Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: 1azbaer on January 11, 2009, 01:07:48 PM
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All the Previous Post's recommend starting a new one. So it it goes.... How about a Linux Sticky?
If you want to get started with Linux, just to check it out, almost all of the Linux flavors have a live CD/DVD that you can create to see if its an adventure you want to take. Just down load the live .ISO CD and create a Disk, then reboot your PC and Linux will run form the CD, when your done reboot, remove the CD and Windows is back. Installation is rather simple, but I recommend you back up your data and create your restore Cd's for Windows before you do try to install Linux.
I have excellent results with PCLinuxOS. Good results with the buntu's (Ubuntu,Kubuntu,etc) only because my hat view doesn't work on my stick. Opensuse 11 and Fedora 10 caused my PC to freeze up. I always try to approach things as typical enduser would and not a Computer geek, so I try not to compile or tweak things in order to get things working.
Bosson has some excellent info on using Cedege (www.Transgaming.com). You will have to subscribe at for least 6 month to a year. You can down load it numerous times and you get to have input as far as voting on issues. I have found out that it is Cedege is installed I had to down load engine 6.1.0. to get the game to display right.
I was unable to get the Aces to work in crossover games, a new product from code weavers.
Maybe I will add a page to my web site and post the link here or Skuzzy will create a Linux Forum?
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Hiya 1azbear,
I'm not familiar with PCLinuxOS. (http://www.pclinuxos.com) Do you need to run Wine (http://www.winehq.org/) on it to get Aces High to fly? I'm very interested in making my next build a single-boot Linux system.
Thanks! :salute
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Aces will not work with WINE.
If you want to run Aces II in Linux you have to get cedege. Crossover games uses WINE and only supports a handful of games. Crossover Games gives you a 30 day trial after that you have to pay for it.
I assume you want to do more then just play Aces II (silly thought) I would downloading one of the Buntu's it is more main stream and you can also buy one from Dell! PCLinuxOS has no road map on where it is trying to go. Also whattype OS Stick do you use?
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The last line was what type of joystick do you use, I use a Saitek st290 pro again in Linux the hat views dont work. I was thinking of a CH stick but only if I can find out if the hat views will work in Linux.
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At the moment I only have a Win XP Pro SP3 machine at home, running a CH USB stick-throttle-pedals setup. But I would *really* like to get away from Windows. I'm very familiar with several flavors of Linux and Unix from my work, but oddly enough, not one of my employers wants me to load up Aces High on their servers. Only boring stuff like web sites and databases. ;) So I do not - yet - have any experience with joysticks under Linux. Not yet.
Could you please point me to where I can read up on why AH won't work with Wine (http://www.winehq.org/), and why it will with Cedega (http://www.cedega.com/)? (Is it DX related?) Thanks!
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[quoteI'm very familiar with several flavors of Linux and Unix from my work, but oddly enough, not one of my employers wants me to load up Aces High on their servers. Only boring stuff like web sites and databases.][/quote]
Don't we all wish for that!
Here is the link I was talking about. BBoson has done a lot of work.
http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,200777.0.html
Why won't Aces work with wine. I couldn't tell you.
I assume like many of us we have lives out side of Linux and this game. I always try to approach things as a regular enduser, so I don't compile kernels and applications. I also look for the simplest answear. I assume it's finding the right combination of Wine settings. With Wine I am able to get the launcher to load, then the window closes out. I have used Linux since Red Hat 6.0 and discovered Lokie games(which is out of business) shortly after X86free was dropped for Xorg, I found Transgaming(Cedege) and have been using it ever since.
I assume if you submit a volunteer request to WINE, they would accept your help in tweeking Wine.
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If linux would get a working games support MS would be pwned in an instant.
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Not completely. The more popular a product becomes in binary-world, the more exploits, cracks, and viruses are made for that product.
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Not completely. The more popular a product becomes in binary-world, the more exploits, cracks, and viruses are made for that product.
Linux is already popular in attacks since a very high number of worlds web servers run on the platform. The difference is it's inherently safer than windows.
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Can anyone confirm that AH2 runs with Cedega?
