Archive for the ‘Games Linux’ Category

How to Install and Play old Arcade Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator Games on Linux in 2021 with xmame and GXMame GUI Frontend

Friday, May 14th, 2021

mame-multiple-arcade-machine-emulator
I've earlier blogged on how to install and play old arcade games with xmame compiled from source on the now old Debian 7 Linux under the article Install xmame from source on Debian Linux 7.0 (Wheezy) to play for better MAME (Arcade Games Emulation)
as well article on using the newer version of MAME emulator instead of xmame under the article Playing Arcade old school games on Debian Linux as well as how to make the MAME emulator work with a joystick see my previous How to configure Joystick ( Gamepad ) on Debian, Ubuntu, Mint GNU / Linux easily.

Since I have preinstalled my notebook with fresh Debian 10 Buster, for a long time I did not have the time as well as desire to play my favourite games of the youth to name a few this is Xain'd Sleena / Cadillacs and Dinosaurs (1993) / the Punisher (1993) / Captain Commando (1991) / Super Mario / Contra / Final Fight etc. and rest of the the SEGA Mega Drive / GameBoy / Nintendo / Terminator game (fake clone of nintendo) and other killing Arcade Classics of the late 90s and early year 2000, which we played on a public houses on a game cabinets with a joysticks. 
Hence I tried to reproduce some of my articles just as of 2021 to see whether still we can get a nice playable MAME emulator on Linux with a Graphical GUI for Mate or GNOME. And it seems using a straight mame out of Debian standard repositories did not work with some of the more sophisticated ROM .zip files from the nices such as Punisher or XSLEENA.zip, this is how this article got born in an attempt to give a way for such old school game freaks as me to be able to play there favorite games of the youth.

Below is the few steps adapted mostly from above articles with some head banging and loosing multiple hours wondering until I finally got a working XMAME ROM emulator with the simple but working GXMAME graphical frontend for M.A.M.E..

To compile xmame with joystick support be it analog or whatever joystick you have to use a Makefile like below

https://www.pc-freak.net/files/xmame-0.103-Makefile-for-joystick

Copy it on your PC and remove it to Makefile in the xmame-0.103 source dir:

# cd /usr/local/src/xmame-0.103


I have to install all the necessery package dependencies development header files, some of which are mentioned in the beginning of post articles and some of which I had to install manually, such as the preset Debian meta-package build-essentials Things to install on newly installed GNU / Linux (My favourite must have Linux text and GUI programs missing in fresh Linux installs), just to mention a few I remember had to install based on some compilation errors:

# apt-get install build-essential
# apt-get install –yes zlib1g-dev

# apt-get install –yes libexpat1-dev
# apt-get install –yes libghc-x11-dev
# apt-get install –yes x11proto-video-dev
# apt-get install –yes libxv-dev
# apt-get install libxext6
# apt-get install libxext6-dev
# apt-get install libxext-dev
# apt-get install libjpeg62-turbo-dev
# apt-get install libxinerama-dev
# apt-get install libgtk-3-dev
# apt-get install syslog-ng-dev
# apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev


If I'm missing some package necessery here you will have to find it yourself based on the *.h file produced as error during compile you should look it up with a cmd like:

# apt-file search glib2.h


And install it further.

You will need to edit Makefile or take and straight use or if necessery adapt an already prepared Makefile for my purpose:
 

# wget https://www.pc-freak.net/files/xmame-0.103-Makefile-for-joystick;
# mv https://www.pc-freak.net/files/xmame-0.103-Makefile-for-joystick Makefile
# make && make install


Some .zip roms does not properly work with the newer mame you need to instead use xmame ..

