Freespace 2 fixed!
Nov. 25th, 2006 11:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsI fixed Freespace 2. It actually wasn't a bug in the game code, but in the SDL (Simple Directmedia Layer) driver.
The real problem lay in the joystick identifier code. It seems that my joystick is so old that it identifies itself to the computer as a "Microsoft SideWinder Precision Pro," but the code is looking for something calling itself a "SideWinder Precision Pro." I duplicated the Sidewinder line in the identifier array and added the word "Microsoft" to the duplicate and viola! I have a working joystick again.
Unfortunately, fixing it under Gentoo required a bit of a twist. I had to install the driver once, then start installing the driver again, stopping it halfway through the install, putting in the patch, and then manually calling install once more. That way the Gentoo database knows that it's SDL version 2.11 installed, and I know it's the one with the correct driver.
I guess I should submit a patch to the Gentoo maintainers.
Freespace was meant to run on a Pentium with a Voodoo 2 card. Running on an AMD 3100 with a 512 NVidia GE5 series card, I can turn on all the special effects and stellar light, and it's really a beautiful game. One of the most underappreciated space sims ever written, the best one made really-- unfortunately, its competitors the year it came out were an unremarkable Wing Commander edition and the Star Wars Rebel Assault space sim, which had just awful gameplay and visuals but was the 800 lb. gorilla of marketing. I'm grateful to Volition for freeing the code, and to Icculus and Indiegames for porting it to Linux
The real problem lay in the joystick identifier code. It seems that my joystick is so old that it identifies itself to the computer as a "Microsoft SideWinder Precision Pro," but the code is looking for something calling itself a "SideWinder Precision Pro." I duplicated the Sidewinder line in the identifier array and added the word "Microsoft" to the duplicate and viola! I have a working joystick again.
Unfortunately, fixing it under Gentoo required a bit of a twist. I had to install the driver once, then start installing the driver again, stopping it halfway through the install, putting in the patch, and then manually calling install once more. That way the Gentoo database knows that it's SDL version 2.11 installed, and I know it's the one with the correct driver.
I guess I should submit a patch to the Gentoo maintainers.
Freespace was meant to run on a Pentium with a Voodoo 2 card. Running on an AMD 3100 with a 512 NVidia GE5 series card, I can turn on all the special effects and stellar light, and it's really a beautiful game. One of the most underappreciated space sims ever written, the best one made really-- unfortunately, its competitors the year it came out were an unremarkable Wing Commander edition and the Star Wars Rebel Assault space sim, which had just awful gameplay and visuals but was the 800 lb. gorilla of marketing. I'm grateful to Volition for freeing the code, and to Icculus and Indiegames for porting it to Linux
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-25 09:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-25 10:48 pm (UTC)And I hate to contradict, but I believe the Star Wars offering was probably XWing Vs Tie Fighter around that time. Rebel Assault was a pathetic arcade game. Unless you mean Rogue Squadron, which is a console style space combat game (bah, rubbish).
And if you like space combat games it might be worth trying [url]ifh.firstones.com[/url]
It's a free game, fully featured space combat sim, based on Babylon 5. Full newtonian physics.