I'll subscribe to both, if it does. On WINE i get only white screen.
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Can anyone confirm that AH2 runs with Cedega?
I'll subscribe to both, if it does. On WINE i get only white screen.
People have reported AH2 as working on Cedega and IIRC AH2 was mentioned as working on Cedega web page, just not 'certified' meaning it may have a glitch or two. In any case you'll experience much lower performance playing Windows games on Linux so make sure you have a beefy computer.
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I'm looking for first hand information on the current versions of Cedega and AH2.. anyone?
About the performance - actually Cedega causes very low overhead, as it is just a API implementation. Several games (for example WW2OL) seem to run just fine performance-wise on Cedega. OpenGL games may even run faster in some cases.
AH2 is very lightweight compared to modern games, so i'm not expecting any performance issues.
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I'm looking for first hand information on the current versions of Cedega and AH2.. anyone?
About the performance - actually Cedega causes very low overhead, as it is just a API implementation. Several games (for example WW2OL) seem to run just fine performance-wise on Cedega. OpenGL games may even run faster in some cases.
AH2 is very lightweight compared to modern games, so i'm not expecting any performance issues.
The problem is not Cedega overhead, the problem is that Linux graphics drivers are 20-60% slower than comparative windows drivers, depending on make and model.
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The problem is not Cedega overhead, the problem is that Linux graphics drivers are 20-60% slower than comparative windows drivers, depending on make and model.
Ok, looks like there are some performance degradations reported, although in some benchmarks Linux driver is even faster. The difference is more like -5 to 30%. At least NVidia drivers have been improving a lot, so i'm not sure what the current status is. Anyway a i said, AH2 is very lightweight so performance won't be a problem.
On X-Plane mailinglist there have been reports of even increased FPS on Linux, but it might be because of memory handling, threads, i/o, etc, not necessarily graphics driver.
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Ok, looks like there are some performance degradations reported, although in some benchmarks Linux driver is even faster. The difference is more like -5 to 30%. At least NVidia drivers have been improving a lot, so i'm not sure what the current status is. Anyway a i said, AH2 is very lightweight so performance won't be a problem.
On X-Plane mailinglist there have been reports of even increased FPS on Linux, but it might be because of memory handling, threads, i/o, etc, not necessarily graphics driver.
Heh I'd like to see those benchmarks and who made them. ;)
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Heh I'd like to see those benchmarks and who made them. ;)
Well, here are some. Google finds more:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=860&num=1
http://linuxreviews.org/games/2004-10-07_doom3_Benchmarks/
http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2007/07/sl-speed-showdo.html
http://www.michaellarabel.com/index.php?k=blog&i=164
It's clear that in most cases Windows performance is better, but the difference is not huge. In AH2 case, it's negligible.
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Well, here are some. Google finds more:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=860&num=1
http://linuxreviews.org/games/2004-10-07_doom3_Benchmarks/
http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2007/07/sl-speed-showdo.html
http://www.michaellarabel.com/index.php?k=blog&i=164
It's clear that in most cases Windows performance is better, but the difference is not huge. In AH2 case, it's negligible.
From the first site of your links:
(http://www.phoronix.com/data/img/results/860/06.png)
shows Windows single card outperforms SLI in linux. That's not negligible IMO.
Of course AH2 is a bit special case since it's CPU not GPU bound.
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Looks like SLI was broken on Linux when the test was made, September 26, 2007. I don't know about current situation.
Anyway this discussion is off-topic. Performance won't be an issue for AH2 and i'm still waiting for confirmation about the Cedega status.
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Update: I borrowed friend's cedega account, and looks like AH2 works perfectly in offline mode. You'll just need to use cedega engine version 6.0.
This doesn't mean it works online (there may be some failing cheat detection code or stuff like that) but looks like i'll have to subscribe to find out.
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It works online, at least it did a year or so ago running PCLinux and the Cedega 6.0 engine. And for me at least there was a noticeable performance hit as compared to the performance in Windows using the same box. That particular box employed an E6700 proc, single 7900GS vid card, 2G ram. I also had problems with recognition of preferred usb joysticks and headset/mics. While I might have been able over time to solve the latter problems, the performance hit was great enough for me to not spend any more time with it.
