(no subject)

[ewx]

Some time ago I used to play quite a bit of Starcraft. One of its features is the ability to play with your friends - as allies or enemies - over the net; right now I'm feeling like I'd quite like to get back into that.

Starcraft is a Windows game which means that playing it requires a reboot, maintaining a Windows installation for essentially only the purpose of playing Starcraft, etc. All this is quite inconvenient, and indeed expensive, as newer hardware sometimes implies the need for a new version of Windows. (I don't even know if my Windows install boots properly at the moment.)

Wine, a reimplementation of the Windows API for Linux, supports Starcraft, up to a point. I've had it working relatively well in the past but the nature of Wine is that things start and stop working from version to version. Other bits of software like the Linux kernel affect matters too.

So I've been spending the last few evenings doing my best to get Starcraft working under Wine. I can indeed get to the point of playing a game but performance is poor - while things like the (pretty graphics-intensive) intro run fine small things like the mouse pointer and individual units are updated too slowly.

One common cause of this is using the wrong screen depth. But using an 8-bit X server to run Starcraft comes up with completely mad colors, and stuff found via google suggested that you needed more than that anyway.

Another common cause of this is lack of support for a direct screen access feature of the X server. Turning on debugging revealed this was indeed a problem, but the standard advice for fixing it no longer works, which I believe to be a kernel change. This is still on the to-do list to investigate; I don't much fancy patching my kernel just to run a game but if needs must...

Anyway running the game as root acts as a workaround in the sense of eliminating the error message, but I can't tell if it actually solves the problem because it fails to take input focus when I do this - the mouse and keyboard are ignored and I have to go downstairs and type runes over SSH to get my display back.

So my next thought was to see if the slowness could be fixed more directly. Debugging output suggested some bitmap-related functions were being called very regularly and a brief inspection showed one of these to have a horrendously inefficient implementation. After a bit of faffing I'd produced an improved version but eventually it became clear that it wasn't the culprit after all - even "optimizing" the function by entirely removing the bit that did the work made no difference to appearance or performance. Who knows what they were actually being called for.

All of this is fast approaching being too much effort just to avoid the hassle of a native Windows install. That may not be the only answer though; I've been pondering buying a Mac laptop for some time, and it seems that it is indeed possible to play Starcraft, including network games, on such a platform. This may be enough to push me into actually spending the money.

That'd just leave the problem of sorting out a way for LNR to play too...

Comments

[sphyg.livejournal.com]

I think I'm banned from playing Starcraft for being too crap. I'd like a Windows box to play mobbsy's medieval war game and kill lots of goths.

[mobbsy.livejournal.com]

I suspect you'll have to wait until later this year when Rome: Total War comes out before you really get to kill lots of goths. Though Medieval does have "gothic knights" and "gothic sergeants".

[ewx.livejournal.com]

The enthusiasm certain people have been displaying over Medieval: Total War is one of the things that's been making me wonder if it might be worth maintaining a Windows install after all, actually.

[senji.livejournal.com]

I'm entirely unconvinced by the Total War series, but YMMV.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I saw Mobbsy playing the Japan version quite a bit and it looked fun. Probably I ought to get someone with a copy to let me have a go before committing money and effort to it l-)

[senji.livejournal.com]

I currently have someone's copy (mobbsy's I think) which I borrowed on the same principle.

[sphyg.livejournal.com]

Oh, I thought it had Visigoths. I'll just have to kill the French instead ;P

[senji.livejournal.com]

If you want some warm-up games of starcraft I'm sure that the Rivendell Allience would be Happy To Help.

[sphyg.livejournal.com]

Maybe in October ;P

[duncanneko.livejournal.com]

Whilst I cannot comment on the Linux geek-fu, do let me know if you get a solution, I haven't played Starcraft in a long time and having an opponent I know even vaguely will I'm sure be a slightly less humiliating defeat :)

[cjwatson]

MOL is very good and reasonably fast on Linux/powerpc; if you decide to run Linux on the Mac laptop you may well find that it's possible to fire Starcraft up in a window.

(Oh, and thanks for the tip, since I didn't know it was available for Macs. I think I shall investigate that ...)

[simont]

It was only this week that Owen and I (well, mostly Owen) figured out how to configure the server list on Mac OS X:

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~owend/free/bnetosx.html

[oldbloke.livejournal.com]

If you have old bits of kit lying about, why not turn them into a Windows-only box you can put on your network just for Starcraft? Then your Linux box can remain pristine.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

We do have some old bits. Physical space is perhaps the most critical factor, though!

[emperor]

I have an old-and-busted P2 266 living under my desk, which I turn on only to play games, and use a KVM switch to talk to it.

[pjc50.livejournal.com]

If you're willing to spend money, http://www.transgaming.com/ have a souped-up version of Wine specifically for playing games on. I don't know how well it works personally, I just dualboot.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Their database lists Starcraft Brood War as not working, unfortunately.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Although some people in the forum say they've got it working.