Quake III under Unix/Linux

[kevinthenerd]

Any advice on the best distribution of Linux/Unix to use to play Quake 3? I want to put another operating system on my computer just for this purpose.

I'm looking strongly at FreeBSD, but it's not native to the Linux code, and I think it might cause problems in that regard.

Is this even possible under OpenBSD? I hear that has amazing security.

A friend recommended Slackware if he had to use Linux, but he's a Unix nut who's a little anti-Linux.

Red Hat is out of the question for unrelated reasons.



My rig:

Celeron 433
320 MB RAM
15 GB HDD
Intel i810 chipset graphics

I know this stuff is fast enough. Quake III ran fine under Windows 2000 Professional with this setup, but I'd rather go with Unix/Linux for other reasons right now.


(Yes, I know... it's time for an upgrade. I'm saving up money for other things right now, and new hardware is not an option.)

 

[Spyro]

Try going with debian. Slackware is nice but debian has apt-get ad a really large selection of packages and debian is also really easy to maintain in comparison to other distros (i.e. once its set, its set).

BTW, its nice to know that I'm not the only AT'er who isn't running dual Athlon XPs

 

[drag]

Gentoo, minimal install. Make a custom kernel with no modules, with only the drivers compiled in that you need to run your computer. No Kde No Gnome, No nothing. Just that nothing at all extra added on, no services, no ftp, no nothing. All that work is good for about 3-7 fps over a normal distro.

With linux the main considuration is memory, If you have plenty of room to run quake in memory and all your applications. Generally you may see some performance gain if you have anything less then 128 megs, If you got over 256 there is generally no performance gains.

If a service is "running", but nothing is going on with it, and nobody is using it, it just sits there taking up space in RAM. The only CPU overhead is just to maintain the image in main memory. So defualt "conveniance" services like telnet ftp and ssh is not something you have to worry about. Maybe comething like Samba will give a bit of a performance hit for you, but that's debatable. Of course any thing running in X is going to be refreshing itself, and generally taking up cpu cycles. So stay away from desktop managers like kde and such....

If you want a absolute minimal set up in your X windows... try this:
echo "quake3" > ~/.xawtv

.xawtv is the configuration file for X windows. it resides in your home directory and it tells the X client what programs to start up for you... Normally it would have a little script in it to check for things and then at the end it would have something like "exec gnome-session" to start up your gnome session. That command erases all that and puts quake3 in it's place. So then when X starts up it checks that file and all it does is start quake3, once you quit quake then it has no reason to exist and shuts down and you go back to the command prompt.

It really won't provide any real performance increase over using minimal window managers lik fluxbox or icewm, bit with that hardware you need all the help you can get.

You can make a script pretty easily that will copy .xawtv to .xawtv.bkup and do the echo thing and then startx automaticly. And then another one to reverse the proccess and get you back into your window manager.

Once for s***s and giggles I tried running enlightenment OVER quake3. Which was interesting to play quake3 with the taskbar and stuff running over it, but it was pretty much unusable as a window manager.

Of course the easiest distro to do this is Slackware by far, but you can customize any linux distro to accomplish this.
Good luck.

Anyways do a favor for your self, go check out Ebay. I bet you could find a old Geforce2 or 3 for 20 bucks that will give you all the power you need for quake3. the difference would be like night and day. Just stay away from the mx lines.

 

[Nothinman]

I play Q3 in Debian almost daily, but really the distro won't matter too much. I would worry more about finding a DRI enabled driver for your video card.

 

[Spyro]

I would worry more about finding a DRI enabled driver for your video card.

Bah, just grab the latest kernel, I'm quite sure I saw something in the menu about that.

 

[Spyro]

Originally posted by: drag
Gentoo, minimal install. Make a custom kernel with no modules, with only the drivers compiled in that you need to run your computer. No Kde No Gnome, No nothing. Just that nothing at all extra added on, no services, no ftp, no nothing. All that work is good for about 3-7 fps over a normal distro.