The only other Windows game I tried using Cedega was Far Cry. The performance degradation was similar, perhaps even greater than that with AHII.
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1azbaer you can use qjoypad with linux to map keystrokes to the buttons or hat on a joystick. There are a few others out there, but I have found qjoypad to work the best. I had the same problem with getting the hat to work with the TargetWare linux release.
http://qjoypad.sourceforge.net/
Really is a shame that AH does not provide a mac, linux, windblows release like TargetWare. Unfortunatly development at targetware is nearly non-existant, yet still has potential if the lead programer would get back to work.
You may want to check out Gentoo. A very configurable flavor of linux. I get more performance with Gentoo due to the nearly unlimited methods of configurability specificaly for your hardware. Not to mention only installing what you want, rather than the package deal of the Ubuntu's. The Ubuntu's are more for the average user that does not have the need or know how to actualy use all the tuning features available with linux.
Gentoo also has one of if not the best forums for linux tuning and a good wiki. In fact they have a wiki on qjoypad.
http://www.gentoo-wiki.info/Joystick/Joystick_as_Mouse
http://www.gentoo.org/
Vulgar
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I got both Cedega and AH2 accounts. Online works also flawlessly. See you in the skies! :)
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If linux would get a working games support MS would be pwned in an instant.
it has done for ages, as long as the game is written in OpenGL rather than DX. (eg. Americas Army, although they no longer do a Linux port :() you can appreciate why MS wont ever port DX to Linux...
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it has done for ages, as long as the game is written in OpenGL rather than DX. (eg. Americas Army, although they no longer do a Linux port :() you can appreciate why MS wont ever port DX to Linux...
Let me rephrase that: windows game support - as long as linux users are so rare nobody's going to waste time porting for it.
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You would think so, but...
AA is a good example. When they released Windows and Linux versions, the development team was about 30 strong. One guy alone ported the AA client to Linux over numerous releases. So ~1/30 of the dev budget (~3.5%) spent on the Linux client means if Linux users are 3.5% of the userbase, the Linux port costs no more than the Windows version to release.
In fact its better than that, Icculus (the Linux dev) ported the Linux client part-time, because he was also on the Linux Server team (the AA server runs on Linux). Figure his time spent equally between Server and Client versions and you only need ~1.8% of the userbase running Linux to make the port cost effective. Of course development costs are only a part of the costbase for a game (add Marketing etc.) so the real % of Linux users required is far lower.
The argument for a MacOS X version is even more compelling because the market share is higher, releasing all 3 ports offers the best bang for dev buck :)
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I have to admit, if AH came with a linux version, I'd be on it super rapido style (even if I had to pay more per month) :salute
Wurzel
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The Linux user base would increase if Linux releases were actually available. Simply put, people are sick and tired of M$ OS's and would, and should be able to use an alternative OS. This forced monopoly by M$ and developers needs to end.
I am sick and tired of being forced to use an OS that is pure crap, and expensive. Right now I only have windblows on one machine for aces high. Sucks that I have to spend money and deal with all the work and frustration with dealing with vista just to play one game.
So when people say that AH is only $15 a month. This is not true. I must pay for Vista then I have to upgrade to the fastest machine to run Vista just to play AH. So this year alone it has cost me nearly a $1,000 just to play AH. So it is really costing me in excess of $140 a month just to play AH. Remember we need a fast internet connection also.
This exorbitant and forced cost to play AH should really be taken into account by the powers to be at AH. Please give us a break on the cost to play and provide a Linux release.
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Ah runs fine on $500 computer and Vista so this is not really true you could have sufficed with half the cost.
It's when you want other games that the real expense comes to play.
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Update: i've been playing AH2 online now for few days in Linux. FPS is good (about 60 with default settings), but audio quality is not as good as it should be. Especially voice radio is sometimes impossible to understand. Do other Linux users have the same issue or is it just my setup?
About the Linux development issue: Linux and Mac are almost the same from developers perspective. If you have a Mac version, a Linux version is trivial to make and vice versa.