Below is the version I use on Debian 10 as of May 2021 year.

hipo@jeremiah:/usr/local/src$ xmame –version
GLINFO: loaded OpenGL library libGL.so!
GLINFO: loaded GLU    library libGLU.so!
xmame (x11) version 0.103 (May 13 2021)


To make the joystick work in xmame you will need to have a preset of modules loaded on the Linux for my old Genius joystick this is what works.

hipo@jeremiah:~/Games$ cat /etc/modules
# /etc/modules: kernel modules to load at boot time.
#
# This file contains the names of kernel modules that should be loaded
# at boot time, one per line. Lines beginning with "#" are ignored.
snd-seq
3c59x
snd-emu10k1
snd-pcm-oss
snd-mixer-oss
snd-seq-oss
joydev
ns558
sidewinder
gameport
analog
adi
pcigame
iforce
evdev
usbhid


Fill in your joystick module there and make sure you manually load each one of the modules with modprobe command.
Next calibrate the joystick with some tool like jktest-gtk

jktest-gtk-linux-screenshot
If you need a good frontend for MATE / GNOME for xmame try gxmame. It is a real pain in the ass to configure, note that the only working version of xmame with good configuration as well as gxmame with a game list that is prebuild.
If you need xmame-0.103.tar.bz2 exact xmame version I'm using thethe archive is on:

https://www.pc-freak.net/files/xmame-0.103.tar.bz2
An old bundle of both gxmame and xmamerc configs is here

https://www.pc-freak.net/files/xmame.tar.gz

https://www.pc-freak.net/files/xmame-config-for-joystick-hipo.tar.gz
For example my old working version of xmame ~/.xmame is here https://www.pc-freak.net/files/xmame-config-for-joystick-hipo.tar.gz

Configuration of gxmame (even though it has has a GUI for configuring is below:

https://www.pc-freak.net/files/gxmame.tar.gz

xmamerc sample working file is here

https://www.pc-freak.net/files/xmamerc

My newest current version as of Debian 10 Squeeze of xmame and gxmame is below:

https://www.pc-freak.net/files/gxmame-config-newest_may_2021.tar.gz

https://www.pc-freak.net/files/xmame-config-newest_may_2021.tar.gz

Note that my rom files and stuff is located and configured in neewst configs to be under /home/hipo/Games/roms/ if your location is others grep it in .xmame/* and .gxmame/* files and set the correct PATH locations.

A VERY IMPORTANT NOTE is not to use the stable version of GXMAME even though it worked in 2003 fine as the project is abandoned and unsupported as of 2021 the latest downloadable stable gxmame file on Sourceforge gxmame-0.34b website is not working correctly (even though it compiles fine).
You have to compile and use instead the newer version gxmame-0.35beta1.

If you want to use gxmame with a joystick you need to compile it with the respective option:
 

root@jeremiah:/usr/local/src/gxmame-0.35beta1# ./configure –enable-joystick

 

gxmame 0.35beta1

Print debugging messages…… : no
Joystick support………….. : yes

GXMame will be installed in /usr/local/bin.
Warning: You have an old copy of gxmame at /usr/local/bin/gxmame.

 

configure complete, now type 'make'

To install compiled binaries do the usual:
 

# make && make install

gxmame binary should be installed under /usr/local/bin/gxmame once launched you should get the shiny gxmame GUI.

gxmame-screenshot-debian-10-gnu-linux-mate-desktop

Perhaps there was other stuff I've done in the process I forgot to document here, so if you try to follow my guide and something does not work please tell me what I'm missing and you can't handle it either contact me.

The guide is for Debian Linux but should work on other .Deb based Linux distros such as Ubuntu / Linux Mint etc.

To enjoy my 4GB present of ROM files containing many of best well known M.A.M.E. ARCADE GAMES check archive here. Note that this collection was downloaded on the Internet and I do not hold any responsibility of the archive. If it contains files with any copyright infringment this is to be on your own.
 

Tux for Kids (Tux Math, Tux Paint, Tux Typing) 3 games to develop your children Intellect

Monday, September 27th, 2010

tuxforkids-linux-games-logo

Every now and then I have to install a new Windows computer that has to be good for children development.
When I do that I always strive to provide the notebook or desktop with something really worthy that will help up the children personal development.
In that thoughts direction I would have to share about Tux4Kids – High Quality Education Software Alternatives

This project is truly wonderful it includes a number of small games that generally develops thinking in children.

1. TuxMath is a project dedicate do develop children simple mathematic abilities.

2. TuxPaint is a project aimed to develop children painting abilities.

3. Tux Typing is a project that is dedicated to develop children's computer typing abilities.

Here are few shiny screenshot of the fun games for kids:

Tux Math of Command
Tux Math

Tux Typing
Tux Typing

Tux Paint
Tux Paint

The good things about the three games are that they're completely open source under the GPL license

This 3 are available for both Linux, Windows and Mac OS
The games are also quite fun even for adult, so I suggest if you yet haven't tried them check them out.

