3D acceleration for TuxRacer

buster · Post by **buster** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 1:59 pm

(Couldn't find any other posts on this.)

Am in the LiveCD. Downloaded ppracer (TuxRacer) and tried to play it. Sort of works in a slow choppy way. Usually I have no problems with this game in other distros.

Card detected properly: Rage 128 PF/PRO AGP 4x TMDS.

1. Will it work better with a hard drive install?
2. All the print is missing from the games menu. (I can run the game because I know what the empty spaces should show.) Is this the same on anyone else's Mint system?

This is usually my test for 3D acceleration

Post by **clem** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 4:28 pm

Well things are usually really slow when run from the CD...

To see if 3d acceleration is activated open a terminal and type: glxinfo | grep rendering

Code: Select all

clem@pluto:~$ glxinfo | grep rendering
libGL warning: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x4b
direct rendering: Yes

buster · Post by **buster** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 4:37 pm

mint@mint:~$ glxinfo | grep rendering
libGL warning: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x4b
direct rendering: Yes

This is pasted from my terminal. Is this good? And I have seen the missing words on the screen before in ppracer, but I can't remember where. Maybe Ubuntu.

Thanks for the quick help on this Clem. A lovely distro! Waiting for the Bea final eagerly.

Post by **clem** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 5:13 pm

Hi,

Your 3D acceleration is fine so I suppose it's something to do with the game itself. You shouldn't download and install stuff directly. The package manager is there for that.

Try the ubuntu version. Remove the game, open synaptic and install planetpenguin-racer. Worked fine for me. There's even a package if you want additional tracks.

Clem

buster · Post by **buster** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 5:31 pm

Actually I did download with Synaptic - seemed the easiest way, and it added a few more packages. So I did get the Ubuntu package. Could be the fact that it's a LiveCD I guess.

But the missing print stirs a memory of another distro somewhere in my past.I rebooted into Ubuntu Breezy and ppracer worked fine there.

Anyway, I'll wait for the final in a few days. If the problem is still there when it's on the hard drive, I'll get back to you.

Thanks for your help.

buster · Post by **buster** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 8:02 pm

Found where I've experienced the missing words on the opening page before!!!!!!

Found an install of Ubuntu Dapper on an old hard drive that I haven't used lately. Booted the Ubuntu. Tried the ppracer and it had exactly the same symptoms - no text, and slow, jerky movements.

Ah well. It isn't Mint's fault.

buster · Post by **buster** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 11:17 pm

And according to posts at the Ubuntu forum, problems with ppracer started with the move to Dapper for those with the ATI rage 128 series of video cards. (But the problem isn't in other distros by the way.) Writing this just on the off chance there is a relatively simple fix that can be put into Mint in future releases.

buster · Post by **buster** » Sat Dec 30, 2006 4:27 pm

Thanks Zolly, but you have a Radeon. Makes all the difference in the world unfortunately. Mine's a Rage 128 aiw pro. The problem shows up in late Ubuntus and a very few other distros, but not in PCLOS, Mepis, Suse 10, Breezy, or any of the others I tried over the years. The card, good in its time, is getting old. Hard to make every piece of hardware in the world work with Linux.

buster · Post by **buster** » Sat Dec 30, 2006 6:32 pm

Actually I do that by copying and pasting lines from the other distros I have got installed on the same machine. But sometimes the difference in the xorg file is something I can't pinpoint easily, and after awhile it doesn't seem worth the effort. So many installs, so much tinkering.

If I do find a solution, I will certainly post it. But I don't think anyone on the Ubuntu forums found a solution for this same problem - at least a solution for those limited to human intelligence.

I suspect the solution is either built into the release or not. Mepis has managed so far to build it in, though not yet in their latest beta release. (Mepis also uses a lot of Ubuntu stuff as well.)

If I solve it, I would be happy to contribute to Mint by posting it here.

buster · Post by **buster** » Sat Dec 30, 2006 6:52 pm

I must add that TuxRacer (ppracer) works perfectly with the LiveCD on my wife's newer computer that has on-board video and sound. It's definitely the rage 128 drivers needed for my older machine.