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Latest Comments by Hamish
Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 5: Quaking in My Boots
30 March 2021 at 12:12 am UTC

Quoting: GuestJust out of curiosity, does red hat from then come with tux racer? Not sure if that was mentioned in a previous post, so forgive me if it was.
Yep, it is installed along with the regular GNOME games.

I would not put too much stock in the FPS numbers reported by Quake but it does serve as a rough comparison. You almost never get exactly the same result twice from a timedemo just a ballpark.

Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 5: Quaking in My Boots
29 March 2021 at 6:30 pm UTC

Anybody wanting to try my shell script can download the following:
http://icculus.org/~hamish/dianoga/quake-glx-launch.sh

Those needing the libglide2x.so library can use this link:
http://icculus.org/~hamish/dianoga/libglide2x.so

And my raw Quake timedemo data can be found here:
http://icculus.org/~hamish/dianoga/quake-timedemos.txt

If you are using Sawfish as your window manager with GNOME I found that choosing either the "simple" or "mono" themes from the Appearance settings and changing the colour of active frames to be black worked well for faking full screen.

What have you been playing recently, come tell your thoughts
28 March 2021 at 3:34 am UTC Likes: 1

Finally trying my hand at some of the Mission Packs for Quake, and Scourge of Armagon has been impressing me so far. Honestly finding it to be a pleasant break after I slogged through the original four id Software episodes in preparation for my next article. Levelord does not disappoint.

EDIT: A little disappointed to learn that Scourge of Armagon has a new soundtrack which was not included with the retail Quake: The Offering package. I might be able to burn my own disc from the GOG.com version to use though.

Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 4: Installing Red Hat Linux 7.3
24 March 2021 at 6:50 am UTC

Quoting: DigitalSinEverything about SuSE back then is superior, it's so heavily modified compared to other distros at the time, i.e. the kernel and XFree86 ... 7.3 had a real animated bootup that is superior to even today standards. Check it out!
While I am not opposed to possibly playing with other distributions at some point, you are trying to sell this to a guy who is not even running a display manager on his modern Arch Linux machine.

Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 4: Installing Red Hat Linux 7.3
23 March 2021 at 5:43 pm UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: kneekooNice! :D Also update the link to this article in the previous one.
You always forget something. Fixed now.

Quoting: x_wingNice update. Regarding the driver problems you mention, couldn't they be related to your Mesa version? Maybe the regressions are not related to the kernel.
It almost certainly is a problem in Mesa, which is what got me using Fedora Legacy in the first place as I wanted to see if the issues were fixed in an update for Red Hat Linux 9.

Regardless, I am better off sticking with Valhalla or any other distribution with a glibc older than version 2.3 for the best compatibility with Loki games.

Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 4: Installing Red Hat Linux 7.3
22 March 2021 at 10:13 pm UTC

Quoting: BumadarShogo: Mobile Armor Division I completely forgot about that game. Wonder how it held up over all those years.
Well, I am biased as Shogo is a personal favourite of mine. My brother and I were actually gifted a signed piece of concept art by Monolith Productions as part of their 20th anniversary celebrations. It was also the first game I won with the Rage 128 Pro from the Windows 98 installation along with Blood II.

Quoting: BumadarCreative cd drives where never great, well not that I can remember, so the LG is a good move
The irony is it was the Creative drive that first caught my eye at the dump as it helped betray the age of the computer. Throws the colour off now too since the LG is not nearly as yellowed as the rest of the front of the case.

I had another earlier LG CD-ROM drive from 2003 I could have used but since I was off period anyway I figured I might as well go for more functionality.

Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 4: Installing Red Hat Linux 7.3
22 March 2021 at 6:45 pm UTC Likes: 1

Just in case anyone is interested I have prepared a guide for installing the Fedora Legacy updates on Red Hat Linux 7.3 Valhalla:
http://icculus.org/~hamish/dianoga/fedora-legacy-valhalla

Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 3: Installing Red Hat Linux 9
18 March 2021 at 10:26 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: CanadianBlueBeerI still have some of those old Loki games, and one, Civ:CTP does work on modern linux with a bit of fiddling, (just a bit), except for the music. That's solved just by having something else play the CD. :)
I did play through Rune and Soldier of Fortune on Fedora about ten years ago, and I could get the Shogo demo to launch on Arch Linux until just a few years ago. There are means and ways with these old ports but it just keeps getting harder and harder with each passing year.

Quoting: CanadianBlueBeerMandrake for Gaming included Sims for Linux (no number, just The Sims)
I believe that was accomplished by TransGaming using their WineX/Cedega fork.

One thing this project has done is that it has finally made me learn how to play Microsoft Solitaire on Windows 98 and Klondike as part of AisleRiot on Linux. Never bothered learning until now.

Linux vendor System76 releases the Pangolin, a full AMD laptop
17 March 2021 at 1:13 am UTC

Quoting: lectrode
Quoting: HamishI am assuming they mean RX Vega graphics.
This laptop does not have discrete graphics - only integrated. Whatever comes in the CPU is what you get.
So yeah, RX Vega graphics like I said.

Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 3: Installing Red Hat Linux 9
16 March 2021 at 10:49 pm UTC

Quoting: CalinouFun fact: Quake 3 Arena has dedicated code to detect Rage Pro GPUs and will use different effects on those GPUs (particles, marks, ...).
But is that for a Rage 128 Pro or a 3D Rage Pro? Yes, it gets confusing...