Mounting an .iso as CD-rom drive
 

Probably somebody had already asked this before, but I did not find anything into the forum search :).
The problem is that some games has the bad habit to ask for the CD-rom to be into the CD-Rom drive all the time for security reasons. (I kinda think it's silly, but whatever). In Windows, I was used to have a program called Daemon tools and did the job really well emulating a fake CD-Rom, where I create an .Iso image and pointed Daemon at it, so I didn't need to have a "real" CD in the drive all the time.

After some google search, I came accross the following command for mounting an .iso under Linux:

mount -o loop -t iso9660 <isofilename> <mountpoint>

That's nice and the iso was mounted successfully as I did under Windows. Here comes the questions:

1 - How can I make the <mountpoint> as a "fake" cdrom, because it's not possible to set the <mountpoint> as /mnt/cdrom so, in the case of a game, I'm still asked for the CD-Rom :)

2 - How do I create an .iso image? I did mine with CloneCD in Winslow, but I don't know how to create one with Linux tools.

Any help would be great.
Thanks in advance :)

% man mount - search for "LOOP"

mount -t iso9660 -o loop,???? ~file.iso /mnt/loopcd

As you pointed out, that works for mounting - but it still won't look like a CDROM because the actuall backend device is NOT a cd-rom. It's a loopback device. Even so, if you remove /mnt/cdrom from the "/etc/fstab" file, you will be able to mount anything there (so long as nothing is already mounted there).

For creating, most folks simply use X-CD Roast or similar GUI.

Wow, great Idea GAVollink, removing the line in my /etc/fstab allowed me to mount the iso in there :). I will try to create an iso now as you've suggested.
Thank you very much man :)

Can't you just mount it as cdrom1 or cdrom2?

mkisofs -r -J -o cdname.iso directory_to_be_in_iso/

the -J makes it compatible with windows machines. :)

In order to create an ISO image of a CD do the following:
dd if=/dev/hdc of=file.iso
Make sure that you use the correct device - check your fstab to find out which one to use.

In order to mount the image, you do use the very same line that you found. You should have no problems mounting it in place of the CD - so long as you issue the command as root:
$su root (enter)
#mount file.iso -o loop -t iso9660 /mnt/cdrom (enter)
#exit (enter)
Note that, if you haven't come across it before, the $ and # represents which user you are running the command as.

Run the game and it should work fine. I've used this trick many times - not specifically for games, but I don't see that it wouldn't work.

Hope this helps.

You guys must have plenty of space on your hard drives if you're storing iso's for games on them... Why don't you just BUY the games? I mean, think of all that money that you've saved by not buying Windows?

Wow, many good tips in here. I ratter print this page out for future information :). Thanks a lot peoples

@r_jensen11

Hi!!. No no, you've got the wrong idea. I don't want to mount an iso for piracy purposes. I'm a game developer (hobbiest, btw) and pirating games can really, really make me mad. Thats why I use Linux, not because it's free, but because it is the best dev. platform there is, for programming (openGL and SDL), image editing (The Gimp) and 3D modeling (Blender3D). :). I just have spare hardware space and, no matter how fast your CD-rom device is, the access via HardDrive is way faster and saves me time mounting/unmounting games or looking after the CD's and saving them from scratches, specially the ones I play often, as Dungeon Siege and Diablo 2 :)

Cheers.

And mounting ISO images isn't restricted to Games! I had Mandy 9.1's Install discs and the contribs section, as ISOs, on my harddrive. I edited my fstab so they could be mounted on request and tweaked my Mandrake Control Center to use the ISOs as real CDs - that way when I want to install anything new off the CDs, I don't have to fsck about with inserting/removing discs from the drive. It does it all really quickly too.

Okay, I can see the point about scratches and load times. But when you say Blender3d is better than 3d Studio Max, I think you're confused....

I love 3d Studio Max, but once something happened on my computer and messed up my registration, it won't work, and I was SO CLOSE to getting a 3d Penguin character!!! Can Blender import .max files by chance?

I'm not sure, but there might be some plugins for Blender3D to export/import as let's say, .x (M$ DirectX format). Then you could convert it using another program. There're many viewers/converts around :). again, I've never tried it but there might be :). If you are familiar with Python, you could try to write your own plugin too. Blender is very versatile and has even an inbuilt game engine :). Sure, only for really, really simple games, but still... A Modeler, a Render and a Game Engine for free and with quality which fits almost in a 1.44 disk we don't find everyday :)

Well, for the price of 3D Studio Max, I really, really hate it's interface. It's relatively easy to crack too. Feels like they(the developers) wants peoples to crack 3D max, so they can use the piracy as an excuse for such overpriced product. Plus, 3D Max ain't good for game modeling. (alright, you can do it, but it's not easy) The problem is, despite it's awful interface for low poly, you can hardly have full control of the amount of polygons used into each object (low poly is essential for gaming), it's bone and animation ain't clever either, so you have to use an external stuff too, as Character Studio. 3D Max render is something really good. For full motion animation it rocks.

