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Dirk 2 Testers needed!

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Troy sent me an email asking if I could ask you guys to help trial his latest game Dirk 2, message is below with download link.

QuoteHello, everyone!

Dirk Dashing 2 is almost ready for its pre-order release, and I could
use a little help testing the Linux version!

I'm using a new Linux installer this time around, and I want to make
sure it works. I recently became aware that my Bitrock installers (which
I used for my other games) were crashing on Fedora 15, and although the
latest version of Bitrock fixes the problem, I can't afford to upgrade.
So I've switched to InstallJammer. This is my first installer I've made
with it. I've already found and fixed a lot of initial issues that my
testers found, but now I want to open it up to test on a wider set of
distributions.

In return, you get to play through the demo a week ahead of it's
official pre-order release. Let me know if you find any bugs, and feel
free to comment on the game itself - especially if you like it (I could
use the encouragement)! Suggestions are also welcome, though bear in
mind that any enhancement requests probably won't make it into the
initial beta release.

You can download the demo beta from here:
http://www.mygamecompany.com/downloads/dirkdashing2setup_linux

The game uses OpenGL, and requires the use of accelerated graphics
drivers. It's 32-bit, so if you're using a 64-bit distribution, make
sure you have the 32-bit compatibility package installed. I'm not sure
if some distributions have them by default, or if you have to manually
install them.

Thanks for your help! I hope you enjoy the demo!

Troy Hepfner
My Game Company
http://www.mygamecompany.com
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Misc
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45 comments
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MaximB Aug 19, 2011
Troy has contacted me and asked me to post those same news on LGN, I hope you don't mind.
Nemoder Aug 19, 2011
It seems to work fine on Debian-Testing
MyGameCompany Aug 19, 2011
Thanks, Nemoder!

And I don't mind, Maxim! I'm trying to spread the news as far as I can - I appreciate the help!
Liam Dawe Aug 19, 2011
MaximB you know my thoughts on it - if they email you, post it, it doesn't matter if we pick it up too there will be some users who only visit you and vice versa.
Hamish Aug 19, 2011
Mixed results on my test of the game on a fully updated Fedora 13 system using the free R600 classic mesa radeon driver supplied with the system.

Quote[hamish@griffindor ~]$ cd /home/hamish/.games/DirkDashing2Trial
[hamish@griffindor DirkDashing2Trial]$ ./dirkdahsing2
bash: ./dirkdahsing2: No such file or directory
[hamish@griffindor DirkDashing2Trial]$ ./dirkdashing2
./dirkdashing2: error while loading shared libraries: libCommon.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
[hamish@griffindor DirkDashing2Trial]$ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/home/hamish/.games/DirkDashing2Trial
[hamish@griffindor DirkDashing2Trial]$ ./dirkdashing2dirkdashing2: radeon_texture.c:687: radeon_store_teximage: Assertion `dstRowStride' failed.
Aborted (core dumped)
[hamish@griffindor DirkDashing2Trial]$


The installer worked like a charm, and despite acting and looking like something from Windows 95, got the job done well. I then loaded up a terminal, and changed into the games install directory in order to launch the game and be able to see any messages. I was first greeted with a missing library message, but that library was in the install directory, so I directed the game to it with a quick LD_LIBRARY_PATH command. Once I had done this, the game launched and everything seemed to work fine. The menus worked fine, I had working audio playing, everything seemed great. I clicked new game and read through your cute back-story, and was then greeted with the select chapter screen. After reading the instructions at the bottom of the screen, I selected the first and only available chapter, and was kicked back to desktop.

Upon analysing the terminal output, it seemed to have hit a graphics driver error or bug. Though I am not sure if you are interested in having the game work on the free drivers or are just interested in the vendor supplied blobs (though getting your game to work on Intel GMAs which use the same infrastructure I would think to be important given your target market). As a test I also downloaded the original Dirk Dashing games demo, and other than the same issue with the libraries, it worked fine. Still, given the speed of the free drivers development over the past year, I would not be surprised if it worked without a hitch on a Fedora 15 system with the Gallium3D R600 driver. Unfortunately, I have lost all my Fedora 15 disks, but we are downloading the Fedora 15 LXDE spin as we speak. Once we have that down, I may boot that up on my computer and see if I can get it running from that.

I can assure you however that my current system is quite capable though, as I have played Doom 3, Prey, and Penumbra on it. It does lack support for the external S3TC library as that is only supported by the Gallium3D driver, but if you are using S3TC I would advise against it, especially since your game would most likely not be needing it. However, based on the error message, I doubt that is the problem.

In case it helps, here are my full hardware specs:
Operating System: Fedora 13 Linux
Video Card: ATI Radeon HD 4670
Memory: 4 Gigabytes
Processor: AMD Sempron CPU 2.7 Ghz
Hard drives: 71.6 GB and 35 GB

Hope that is enough detail for you. :D
MyGameCompany Aug 19, 2011
Thanks, Hamish. Sorry, I should have included some instructions. You have to start the game using the "dirk2" script. That will set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH and environment for you. Usually, people who get the demo from my download page would see that note. Or if they looked at the readme. I'll see if I can add some text about it right on the final install screen (if InstallJammer will let me do that).

Not sure what would cause the crash. I'm just using very simple OpenGL commands. One difference Dirk 2 has that Dirk 1 didn't have is lighting, which would kick in when you start the first level. But your other OpenGL games have that too, so I don't know what the difference is. I don't believe the game is built against S3TC (I don't even know what that is). I built the game on Ubuntu 9.10, with the mesa-common-dev, freeglut3-dev, libglu1-mesa-dev, and libgl1-mesa-dev packages installed. Basic stuff, really.
Hamish Aug 19, 2011
Hmm... based on that, I think I should get it tested on some of my other computers. Might just be an isolated bug. :confused:

Based on what I got when I put it into Google, it can be a fairly common but still not explained error. At least, I could not find any explanations. I will post again if I make any progress or do further testing.
MyGameCompany Aug 19, 2011
Yeah, I've been googling too. No explanations. Everybody seems to be calling it a driver issue. Funny, though, how other GL games work for you but mine doesn't. :(
MyGameCompany Aug 19, 2011
I've also been googling S3TC. I'm definitely not using that!
Hamish Aug 19, 2011
I just tried it out on our living room computer running Fedora 14 which is also using the free classic mesa radeon driver supplied with the system.

Quote[hamish@ravenclaw ~]$ cd /home/hamish/DirkDashing2Trial
[hamish@ravenclaw DirkDashing2Trial]$ ./dirk2
dirkdashing2: radeon_texture.c:700: radeon_store_teximage: Assertion `dstRowStride' failed.
./dirk2: line 35: 25194 Aborted (core dumped) ./dirkdashing2
[hamish@ravenclaw DirkDashing2Trial]$


As you can see, I encountered the same error. It is interesting that you mentioned lighting though, as in both Doom3 and Penumbra I had to turn off certain lighting and shadowing related settings, otherwise I would get display distortions. The games would run fine, but would not look quite right. If this is related to the problems with Dirk 2, I am pretty damn sure it would be fixed if I was using Fedora 15. Just have to wait for the disk to come down to make sure though.

Here are the living room computers specs:
Operating System: Fedora 14 Linux
Video Card: ATI Radeon 7500
Memory: 1 Gigabyte
Processor: Intel Celeron 1300 MHz
Hard drive: 250 GB
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