Need Help getting games working...

boswbr25 · 2012-03-15 13:38:38

So I am having trouble getting basically any games working correctly on my arch setup. This wouldn't really bother me but my gf likes playing them and I had a few working when I was using Bodhi Linux so she now thinks that Arch is not as good as Bodhi lol.

Please help me either get one of the games I have working or find some that will work.

Right now, the games I have been trying and problems I'm having with each are as follows:

Supertux: Really slow; I had this working on Bodhi

DJL: Not really a game but this is what I used to use to get games; I found in AUR but it hasn't been updated for awhile; When I try to run it I get the following error (although I think it is generic msg):

  File "/usr/share/djl/djl/config.py", line 212, in config
    loc = locale.getdefaultlocale()[0].split("_")[0]
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'split'

bsnes: All the ROMs I find are .smc format and bsnes will only work with .sfc

Anyone have any ideas on how to get any of these working? It would be greatly appreciated. I love Arch so much more than any other distro I've tried because I can set it up exactly how I want and it runs so efficiently on my older computer but if I can't get some games working I'm going to be nagged to switch back to Bodhi.

The other option is to dump the gf lol, but its a tough decidion between Arch and her .

~Boz~

PReP · 2012-03-15 13:53:36

DJl, might be a pyton2 -> python3 error, try making DJL use python2 (but this is just a quick guess)

bsnes: either find a conversion/file renamer - since bsnes is - by it's own choice - very picky about the quality of rom-backups
Or, try zsnes - it works very well.

Supertux: might be a video-driver/3d rendering issue, what card (nvidia, intel, ati?) and do you use nvidia, nouveau, catalyst or xfree-driver for it?

Good luck looking up things (or get more detailed replies from people with more knowledge on your issues)

boswbr25 · 2012-03-15 15:03:39

Thanks for the advice PRep! I'll try out your suggestions in a little bit here when I can take a break from working.

My computer is older and has the video card integrated w/ CPU (Celeron single core 2.4Ghz). I believe it is an SiS video card. I forget the exact video driver I installed during Arch installation but I believe it was something along the lines of xf86-video-sis.

This is the output of lspci | grep VGA:

 $ lspci | grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 65x/M650/740 PCI/AGP VGA Display Adapter

PReP · 2012-03-16 10:56:33

Hmm, the only SIS card i remember having, is an acient sort with about 2MB of videoram,
and no 3d/hardware acceleration to speak of - i do not know if yours is a "newer" kind?

Bsnes is known to be more demanding, due to exactness priorities over speed, but i suppose Zsnes could manage with some tweaking and low-res.

Tuxracer, i am a bit sceptic about, i would guess it runs completely in software (if at all) with such a card,
and that would not give good framerates (though i don't know how optimized it's software mode is) - since it is a 3D game.

I wish you luck with things anyhow

Gusar · 2012-03-16 11:25:37

Only very few SiS cards have 3d accell in Linux. Yours is not one of them.

boswbr25 · 2012-03-16 13:13:04

Yeah, I know it definitely doesn't have 3D acceleration bc when I was running Linux Mint I would automatically be put into "Fallback mode" as the MGSE req'd 3d acceleration. What I don't get is how I had the games working while running Bodhi.

It might have been something in Djl that helped tweak the configuration and allow games to work because that was where I was using the games that I did. I just had assumed that using Super Tux w/o Djl would be the same. I do think that Djl not working has something to do with it needing Python 2 but I have tried and can't figure out how to force it to use only that. Not sure if that is bc it is hard to or just bc I don't know how .

I did try to install Zsnes but got an error during the build. I tried the 'zsnes-netplay' version bc it had been updated more recently (although still almost a year ago). I'll give the other version a try today to see if it makes any difference.

Going to leave this as unsolved until after I try that so if anyone else has any suggestions, please feel free. If no progress by EOD, I will mark as solved and take it that the fact that I don't have 3d acceleration is the cause of my problems. As I mentioned at the beginning, I really could care less about the games. Just was trying to keep the gf happy but not always possible .

Thanks again,
~Boz~

PReP · 2012-03-17 13:44:13

Add the multilib repo, and try with: multilib/zsnes, - and you probably won't have any compilation issues at least

Oh, and i think i mis-read "supertux" as "tuxracer/etracer" - the former is that 2d-platform game,
so my ramblings about 3d-acceleration is forfeit atleast

But it is still a task to get decent performance with that card of yours, either 2d or 3d acceleration
- but keep trying by all means - that is how one get's wiser (or atleast feels like one is wise )

Last edited by PReP (2012-03-17 13:47:13)

scjudd · 2012-03-17 16:07:07

boswbr25 wrote:

The other option is to dump the gf lol, but its a tough decidion between Arch and her .

Tough call! lol. I'd recommend dual booting windows if having games work is THAT important.

boswbr25 · 2012-03-17 18:35:48

Thanks for the advice scjudd! lol .

I think I'm choosing Arch . Can't get any of the solutions to work.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-03-15 13:38:38

Need Help getting games working...

#2 2012-03-15 13:53:36

Re: Need Help getting games working...

#3 2012-03-15 15:03:39

Re: Need Help getting games working...

#4 2012-03-16 10:56:33

Re: Need Help getting games working...

#5 2012-03-16 11:25:37

Re: Need Help getting games working...

#6 2012-03-16 13:13:04

Re: Need Help getting games working...

#7 2012-03-17 13:44:13

Re: Need Help getting games working...

#8 2012-03-17 16:07:07

Re: Need Help getting games working...

#9 2012-03-17 18:35:48

Re: Need Help getting games working...

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