When I was using Windows, I liked a lot MilkShape3D. It's a nice price for a great product and aimed for game modeling ;). Even if I could afford 3.000 USD for Max, I would never pay this amount of money in a product like this...

Anyway, all this I said about Max is really personal and I know it's a powerful product, but just does not fit my needs :).

Well, I started using 3dsm for making mods for Rogue Spear(Rainbow Six sequel), but the plugins only worked for 2.5 and 3.x, so I managed to aquire 3.1. Then I got 5.0, then got the upgrade for 5.1 via Discreet's FTP site(Those fools, they make you go through a form if you download via HTTP, but make it easier than stealing candy from a baby if you go through their FTP site...) But some CDilla upgrade or Windows upgrade put the cabosh on the "patch" I had, so it kept asking for my Activation Code, and wouldn't take any that I'd given it. I LOVED 3d Studio Max. Sure, it was a real pain for making some things, but for me, it was merely because I was trying to get into a lot of detail. Like you said, its rendering is fantastic. And I was just getting into the bone system before my XP box went crazy, so now I'm pissed.

One thing I'm having problems is this when I try to execute Blender once I've extracted it from the .tar file it was in:
rob@rob:~/Downloads/blender-2.28a-linux-glibc2.2.5-i386$ ./blender
Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
ERROR: Unable to open Blender window

How do you install it if ./blender doesn't work? I also tried in root and SU, but it still refused to work(When I say tried in root, I logged out and logged back in as root instead of my user account). I also tried blenderpublisher2.5, blenderplayer2.5, as well as one of their standalone's froggy, but none work! GAH!!!!!

Hi again r_jensen11!!! :)

It's so cool that you are trying Blender. I hope you can get it to work. After that, doing few tutorials from their doc page will put you into the tracks and you will see how cool shortcuts for rotating, scaling and moving object helps :). The Blender's froggy game is quite funny. I'm trying to make a Rally X myself...ghehe.

Your problem could due several reasons. I've got the very same error message a while ago with Quake ;) :

1) You are using a wrong driver or generic driver for your graphics card.
2) You are using a beta or outdated mesa/OpenGL library
3) At your /etc/X11/XF86Config, make sure you have the line

Load "dri"

uncommented (place a hash "#" symbol at the beginning of the line) at your Section "Module" like this:

# Load "dri"

and that you have the line

Load "glx"

also at your Section "Module". At the end of file, you have a section called Section "DRI". Make sure the line Mode is set as 0666. That's all I can think about :). Good luck my friend ;)

Megaman, your english is very good, how long have you studied it? I will examine my xf86config file once I'm on my Linux box again tomorrow. I don't believe it's a driver problem, mostly because my video card is 5 years old(Came with my 5 year old computer), but who knows. I found a program and script combination for importing 3d Studio Max files, but I am not sure how well it works, I will give a review if I get Blender to work.

Oh, is it possible to make photo-realistic characters in Blender? Or is it only practical for making cartoonish characters? I ask, because when I left off with 3d Studio Max, I was working on both types(Women are sooo hard to model, it's not even funny!)

Part 1
 

Thanks a lot r_jensen11 :). You are very kind and it's fun to have somebody to talk about those stuff with :). If you use ICQ, my number is 107686771 and MSN is roguex2000@hotmail.com. You know what? I'm actually studying english right now in a course called English B here. It's a relatively advanced class and you have to accomplish the English B to be able to step into Universities. Unfortunately I'm not doing very well :(. About two days ago, the teacher suggested me to buy an english grammar book as soon as possible. She said that my usage of prepositions and word order really needs a lot of work...ghehe.

I never really read english at school (I'm not swedish myself, because in Sweden, they do, learn a very good english). I've learned English with Final Fantasy(Snes) and a dictionary :). I loved that game, but I could understand nothing. Then I've faced two options, press the buttons randomly and try to beat the game I loved or translate it. I went with the second option :) ghehe.

Realistic characters you said...hmmmm. I've to confess, I really am not good at modeling. The most realistic image I've seen at Blender's page was this one:

http://www.blender3d.org/_gfx/galler...c_portrait.jpg

Although, not very impressive, Blenders tools for making smooth objects are very well designed and I'm sure you could come up with something better then this by adding a lot of polygons, deforming the meshes and making them smoother. Here is something much better. An image called the Imperfect Beauty from Blender's forum:

http://www.shadybird.com/3d/poser/imperfect.jpg

http://www.chicky.net/gallery/art/for_eddie2

And the second one with a hot girl :). They are both really well done :). My Rally X models use very few shapes, starting with a cube as the main chassis. That is a four sided shape. I believe the above image is really over 15.000 polygons. :). Ghehe. Perhaps after 2 or 3 more incarnations I can reach the modeling level these guys did. ;).

I've bought two books from Blender3D company. The game kit and The Blender Book. Before I buy anything, I always ask a lot (I really am a little cheap man...ghehe) about the product I am purchasing. Blender guys wanted to make as clear as possible to me that Blender is not designed for professional game development. I know what they mean, but I really think Blender is a very good product with an still unexplored potential :)