Chronology of Trespasser running under Linux

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Chronology of Trespasser running under Linux

Post by Dapper Dan »

Just to get a perspective, here begins a chronology of the events that ultimately led to the successful running of Trespasser on the Linux operating system via Transgaming's Winex3. The first attempt took several tries using Codeweavers wine. The game ran, but very poorly. Most of the menu buttons wouldn't work without crashing the game. After many attempts, I finally found the right sequence of things to do to just get it running, albeit poorly. Here was the first post..

http://dynamic5.gamespy.com/~trescom/bo ... light=wine

more later.. :)
Last edited by Dapper Dan on Wed Sep 17, 2003 5:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Dapper Dan »

"Codeweavers Wine" and "Crossover Wine" were intended to support mostly office type Windows applications running under Linux. It does a great job too with Windows Office 2000, Quicken, Internet Explorer, Excel and a few other programs. It was never intended to run Microsoft games, although a few games will load and run, but with a variety of problems.

Then I discovered "Winex" From Transgaming Technologies which is specifically designed for running Windows games under Linux. The first version I downloaded was Winex 2.2. 2.2 runs Half-Life and all of it's mods almost exactly as under Windows, but there are a few tricks you have to learn to get it just right. Other games run with varying degrees of success from exactly as under Windows to not at all. Thankfully, Transgaming's Forums provide a wide range of discussion about the different problems associated with running games with Winex. Around Christmas of 2002, I started fooling around with Trespasser again, trying to get it working under Winex.

As you can see from the link below, Christopher was extremely enthusiastic about the results! :no: The rest of the Trescom community was so exited, it left them speechless..:lol:

http://dynamic5.gamespy.com/~trescom/bo ... ight=linux
Last edited by Dapper Dan on Wed Sep 17, 2003 5:36 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Dapper Dan »

In the ensuing months, I dabbled with Trespasser and Winex 2.2, and could never get it to run any better than in software at 640x480, and none of the buttons that operated the options worked. Every time you would press one, the game would crash. I spent the next six months mostly playing and perfecting the play of Half-Life, Opposing Force, and Team Fortress. To my great surprise, my pings with Team Fortress were consistently far superior running under Winex than anything I ever got running the on line multi-player under Windows. You can't use the anti-cheating software, "Cheating Death" with Winex though, which excludes you from playing on servers that require it. I have never been able to convince any of these servers that I'm playing as a Linux client! They usually say something like, "Yeah right!" and then you're gone. :lol:

Anyway, back to Trespasser. In the Spring of 2003, Transgaming rushed Winex 3.0 to it's download section, which was designed to address problems and issues players were experiencing with distros using glibc 2.3. I downloaded the new version, and to my surprise and disappointment, Winex3 didn't run Team Fortress nearly as well as the older version. Fortunately though, it's possible to run both 2.2 and 3.0 independently for whichever game works best with each.

Around the first of July 2003, I thought I'd give Trespasser another try, but really didn't expect any improvement in it's performance. After all, Transgaming tailors it's Wine for the most popular games and Trespasser, for some mystifying reason, is not one of them! :)

I pulled up a terminal and cd'ed to the Dreamworks/trespasser directory and typed in:

"winex3 trespass.exe"

The game came up as usual, so I tried the options. "Hey, they work!!" I changed the resolution to 800x600, pressed start game, and it came up in full screen! As impatient as I am, I wanted to know that it WOULD break somewhere, so I went back into options, changed to hardware at high resolution, and resumed. The progress bar came up..."Impossible!!" In another moment, I was on the beach bobbing in the water! The Nvidia card was rendering!! "Trespasser is now running under Winex3 in hardware!!!" Pretty cool stuff when you love Linux and Trespasser and very much dislike Windows! My first thought was to log into the TreCom forum and tell everyone my big news! Then on second thought, I realized the only person who might really be interested was Troodon since he is a Linux user and the first to create a new Trespasser level. I decided to address my post to him..

http://dynamic5.gamespy.com/~trescom/bo ... ght=winex3

Next installment: first screens! :o
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hi

Post by Tresgame »

hi Dapper Dan how are you well you found a place to put your images?
looking good!!

(Mickey)
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Post by Dapper Dan »

Thanks Mickey! Drop in here in another day or two and I'll have more images! :)
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Post by Dapper Dan »

I made my way up from the beach in hardware mode, and everything was running just as under Windows! Then the unkind hand of disappointment intervened when I tried to shoot a few practice rounds with the shotguns and pistols. As I approached those objects, everything started freezing and slowing down! When I moved Anne in the other direction away from the firearms, everything went back to normal. For some reason that I don't quite understand, movable or moving objects causes the game to freeze up and slow down in hardware mode. :cry:

I got a few good screenshots in hardware though.. :)


Image



Image


When I got to the first brachs, the game became unplayable whenever the behemoths were in my line of sight, so I switched to software mode...