With linux the main considuration is memory, If you have plenty of room to run quake in memory and all your applications. Generally you may see some performance gain if you have anything less then 128 megs, If you got over 256 there is generally no performance gains.

If a service is "running", but nothing is going on with it, and nobody is using it, it just sits there taking up space in RAM. The only CPU overhead is just to maintain the image in main memory. So defualt "conveniance" services like telnet ftp and ssh is not something you have to worry about. Maybe comething like Samba will give a bit of a performance hit for you, but that's debatable. Of course any thing running in X is going to be refreshing itself, and generally taking up cpu cycles. So stay away from desktop managers like kde and such....

If you want a absolute minimal set up in your X windows... try this:
echo "quake3" > ~/.xawtv

.xawtv is the configuration file for X windows. it resides in your home directory and it tells the X client what programs to start up for you... Normally it would have a little script in it to check for things and then at the end it would have something like "exec gnome-session" to start up your gnome session. That command erases all that and puts quake3 in it's place. So then when X starts up it checks that file and all it does is start quake3, once you quit quake then it has no reason to exist and shuts down and you go back to the command prompt.

It really won't provide any real performance increase over using minimal window managers lik fluxbox or icewm, bit with that hardware you need all the help you can get.

You can make a script pretty easily that will copy .xawtv to .xawtv.bkup and do the echo thing and then startx automaticly. And then another one to reverse the proccess and get you back into your window manager.

Once for s***s and giggles I tried running enlightenment OVER quake3. Which was interesting to play quake3 with the taskbar and stuff running over it, but it was pretty much unusable as a window manager.

Of course the easiest distro to do this is Slackware by far, but you can customize any linux distro to accomplish this.
Good luck.

Anyways do a favor for your self, go check out Ebay. I bet you could find a old Geforce2 or 3 for 20 bucks that will give you all the power you need for quake3. the difference would be like night and day. Just stay away from the mx lines.

Drag, I demand to know your typing speed

 

[Nothinman]

Bah, just grab the latest kernel, I'm quite sure I saw something in the menu about that.

I said that because the only cards I've used for 3D games were nVidia cards, hell I doubt I'd try to play q3 in an i810 even in Windows.

 

[drag]

Oh I am not realy that quick.. can't quite remember the since the last time I tested myself. probably 35-45 words per minute. Not to fast, I just get a bit ahh.. verbose.

 

[Spyro]

Originally posted by: drag
Oh I am not realy that quick.. can't quite remember the since the last time I tested myself. probably 35-45 words per minute. Not to fast, I just get a bit ahh.. verbose.

O.K., cool, but verbosity is a good thing

 

[chsh1ca]

Originally posted by: drag
If a service is "running", but nothing is going on with it, and nobody is using it, it just sits there taking up space in RAM. The only CPU overhead is just to maintain the image in main memory. So defualt "conveniance" services like telnet ftp and ssh is not something you have to worry about. Maybe comething like Samba will give a bit of a performance hit for you, but that's debatable. Of course any thing running in X is going to be refreshing itself, and generally taking up cpu cycles. So stay away from desktop managers like kde and such....

If you want a absolute minimal set up in your X windows... try this:
echo "quake3" > ~/.xawtv

.xawtv is the configuration file for X windows. it resides in your home directory and it tells the X client what programs to start up for you... Normally it would have a little script in it to check for things and then at the end it would have something like "exec gnome-session" to start up your gnome session. That command erases all that and puts quake3 in it's place. So then when X starts up it checks that file and all it does is start quake3, once you quit quake then it has no reason to exist and shuts down and you go back to the command prompt.

No, .xawtv has nothing to do with XFree, apart from it being used by an application that runs on top of X. .xawtv is only xawtv's configuration file, and won't change anything in X. What you are really looking for is .xinitrc. You will also probably want to load certain other apps to take advantage of more mouse buttons, and sound manager settings, etc.. Also, it must have the shebang line, and you didn't include that in your echo, which means that it won't work at all. The .xinitrc should start with #!/bin/sh and then follow with other commands.
If you are intending on only using this box for Quake 3, then stick with Linux first of all. I'd go Linux Slackware, custom 2.4.20 kernel, and make sure you install KDE and Gnome, because it's easier to have them installed on the system and not use them than it is to have to install them at a later time IMO, and drive space is cheap. Also, certain services you may need from one or the other (like the sound mixers and such) depending on what you want to do with it down the road.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

xinitrc doesn't need a shebang.

