The Drunken Lizard Pub

Yeah, that's a bit odd. The demo and the full version are identical applications. The only difference is that I leave a handful of maps off the demo version, and there is a single variable that I flip from 0 to 1 to display an extra menu option on the main menu.

I am about the most unskilled Linux person here, but I have found while developing the game Linux doesn't always release applications well, especially after crashing. I always recommend rebooting to a fresh system before trying anything else because that often fixed most of the problems I encountered.

Please let me know what you find regarding this error, Joshua. You're the first to report of such an error with the full version- that very fact leads me to believe it is likely a problem on your end, but the solution you uncover can help others who may encounter it.

Hello,

I only just learned about Eschalon today, downloaded the demo and couldn't believe my luck when I found out the game was released a few hours later. Needless to say, I purchased my copy immediately
So far, my impressions are overwhelmingly positive, I was waiting for this kind of game to appear for ages. I can't find a serious thing to complain about (except maybe having the option to switch to 1024x768 resolution would have been nice; apparently this will be the case with Book II). I can't wait to play more.

However, there's also an issue I haven't been able to resolve yet. While, much like Joshua posted above, the demo ran flawlessly for me, the full version hangs my computer completely in certain spots, or, to be more precise, after taking certain actions in the game. One of them is interacting with the well just outside the building the storyline starts in. Click on it, and the computer goes totally dead, (i.e. not just a case of frozen X-server) and nothing short of turning it off and on again helps.
I also noticed that these crashes are more frequent after restoring a saved game and, the weirdest thing of all, the demo now behaves in the same way, although I tried playing it with several characters previously, each time taking the now computer-crashing actions without a problem.
Of course, this strongly suggests a problem on my end, so I tried everything I could think of and post the results here in hope someone might be able to help.

The system used is x86 Ubuntu 7.10 on a 2GHz AMD Athlon box with 1 MB RAM and a 256 MB nVidia 6800 GS GPU. There was absolutely no changes to the system between installing the demo and the final version of the game (in fact, I haven't even turned the computer off).

Things I tried:
-check RAM, hard drive and file system for integrity
-install the newest nVidia driver
-make sure libstdc5 is installed
-md5sum the downloaded archive, then re-download the game (md5sums identical) and unzip it again
-tweak all the game's settings (windowed vs. full screen, colour depth, sound drivers, etc.)
-turn of all other applications when running the game
-try playing with a different character
-remove the hidden directory with saved games from my home folder (several times)
-check dynamically loaded libraries with ldd (everything in place)
-bang my head against the wall

Unfortunately, I haven't got my other computer with me at the moment, so I can't test there. I can by no means rule out some sort of mess up on my part, I would nevertheless be extremely thankful for any pointers.

Last but not least, a big thank you to BG for bringing this cool game to Linux, it's much appreciated!

I remember I got much problem with 3D game / openGL games before, when the CPU/GPU was computing too much my computer froze. But now I don't have such problem (new kernel, new nvidia driver...). Do you still have ssh access to your machine ? (if it's possible to check). Could you start the game with strace ? Or could you start the game in window mode and run a terminal with the top command by side ?
Maybe the fact the map is bigger may have some effect on your system ?

Could you run the game from a live cd ? (you can try Mandriva One, which has accelerated drivers : http://www.mandriva.com/en/product/mandriva-linux-one )

I mentionned the demo could temporary freeze my display for a few seconds, with the full version I haven't experienced it anymore.

-> Vadi : about the issue with OpenAL, I've tried the first fix, I didn't got any sound, the second worked as before, and it was the same problem after a while with cracking and saturation. I'll try to install pulse audio or use another desktop, hopefully this issue doesn't prevent me to enjoy the game

As I've said before the demo causes my computer to completely lock up, but I think I've found the cause now. I use the intel driver, which used to use the XAA acceleration architecture. It has now switched to EXA as the default in the newest driver that I installed only yesterday. When I tried the game today it was much slower than before, and is now just past the line to unplayable for me, but it didn't lock up. When I tried XAA instead it locked up immediately, and the game graphics got really screwed up. So it seems to be XAA's fault, and even though it's too slow to play with EXA it doesn't lock up the computer at least. EXA is still new though, and the performance should increase with new releases when it's been more optimized.

