Help with games, please.

[rolf]

Hi. GF's nephew likes games. I set up a computer with Mandriva 2010 Spring for them. I don't know anything about games. A couple issues:

1. Nephew's friend gave him a copy of some windows game with .dll's and .exe's in a 4.7G package.
2. I've seen stuff about Wine, some linux gaming emulators for Windows games?, idk. Virtualbox OSE seems to work for my other project...
3. I've got a PS3 controller and see where others use it for PC games, just in case that works.
4. I showed him a high-def Linux game that looked impressive, to me, visually, but he had trouble manipulating with mouse and keyboard. Maybe a joystick would help clear the hurdle for simply using Linux native games.

That's all for now. Thanks!

[Joste]

http://appdb.winehq.org/shows you what windows games run under wine, there is also one specifically for games http://www.cedega.com/ but it isn't free.

A joystick may help - it depends on the game really - I have heard you can use a PS3 controller but I don't have one so haven't tried it.

There are also loads of linux native games at http://happypenguin.org/ and quite a few in the repositories.

[dubigrasu]

I would choose to install Playonlinux for playing Windows games. it's using wine, but in separated fake windows environments for each installed game.
It has a long list of games that can be installed without being bothered with missing dlls and registry settings. Everything is prearranged. Also a lot of useful settings and options. The default option is to install the games from their supported list, but you can also install unsupported games (or applications).
List of supported games http://www.playonlinux.com/repository/?cat=1

For native Linux games I recomand to try djl.

Djl is an open-source (GPL licensed) game manager written in Python 2.5 for the GNU/Linux Operating Systems. It is inspired by Valve's Steam software for Windows.

This one is also easy, it takes care of everything for you.
List of supported games http://en.djl-linux.org/?q=node/20


Both (Playonlinux and Djl) are in Mandy's repo.

[viking60]

Here is a must install list from the repos:
Battle for Wesnoth
Hedegewars
Warzone2100
Nexuiz

[rolf]

Great stuff! Although I've never followed games, there was this WOW online funeral several years ago. As you all know, there were two teams with animated characters representing young people from everywhere, geographically. Apparently someone or the server could record the game and that was posted on the internet, where I watched it. One young player died in real life and his/her team arranged a ritual observation of the death, a funeral, that was held, mistakenly, in the landscape of the ongoing WOW contest. The opposing team saw the arrangements and organized an ambush, slaughtering the funeral attendees. Apart from the impressive WOW graphics, it was a gripping peek into some contemporary social dynamics, I thought.
Thanks, Joste, dubigrasu, and Über!
I'll report on (slow) progress.

[viking60]

I have installed playonlinux and installed Age of Empires III
So far it has been a painfull experience. No messages and when I click the icon nothing happens. Struggling on......
Tips dubi?

[rolf]

With urpmi, I installed playonlinux (playonlinux-3.7.3-3mdv2010.1), too, in my first, brief foray into games. From memory, it identified a need for, oh what is it, some sort of html engine, I think, will have to google it....

Gecko! (I think). Anyway, the message gave an option to download and install it but recommended using my distro's package. I didn't know, exactly, what was required, so I told it to download and install. Also, it wanted microsoft fonts. Usually, I import those from my local Windows installation but maybe I forgot, maybe Playonlinux couldn't find them, I told it to download and install.

At some point soon after this, I browsed the applications and told it to install WOW. I think around here, the wizard window became unresponsive. I looked for some associated network activity, installed, then ran nethogs (something new and exciting that I'll put in the toolbox, I think), saw nothing associated going on, then killed the window. That part seems similar to Fearless Leader's report. As soon as that process was killed, the wizard asked whether I had multiple CDs or one DVD to install WOW. My dreams were dashed! I guess that I have to provide the game software on my own, which is reasonable, so I will have further reports, I do believe.

[viking60]

Exactly my experience! But mine goes somewhat further I had the CD's! So the window worked after I had killed that unresponsive grey window. Letting me point to AoE CD's and they went through. Then I had this Icon that I wanted to click to start the game and.....
nothing nada gar nichts. Not much help on the home page and no messages on the way.

[dedanna1029]

Keep in mind that all these programs do - wine, djl, playonlinux, etc., is allow you to install and run these things on Linux. They don't install these things for you. They just give you the means to do so. I myself find djl to be quite good.

[dubigrasu]

Ah, where to start from...say with gecko.

