LINUX: Aces High II Tutorial

[bbosen]

Cedega Joystick button mapping saga continued.

Now that I know the Sidewinder joystick series has worked for somebody, I decided to dig out one of my old Sidewinder "Precision Pro 2" sticks.

Same result: Analog axes work fine. AH2 sees an appropriate joystick "name" ("Microsoft Microsoft Sidewinder Precision Pro") but no button or hat press activity is detected.

Ugh!

I don't know what to tell Cedega about my joysticks. For this experiment, I didn't tell Cedega anything. Evidently the results I got come from some kind of default setup.

.... Still searching for sensible documentation. When I get it figgered out, I'll post the information here.



- Peabody-

[sev]

Originally posted by bbosen
Did you have to specify anything special in Cedega's GUI to describe you joystick and its buttons?

I did not touch anything in Cedega's joystick section, worked ok from first start. (I got empty list there)
Dose those buttons work in other Linux applications ?

[bbosen]

Sev:

Thanks for staying with me on this. It is helpful to know that you didn't need to do anything special to configure Cedega with regard to joystick button support. I'm glad it's working for you. I wish it worked for me.

You asked if those joystick buttons work in other Linux applications. Yes, KDE sees them, and AH "Classic" under "Wine" sees them. It seems that only Cedega applications like AH2 don't see them.

.... Still looking for the answer to this mystery.

I'm using Cedega V5.2.3. You?



Regards,



-Peabody-

[bbosen]

Whoops!

I think I'm using Cedega Version 5.2.10 because that's what the "Release Notes" say. The "About Cedega" dropdown menu says "5.2.3", but I bet that's wrong. I just downloaded it a few days ago from the Cedega web site (RPM version for Mandrake).

Please disregard the portion of my prior memo in which I said "5.2.3".



Regards,


-Peabody-

[Nikitis]

Yes, Cedega can have multiple engines at once.  5.2.10 is the latest, but 5.2.3 comes with the Point 2 Play (P2P) Gui.  You have to manually install the 5.2.10 engine, and make sure it's selected for your game in order for it to run.

[bbosen]

Evidently I have V5.2.3 of the Cedega "GUI" management application, and V5.2.10 of the emulation "Engine".

I'm confident I have the latest and greatest, because I've exercised the Cedega autoupdater and it tells me everything is up-to-date.

Still no joystick buttons.....  


-Peabody-

[bbosen]

Update: Everything works!
 
Last night I found I had been struggling needlessly.

Early in this exercise, I had grabbed an old version of Aces High 2, just for testing purposes. Evidently the version I grabbed (about 1 year old) doesn't use the latest joystick management routines.

Last night, when I upgraded to the latest version of AH2, everything started working, including the joystick button mapping.

I exercised it enough last night to be completely satisfied. Everything I tried worked, and the framerate was comparable to what I'm accustomed to under Windows XP.

I haven't tried H2H hosting yet, but I know it works well in client mode.

Within a few days I'll remove XP from several of my computers....


THANK YOU VERY MUCH everybody that's helped out!



-Peabody-

[bbosen]

Followup:

I've been flying with Linux for about a week now, and I've worked out all of the details within the past 3 or 4 days. It works very well, delivering framerates between 40 and 160 on my system (Athlon 64 3Ghz, nVidia, 1GB RAM).

The graphics are _slightly_ different from XP. The only perceptible difference is that some textures exhibit a slightly different color (and once in awhile I see some black speckle, but only rarely and only for brief periods of time).

I installed the LINUX Teamspeak 2 client with no trouble at all (about 5 minutes) and it worked without any special configuration in "native" mode.

I used Aces High's native "control remapping" to map all of my joystick buttons and hardware keyboard controllers to mimic the setup to which I had become accustomed under Windoze XP. I like the new setup, which is 95% identical to what I had before. The only real difference is that I can't designate a "shift" key for my Logitech Extreme 3dPro joystick. Lacking a "shift" key, I can only assign one function to each joystick button. That cut 11 buttons out of my routine. So, I installed a numeric keypad (USB) and set it directly next to my joystick so I can use it for view keys, etc. That freed up more than enough additional buttons to compensate.

I got my first 4 "LINUX Kills" in Air-to-air combat yesterday and today.

When I get some more time I will post more detailed instructions on how I got all of this working. It's been a great adventure. Thanks again to all those who helped!