Play Colorful console Tetris for Linux Mac and BSD ( bastet )

Tuesday, November 7th, 2017

console-terminal-linux-ascii-game-colorful-tetris-really-cool-way-to-kill-time-as-linux-systemadministrator

Do you remember the bsdgames package which had the good old tetris-bsd – an ASCII tetris for terminal / console along with nethack, hunt and number of other cool ascii games? If you don't you can give a try to install the package if you don't have it yet, install it on Debian Linux / Ubuntu with.

linux:~# apt-get install –yes tetris-bsd

Then launch tetris-bsd like so:

$ /usr/games/tetris-bsd

tetris-bsd-console-tetris-for-linux-and-freebsd

But wait there is more just recently I found out there is a modern colorful version remake of bsd-tetris called bastet

To give it a try install it with apt-get on Deb based Linuces

linux:~# apt-get install bastet
Четене на списъците с пакети… Готово
Изграждане на дървото със зависимости       
Четене на информацията за състоянието… Готово
Следните допълнителни пакети ще бъдат инсталирани:
  libboost-program-options1.55.0
Следните НОВИ пакети ще бъдат инсталирани:
  bastet libboost-program-options1.55.0
0 актуализирани, 2 нови инсталирани, 0 за премахване и 1 без промяна.
Необходимо е да се изтеглят 219 kB архиви.
След тази операция ще бъде използвано 858 kB допълнително дисково пространство.
Искате ли да продължите? [Y/n] Y
Изт:1 http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ jessie/main libboost-program-options1.55.0 amd64 1.55.0+dfsg-3 [143 kB]
Изт:2 http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ jessie/main bastet amd64 0.43-3+b1 [75,7 kB]
Изтеглени 219 kB за 0с (220 kB/сек)     
Предварително настройване на пакети …
Selecting previously unselected package libboost-program-options1.55.0:amd64.
(Reading database … 172280 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack …/libboost-program-options1.55.0_1.55.0+dfsg-3_amd64.deb …
Unpacking libboost-program-options1.55.0:amd64 (1.55.0+dfsg-3) …
Selecting previously unselected package bastet.
Preparing to unpack …/bastet_0.43-3+b1_amd64.deb …
Unpacking bastet (0.43-3+b1) …
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme (0.13-1) …
Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.0.2-5) …
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.22-1) …
Processing triggers for mime-support (3.58) …
Setting up libboost-program-options1.55.0:amd64 (1.55.0+dfsg-3) …
Setting up bastet (0.43-3+b1) …
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.19-18+deb8u10) …

linux:~$ /usr/games/bastet

bastet-linux-ascii-colorful-console-terminal-tetris-start-screen

FreeBSD users can also install it either via freebsd ports :

freebsd#  cd /usr/ports/games/bastet/ && make install clean

or through binary package with:


freebsd# pkg install bastet

linux-macos-freebsd-play-game-ascii-colorful-tetris-in-console-bsd-bastet

Mac OS X users can also enjoy it but you need to install Mac OS X home brew package manager

Once having brew command install the tiny ASCII tetris game through Mac OS X terminal with:

$ brew install basket

Enjoy bastet 🙂
 

How to enable Gravis UltraSound in DOSBox for enhanced music experience in DOS programs and Games

Tuesday, October 31st, 2017

DOSBox

Gravis UltraSound Classic

 

Gravis UltraSound

Gravis UltraSound or GUS is a sound card for the IBM PC compatible systems.
It was lunched in 1992 and is notable for it's ability to use real-world sound recordings (wavetable) of a musical instruments rather than artificial computer-generated waveforms.
As one of my friends used to say back then: "it sounds like a CD".

To enable GUS in DOSBox all you need to do is:

1. Download the archive with the GUS files from https://alex.www.pc-freak.net/files/GUS/ULTRASND.zip. Extract the archive (there is already a directory in it so you don't have to create one) preferably where you keep your DOSBox stuff (like Games).

