Transcendence Port to Linux and Mac

[GambitDash]

UPDATE - LATEST VERSION HERE - UPDATE

Instead of making you search, here's a link to the latest version:
Executable Only: Not Available
Full Package: Download Here
Magic Number: 213

This was mentioned in another thread, but I decided to give it a home of it's own.

For those not following, Transcendence is being ported to Linux and Mac OSX. I will be posting screenshots and comments and the occasional request for testers to this topic.

To kick things off, here's the latest screenshot:


This is running on an Ubuntu Linux VMWare guest, and is quite playable even on my slow and ancient computer.

Some people have asked for a few more details, so here's a quick (off the top of my head) rundown.

Things that aren't working yet:

• * Sound
  * Save games
  * Stargates (this is almost 100% due to save games not working)
  * A few special characters (the extra long hyphen in item descriptions) that aren't mapped into the fonts I'm using.
  * Performance -- granted, I am running this entirely within vmware with optimizations cranked way down (and it's /still/ very playable), but there's a couple of optimizations that need doing.

General tasks I'm working on:

• * Integrating in up to the latest official release (the original branch was taken ages ago).
  * Testing and bug identification.
  * Porting it back to Windows, and trying it for the first time on OSX (anyone have an old powerbook they want to get rid of?)

Likely, once the saved games+stargate issue is resolved, we might decide to roll out an alpha for people to test.

Cheers,
--B

[Ttech]

Keep us updated. And can't wait to get a universal binary to let my friends test it ( they are quite interested in beta testing this game )
So am I.

[Mutos]

Hi all, hi GambitDash,


Nice endeavor, I'll be closely following it, just installed an Ubuntu on an old computer, P3-1GHz class. Volunteer for beta-testing ^-^

[GambitDash]

Volunteers are always welcome! For best effect, find me on the IRC channel (##transcendence on irc.freenode.net).

[Mutos]

Hi GambitDash,


Does the Linux port currently loads existing saves ?

Because if it does, I could prepare selected saves with known test situations on a vanilla Windows game, transfer them on the Linux box and load them to test such-or-such behavior.

I prepared an unmodded .99c Transcendence install to check that... Next news tomorrow morning !

[GambitDash]

The short answer is yes, it should. The longer answer is that there's a discrepancy in one of the ID tables that I haven't sorted out yet. Anyone know what the ID 0xd005f001 is supposed to refer to? :D

In better news, I've reduced the CPU utilization by over half, so pending further review that particular issue's sorted out.

That leaves the "things that need to work list" at sound, saved games (in progress), and a few special characters in the fonts. Naturally of the three of those, sound will probably require the most work. I'll talk it over with George, but I expect I'll release a play-test version sans sound once the savegame issue is sorted out. Most everything else I have seen is fairly cosmetic.

Cheers,
--G

[evilbob]

considering the UNID is 0xd, I'd say it relates to a mod. who's unid number is 005?

[Betelgeuse]

0xD005F001 is the UNID of the AdventureDesc in the simple system mod that you requested.

[GambitDash]

Ah hah, that explains a bit :) Thanks for the tip off, I'd forgotten that!

[GambitDash]

Test these binaries!

Compatible with most or all Linux distributions!

There are still some font glitches, but everything else sans sound should be working fine; that includes extensions, savegames, and so forth. If you're interested in reporting bugs, please feel free to talk to me directly on IRC or post a bug in the bug traq.

I can't provide much in the way of customer support at the moment, but succinctly treat it just like you would a normal Transcendence archive -- extract, open the new directory, and run the transcendence binary!

EDIT:
I've found enough bugs for this go-around, so I've removed the download link. I'll re-enable it once a couple of the blockers are fixed!

[speedofsquid]

What's the best way to label bugs on the bug traq?
Should we set version to "transport 1.1"?

[GambitDash]

Good pickup. I added a 0.99c Linux for the version, which should work well for now.

[F50]

Test these binaries!

Compatible with most or all Linux distributions!
Enjoy!

Yay. I will test as soon as my old gentoo machine finishes compiling kde (so perhaps in a couple days )


What exactly is the requirements to run? Obviously a window manager and tar, but what else?

[GambitDash]

I would suggest either a window manager that can hide (or not "on top") all of it's various taskbars and stuff, OR a screen resolution > 1024x768, since right now there's no full screen support. Oh, and the usual ~40MB or so of harddrive space. Other then that, it should run on almost anything. I do all the development within a vmware guest on my Pentium 1.3Ghz Mobile processor, which wasn't top-of-the-line 5 years ago, and is much less so now :)

[GambitDash]

Okay, I've gotten enough feedback to keep me busy for a couple days, at least! There's still a problem with savegame loads, which is why I've pulled the archives from the download point. If you already downloaded it, feel free to continue filling in bug reports as you find them!

Special thanks to Atarlost for being a good natured test dummy about the whole thing!

Cheers,
--G