-Peaboduy-

[bbosen]

Hey Nikitis:


What kind of display adapter does your laptop have? I assume it's one of the nVidia cards. When I buy my next laptop, I want to make sure it can handle Aces High 2 (for some reason, my current HP laptop with a 3-year-old nVidia card can only handle AH "classic") under Linux/Cedega or Linux/Wine.


Regards,



-Peabody-

[Irwink!]

I finally got AH II working under PCLinux/Cedega 6.0.2 with the exception of the POV hat on my joystick. I'm using an MS Sidewinder Force Feedback 2 usb stick. AH and HardDrake see and correctly identify it. KDE does not see it at all. Everything else about the stick responds properly with that single exception. Can anyone offer any clues? Thanks.

[artik]

Originally posted by Irwink!
I finally got AH II working under PCLinux/Cedega 6.0.2 with the exception of the POV hat on my joystick. I'm using an MS Sidewinder Force Feedback 2 usb stick. AH and HardDrake see and correctly identify it. KDE does not see it at all. Everything else about the stick responds properly with that single exception. Can anyone offer any clues? Thanks.

Probably the HAT is visible like an axis. You can use qjoypad to remap it to button (what I did)

[bbosen]

Irwink:


I had trouble with the hatswitch mapping too. But I realized that I had been experimenting with an old, outdated version of AH2 for my Linux work. As soon as I updated to the version that was current (about last May), it started working without any special configuration necessary. I can map my joystick hatswitch using native AH2 control mapping without any restrictions.

While I was struggling with this I posted some questions and some answers (as I learned things) in the Cedega "joystick" forums. If you have an active Cedega account you can still find that information. In the end, that information was not necessary for me, but it was interesting and I learned that there are a lot of options. Might help with your joystick.

(I use the Logitech Extreme 3dPro joystick, one of the most reviled, despised, cheapest joysticks available. It works very well for me.)



Regards,



-Peabody-

[Irwink!]

Thanks for the replies. I haven't really had a chance to tinker or research solutions since I posted the other day. I do have an active Cedega account and had always intended to research their forums about the problem if necessary. My problem is in part compounded by the fact that I just recently left one distro and installed PCLinux and am not totally used to it yet. At any rate I appreciate the tips and will let you know what I come up with. I'm not totally averse to the Logitek stick, I'm easy on a stick and have used Logitek in the distant past. But I'll save that path as a last resort. Thanks.

[Irwink!]

Well I got impatient and borrowed a Logitek stick. Funny thing - I had forgotten to first unplug the Sidewinder and once I had connected the Logitek stick KDE for the first time recognized the MS Sidewinder. Weird. It still didn't make any difference in-game though. So for the moment I'm using the Logitek.

Anyway, the game is pretty much the same under Linux/Cedega. It seems to have taken a bit of a performance hit as compared to XP with the same hardware similar to the hit one takes going from XP to Vista but it's not bad. Graphics don't seem quite as vibrant either. I have yet to attempt to tweak anything yet though other than the detail sliders and gamma. I used the CNTRL-I FRS indicator but I don't really trust the veracity of what it says. Lower reported frame rates in some situations didn't seem to translate into what my eyes actually perceived - it didn't seem as slow as reported. I'm using an Nvidia 7600GS on this machine that I put together a couple of weeks ago from parts I had onhand other than the mb and case. The processor's an E6400. Reported frame rates in the air seemed to fluctuate from a low of 35 - 40 up to about 75 - 80.

I did find and install Qjoypad. My next steps are to try and get my headset/mic working (PClinux doesn't see it for the most part) and then back to trying to get the Sidewinder to work re: the hat. The game sees the hat switches but reports them as simply "Axis X" and sees no input from them. Hopefully Qjoypad will help.

! to the player that became my first Linux kill. I couldn't salute you back in-game as I was dealing with the 262 trying to get my buffs!

[1azbaer]

Yep I got It working, NO  POV really bites. sound works defualt keyboard mapping works

Machine:
AMD 64 2.0Ghz
2 GB of Ram
Nvidia geforce 7600 512mb
Ubuntu 7.04

I also have Fedora 7 and Open Suse, but have trouble with getting 3d working on these flavors.

By the 75 frame rate  (highest ever for me)
two kills in two sorties!
 By the way congrats on the wedding!