you saw the only good part of the game,
    assuming that we can call this a game.

    This thing sucks big time!
  • >No offense guys but I am yet to see apps for X
    >that are decently designed. Most are either
    >good looking and bad functioning or vice versa.

    I got tons of good apps on my PC. Take a look on
    the SuSE 6.1 distribution for guidance and search
    the web a bit. Linux has changed a lot since
    version 0.1 as you should know.

    >Honestly, if someone came out with a (don't shoot
    >me) Visual Basic

    "It is practically impossible to teach good
    programming style to students that have had
    prior exposure to BASIC; as potential programmers
    they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of
    regeneration." (Dijkstra)
  • >There's NOTHING commercially written for DOS
    >these days.

    Bullshit!

    A few weeks ago I bought an action game for
    my son. It says made for Win 95/98 game by
    Softkey.

    "Redneck Rampage The early uears"

    It turned out that this was a dos game. It has
    to switch to MS DOS mode to run with no sound
    and it crashes on return.

    I moved the binaries on the DRDOS partition and
    it runs perfectly and faster and the sound works.

    This is one among several others. This made for
    Win 95/98 is for the moron much like those mouse
    pads designed for Windows 95 that you can find in
    the store.
  • I had to run 'esd -public' if I was non-root and esd w/o public if I was root. Don't know why, but I'm not really a sound guy.

Slashdot Top Deals

He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him. -- Bion

Close