2. Find your DOSBox config file. Depending on the version or host OS, the dosbox conf file is located either inside the user profile folder or inside the same folder as dosbox.exe. In Windows 7 the config file is located at

"C:\Users\Fred\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\dosbox.conf"

where "Fred" is your username.

In GNU/Linux it's in "/home/Fred/.dosbox/dosbox.conf" where "Fred" is your username.

The name of the conf file may also have dosbox version (for example –

"dosbox-0.74.conf").

Open it with a text editor like notepad (Windows) or equvalent for GNU/Linux (vi, Kate, gedit…). Locate "[gus]" section (without the quotes) and edit it so it looks like this:

[gus]
#      gus: Enable the Gravis Ultrasound emulation.
#  gusrate: Sample rate of Ultrasound emulation.
#           Possible values: 44100, 48000, 32000, 22050, 16000, 11025, 8000, 49716.
#  gusbase: The IO base address of the Gravis Ultrasound.
#           Possible values: 240, 220, 260, 280, 2a0, 2c0, 2e0, 300.
#   gusirq: The IRQ number of the Gravis Ultrasound.
#           Possible values: 5, 3, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12.
#   gusdma: The DMA channel of the Gravis Ultrasound.
#           Possible values: 3, 0, 1, 5, 6, 7.
# ultradir: Path to Ultrasound directory. In this directory
#           there should be a MIDI directory that contains
#           the patch files for GUS playback. Patch sets used
#           with Timidity should work fine.

gus=true
gusrate=44100
gusbase=240
gusirq=5
gusdma=3
ultradir=C:\ULTRASND

Then save the dosbox conf file.

3. Start DOSBox and mount "ULTRASND" directory to "C:".

You can do that with

mount c (directory to ULTRASND)

For example if you have extracted the archive in "C:\Games" it has created "C:\Games\ULTRASND" and the command you will have to write in DOSBox is

mount c c:\Games

(example: if your game is in "C:\Games\Heroes2" and your GUS directory is "C:\Games\ULTRSND" (if you have extracted the archive "C:\Games\") then you "mount c c:\Games" and you are set)

or for GNU/Linux if you have extracted the archive in "/home/Fred/Games" it has created "/home/Fred/Games/ULTRASND" and the command you will have to write in DOSBox is

mount c /home/Fred/Games (where "Fred" is your user name).

(example: if your game is in "/home/Fred/Games/Heroes2" and your GUS directory is "/home/Fred/Games/ULTRSND" (if you have extracted the archive" /home/Fred/Games/") in  then you "mount c /home/Fred/Games" and you are set)

You can make this automatic so you don't have to write it everytime by adding this command in the end (bottom) part of your dosbox conf file and save it.

You're practicly ready. All you need to do now is set Gravis UltraSound in your game or application setup (for example with the file "setup.exe") with IO: 240, IRQ 5 and DMA 3. If you prefer you previous sound card you can do that by selecting it again from the setup without disabling GUS from the dosbox conf file.

Happy listening!

Gravis Ultrasound

 

Article written by Alex

How to configure Joystick ( Gamepad ) on Debian, Ubuntu, Mint GNU / Linux easily

Thursday, November 2nd, 2017

linux-joystick-howto-configure-easily-joypad-joystick-genius-maxfire

"All work and no fun makes Jack a dull boy …."

If you own a PC joystick and you're a gamer who just migrated to GNU / Linux and you enter the wonderful world of Linux gaming (haha what wonderful world its nightmare :), perhaps you will want an easy way to make your Joystick work on GNU / Linux.

In this article I'll try my best to explain how you can relavitely easy make your Linux joystick (joy stick 🙂 ), bring you the happiness of playing old arcades in an old school joystick way.
 

1. Install necessery packages for joystick under Linux
 

gamelinux:~# apt-get install –yes joystick jstest-gtk joy2key gjoypad xserver-xorg-input-joystick \
xserver-xorg-input-joystick-dev kodi-peripherals


2. Test wherher joystick is properly detected by kernel

 

gamelinux:~# cat /dev/input/js0

 

test-whether-joystick-works-on-linux-screenshot-cat-command

 

 

If above cat command returns a bunch of weird signs in your terminal, that means the joystick was successfully detected and should be working.
 

