RTCW - Graphics problems under Linux...
 

I recently (before Chrimbo) downloaded Return To Castle Wolfenstein demo for Linux. Now, I've got some NVidia drivers that seem to work OK (I can run TuxRacer in 1280x1024 fine) but RTCW seems to not only go completely googly-eyed on me. It loads fine, I can go to 'LAN game', or whatever, and set up things properly, but as soon as I get to the bit where I set up whether I want to be Axis or Allied, Private or Engineer, etc, etc, it crashes. I'm not talking about an X crash, either. I can't get out of it at all (ctrl-alt-delete does nothing, ctrl-alt-f1 doesn't give me prompt, nothing works). It's quite annoying because I'm really quite good at whipping my housemates at it, and I'd prefer not to have to go back into Windows too often. Oh, and this is one of the principle reasons I went to ext3 - no fscks on reboot!

Oh, the question, yes, erm:

Does anyone know how to set it up so that it'd work properly? Or is it that I need some new NVidia drivers?

Cheers muchly.

I am using the latest nvidia drivers with no problemss on redhat7.2. Finally got the full version of rtcw, and it kicks a$$.

The only lock ups i've had were after a game finished and started to load new map i would press esc to quit, and it would just sit there and i'd have to press the power button to shut down and restart. pressing ctrl+alt+backspace would'nt even kill xserver.

BTW what is tuxracer?

Man, you haven't lived until you've played TuxRacer. Basically, you play the role of Tux, the friendly Linux penguin. And you race down hill, belly first, collecting fish. You must collect a set number of fish and complete the course in a set amount of time in order to progress to the next course. It's bloody marvellous! (Read: small things please small minds :D)

Yea i saw that there is a web site for tuxracer in another post, looks sorta fun. I would say that the new nvidia drivers would probably be a good idea for rtcw.
Im like you , I like playing rtcw under linux more then i do windows. And I cant seem to get the gamma/brightness correction to work under windows anyway. I think it plays a little smoother under linux also.

Got it sorted. After much swearing! I d/led the new NVidia stuff, and installed them with RPM. I'd much have preferred to do the tar install, but the vesion numbers didn't match. Hey ho. First up when I tried Tuxracer I got this weird thing happening to Tux. I would only be able to view him from one side, if he was straight on you couldn't see anything. Didn't even try RTCW. I remember getting this strange message about some files being newer than expected, or something, so I rerpmed them in with --force, and all is hunky dory. Tried RTCW lastnight (at about 4.30, I needed some light relief from nasty microbiology coursework) and it was absolutely fine.

Oh, and Tuxracer should be on your Mandy 8.1 install CDs. I would suggest you install it now, it rocks. To me it symbolises Linux - a slick Penguin-game/OS which is easy to configure and just as easy to run. Although, I suppose the analogy could be read as: It's a runaway system, with you having to collect lots of updates/fish in order to progress. But personally I'm with the former.

I also had to force the rpm to install on Redhat7.2, wouldnt work if i didnt force the install.

Just a quick question, I know you said it locked up and you couldn't switch virtual terminals or anything... have you tried SSHing into the box and shuting it down? If so did it work... I have never managed to completely lock up my linux system, I can always get in and fix it somehow.

I didnt even think of doing that, duh. Man I'm a bonehead sometimes.

Erm, effectively it's a standalone machine. It is connected to the LAN, but it's really quite a bit too much hassle. It's not running as a server or anything, so it doesn't matter if the machine goes down, so I'm quite happy to reboot and let it get on with things. Thanks for the thought, but I've got it sorted now. Turns out I needed to not only install the new NVidia drivers, but force them in aswell. Cheers anyway.

I've installed NVIDIA drivers from tarballs, and it works fine except I got the same problem with RTCW, it is either locks the system, so I'm ssh'ing into it and kill the process, or it just quits itself and my mouse stops working, so I have to navigate it with numpad keys, and use the keyboard, the mouseconfig won't do anything at this point, so I found a solution as to run RTCW again and quit from it normally, then my mouse appears to be working, but a little slowish.
But anyway, I think there are several bugs in both RTCW and NVIDIA drivers, I remember running MP test on windows box, there was almost identical behavior except mouse issue.

Hey! My housemate has *cough*got a copy*cough* of the full Windows version of RTCW! If I remember rightly, somewhere I read that there's either a Linux d/l so that if you have the full win version, you can run it under Linux (they use the same maps and such), or was it a patch for the demo version? Anyway, if any of you have heard of this and know where the d/l is, could you drop a post here?

Cheers muchly.

Yes there is a point release for rtcw: http://www.3dgamers.com/games/returnwolfenstein/

But if your friend has a "copy" he is still going to need the cd key. And the linux ver is multiplayer only, no single player. In windows you can play single player without the key.

The way i installed was to install it under windows first. After that i copyed over all the *.pk3 files from the windows install to a shared partition, then rebooted into linux and then installed the wolfmp-linux-1.1-mp.x86.run file, and copied the *.pk3 files to the /usr/local/games/wolfenstein/main folder, and got to killin

They just released a new point release that does single player. Same link as above.