For example WW2OL developers have ported their Mac version to run on Linux 'just for fun'. Unfortunately they never released it. For AH2 largest problem for Mac/Linux port is the decision to use DirectX instead of OpenGL for graphics. This is a good example of "vendor lock-in" - they'll need to rewrite the whole graphics engine to get the game ported to other platforms.
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true, my back-of-envelope calculations for porting costs above depend on 3 things - highly portable code base (ie OpenGL), lead developer who is comfortable working on multiple OSs, and a large enough dev team to absorb the porting devs. AH doesnt have 1 or 3, not sure about 2, so its not really an option for HTC :(
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Update: i've been playing AH2 online now for few days in Linux. FPS is good (about 60 with default settings), but audio quality is not as good as it should be. Especially voice radio is sometimes impossible to understand. Do other Linux users have the same issue or is it just my setup?
About the Linux development issue: Linux and Mac are almost the same from developers perspective. If you have a Mac version, a Linux version is trivial to make and vice versa.
For example WW2OL developers have ported their Mac version to run on Linux 'just for fun'. Unfortunately they never released it. For AH2 largest problem for Mac/Linux port is the decision to use DirectX instead of OpenGL for graphics. This is a good example of "vendor lock-in" - they'll need to rewrite the whole graphics engine to get the game ported to other platforms.
I never had any problems with audio - used Realtek onboard sound.
Out of curiousity, what are your machine specs and which flavor of Linux are you running? Just for grins I installed AHII again on a different box using an MSI P6NSLI mobo, E6850, single 7900GS, 2GB ram and recently updated PCLinuxOS. So far I'm having similar results as the last time I tried it. One difference may be that I am not using default ingame video settings - no Hi Res texture pack but I am preloading textures and moving the detail sliders to max.
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Have an old (2+years)HP ZD 8000, collecting dust, so I decided to reintroduce myself to Linux (Ubuntu flavor)..install went very smooth. The machine is now a dual boot, small 37 gig XP partiton, aprox 60 gig Ubuntu. Things sure have changed since I last messed with the Mandrake distro.
Ubuntu is a very nice, solid distro., so if y'all are looking for something to occupy your time, try Ubuntu..certainly blows Windows away, and its FREE. :aok
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I never had any problems with audio - used Realtek onboard sound.
Out of curiousity, what are your machine specs and which flavor of Linux are you running? Just for grins I installed AHII again on a different box using an MSI P6NSLI mobo, E6850, single 7900GS, 2GB ram and recently updated PCLinuxOS. So far I'm having similar results as the last time I tried it. One difference may be that I am not using default ingame video settings - no Hi Res texture pack but I am preloading textures and moving the detail sliders to max.
Ok, the sound issue is not then caused by cedega - i'll try another sound card.
My HW is ASUS P5B, Intel core2duo 4300 @ 1.80GHz, Memory 3GiB. Distribution is Ubuntu Intrepid (8.10).
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true, my back-of-envelope calculations for porting costs above depend on 3 things - highly portable code base (ie OpenGL), lead developer who is comfortable working on multiple OSs, and a large enough dev team to absorb the porting devs. AH doesnt have 1 or 3, not sure about 2, so its not really an option for HTC :(
Actually most developers do not need to do any cross-platform tricks. They just need to use portable libraries instead of Windows specific ones. For example SDL is very popular library for doing practically everything a game needs in addition to OpenGL. If you write a game using SDL+OpenGL in Windows, it should work with zero code changes in other platforms (i've done that). You only need someone to build the ports which should be pretty easy and could even be automated.
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Ok, the sound issue is not then caused by cedega - i'll try another sound card.
My HW is ASUS P5B, Intel core2duo 4300 @ 1.80GHz, Memory 3GiB. Distribution is Ubuntu Intrepid (8.10).
Instead of swapping sound cards, try fiddling with the driver settings, get another control panel, or get another driver set entirely. A lot of linux drivers will default to what is essentially original soundblaster quality if the installer isn't positive what sound chipset you're using, or if the soundcard manufacturer used a non-standard implementation. Sometimes forcing a higher bitrate or manually installing the exact driver you need for your exact sound chipset is the best way to do it.