3. Load Joystick necessery Linux modules if your Gamepad is not properly detected


Note that I assume you're super user most of below commands are preferrably to be run as root:

If you're Gamepad is not detected, you'll have to manually create /dev/input/js0

gamelinux:~# cd /dev/input
gamelinux;~# MAKEDEV js0


Further on you'll need to perhaps load at least the following 3 modules which gives support for a number of JoySticks / Gamepad devices

gamelinux:~# modprobe joydev
gamelinux:~# modprobe ns558
gamelinux:~# modprobe sidewinder
gamelinux:~# modprobe gameport

Just in case if you're planning to play old Arcade games I recommend you load also following bunch of modules:

gamelinux:~# modprobe snd-seq
gamelinux:~# modprobe 3c59x
gamelinux:~# modprobe snd-emu10k1
gamelinux:~# modprobe snd-pcm-oss
gamelinux:~# modprobe snd-mixer-oss
gamelinux:~# modprobe snd-seq-oss

If you get an error message and don't suceed to calibrate your gamepad, you need to look under to know the modules that fit your Joystick model.

 

For a MS Sidewinder gamepad

gamelinux:~# modprobe joydev
gamelinux:~# modprobe ns558
gamelinux:~# modprobe sidewinder
gamelinux:~# modprobe analog
## This one work only for analog pad, like joysticks


For a Logitech WingMan digital gamepad
 

gamelinux:~# modprobe joydev
gamelinux:~# modprobe ns558
gamelinux:~# modprobe adi
## Specific driver for Logitech gamepads

For a Logitech WingMan gamepad (analog)

gamelinux:~# modprobe joydev
gamelinux:~# modprobe ns558
gamelinux:~# modprobe analog
## Module for analog gamepads
gamelinux:~# modprobe pcigame
## Module for PCI card (??)
gamelinux:~# modprobe adi
## Module for Logitech pads


For a MS SideWinder ForceFeedBack Pro
 

gamelinux:~# modprobe joydev
gamelinux:~# modprobe ns558
gamelinux:~# modprobe analog
gamelinux:~# modprobe sidewinder
gamelinux:~# modprobe iforce
## Force Feedback driver
gamelinux:~# modprobe evdev

 


For a Guillemot dual analog gamepad (gameport, non-USB)

gamelinux:~# modprobe joydev
gamelinux:~# modprobe ns558
gamelinux:~# modprobe guillemot
gamelinux:~# modprobe analog
## to check
gamelinux:~# modprobe iforce
## to check


If auto-detect of joystick doesn't work (hopefully not your case)

 

gamelinux:~# modprobe usbhid
gamelinux:~# modprobe joydev

 

– Enable Joystick for KDE Users
 

Luckily though historically the kcontrol package was required but nowadays, KDE users could usually calibrate joystick via KDE K Control Centrer


To make joystick configuration permanent on Linux you need to add the modules that worked with your Joystick device to /etc/modules,

for eample I own

JOYSTICK GENIUS MAXFIRE G-08XU

And my

/etc/modules file

looks like so:

 

gamelinux:~# cat /etc/modules

# /etc/modules: kernel modules to load at boot time.
#
# This file contains the names of kernel modules that should be loaded
# at boot time, one per line. Lines beginning with "#" are ignored.
snd-seq
3c59x
snd-emu10k1
snd-pcm-oss
snd-mixer-oss
snd-seq-oss
joydev


In case of some problems with SoundCard conflicting joystick or the other way around you might also want to add into /etc/modprobe.d/options something similar to

 

gamelinux:~# vim /etc/modprobe.d/options

gamelinux:~# options snd_ens1371 joystick_port=1

 

4. Calibrate your joystick either using jstest / jscal commands or GNOME's jstest-gtk
 

To calibrate joystick in text mode use below commands

 

jscal /dev/input/js0
jstest /dev/input/js0


For the lazy ones you can calibrate your joystick via GNOME's graphical tool jstest-gtk
 

jstest-gtk

jstest-gtk-linux-screenshot-how-to-configure-joystick-linux

This article is just a basic explanation on how to make your joystick work, for thoroughful advanced explanation on JoySticks and Gamepads I recommend ArchLinux Wiki explanation on how to configure Gamepads
 