If you wade through /usr/X11R6/bin/startx you see this:

userclientrc=$HOME/.xinitrc
[.....]
defaultclientargs=$userclientrc
[....]
client="$defaultclientargs"
[.....]
xinit $client $clientargs -- $server $display $serverargs

 

[chsh1ca]

If it doesn't need one, then can I ask why they include one in the xinitrc example?

The var passed to xinit is a script name to execute on load. Xinit starts the script $HOME/.xinitrc if it exists to load user-level app preferences. According to the XFree people, it should have a shebang line, so it should be there.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: chsh1ca
[

No, .xawtv has nothing to do with XFree, apart from it being used by an application that runs on top of X. .xawtv is only xawtv's configuration file, and won't change anything in X. What you are really looking for is .xinitrc. You will also probably want to load certain other apps to take advantage of more mouse buttons, and sound manager settings, etc.. Also, it must have the shebang line, and you didn't include that in your echo, which means that it won't work at all. The .xinitrc should start with #!/bin/sh and then follow with other commands.
If you are intending on only using this box for Quake 3, then stick with Linux first of all. I'd go Linux Slackware, custom 2.4.20 kernel, and make sure you install KDE and Gnome, because it's easier to have them installed on the system and not use them than it is to have to install them at a later time IMO, and drive space is cheap. Also, certain services you may need from one or the other (like the sound mixers and such) depending on what you want to do with it down the road.

Moan...

doh I know that. I have a nasty habit of doing stuff like that. Words are like pictures to me, i don't see the individual letters as much as a kinda photograph. xawtv and xinitrc are too close together, I've accident;y erased my channel listings serveral times because of it, now I have to keep backups. I ment to say xinitrc. Stupid brain fart. Sorry for the misinformation.

 

[dawks]

i810 is gonna be your biggest nightmare in this situation

The game will run like crap and look even worse. But that celery is more then capable... perhaps a cheap TNT/TNT2 PCI card would make it easier..?

 

[kevinthenerd]

Originally posted by: DaZ
i810 is gonna be your biggest nightmare in this situation

The game will run like crap and look even worse. But that celery is more then capable... perhaps a cheap TNT/TNT2 PCI card would make it easier..?

I'm telling you... it ran to my liking in Windows 2000. If it doesn't do that in Linux, it's not the hardware's fault.

 

[drag]

Generally linux's version of quake3 will run within a few fps of it's window's counterparts. plus or minus. Same hardware, same performance. The only caveot is drivers, nvidia is the most used video card (for gaming wise) in a linux box because they officially support Linux. Most other cards don't release drivers for linux and don't even explain how they work to open-source developers (not that nvidia does, either, they just develope their own drivers) so lots of drivers have to be painstakenly reversed engineered into existance. Without proper drivers you on-board video won't work properly...

However there are some 3d drivers developed for it using the DRI interface, but since I have no first-hand experiance with that chipset I don't know the quality of support it has.

 

[kevinthenerd]

Can somebody tell me how to go about getting the Intel i810 to work in the DRI interface or get it working in some other method? I'd like to run it with 3D-Accelerated OpenGL, but SVGA would be fine too.

Originally posted by: Electrode
I would think all you'd need to do is build AGPGART and DRI support for it in the kernel, then open up /etc/X11/XF86Config and make sure it loads the DRI module and uses the i810 driver. Then just startx and see if glxgears works or not.

Can someone break this down for a newbie?

 

[Nothinman]

First just determine if DRI is enabled or not, in X open an xterm and type glxinfo, it'll tell you if Direct Rendering is enabled.