Of course, that takes a little bit of research and a tiny amount of geekery (probably just need to know how to open up a console window, un-zip a driver, and run the installer) and chances are if you install a different standard soundcard, the default drivers will correctly detect the new card. But making your existing soundcard work is probably possible and you'll learn something about linux drivers if you persist and make it work properly without giving up and going with a new card entirely.
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Having nothing better to do and because I enjoy dinking around with such things I've continued on with AHII running the newly updated PCLinuxOS and the Cedega 6.0.5 engine.
The "new" PCLinuxOS, unlike last time, natively recognizes my vintage MS Sidewinder right off the bat. However, after much back and forth and swapping of sticks I find that AHII randomly locks up the system when using the Sidewinder. No problems at all using a Logitech 3D Pro. Go figure. I'll have to research that one. I'm thinking it may have something to do with the Force Feedback stuff but that's just a guess at this point.
I got my Logitech usb headset/mic working finally by using OSS sound from within Cedega rather than the default ALSA sound routine. Both sound and mic functions appear to work fine. The inability to get those things working really killed it for me a year ago.
For some reason the Nvidia drivers that are supposed to support a 7XXX GeForce card wont work with AHII - only the drivers for older FX type cards. Haven't really investigated that - it works fine with the older driver though.
With the updated hardware (from a year ago) and updated OS I'm pegging my refresh rate in clear air. I'm not a furballer by nature so I haven't tried that yet. I did in fact install the hi-res pack and at 1280X1024, detail sliders to max my lowest FPS has briefly dipped to 28 while on the ground. Once airborne I get into the 50 - 55 range according to the ingame FPS indicator. PCLinuxOS allows me a max refresh rate of 54 with my current setup.
I just flew a buff mission. Unfortunately I was unopposed. I was kind of wishing someone would give chase so I could compare performance with more stuff going on around me.
The bottom line is that I'm more pleased than the last time I tried AHII under Linux/Cedega. It appears to be totally playable at this point.
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While not quite a furball a little while ago I did fly a P40 in over a contested airfield with lotsa friendlies in the air and enemy groundfire from below. FPS briefly dipped into the 28-29 range but with no apparent lag perceptible to the eye. Again - totally playable. As in a year ago I really don't know how far to trust the ingame FPS indicator via Linux/Cedega emulation. While the ingame indicator tells me one thing (low FPS) my own eyes see no lag. A comment from Skuzzy might be helpful...
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If you want to run high-performance Windows games like Aces High II on Linux, here is the information you need.
I filmed ALL of the steps, in EXACT detail, that I used to switch from Windows to Linux, step-by-baby-step, building up to a flaming-hot Aces High II system tweaked for amazing performance. Although I spent almost a month documenting all of this, it only takes about 3 or 4 hours to follow all of the videos from start to finish, and you'll see the exact sequence of steps that worked for me.
I broke it down into 27 separate video chapters, each divided up into separate, tiny video snippets showing every detail, and I ended up with a dual-boot system that can easily boot into Windows or Linux.
I've done this on 5 separate systems now, and the same sequence works on all of them. (Actually I attempted it on 6 systems, but AH2 would only run on 5 of the 6 systems. One of my two laptops won't go beyond AH1). The published videos focus on the oldest, weakest system I've got that will run AH2, and the resulting performance amazed me after I got everything optimized. Check it out here:
http://howigotitworking.com/archives/347#more-347
Regards,
-Peabody-
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Hi!
I've been wanting to get back into online combat flight sims for a while, but so far as I was aware, none of tehm could be got running usuably well on Linux - until I heard the other day from one of the WB JG2 guys who told me that he'd seen posts here to the effect that it CAN be run, via Cedega. I've used Cedega before, but my account had been dormant for a long while 'till the other day, when I decided to give AH on Linux a go.