5. Create missing Symlinks from /dev/input/js0 to /dev/js0
 

I've personally experienced a problem with Xmame / Xmess (Multimedia Arcade Emulator) and other old arcade Virtual Machine Emulators that are supposed to recognize the joystick, but because it is common that the joystick is trying to be invoked via /dev/js0 /dev/js1 (depending on its model), but somehow this links are missing, thus I had to manually create the links with ln command, like so:

– For /dev/input/js0 to link /dev/js0

 

cd /dev; ln -sf /dev/input/js0;


– For /dev/input/js1 to link /dev/js1

 

cd /dev; ln -sf /dev/input/js1;

 

How to turn keyboard backlight on GNU / Linux, keyboard no backlight solution

Friday, October 20th, 2017

how-to-make-CM_Storm_Devastator-keyboard_backlight-work-on-linux-enabled-disable-keyboard-glowing-gnu-linux

If you're a GNU / Linux user and you happen to buy a backlighted keyboard, some nice new laptop whose keyboard supports the more and more modern keyboard growing or if you happen to install a GNU / Linux for a Gamer friend no matter the Linux distribution, you might encounter sometimes  problem even in major Linux distributions Debian / Ubuntu / Mint / Fedora with keyboard backlight not working.

Lets say you buy a Devastator II backlighted keyboard or any other modern keyboard you plug it into the Linux machine and there is no nice blinking light coming out of the keyboard, all the joy is gone yes I know. The free software coolness would have been even more grandiose if your keyboard was shiny and glowing in color / colors 🙂

But wait, there is hope for your joy to be made complete.

To make the keyboard backlight switch on Just issue commands:

 

xmodmap -e 'add mod3 = Screen_Lock'

 

# Turn on the keyboard bright lamps
xset led on

# Turns off the keyboard bright lamps
xset led off


If you want to make the keyboard backlight be enabled permanent the easiest solution is to

– add the 3 command lines to /etc/rc.local

E.g. to do so open /etc/rc.local and before exit 0 command just add the lines:

 

vim /etc/rc.local

 

xmodmap -e 'add mod3 = Screen_Lock'

# Turn on the keyboard bright lamps
xset led on

# Turns off the keyboard bright lamps
xset led off


If you prefer to have the keyboard colorful backlight enable and disabled from X environment on lets say GNOME , here is how to make yourself an icon that enabled and disables the colors.

That's handy because at day time it is a kind of meaningless for the keyboard to glow.

Here is the shell script:

#!/bin/bash
sleep 1
xset led 3
xmodmap -e 'add mod3 = Scroll_Lock'


I saved it as /home/hipo/scripts/backlight.sh

(don't forget to make it executable!, to do so run):

 

chmod +x /home/hipo/scripts/backlight.sh


Then create  the .desktop file at /etc/xdg/autostart/backlight.desktop so that it runs the new shell script, like so:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=Devastator Backlight
Exec=/home/hipo/scripts/backlight.sh
Icon=system-run
X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=true

Fix dosbox – setting: cycles=auto. If the game runs too fast try a fixed cycles amount in DOSBox’s options. Exit to error: DRC64:Unhandled memory reference

Thursday, October 12th, 2017

fix-dosbox-error-setting-cycles-auto-game-runs-too-fast-exit-err-drc64-unhandled-memory-reference

I've recently installed Debian GNU / Linux 9.1 Stretch and on Ubuntu 16.10 Yakkety Yak and as an old school true gamer addict decided to play some games to recall the good old memories from the past of the glorious DOS games times, when all was simple people was real and there was no terrible people dividers such as Facebook  / GooglePlus, no skype fuzzy craziness and no people watching all time at their mobile smart phones like zoombies .

Well anyways, so I wanted to play my favourite DOS games Terminal Velocity, StarGunner, Raptor, Heroes of Might and Magic 2, Doom II, Duke 3d etc. etc. the list goes on and on – BTW What's your favourite old school DOS Game??

So I issues in Terminal:

$ dosbox TV.EXE

DOSBox version 0.74
Copyright 2002-2010 DOSBox Team, published under GNU GPL.

