Linux *BETA* Demo

Linux support forum for Eschalon: Book I
Per
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Post by Per »

I'm afraid I have some bad new too. After playing for a while on my laptop, the graphics gets completely screwed up and the computer freezes and I have to reboot it. The same thing happened when I ran the windows version with Wine, but then I thought that it was Wine's fault. Perhaps this is the same thing that waltshooter describes, with a "waterfall" of pixels.

It does sound suspiciously like a hardware fault, since I have never seen an application completely crash the entire computer under Linux. But at the same time other games work just fine. This was with full screen by the way, and I haven't tried windowed mode yet. Unfortunately I'm extremely busy with school right now, but I'll report back if I have the time to try some more.
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BasiliskWrangler
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Post by BasiliskWrangler »

Okay, let's try this experiment...

Everyone who is experiencing graphic problems, try downloading this Linux game demo and giving it a run. It is made with the same BlitzMax development system used for Eschalon, so it should be making the same type of graphic calls to the hardware.

http://www.runesofavalon.com/

Let me know if this demo runs fine for you. I noticed on his site he says:

"Linux version has been tested on Ubuntu 7.04 and Debian. Works best with hardware accelerated OpenGL. May need gcc-3.3 libraries."
RezoApio
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Post by RezoApio »

waltshooter, can you post the exact location (use the TAB key to get it) so I will try to do the same.

Thanks
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Post by waltshooter »

RezoApio wrote:waltshooter, can you post the exact location (use the TAB key to get it) so I will try to do the same.

Thanks
AH! So that's how you get the location. I wondered about that.

Will do, soon as I get home from work. I'll also try that other game, and see if I get the same problem.
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Post by RezoApio »

OK BW I have made the test.

I have the same kind of behavior. Game window is not independent of other windows so if I try to ALT-TAB I will have snow on both windows.

Difference with Eschalon is that I think they redraw the full window each time so the effect is not lasting as in Echalon where you redraw only changing tiles I think.

Will now do some testing along that gcc option you have mentioned.
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Post by RezoApio »

I have the gcc-3.3-base installed in its version 1:3.3.6-15ubuntu2

I have also gcc-4.1 and gcc-4.1-base installed in version 4.1.2-16ubuntu2.

Someone more knowledgeable in C compiler can tell me if it may be of use to test installing gcc-3.4 ?

Also I have not much knowledge in graphics programming, what libraries should be verified ?
Any basic troubleshooting steps ?
Any script to list involved libraries for graphics support ? for OpenGL ?
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Ama la realidad que construyes y ni aun la muerte detendra tu paso.
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Post by viratoxe »

Okay, here is what I see so far...hope this helps to organize things a bit! :)

User | Distribution | Video | Status
MaxEd | Debian Linux 4.0 | No Info | Working, performance ?
Per (Desktop) | Arch Linux 64-bit | Nvidia 8800GTS | Working, performance 1-2
Per (Laptop) | Arch Linux 64-bit | X3100 Integrated | Slowish/Video garbage then crash
Kxc | Ubuntu 7.04 | ATI Radeon 9600 XT | Graphical glitches
BW | Ubuntu 7.10 | ATI/Nvidia GeForce 4 | Slow
PhilosophiX | openSuse 10.2 | Intel Integrated | Slow/Audio problems, System Specs on the borderline.
Altefcat | Ubuntu 7.04 | Intel Integrated |Fullscreen not working/Window mode works
Chestah | Ubuntu 7.10 | ATI Radeon 9800 | Fullscreen not working/Window mode works/Can't click buttons.
RezApio | Ubuntu 7.10 | ATI Mobility 7500 | Graphical glitches/window manager problems?
Viratoxe (Sys1) | Gentoo Linux | Nvidia 7800 GS | Working, performance 4-5
Viratoxe (Sys2) | Gentoo Linux | Intel Integrated | Working, performance 18-20
Viratoxe (Sys3) | Gentoo Linux | Nvidia 5900 SE | Working, performance 4-5
Viratoxe (Sys3) | Ubuntu 7.10 | Nvidia 5900 SE | Install libstdc++.so.5, Nvidia binary drivers. Working, performance 4-5
Waltshooter | Ubuntu 7.10 | No info | Video garbage then crash in certain locations
Macdude22 | Mac OS X | No info | Wait, why is he posting in the Linux forum anyway?

