Aces High on Linux
This page contains information about setting up Aces High to work in a Linux
environment.
News :
- Dec 26, 2002 : Version 1.11 patch 1 works. If you're using a more recent
build of WineX, you need to start the game with the '--managed' option, like
this :
$ wine --managed aceshigh.exe
Otherwise the game starts up and hangs with a blank white screen.
This setting also fixes the "hang-on-quit" problem.
There are marked improvements in sound handling in the newer WineX releases
-- most of the sounds now work without any problems, though the 3D effects
are still not perfect.
- Jul 12, 2002 : My joystick patches have been accepted into the
WineX CVS. If you refresh your CVS tree (or get it in the first place) after
07/02, you will have all the code to have joystick work in AH, and POV support
as well.
Important: If you are using the latest WineX tree and have a POV joystick,
do let me know if it works or not.
If it doesn't, send me information about your joystick name, type, number
of buttons, etc and I'll try to fix it.
- Jul 11, 2002 : Version 1.10 patch 1 works. There is an issue
with quitting the game - it hangs on quit and must be killed (ctrl-c). I'm
trying to figure out whats going on.
- Mar 23, 2002 : Version 1.09 patch 1 works
- Mar 20, 2002 : My sound capture patch to make 1.09 work has
been accepted into the WineX CVS. The patch is no longer needed. Further,
I finished a new joystick patch which would enable joysticks on AH, and would
provide POV support to a few joysticks. (A complete list is available on the
patch page.) This patch has been submitted
to WineX, and hopefully will make it into their code soon.
- Mar 14, 2002 : Version 1.09 of Aces High integrated AHVoice
into the main program, and now another patch is needed to Wine. This time
its Wine's fault -- that part of DirectSound8 is not yet fully implemented.
I've fixed this problem and submitted the patch to TransGaming, so hopefully
it will make it into the main WineX CVS soon. Meanwhile, you can get the
patch here, and follow the same instruction
as can be found on the joystick hack page.
- Mar 11, 2002 : Version 1.08 patch 7 of Aces High works on
linux. For full joystick support you may need a patch to Wine, see below.
Tip: To properly save the patches linked to here, you need to right-click
on the link, and chose "Save As .."
The main idea here is to have it run under Wine with DirectX support
-- WineX made by Transgaming
.
With a few hacks I was able to get the joystick working properly (even
added POV support!) which was the only thing that prevented the game from
being playable.
This currently works :
- Graphics -- perfect (see below for tips)
- Networking -- perfect
- Joystick -- perfect (WineX CVS 07/12 and later. -- Released
in WineX 2.1. Earlier versions need : my hacks
to wine)
- Sound -- sound has gotten a lot better since Transgaming started
supporting DirectX 8. There are still some artifacts (i.e. some sounds
are cut off before their end), and the 3d sounds don't work quite
right (the volume is louder than it should be, and they don't pan in
stereo, only get louder/weaker), but the basic sounds are there, and quite
playable.
Quick start instructions :
- Get OpenGL and joystick support working in Linux. Test with
"glxgears" and/or TuxRacer.
- Download and
compile WineX. Configure WineX for your machine, test with calc.exe
or sol.exe
- Apply my patches to Winex sources
to make your joystick work correctly with AH, recompile WineX.
- Enjoy!
Here's the elaboration on the above "easy" steps :)
Feel free to contact me with
any questions.
Tips for getting AH to run :
* First, before even trying wine, make sure you get OpenGL to work
with your setup. A recent distribution (RedHat 7.2, latest Mandrake, etc.)
would have everything set up for this. Test OpenGL by running 'glxgears'.
On an older distro you may need to upgrade to XFree86 4.x.x. To do that you need
a kernel 2.4.x -- try to get the latest stable kernel (2.4.17 currently)
to get the best video driver for your card.
If you have an Nvidia card, you'll need drivers from nvidia, see their site.
* Once you have OpenGL, you need joystick support. Try the game TuxRacer and see that OpenGL and
joystick both work. (if it doesn't try 'modprobe joydev' or better yet
: 'modprobe evdev' as root). You may need to compile kernel modules for
joystick support and/or USB support (if usb joystick).
* Get wine -- I'm using Transgaming's "winex" -- which is where DirectX
development is being done. The main wine tree at winhq.com has an older
version. There are 2 ways to get WineX -
a) Subscribe to TransGaming ($5/mo I think) and get binary RPM's
b) Pull the sources from CVS and compile them. (this option is not
as hard as it sounds --- the compilation worked without a hitch for me.)
Instructions at :
http://www.transgaming.com/sources.php
(You will need to do this if you wish to apply joystick hacks anyway)
You'll need a lot of disk space (2-300megs or so) for this.
* Configure wine -- there's a nice graphical config util for wine
-- forget what its called. I just edited the config files to match my
setup.
* Run a windows program (c:\windows\calc.exe is a good test)
* Run AH !
If you got Wine from CVS after 07/12, everything should work. If you have
an earlier version -- you need to patch the
joystick sources, and recompile wine. But I recommend just refreshing
your CVS to the latest.
For better performance you should run your X server at the same bit-depth
as you want the game to run -- it will not switch bit-depth. So if you
run with 16bpp in windows, start your X server with :
startx -- -depth 16
if you run at 24 or 32 your graphics card might be slow. (The Radeon's
are).
Also, I hear that the Nvidia drivers for linux are much better than
the ATI Radeon's. I get worse performance under linux with the Radeon.
wine will produce a lot of error messages about the sound. This in
itself will eat performance. You should do :
$ wine aceshigh.exe --debugmsg -all
to turn off all the messages.
Contact me : [email protected]
(c) 2002 Lev Iserovich
I'm in no way affiliated with Aces High, HiTech Creations, Transgaming
Technologies, or any other company or entity mentioned here.