CONFIG:Loading primary settings from config file /home/zetathon/.dosbox/dosbox-0.74.conf
MIXER:Got different values from SDL: freq 44100, blocksize 512
ALSA:Can't subscribe to MIDI port (65:0) nor (17:0)
MIDI:Opened device:none
DOSBox switched to max cycles, because of the setting: cycles=auto. If    the game runs too fast try a fixed cycles amount in DOSBox's options.
Exit to error: DRC64:Unhandled memory reference

 

So what is the solution to  Exit to error: DRC64:Unhandled memory reference
error and why it happens?

Well, as the error clearly states the whole problem
comes from a default dosbox dos emulator configuration, that's the
setting:
 

cycles=auto


Perhaps the CPU beat of a Core I7 CPUs is too strong for some of the old games which are expecting a slower PC with less memory that's why the exception

Exit to Error: DRC64:Unhandled memory reference
is spit out by Dosemu.

So how to solve DRC64:Unhandled memory reference dosemu error?

By default DOSBOX places its configuration at  Linux / BSD / *nix-es at home folder /dosbox – e.g. ~/.dosbox/ the naming of dosbox.conf might differ according to dosbox version and the respective Linux / BSD distro, on Debian and Ubuntu Linux usually the naming includes a version number.

On Debian 9 Strecth Linux dosbox config is at ~/.dosbox/dosbox-0.74.conf

Edit the file
 

$ vim ~/.dosbox/dosbox-0.74.conf


and change inside the value for:

 

 

 

core=auto

to

core=normal

Then give dosbox with the erroring game another try, it worked for me
for me and everything seemed to run fine.

I've only run a handful of games but so far it seems to be working well.

If it does work but performance is degraded and tooks a huch hit on Gameplay you better try to substitute
 

core=normal

to
 

core=simple


AND HOORAY IT WORKS AGAIN! THE GAME RUN SUCCESSFULLY JOY TO THE WORLD! 🙂

ASCII PacMan (Pac-Man) for Linux and FreeBSD / Play online ASCII Pacman

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

ASCII Pacman image

Since just few days ago it was the birthday of Pac-Man game (The abolute classic game among ’80s arcardes).
I decided to try to look if there is an ASCII Pacman available somewhere.
Luckily there are number of ASCII versions of the classic arcade PacMan for both Linux and FreeBSD, I thought,it doesn’t worth the time to check if ASCII Pacman is also available for Windows OS.
For all the ASCII game fans out there I’ve installed ASCII PacMan FreeBSD version on the Play Cool FreeBSD ASCII games free page From there you can play a number of cool ascii art games online via telnet, the reasons I took the time to add the ASCII Pacman to the list of possible games to play is that it’s a shame that the list misses one of the most notable games if not the most notable ever made.

For Linux I’ve found three version of ASCII Pacman:

1. The best looking one is probably ASCII Pacman Linux clone game available on sourceforge.net
You can download ASCII Pac-Man 0.9.1 from here

I’ve included 2 files with instructions on installation and usage of the game. I saw that as a completely necessery since,the game controls of the elsely nice looking game are hard to get. To play the game you will need to use the game controls:
z,x – to move right and left and m,k for up and down .

2. A bit more ugly and less interactive is another version of ASCII PacMan called:
Pac-Man for Console or simply Console Pacman

This two compiled without any troubles on my Debian GNU/Linux squeeze/sid Linux .
Unfortunately the up-mentioned ascii version of pacman won’t work on FreeBSD

3. The ASCII Pacman that is running and compatible with FreeBSD is called Pacman ASCII and herein is it’s home page

PacMan ascii is a way less sophisticated, so don’t expect too much of it. Originally Pacman ASCII was a project by some French guy in with the main task to learn C++.
Anyways he did a good job, since his little ascii pacman game is compatible with FreeBSD as well.
You can download ASCII Pacman for FreeBSD here

I did some minor modifications to few of the ASCII Pacman .cpp files in order to change the default help and game language from French to English, since French would be cryptic to most of the non-french users.

Linux release of the game Savage Wheels (Destruction Derby like game) is out!

Friday, September 17th, 2010

Savage Wheels Game for Linux

A close friend of mine Pro-Xex (a.k.a. Necroleak) has released Savage Wheels game for Linux.

The Savage Wheels game is a recreation of a game in a way similar to the good old Destruction Derby that most of the hard code old school arcade know very well.