Anyway, having read posts here, I downloaded AH2, installed it using Cedega, and tried it using v6 - 6.1 of the Cedega engine. I did manage to get teh game to start and allow me to get a plane onto the runway, but my Saitek X45 wasn't well detected - the axes were assigned incorrectly. I've not had much luck thus far finding how to do anything about that, but I'd add that there is a distinct possibility that since I last flew online, it's possible that one or two of the switches may have died - at least, the X-Y axes would only show any sign of response in one direction.
then, all of a suddent, AH simply stopped working - it'll start, but I get a blank black screen. I've since tried adjusting things liek teh window resolution, the game engine version, stuff that affects graphics etc, but no luck. Logically , AH should be working as well as it did when I first fired it up, and I've no idea hat happened to stop it doing so. Any ideas as to what may have happened, or what the best course to follow next might be are greatly welcomed (NB: buying a new PC or OS are NOT viable options). My system:
Pentium 4 3.06Ghz twin CPU
1GB RAM
Nvidia GeForce7600 graphics card, driver 2.1.2 NVIDIA 180.11
Video RAM 256MB AGP memory 256MB
ALSA 1.0.17 (there was no problem with sound, by the way - worked fine)
Distro - Xubuntu 8.04
kernel 2.6.27-11 generic
X.Org X Server 1.5.2
My display is a 19in widescreen set to 1440x900 -the best resolution I can get
I set AH2 to run in a 1024x768 window, and told Cedega to run it on a single core.
Esme
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Have you tried running Aces High on the native resolution of the monitor as opposed to the best resolution possible?
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Ho, Esme! :salute
Were you able to get this all sorted out?
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Esmell:
I've seen the same problem from time to time. Doesn't happen to me very often, but once in awhile AH2 won't start properly. It seems somehow related to other graphically intensive programs I've run or attempted to run beforehand.
Re-booting usually solves the problem for me (but not always).
What ALWAYS works for me is to run AH1 with Wine!
I have an old copy of AH1 that runs great with the current version of Wine, and somehow it fixes the AH2 problem. Just starting AH1 with Wine seems to reset the video subsystem. Even if I run AH1 for just 5 seconds and quit immediately, AH2/Cedega is always fine thereafter. No clue as to why, but it works on my hardware, with PcLinuxOs2008 minime and PcLinuxOs2009, using nVidia graphics hardware in both cases.
Many more details available at:
www.HowIgotItWorking.com
Regards,
Peabody
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flew on linux this morning on my old machine since my new one is down right now!( old machine has no other operating system other than linux)
using wine, no problems so far , running 55 to 65 fps, i have not hooked up my stick yet, flew with my mouse , as i dont expect to be down very long with my other computer, new motherboard should be here tomorrow i hope!
just an FYI incase some else is working on this type of settup,
there are alot of threads but this one looked like the best to post in for this it does look promising! hope to get more input , i might try to tune this one up some more and have two ready to fly machines!
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WWhiskey: Thanks for your report. I'm glad to know you've got it working with Wine. Just for clarity, can you confirm you're talking about AH2 and not the old AH1? Also, could you let us know the precise distribution and version of Linux that is working for you?
Thanks!
Peabody
www.AskMisterWizard.com
TechVideoReview.com/FlightSimMovies
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I couldn't get AH2 run on wine at all, it said something about double buffers and that wine didn't support them.
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Cant remember which version of wine I used, but it ran AH2 fine - my only difficulty was finding a unix driver for my video card - not having that caused my system to be slooow - resulting in me going back to windoze (was only testing how difficult it would be as was interested and had some time).
Didnt have any difficulty in getting AH running, sounds, or joystick etc.
Wurzel
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(http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg229/WWhiskey/linux1.jpg)
(http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg229/WWhiskey/linux2.jpg)
(http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg229/WWhiskey/linux3.jpg)
i don't remember all the details but i read in here how to do it and it worked
i used ubuntu and wine with one other add on, just not remembering what it was right now,
had a few stick problems but over all it worked anyway! hat switch problems was what happened with the stick, it would stick in the rear view, but i could tuoch the 2 button on key baord and it would go back to correct!
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Looks like AH2 doesn't work anymore on latest Wine. Anyone got it working?