Unfortunately I'm stuck with my laptop right now, since I'm home with my family over Christmas and new year. So no Eschalon until I get back to my place in January

@farvardin:Have you tried setting your sound driver to SDL? Choose OpenAL as the sound driver, and create a .openalrc with I get crackling sound if I choose alsa, but sdl is fine for me.

Regarding issues between demo/full versions: One thing I've thought of is that you can have the demo and the full version installed at the same time, and they should read the same saved game folder just fine as long as the demo isn't trying to read a saved game position that puts the player on a map outside the range of the demo.

So, my point is this could be used to do some comparisons to see if you really are having difficulty between the demo and the full version. If you have a very specific, repeatable action that causes a crash on the full version but not on the demo, that could give me valuable clues in hunting down the problem.

@farvardin:Have you tried setting your sound driver to SDL? Choose OpenAL as the sound driver, and create a .openalrc with

Code: Select all

(define devices '(sdl))

I get crackling sound if I choose alsa, but sdl is fine for me.

no it's the same. I'll try to investigate further about this..

This is the problem with Linux game, and why (almost) all games are released for windows, a lot of users have different kind of strange problems. Big props to BW for attemping a release and even better helping every single user who have a problem!!!!

it's true because of the different distributions, the errors can differs. On the other hand, I can see several people having problems with the windows version as well (dll, directx etc).

Generally, even if supporting multi plateforms software can take more time, in long term it may help to spot more bugs and make the software more robust. It can also add more active people on the forum for bringing support and help to newcomers.

Anyway, it's very kind of BW to be so active on this forum in order to help people. I hope it will pay, and bring more customers to Basilisk games because of this responsiveness and friendly atmosphere!

Anyway, it's very kind of BW to be so active on this forum in order to help people. I hope it will pay, and bring more customers to Basilisk games because of this responsiveness and friendly atmosphere!

I second that.
I've tried both strace-ing and watching CPU load, but to little avail, as the game crashes abruptly with CPU load at about 30-40% and about half of the system's memory taken. I also did a full system reinstall and formatted the hard drive (I REALLY want to play this one ), unfortunately the problems did not go away. I definitely want to try out both a live CD and another computer to eliminate the possibility of something being wrong with my system, especially seeing as no one else has reported this issue so far.

the CPU load is useful to learn if it's not a process which goes wrong.
The top command gives the "load average:" when it's above 1, it's a bit too much (but yet usable). If it was 5 or 6 etc, it would mean there is something really wrong.

Could it be your memory ? I advice you try a memtest ( http://www.memtest.org/ ) or if you have 2 ram modules you can try them one after one. But since you seem to have the crashes at the same time, it may be something else. Have you installed the same distribution again or another one?

Does everything work fine until you start playing? It sounds more likely to be a hardware problem. Is your video card or CPU overheating? Or like farvardin says, it might be faulty RAM.

Thanks for making your game available for the Linux platform I am currently testing the demo on Gentoo Linux. I hope someone is willing to make an ebuild for portage

I hope someone is willing to make an ebuild for portage

what is the point of doing this ? Or are you just joking ?

farvardin wrote:

I hope someone is willing to make an ebuild for portage

what is the point of doing this ? Or are you just joking ?

Nope I am quit serious. Portage has already in impressive collection of game(-demo's). Adding Eschalon would introduce more user's to this game.

See also:

http://gentoo-portage.com/games-fps
http://gentoo-portage.com/games-rpg

ah ok sorry, I thought you were talking about the full game

Btw Eschalon is finally on http://www.happypenguin.org/
(it seems they didn't take my submission, but Ariten's one instead...)