The Savage Wheels has been an existant for a long time for a free download. However for a couple of years the Pro-XeX decided not to publish it’s code publicly, his considerations were that the code is too messy and not ready to go public.

For almost 2 years now the game source code has been existent openly for download from a source repository at google code

Though the source was there for download, until recently, the game source code was not ready to compile on Linux, though the game’s programming style used is 100% compatible with the Linux / BSD platform.

Right now the game is licensed under the MIT free software license
A few weeks before Peter (Pro-Xex) has contacted me and shared and told me the good news, that he has finally ported the game for the Linux platform and asked me to help him a bit with the game testing!
I thought this is pretty cool, but I was busy until this very day that I actually downloaded the compiled binary of Savage Wheels on my Debian Testing/Unstable (Squeeze/Sid) and gave it a try.

I’m running the 64 bit Debian release, featuring kernel version:

Linux noah 2.6.32-5-amd64 #1 SMP Wed Aug 25 13:59:41 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Installing the game was a really easy all I had to do is download the archived binary of the game and untar it into a new directory I’ve created for the game.

hipo@noah:~$ mkdir savagewheels
hipo@noah:~$ cd savagewheels
hipo@noah:~/savagewheels$ wget -c http://savagewheels.googlecode.com/files/savagewheels-1.4-linux-x86.tar.gz
hipo@noah:~/savagewheels$ tar -zxvf savagewheels-1.4-linux-x86.tar.gz

It will take like few secs until the game source gets extracted:

To go and start up the game I directly tried executing the game main binary file savagewheels , like you can see below

hipo@noah:~/savagewheels$ ./savagewheels
./savagewheels: error while loading shared libraries: libfmod-3.75.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

The error in loading library was pretty unexpected, but counting the fact that I’m one of the first people that test the game on Linux I guess it’s pretty normal.
In order to resolve the missing shared library on game execution It was necessary to copy the libfmod-3.75.so to /usr/local/lib/

To do so I issued as a root user:

hipo@noah:/home/hipo/savagewheels# cp -rpf libfmod-3.75.so /usr/local/lib

In case if you don’t want to copy the libfmod-3.75.so into /usr/local/lib, it’s also possible to use the shell export command to specify the exact location of libfmod-3.75.so to your current known systemlibraries.

If you prefer it that way issue command:


hipo@noah:~/savagewheels$ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=.:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

Now when I invoked the savagewheels game binary once again:
hipo@noah:~/savagewheels$ ./savagewheels

the game poped up in a window.

As I’ve red in the Readme.html file it’s already noted there that by default the game would run in window mode instead of full screen due to some bugs or video drivers etc.
Happily it was indicated in the Readme file that in order to run it in fullscreen, it’s necessary to invoke the game binary with the -force-fullscreen option included, e.g. running it in fullscreen comes to:

hipo@noah:~/savagewheels$ ./savagewheels -force-fullscreen

At first I was a bit confused when the game poped up before I notice the left side menu which appears could be only reached with the mouse pointer. So I warn you that if you go to give the game a try you will probably wonder how to start up the game after the game entry window with menus appears.

Since the game is so new with Linux it has several bugs to be fixed, one of the bugs is that the Window in which the game pops up by default couldn’t be closed if you press the close window button.

Another thing I do notice is that when I play sometimes during a I crash another car, my car gets stucked for a while.

Another thing which is not very intuitive about the game is the player keys, they could be fount expolained in Readme.html

But I’ll post them here as well to facilitate my dear readers who might be willing to play the game immediately without reading boring docs 🙂

So Player 1 keys are:

arrow keys to move
UP (accelerate up)
LEFT (turn left) RIGHT (turn right)
DOWN (back gear)
RIGHT CTRL - to place landmines
DELETE - self destruction

I think giving the player 1 keys are enough for the player 2 control keys take a quick look in Readme.html

Here is the time to tell you that the game music is absolutely awesome!! So the game is worthy to play just because Pro-Xex has present the user with the wonderful soundtrack that is.

For some further general information related to the game you can read the Savage Wheels game Readme online from here

I would place the game among one of the best car crash games available currently for Linux, so if you’re a arcade game maniac you would probably have a great time with the game.