AO Linux HOWTO

[Cobrian]

I tested the Transgaming.org CVS repository with their instructions and it worked fine. So this leads me to conclude that the download scripts, provided by both the AO-Linux HOWTO and by Linux-Gamers are outdated.

You can read the instructions for a full CVS checkout at the Transgaming.com website.

(This is untested, but the scripts might work after competing steps 1&2.)

[evildr]

http://www.csh.rit.edu/~marius/aolinux/anarchyspy1.png
Its a first attempt, but I should have something usable by the end of this week.

What is this Anarchy Spy anyway? Some program you were developing or what?

And any progress Clicksaver? NEEDED badly

.evildr

[Faeryan]

Excellent news! Once more my Windows installation decided to screw up and ruin all the files on my HD. Couldn't salvage any of them this time, which I managed to do earlier. When I noticed my windows CDs were corrupted (too many scrathes I believe) I decided to finally go with Linux system.
Only thing I was worried about was AO. Will I get it to work on Linux, but then I stumbled upon this post. My days of worrying are behind. Can't wait to get my system up so I can download this.


EDIT:

Tried with Linux now but I just keep getting this infamous "EOF from server" message. This is the second day in a row.

[Incarnadine]

Linux is no longer a niche market, it hasn't been one for years actually. There are now umpteen million Linux users using it on a daily basis, so it's another major platform riight alongside Windows and Mac. (And vastly better than either I'd say. )

So, I think it's time that we had a native Linux client for AO, instead of suffering the trauma of running the game through Cedega.

Does anyone know if the devs have been playing with any such test client personally?

Pure rumour and speculation would be totally fine. ^_^

[Faeryan]

Ah.. Finally got it running on Linux, but it's painfully slow, so I had to install Win98 just to be able to play AO. :|

EOF from server messages are because you have missed this login-message-thingie. It wasn't listed on AO-Linux-HOWTO helpfiles. I got it when I asked around in #cedega IRC channel. Sadly I can't remember what the command was.

[Gwenneth]

Hrm, I must say, I'm tempted to try this tonight...

Still debating with myself about wether to try it on my installed gentoo, or to wipe and try out Ubuntu linux. Just for kicks. Ah well, will let you know, I got it running on Gentoo a while ago, and while playable, I tend to return to windoze for more fps. We'll see =)

Gwen

[esrevni]

I got it working nearly flawless in cedega 4.3.1 in windowed mode, though definately an FPS cut

Fullscreen is cutting out most of the textures, leaving a 'shadow' around everything, but FPS is much much better.

Any suggestions on getting fullscreen running properly? going to try a few different locations in-game to see if maybe that's the issue

EDIT: After messing around in the conf file a bit, I came across this

; How much Video RAM does your card have?
"VideoRam" = "32"
; How much AGP memory should be used for vertex data (about 1/2 your AGP aperature size)
"AGPVertexRam" = "32"

[esrevni]

Update on this:

I changed the settings in the code I posted above to match my card, started it up in fullscreen (I'm in jobe right at the moment, will let you know should I find an area that creates the same problems I was having earlier). Working beautifully now, no problems at all!

[kaghelion]

One thing that really degrades performance, at least for me, is all that xml-based gui that is all over the screen now. Maybe it's just my slow processor or something but performance went up by about 25-40% when I accidently disabled most of the xml-based gui.
I did this by accident when I wanted to check out the test-server and the files wouldn't be correctly copied.

Note, the game was really fast (70+ fps in shops instead of around 40) but you couldn't really play since you couldn't open any ncu, map or trade windows.
Skill, inventory window, shortcut bar, target bars, compass and chat window was visible but nothing else. Too bad you couldn't have this kind of performance and only enable the other stuff when you really needed it.

[maxwello]

is clicksaver working yet? or another new tool that works like it? if there are betas out ther ei would be willing to try them im running mandrake 10.2 kernel 2.6.11-6 and if someone could toss me an rpm based on that kernel or a generic rpm that will work for most kernels then i would be most happy to try it out. i suck at trying to make rpm packages myself for install so it would be a ton easier if someone could build one quick for me and then link it.

thanks and keep trying lol ao works great under linux with cedega 4.3.2 and point2play installing it. i did install mariusmod's dll fix tho just to be sure that i would have it working on first try. not sure if it will work with a default install tho

[Khalem]

One thing that really degrades performance, at least for me, is all that xml-based gui that is all over the screen now. Maybe it's just my slow processor or something but performance went up by about 25-40% when I accidently disabled most of the xml-based gui.
I did this by accident when I wanted to check out the test-server and the files wouldn't be correctly copied.

