Latest Comments by Hamish
The sad case of Unreal Engine 1 on Mesa and Linux in 2020
28 February 2020 at 7:59 pm UTC

Yeah, my followup article has been delayed until I can see what OldUnreal has managed. :)

Reminder: Update your PC info for the next round of statistics updates
26 February 2020 at 8:16 pm UTC

Quoting: Liam DaweThe monitor question is clear enough already isn't it?

"Main Gaming Resolution"
Ah, so it is. Sorry, it has been a long time since I changed my answers, but the PC Info display just says resolution on its own. I guess that is what I am asking about instead.

Reminder: Update your PC info for the next round of statistics updates
25 February 2020 at 11:53 pm UTC Likes: 2

Technically my main screen resolution is 1680x1050 and my second head is 1024x768. Should we change the question to ask for your primary or main resolution? I can not be the only one with different sized screens.

What have you been playing recently and what do you think about it?
23 February 2020 at 5:17 pm UTC Likes: 2

I had the Postal Fudge Pack show up after I ordered it from eBay for $12.99 CAD just so I could add another game to the collection with a Tux on the box. This made me curious to see if I could get my old backed up Desura copy of Postal 2 working and after removing "libgcc_s.so.1" from the System directory and hacking it to support widescreen everything works great. I kicked around through Monday and still managed to somehow complete all of my objectives.

[url=https://postimg.cc/R6HRHnZc][/url]

It is annoying that the Linux updates never made their way to GOG.com as of yet and Postal Redux is still missing in action from there. They say the team is all tied up with Postal 4, which I can understand, but at the same time I do wish they would finish what they started. Releasing the source code to Postal Plus still earns them plaudits though.

Bee-themed management sim 'Hive Time' has a new amusing trailer
17 February 2020 at 8:13 pm UTC Likes: 1

More than happy to give $10 to Cheeseness. As someone who has worked with a professional beekeeper for the last six years we shall see how jaded I have become though. :P

Raze - a new open source fork of EDuke32 backed by GZDoom tech
6 February 2020 at 2:39 pm UTC

I have been kind of just sitting in limbo for the last few years waiting for one Build engine port to become definitive enough for me to play through Blood again. Here comes another contender.

The sad case of Unreal Engine 1 on Mesa and Linux in 2020
6 February 2020 at 4:02 am UTC Likes: 2

The README file included by ./play.it is illuminating:
Three libs from [UTPGPatch451.tar.bz2] have a [symbol conflict] with modern
libstdc++.so.6. Sadly `objcopy --redefine-sym` can't [redefine dynamic symbols]
and hexediting just delays the crash to loading Pit of Agony. Use [elfhash] to
replace the symbol with one the same length and rehash the elf.

for lib in System/Core.so System/NullDrv.so System/NullRender.so; do
md5sum $lib
../elfhash/elfhash -f __dynamic_cast -t __dynloki_cast $lib > /dev/null
md5sum $lib
done

522154c5c551de4cda673f9b75cae109  System/Core.so
fbbcff9c5e40de08acb7c98f364a9707  System/Core.so
7600d224c7614c7f6a07c5eef8c66015  System/NullDrv.so
3b075a8a3c4773759fe6f7c935cb4ff0  System/NullDrv.so
89f4cc264c97fe5f97d6c63dd6a05e26  System/NullRender.so
c317de7117e78b9e16becc8583c3752a  System/NullRender.so

[UTPGPatch451.tar.bz2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20160803031207/http://www.utpg.org/patches/UTPGPatch451.tar.bz2
[symbol conflict]: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=108933
[redefine dynamic symbols]: https://sourceware.org/ml/binutils/2006-03/msg00005.html
[elfhash]: https://github.com/cjacker/elfhash


It should also be noted that this build is based on the unofficial UTPG 451 patch.

I can also now confirm that the "Signal: SIGIOT [iot trap]" error when changing game modes is a product of using Stéphan Kochen's OpenGLDrv renderer. When using SDLGLDrv it works fine.

The sad case of Unreal Engine 1 on Mesa and Linux in 2020
5 February 2020 at 11:54 pm UTC Likes: 5

Quoting: BillFlemingThe author of this article really didn't do their research. The game runs fine without needing a patched mesa.You just need to install some extra audio packages and launch the game using a special command for the audio.
Trust me when I say that I have been aware of this issue for years and that I spent a great deal of time researching when crafting this article. I did miss your AUR package, but that is because I deliberately avoid distribution specific methods so as not to exclude people with other setups. All that being said, I am happy to say that your build of the game does work.

Looking into it, the "ut99v451-linux.2019-07-21.tar.gz" package you are using has hacked game binaries that have been made to work around the symbol collision with modern versions of libstdc++ which in turn produced the segmentation fault with Mesa. This is NOT TRUE of the last official release of the game, which is provided by the "ut-install-436-GOTY.run" installer I used.

Again, I will admit to not being aware of this hacked version, but considering that it only shows up on Google from either ./play.it or the gog-unreal-tournament-goty AUR package I can hardly be blamed for that. The vast majority of articles and sources online do not refer to this package, likely because it is not official and did not even exist before last summer.

Quoting: BillFlemingThe game's old renderer is also still usable so you don't even have to mod the game to play, but it won't support super high res. (2560x1080 works, 2560x1440 didn't for me)
I never claimed that it did not work. I did need to supply a new audio device in order to get better sound, but the original OpenGL renderer did indeed work fine given its limitations.

Quoting: rea987What you have linked as OpenGL renderer is same OpenAL. That's a mistake I guess. Is the third party OpenGL renderer the same Stéphan's Kochen OpenGLDrv based on Chris Donhal's enhanced OpenGL renderer?
Okay, that one is my bad. It was supposed to link to a compiled version of Stéphan Kochen's OpenGLDrv renderer like you said.

Quoting: Perkeleen_VittupääSoo, could all this be possible to package somehow to a state that even a non-tech-savvy random occasional gamer could then enjoy Unreal Tournament on Linux?
Well, now that I have a binary that works without issues, I will at least be writing a guide on how to get Unreal Tournament working on modern Linux distributions as a sequel to this article.

Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: appetrosyanSadly, not many of those games are OpenSource, and it’s only a matter of time when this issue crops up
Which is as true on Windows as it is on Linux though remember. All games eventually succumb to time, we're just in an interesting position thanks to Wine/Proton that can at times run games Windows 10 now cannot heh.
Yeah, there is nothing about Windows that makes it less susceptible to these problems than Linux. This is just one of the benefits of WINE being a compatibility layer. It grants compatibility, even for older titles.

The sad case of Unreal Engine 1 on Mesa and Linux in 2020
5 February 2020 at 3:23 am UTC

Quoting: adamhmTry starting them with: taskset 0x1 <command>
(make sure to disable CSMT before doing this)
That does indeed do the trick, thanks.