Jumping Ship with Oolite (from Vista to Mint)

[Ranthe]

Well after a few months of planning and the purchase of a larger hard-drive for my home PC, I'm now running Linux Mint 17 Cinnamon (dual-booting with Windows Vista). Of course one of the first things I did was grab Oolite v1.80 and get it up and running - and I'd have to say I was blown away with how FAST the un-OXP'd install runs under a 64-bit OS! It's not loading quite so fast now I've got my OXPs and OXZs installed of course, but it still loads quicker than the Windows version. Niiice!

Any tips and tricks for a Linux newbie for wringing further Oolite gaming performance from one's system?

[Norby]

If you want faster loading then an SSD can help.

If you mean more FPS in-game then your CPU, videocard and graphics detail in F2-Game Options are the main factors.

For a test you can turn off v-sync in ~/GNUstep/Defaults/.GNUstepDefaults:

Code: Select all

...
  <key>oolite</key>
  <dict>
        <key>v-sync</key>
        <string>NO</string>
...

In this way you can check the numbers in Shift+F over the limit of your display.

[Ranthe]

If you mean more FPS in-game then your CPU, videocard and graphics detail in F2-Game Options are the main factors.

For a test you can turn off v-sync in ~/GNUstep/Defaults/.GNUstepDefaults:

Code: Select all

...
  <key>oolite</key>
  <dict>
        <key>v-sync</key>
        <string>NO</string>
...

In this way you can check the numbers in Shift+F over the limit of your display.

Yes, faster FPS in the game is what I'm after - I'll try turning off v-synch and see what happens.

At least now I reckon my system performance won't be because the OS is getting in the way!

[Diziet Sma]

I'd have to say I was blown away with how FAST the un-OXP'd install runs under a 64-bit OS! It's not loading quite so fast now I've got my OXPs and OXZs installed of course, but it still loads quicker than the Windows version. Niiice!

At least now I reckon my system performance won't be because the OS is getting in the way!

"You've taken your first step into a larger world."

Any tips and tricks for a Linux newbie for wringing further Oolite gaming performance from one's system?

Depending on what graphics card you have, you may get some extra mileage out of using the manufacturer's proprietary drivers instead of the Linux ones, if you're not already doing so. Go to the System Settings Control Centre, and look under the Administration section, and click on the Device Drivers icon. It will tell you if any proprietary drivers are available for your hardware.

[Ranthe]

"You've taken your first step into a larger world."
Depending on what graphics card you have, you may get some extra mileage out of using the manufacturer's proprietary drivers instead of the Linux ones, if you're not already doing so. Go to the System Settings Control Centre, and look under the Administration section, and click on the Device Drivers icon. It will tell you if any proprietary drivers are available for your hardware.

I gave that a go last night - checked that there were no proprietary drivers installed, then after some Google-fu tracked down how to (apparently) install the ones for my Radeon HD 3000 card. Unfortunately I must have stuffed something up as I only managed to get Cinnamon to crash repeatedly. Managed to recover back to normal, but it was a bit nerve-wracking to find I'd apparently broken my Mint install after only a couple of days!

What I am finding is that the default Linux graphic drivers are causing very poor frame-rates in-game whenever I swing a view around to something more complex than a couple of asteroids, and in some cases the audio is suffering as well. I'm going to try disabling a few of the graphic-intensive OXPs to see if that helps.

[Norby]

Radeon HD 3000

Based on the fillrates in this table your card is slow and barely can run Oolite. If you invest at least $20 into a newer card then your FPS probably will be multiplied.

[cim]

slow

Certainly by modern standards

and barely can run Oolite

It should be absolutely fine for Oolite. Fill rate is twice mine (ish), benchmarks put it at about four times mine for overall speed, and I can run Oolite on maximum graphics settings at 60FPS at 1280x1024 (though not consistently: one step below maximum gives better results)

If it's still running slow then either there are a lot of really graphically heavy OXPs installed (something like Griff's shader ships are not heavy in this context, though), or the drivers are at fault [1], or the bottleneck is elsewhere in the system (what CPU and memory?), or the resolution is too high.

[1] If you can try the proprietary ones that might help, but as far as I can tell recent versions of the open source driver should be comparable or possibly better in performance anyway.

Latest.log might have some clues.

[Lone_Wolf]

"You've taken your first step into a larger world."
Depending on what graphics card you have, you may get some extra mileage out of using the manufacturer's proprietary drivers instead of the Linux ones, if you're not already doing so. Go to the System Settings Control Centre, and look under the Administration section, and click on the Device Drivers icon. It will tell you if any proprietary drivers are available for your hardware.

I gave that a go last night - checked that there were no proprietary drivers installed, then after some Google-fu tracked down how to (apparently) install the ones for my Radeon HD 3000 card. Unfortunately I must have stuffed something up as I only managed to get Cinnamon to crash repeatedly. Managed to recover back to normal, but it was a bit nerve-wracking to find I'd apparently broken my Mint install after only a couple of days!

What I am finding is that the default Linux graphic drivers are causing very poor frame-rates in-game whenever I swing a view around to something more complex than a couple of asteroids, and in some cases the audio is suffering as well. I'm going to try disabling a few of the graphic-intensive OXPs to see if that helps.