Conclusions:
-Of the working(no slowdown or other problems) systems, 5 of the 6 are not using Ubuntu(not a determining factor in my opinion). At least three of those systems are using Nvidia video cards. (MaxEd, please let us know what video hardware you have...)
-Two of the systems with integrated video hardware ran slowly and the other two were "slower". That is to be expected I suppose. That's just how it is most of the time...even in the Windows world.
-Two of the systems with known ATI video hardware exhibited problems. In BW's case, slow, and in Chestah's case, full screen trouble and button clicking problems. I was assuming by his comments that Kxc(who experienced graphical problems) was using ATI hardware as well, but please correct me if I am wrong.

So, I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that maybe some of the problems are a result of ATI video hardware and/or ATI drivers. I would tend to agree with Per here about his statement that ATI has historically had poor drivers for Linux. But I keep reading that the newer stuff is "better". I wish I had an ATI card at my disposal to test with, but alas, only Nvidia here. Perhaps I can dig one up at the computer store where I work to test with and go grab some of the bleeding edge drivers to try. Also, I believe that the distribution of Linux you are using makes *very little* difference at all concerning performance. More than likely, it's the version of video drivers that are available to that specific distribution in it's package management system if it uses one(Ubuntu and Debian do of course, I believe openSuse does as well). If the packagers of those distributions don't have the latest driver packages available, it could be part of the issue. I don't know...just trying to find a common thread here. :)

Most important, however, is that we eleminate the "No Info" entries in the Video Hardware column... If you are unsure of your video hardware as Waltshooter stated, that's fine, but if you know what you have, please, please let us know. (Waltshooter, could you please go to your "System" menu and then into "Preferences" and then start "Hardware Information". I know there is a *lot* of stuff listed and most of it makes no sense, but what you are looking for are some keywords such as: ATI, Radeon, Nvidia, Geforce.)

More tests as time permits. BW, don't get discouraged about this...I know of several big commercial games by the big development houses that have had problems with video driver versions upon release. It's not that uncommon of a problem really...if indeed that's what the problem is here. I would say we need some more tests done with ATI video hardware and drivers to test this theory...and then, of course, a solution! :D
Last edited by viratoxe on December 12th, 2007, 5:43 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by RezoApio »

Viratox, I have a Radeon Mobility 7500. Would you be able to make a script to retrieve the data that could be run on all systems ? (It would take me a very long time for this kind of stuff but I could give it a try if needed)

I would also agree on the ATI culprit there as they have known records of bad behavior. HOWEVER new 7.10 linux has a much better installtion regarding that for example my glxgears goes nearly to 500FPS when I never been able to go over 120 FPS on Dapper.

Another idea is the language of our system. I am using a spanish setup for this laptop.

I will try to put my user as english by default to see if it has an impact.

Talk to you soon
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Per
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Post by Per »

Well, I've now completed the Runes of Avalon demo on my laptop, with no crashes or problems. RoA also played very smoothly, with no lag at all. From what I can judge it's not that much different from Eschalon if you look at the effects and stuff, so I think it's a bit weird that Eschalon is so slow.

As a side note I should add that RoA didn't start at first, since it tried to use it's own .so-files. I just removed all of them, and after that it worked fine. I should also say that I use Arch64 on my laptop too, so that viratoxe can add that to his nice table :) I also use swedish as my language on both computers, so I don't think the language causes any problems.

For those of you who don't know what video card you have:
An easy way of determining your video card is to open a terminal and run "lspci | grep VGA", which should tell you what your video card is. If it doesn't work you can try to run only lspci, and see if one of the lines mention ATI, Nvidia or Intel (or perhaps SiS or Matrox in some rare cases).
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Post by kxc »

viratoxe wrote: -Two of the systems with known ATI video hardware exhibited problems. In BW's case, slow, and in Chestah's case, full screen trouble and button clicking problems. I was assuming by his comments that Kxc(who experienced graphical problems) was using ATI hardware as well, but please correct me if I am wrong.
Ok, here's my system information, I hope it helps.

