Games

[Hardy]

I have been using Mint for some months now as my primary OS (got Bianca on a Linux magazine and haven't looked back).

Most things I need are catered for (can't wait for a couple of improvements to the gimp and OO - not a mint issue I realise).

I've recently started tinkering with some Linux games. I'm no hardcore gamer, just wanted to have a dabble, but sadly games and my box don't seem to want to play. Open Arena, which looks excellent, hangs after a few minutes of play. Thunder and Lightening I had running once, after about 5 minutes of screen freezes and loss of mouse control - and although I loved it, it has yet to run again. GL 117 has similar screen-flicker/freeze issues and won't run properly... same with Brutal Chess. Basically no games seem to want to work.

I presume this is not a mint issue, and has something to do with my configuration....although given that everything else works awesomely..have no idea what may be causing the problem?

[Husse]

Please give some facts about your system
Which version of Mint?
What hardware - above all which graphics chip
There used to be an issue with ATI being able to either use compiz or play games, not both

[McLovin]

Husse is right, what graphics card do you have, and have you installed the drivers for it?

[Hardy]

Default install of Daryna - no seperate graphics drivers installed.

I have a Dell Inspiron 6400 - the Dell website doesn't help me much as to the graphics card, even with the service tag - any idea how best to find out?

[Alpha-Geek]

Here is some info:
* Intel Core Duo T2400 / 5 Mb Cache / 1.83 GHz / 667 MHZ FSB
* 15.4" Wide-screen XGA Display with Truelife
* 120 Gb 5400 rpm Sata Hard Drive
* 1 Gb DDR2 SDRAM / 553 MHZ
* 256 Mb ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 Hyper memory
* Windows XP Media Center
* 9 - Cell Battery

Have you tried using the latest version of Envy to install the latest video driver?

[Hardy]

Thanks Alpha-Geek - but my system is a little older than that (only last year).

Came with 80gb hdd (which died in a week, had to replace).

The graphics card is one of the following as far as I can ascertain:

Radeon Mobility X1300
Radeon Mobility X1400
GeForce Go 7300

I rather suspect it is the first as it was an entry level lappy.

Trying to install the ATI driver now with Envy (never used it before - sweet tool).

I'll let ya know how it goes.

[Hardy]

Damn. Installed the ATI driver from Envy - now none of the games will even start at all

[Lantesh]

Go to Tombuntu and download a utility called compiz-switch. This little utility turns the compiz 3D effects on and off. Make sure before launching any games that you have compiz switched off. I had horrible crashing problems with games before trying this, and now my games never crash.

[Hardy]

Forgive ignorance...Tombuntu? Been to Tombuntu.com - can't find it, assume I'm in the wrong place

[Lantesh]

My mistake. Tombuntu only linked to the file on Forlong's Blog. Here it is.

The page - http://forlong.blogage.de/article/pages/Compiz-Switch
The file - http://blogage.de/files/1393/download?c ... u_i386.deb

[Hardy]

You're a star!

I uninstalled the ATI driver (seemed to stop all games even starting), installed compiz.switch, switched off compiz, started the games...and bingo - I'm in messing around heaven!

Thanks a bundle

[Lantesh]

Hey your welcome. I do hope you can get your ATI driver to install correctly though. Compiz-fusion is really nice to have turned on when you are not playing games. I only turn it off for gaming. Most of the time I leave it turned on. You will however need your ATI driver's working properly to enjoy compiz. In any case I'm glad you got your games running.