Amd stopped supporting radeon HD 3000 in the proprietary driver a long time ago (years ...) .
getting the old version to work on any current linux is tricky and requires downgrading a lot of things.
(example : xorg 1.13 is latest xorg that works with that driver, current xorg version is 1.16 )

please post latest.log and the output of glxinfo ran from an xterminal.
(everything in glxinfo output below a line starting with "240 GLX visuals" , number may be different on your system, is not needed)

[Ranthe]

Apologies - my graphics card is a Radeon HD 3200, not a HD 3000 as originally posted. Though from looking at the link Norby posted there isn't that much difference...

What I am finding is that the default Linux graphic drivers are causing very poor frame-rates in-game whenever I swing a view around to something more complex than a couple of asteroids, and in some cases the audio is suffering as well. I'm going to try disabling a few of the graphic-intensive OXPs to see if that helps.

Amd stopped supporting radeon HD 3000 in the proprietary driver a long time ago (years ...) .
getting the old version to work on any current linux is tricky and requires downgrading a lot of things.
(example : xorg 1.13 is latest xorg that works with that driver, current xorg version is 1.16 )

please post latest.log and the output of glxinfo ran from an xterminal.
(everything in glxinfo output below a line starting with "240 GLX visuals" , number may be different on your system, is not needed)

Here's the logs:
glxinfo
latest.log
This latest.log records when I launched from a station and immediately encountered slow frame rates (4-15FPS) as well as audio corruption.

[cim]

First, see if OXPs have anything to do with it at all - do you get the same frame rate problems if you start a Strict Mode game?

If Strict Mode works fine, then these two have quite large textures in and have halfsize versions available, which might help. The old integrated cards really don't have a lot of memory available to them, so large textures can be a performance problem.

AddOns/griff_station_bundle_fullsize_tex_v1.1.oxp
AddOns/Smivs'Shipset-v4-HD-replace.oxp

and these two are giving log errors

AddOns/Vampire_Dominatrix.oxp
AddOns/Serpent_Class_Cruiser_V1.02.oxp

which might be related to the problem.

What CPU speed and RAM do you have?

[Norby]

Which is the difference between the minimum and extra detail? You can switch in-fight in pause/F2/game options/graphics detail by left-right arrows (some delay is possible).

I think also that you should try without griff_station_bundle_fullsize_tex_v1.1.oxp.

[Ranthe]

What CPU speed and RAM do you have?

I'm running an AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ CPU (dual-core) with 4GB of DDR2 RAM.

EDIT: CPU / graphics output from [b]inxi -Fxz[/b]:

Code: Select all

System:    Host: Vixen-IV-L Kernel: 3.13.0-24-generic x86_64 (64 bit, gcc: 4.8.2) Desktop: Gnome Distro: Linux Mint 17 Qiana
Machine:   Mobo: Gigabyte model: GA-MA78GM-S2H version: x.x Bios: Award version: F5 date: 06/18/2008
CPU:       Dual core AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ (-MCP-) cache: 1024 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 svm) bmips: 4008.42 
           Clock Speeds: 1: 1000.00 MHz 2: 1000.00 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] RS780 [Radeon HD 3200] bus-ID: 01:05.0 
           X.Org: 1.15.1 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: [email protected] 
           GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on AMD RS780 GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 10.1.0 Direct Rendering: Yes

[Diziet Sma]

"You've taken your first step into a larger world."
Depending on what graphics card you have, you may get some extra mileage out of using the manufacturer's proprietary drivers instead of the Linux ones, if you're not already doing so. Go to the System Settings Control Centre, and look under the Administration section, and click on the Device Drivers icon. It will tell you if any proprietary drivers are available for your hardware.

I gave that a go last night - checked that there were no proprietary drivers installed, then after some Google-fu tracked down how to (apparently) install the ones for my Radeon HD 3000 card. Unfortunately I must have stuffed something up as I only managed to get Cinnamon to crash repeatedly. Managed to recover back to normal, but it was a bit nerve-wracking to find I'd apparently broken my Mint install after only a couple of days!

That would be because using your Google-fu was a mistake, in this case.. the same tool that you used to check for proprietary drivers, if none are installed but they are available, would have presented you with a list of appropriate drivers for you to choose from, and then installed them for you. The fact that none were offered meant that no suitable drivers are currently available, as per Lone_Wolf's comment above.. my fault.. I should have been clearer.

[Ranthe]

I've done a comparison FPS check between Oolite 1.80 running in Vista and in Mint (using the same OXP configuration), and it does appear to confirm that the graphics card drivers are the issue.
* Windows Vista 32-bit (using proprietary Radeon 3200 drivers) - 30-50FPS
* Linux Mint 17 64-bit Cinnamon (using Linux generic drivers) - 15-27FPS

Looks like I'm playing Oolite on Windows until I upgrade my graphics card to something more modern
Any recommendations for a suitable graphics card replacement? I've got NO idea what I should be looking for.

[cim]

Any recommendations for a suitable graphics card replacement? I've got NO idea what I should be looking for.

For Oolite the Nvidia cards seem to work a bit better in terms of driver support, but any card you can buy new today should run Oolite and every graphics-heavy OXP you want at a solid 60FPS.