Note, the game was really fast (70+ fps in shops instead of around 40) but you couldn't really play since you couldn't open any ncu, map or trade windows.
Skill, inventory window, shortcut bar, target bars, compass and chat window was visible but nothing else. Too bad you couldn't have this kind of performance and only enable the other stuff when you really needed it.

Not really suprising :P

Same thing happens in windows.
I can vividly recall back when we had that choice between the new and the old GUI how FPS dropped with 10-20 when swithcing between the two.

[yourpappy]

So does this work good enough for me to use my linux duel boot or am I still stuck with good ol win xp??? I have a geforce card, 1gb ram, and a 2.5g processor..... dunno if that helps any in the answer.... card is a FX 5500 128mb btw...... any positive input and linux succesful installs would be greatly appreciated....

[kaghelion]

Yeah that should be perfectably playable.
My rig:
Debian Unstable 2.6.11
Nvidia FX5500, drivers: 1.0.7174
Duron 1800, 512 MB DDR 400, Abit NF7

I get about 20-50 fps, feels a lot better then in Win98 where I get better fps but have the dreaded mouse-lag instead. The only bad part is in player cities where it crawls around 10 fps and I'm forced to use the keyboard for targetting and navigation.

Clicksaver doesn't work, not right away anyway. By copying the right dlls from windows I can get it to start up but I get a file lock error when I try to run it at the same time as AO. Maybe you could get around that with some unix link magic but I haven't tried that yet.

[Lakiluke2001]

Hi I'm trying to install the AOcedega but whenever i run it im getting EOF from server message. When it reaches 20 retries, the script stops and returns to the command line ;/
What should I do?? Help me plz. AO is the only game i've been playing for nearly 6 months now and dreaded windows is making me nuts... so i want to switch to Linux which btw RoXorz

[kaghelion]

*cough*
Too bad you missed the posts about a page back.

Hey guys,
Do I need to subscribe to use the script?
I tried running it and all I got was:
EOF from server like 20 times

I tested the Transgaming.org CVS repository with their instructions and it worked fine. So this leads me to conclude that the download scripts, provided by both the AO-Linux HOWTO and by Linux-Gamers are outdated.
You can read the instructions for a full CVS checkout at the Transgaming.com website.
(This is untested, but the scripts might work after competing steps 1&2.)

Bascically you don't really need the special patches that the AOcedega scrips installs, they're already included in the transgaming cvs.
The Wine CVS.sh script might still work. It might also be that the cvs server is a bit crowded.

[Chadwill]

OSx86 any1..?

i would love to see cedega/ao ported to the os x intel version

[Gwenneth]

Isn't there a direct linux emulator for OSx? Heard something about it a while ago, was called "Fink" or something. No clue tho, I'm not a mac user.
But per se, if its doable in linux/Xbsd, it should be doable in OSx as well...

If my logic holds water, which isn't always

Gwen

[kaghelion]

Basically you don't really need the special patches that the AOcedega scrips installs, they're already included in the transgaming cvs.
The Wine CVS.sh script might still work. It might also be that the cvs server is a bit crowded.

I tried the WineCVS.sh script today, which is a really nice script, but I found out two things:

1. The current cedega cvs code will not compile cleanly with GCC-4.0. I used GCC-3.3 and it compiled without (any major) problems.
2. Debug messages are turned on which really doesn't help performance.
3. This message probably gives the reason why you'd get lower fps in linux:
   

   fixme:ddraw:ProcessStridedVertices light vertices in software
   fixme:ddraw:ProcessStridedVertices can't handle VOP 40c yet
   fixme:ddraw:ProcessStridedVertices light vertices in software

[Telnarus]

Just a note to ATI Users, don't bother with trying to get ao to run on linux through wine or cedega atm. 1.5 fps in windowed mode, 4.5 in full screen.

Note, using a Nvidia based card I get 20-30 fps so it is indeed playable with an nvidia based card. Until the ati drivers mature more and they get better performance which will likely be 5 years from now as it has taken them that long just to get windows drivers relatively stable. :-p

[kaghelion]

4-5 fps sounds like you didn't get hardware acceleration to work properly. I got about the same performance when I had messed up the opengl libraries and was using Mesa software 3D instead of Nvidias hardware 3D.

I was amazed that my el cheapo Duron processor could run AO with 3-5 fps in software 3D
ATI's drivers should deliver a lot better performance when you get them working correctly. (I haven't fiddled with those so I can't help you there.)