Image


Image

next time: "What else works!" :)
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Post by Dapper Dan »

TresEd, the Trespasser editing utility created by Andres James also works with winex3.

http://www.geocities.com/andres_james/TresView/

I'm no hacker or level creator, so I cannot honestly assess whether or not all the tools in TreEd work exactly as under Windows. I will say I tried a lot of the features in TresEd I DO know how to use, and ran into no problems. In fact, as hard as I tried, I couldn't crash it using winex3.

Screenshot...

Image
Last edited by Dapper Dan on Wed Nov 26, 2003 4:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Dapper Dan »

I recently downloaded the new Winex 3.2! There is good and bad news...

The good news is, Trespasser now runs as good, if not better in software mode than under Windows! This is truely amazing to me! With Winex 3.1, Trespasser ran visually as good or better than Windows, but the audio stuttering was somewhat of a drawback. With Winex3.2, the sound issues have completely disappeared! No more stuttering! In fact, I defy anyone to play Trespasser under Linux with Winex3.2 in software mode, and show me where there are any differences whatsoever with playing it under Windows! If I didn't know better, I would swear the Transgaming boys are using Trespasser as the standard by which to judge the effectiveness of Winex! Take a look at this nice screen of Winex3.2 in action in software mode...

Image


Now for the bad news...

I tried running in hardware mode and the slowdown problem has completely disappeared. I know what your thinking. "...but Dan I thought you'd be really happy about that!" Under normal circumstances, yes, I would be very happy. If the game rendered visually in hardware mode as it did under Winex3.1, and the slowdown was no longer, I could then effectively play Trespasser without any problems in hardware too! But the hell of it is, look at what Winex3.2 has now done to the visuals..

Image

AAAARRRRRGGGGHHH!!!!! This is terrible! The huge problem with the game slowing down in hardware mode when animate objects came into frame has gone away, but the swap off is the convoluted landscape you see here!

Had these visual problems occured, and the slowdown was still there, it wouldn't have mattered because the slowdown renders the game unplayable in hardware anyway! This is torture! To see a major problem in hardware mode go completely away only to be replaced with visual problems! And that is VERY bad news! Oh, well, maybe I'll get lucky and the next release of Winex will take care of both problems making Trespasser playable in both hardware and software once and for all. :)
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Post by Rebel »

If it were me, I'd put aside a copy of the original scn file, go into TresEd and remove the string detail values of those models like those shown here:

string Detail1 = "$VtpelapalmLP00~JR11-00"
float A01 = 60.000000
string Detail2 = "$VtpelapalmLP00~JR12-00"
float A02 = 30.000000

Afterwards, save the level, toss the original scn file back in, voila! You could of course use TresEd to generate a partitioned scn file, but if your only altering of the level are values, might as well use the original scn.
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Post by Dapper Dan »

Hey Rebel.

I might give this a go, but frankly I'm feeling a little faint hearted about attempting it. I appreciate your interest in trying to help me solve it though.. :)
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Post by Dapper Dan »

Transgaming Technologies just came out with their latest version of Winex3. It's now called "cedega", which is a variety of grape used in the making of wine! Get it.. :?

Anyway, again there is good news and bad. Under winex 3-3.2.1-1 Trespasser got to where it wouldn't load. I tried it many times ands she would throw me back to my desktop. Because of this, I haven't played Trespasser in a good while.

A few weeks ago, I downloaded winex 3-3.3.2-1 and have been playing Half Life and Team Fortress, but didn't get around to checking it out with Trespasser right away. Well today was the day I was going to do that, and Transgaming comes out with this new "Cedega."

Transgaming's site is very confusing, even to a member who's been there as many times as I have. After much searching, I finally found the cedega download which is also available for Debian and Slackware based distros. Cedega installed without complaints as all Winex versions have for me, so there shouldn't be a problem for you to install it.

To my very happy surprise, Trespasser now loads fully under cedega, and in software mode runs as perfectly as ever. Everything works in software mode exactly as under Windows again!

Image

Now the bad news. The problems in hardware just ain't gettin' any better! :cry: In fact, they're just getting worse.

Image

I had hopes that performance under hardware would gradually improve, but I must now face the fact that it's probably not going to ever happen. Anybody got any ideas about what's going on with this last image?
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Post by Dapper Dan »

I'm happy to report that it seems there is improvement in hardware mode as of Cedega 4.2. In software, Trespasser continues to play exactly as under Windows.

In hardware mode, I'm not getting the visual clutter that was there before that made it impossible to play. If they keep this up, we might see a fully playable Trespasser in hardware under Cedega soon!

Image

Image
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