CPU: P4 3Ghz
GFX: Ati Radeon 9600XT
RAM: 512 MB
OS: Ubuntu 7.04 (Live CD)

Performance (Win): 3-5
Performance (Ubuntu): 25-29

You can see the tiny gaps between the tiles I mentioned earlier.
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Post by RezoApio »

GOOD NEWS !!!

I have found what was not working properly.
It was already on this post btw.
I have just removed the visual effect for my system (the so called compiz stuff) and now the Launch window and windowed game are working correctly.
They can be moved, resized etc ect and I can just nicely Alt - Tab on from another.

It leaves me without the "pretty" visual effects which I don't mind at all.

Only thing remaining I still have the "grid effect" but this is a small thing and would not prevent playability.

To try the same on an ubuntu setting :
System > Preferences > Appearance Tab Visual Effects Select the None radio button.

Now let me go to play a little ;-)
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Post by BasiliskWrangler »

Yes! I think per and PhilosophiX figured some of this out on page one.

Let me do some testing and them I can update the original post with compatibility information.

[edit] Hey! It looks like disabling all visual effects lets the OpenURL command function normally (the opening of the web page when you click "Purchase the Full Game"). There is a delay like it might be frozen, but then the application ends and the website pops open!! :D
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Post by viratoxe »

Glad to hear you are making progress RezoApio! Yes, Compiz Fusion is a bad thing when it comes to game performance I think. :) The game was playable on my system with it running, but not as nice. Everyone who is/was having trouble(I am guessing Kxc tried this already, but if not please do since it would account for the poor performance), follow Per's and Rezo's advice and turn off the "pretty effects". You can turn them back on *after* you are done playing the game so you can impress all your windows friends. :)

I found a mini-HOWTO in the Ubuntu forums on how to download and install the latest ATI drivers for Ubuntu 7.10(officially supported by ATI). Please be advised that I did not try this myself and if you do decide to do so, you do it at your own risk...please be careful and use your best judgement. The latest binary ATI drivers really only support newer chipsets(sorry, RezoApio, it does not support the Mobility 7500 :( ). If the Ubuntu 7.10 users with the newer ATI Radeon video hardware are not using this driver, I would be interested to see if it actually helps the graphical glitches and performance. Anyway, here is the howto:
Installation of ATI's latest driver Catalyst 7.11 (internally version 8.433.2)
1. Download driver from ATI (now AMD) website:
http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/linu ... adeon.html

2. From Terminal program, change to the directory you downloaded to and type:
sudo ati-driver-installer-7-11-x86.x86_64.run

3. Use ATI GUI program to install driver. (I chose 'all' and 'auto'.)

4. From Terminal type:
sudo aticonfig –initial

5. Restart.
After restart, look at Applications menu. You should see the ATI Catalyst Control Centre.

6. Start ATI Catalyst Control Centre to configure card and monitors.
That was from a post dated 5 days ago, so it should be reasonably accurate still. ;) Again, use caution and only do this if you are willing to take a certain amount of risk(livin' on the edge!).

Thanks to Per for mentioning the "lspci" command...I had actually forgotten to write about that even though I was thinking about it while talking about the "Hardware Information" in Ubuntu!

Thanks to everyone who responded with their video hardware info as well! It really helps to narrow down where the problems might be!
Last edited by viratoxe on December 12th, 2007, 6:56 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by BasiliskWrangler »

Updated my original post with information gathered during this test. If I missed something, please let me know.

Thanks everyone!
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viratoxe
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Post by viratoxe »

Only a minor thing BW, but I am using gcc version 4.1.2 on this PC(Sys2) and gcc version 4.2.2 on the home machine(Sys1). Now, correct me if I am wrong, but gcc is used only when compiling software on a users machine. Eschalon is a pre-compiled(by Blitz) binary when we download it, correct? So in theory gcc shouldn't be called when running the game. Sorry if I am misunderstanding, but because I have no 3.x versions of gcc installed on either machine, I wouldn't necessarily call it a dependency. :)
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