Gecko is needed by some windows installers. It says that is better to install the distro provided package. True if you're installing the game from your main wine.
But since Playonlinux uses separated wine instances (and often different versions) in separated enclosed environments, installing from package manager will do no good.
In other words Plyonlinux will be unable to use it because it doesn't see the main wine installation.
So is better to let that "grey window" on and finish the download. And yes, you will have to do it (almost) every-time you install a game.
Sometimes it just hangs there (don't ask me why...) but eventually (and hopefully) will finish the download and proceed with the installer.
Now, even when something is going wrong (you kill the window or doesn't get to finish the download) is not the end of the world. The installer will continue but will have some elements missing (some images or some text). Even in that state is possible to proceed.

About the installer asking for the CD's...well heck yeah
Something like Dedanna says: they provide the means, you provide the media

What next...AGE III.
First of all, when clicking on AOE in Playonlinux's list it says there that...wait...Game won't run with original age3.exe.
What exactly means that, I'm not sure. I suppose is their way to suggest that you need a crack to run it, even if the disc is original.
Wine/Playonlinux doesn't deal with copy protection (for legal reasons) so is unable to get past that if the game is protected. Is a legally gray area here so I won't get any further.(farther?...I'm always confusing these two).

A word about desktop icons.
When you install a game with Playonlinux the game installer will put (most of the time) an icon (or even two) on the desktop. Don't use them.
If you click on them, the game will start (or try to ) using the main Wine, and Not the customized wine from within Playonlinux.
At the end of the installation when Playonlinux is asking about creating icons, choose only to put icons on Playonlinux menu and start the game from there.

If you want to see error messages (if any) go to your home folder where is the hidden folder .Playonlinux.
Inside the .Playonlinux folder go to /configurations/installed folder, where you'll find the shells used to start the game.
Edit the shell first by commenting the line:

Code: Select all

export WINEDEBUG="-all"

So, will look like this"

Code: Select all

#export WINEDEBUG="-all"

This will enable all the error messages to be shown.
Start the shell from console this time, not from Playonlinux's menu.

Aaaaand I'm stuck...got no other ideas for the moment.

[dedanna1029]

Ah, where to start from...say with gecko.

Gecko is needed by some windows installers. It says that is better to install the distro provided package. True if you're installing the game from your main wine.
But since Playonlinux uses separated wine instances (and often different versions) in separated enclosed environments, installing from package manager will do no good.
In other words Plyonlinux will be unable to use it because it doesn't see the main wine installation.
So is better to let that "grey window" on and finish the download. And yes, you will have to do it (almost) every-time you install a game.
Sometimes it just hangs there (don't ask me why...) but eventually (and hopefully) will finish the download and proceed with the installer.
Now, even when something is going wrong (you kill the window or doesn't get to finish the download) is not the end of the world. The installer will continue but will have some elements missing (some images or some text). Even in that state is possible to proceed.

About the installer asking for the CD's...well heck yeah
Something like Dedanna says: they provide the means, you provide the media

What next...AGE III.
First of all, when clicking on AOE in Playonlinux's list it says there that...wait...Game won't run with original age3.exe.
What exactly means that, I'm not sure. I suppose is their way to suggest that you need a crack to run it, even if the disc is original.
Wine/Playonlinux doesn't deal with copy protection (for legal reasons) so is unable to get past that if the game is protected. Is a legally gray area here so I won't get any further.(farther?...I'm always confusing these two).

A word about desktop icons.
When you install a game with Playonlinux the game installer will put (most of the time) an icon (or even two) on the desktop. Don't use them.
If you click on them, the game will start (or try to ) using the main Wine, and Not the customized wine from within Playonlinux.
At the end of the installation when Playonlinux is asking about creating icons, choose only to put icons on Playonlinux menu and start the game from there.

If you want to see error messages (if any) go to your home folder where is the hidden folder .Playonlinux.
Inside the .Playonlinux folder go to /configurations/installed folder, where you'll find the shells used to start the game.
Edit the shell first by commenting the line:

Code: Select all

export WINEDEBUG="-all"

So, will look like this"

Code: Select all

#export WINEDEBUG="-all"

This will enable all the error messages to be shown.
Start the shell from console this time, not from Playonlinux's menu.

Aaaaand I'm stuck...got no other ideas for the moment.

Was thinking the same myself, that one doesn't want to install it from the repos because of the errors and lack of real "dependencies" - it not being able to see wine that way. Just couldn't remember how to explain it.

[viking60]

There is a AoE file in that folder with only a path reference. Nothing is corectly installed because I had to kill that grey Window. (Well I would not wait until spring).
I think you are right about that exe file thing though so Maybe I'll go for WoW instead.