Quoting: Calinou

Quoting: gbudnyHowever, it would be cool if they could port the DRM-free version of Marble Blast Gold to Linux.

PlatinumQuest [External Link] works well in WINE. To download it, grab the macOS version of the launcher, extract the ZIP, `cd` to `Marble Blast Lauincher.app` then run `java -jar Contents/Java/MBLauncher.jar` (you need to have a JRE installed, JDK is not required). The launcher will download the Windows version to a folder in your home directory, which can then be run in WINE.

PlatinumQuest includes all Marble Blast Gold levels, while also having much more features such as online multiplayer and support for texture packs.

There's also Marble Blast Web [External Link], which is a pure JavaScript + WebGL game that can load Marble Blast Gold levels. It's not a port of the original code, but rewritten from the ground up.

Thanks.

I didn't know that PlatinumQuest includes all Marble Blast Gold levels.

I mentioned the Linux version because I was expecting more users be interested in playing it.

However, I can use Wine to install a Windows version if later I can run a Linux version. In this case, I will have to use Wine to play it. I always avoid using Wine/Proton because Windows is a better option.

I tried a web version, but a Haxe port of Marble Blast would give me a better experience playing it.

Unfortunately, it's not the official game. It's annoying that they re-released this game only for Windows and Mac.

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Great!

It looks like a great game that I want to play on Linux.

However, it would be cool if they could port the DRM-free version of Marble Blast Gold to Linux.

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Quoting: mr-victory

Quoting: InhaleOblivionAnyone of us who has used Linux for years prior to the advances of gaming understands why those of us who are lifelong gamers have two PC builds.

I am biased but I must say that 2 PCs sound overkill to me, compared to dual booting.

I don't know this game, but it's a terrible news.

I have 3 computers with the different Linux distributions to play different games published between 1996 - 2004 (e.g. Mohaa), 2004 - 2015 (e.g. Jack Keane), 2015 - 2023.

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Quoting: slaapliedjeAMIX won't run on an A4000, it requires an A2000-A3000. NetBSD / Linux will run on the 4000, but I haven't tried it there yet.

I didn't know that they didn't do any updates to run Amix on A4000.

Quoting: slaapliedjeI was going to try NetBSD on my Atari TT030, (which is also where the Atari SysV Unix would need to be ran) but then I accidentally wrote the tiny image over a 3tb drive of data... so got distracted restoring that! (always make sure you're writing to the right device!!)

Mistakes are sometimes horrible for the data.

Can the Atari computer dual-boots Mint and Atari System V UNIX?

Quoting: slaapliedjeHa, if I could find the old posts from MURC (Matrox users resource center) I wrote the howtos for installing the Parhelia drivers in Debian. :P Pretty much just required build-essentials and linux-headers-`uname -r`. Pre-Parhelia cards pretty much worked right out of the box.

It starts to look similar to the installation process of Nvidia drivers on Debian Sarge.

Quoting: slaapliedjeI'd love to get a hold of an A3000 to run AMIX on though, looks sweet. Though out of all that era of computers, the best version of Unix was probably A/UX, as Apple integrated it with MacOS so you could run mac software and Unix stuff.

A/UX could run the software for Mac, which is awesome. Unfortunately, the last version of A/UX didn't contain any updates for System Software 7. In this case, it will probably run only early applications for System Software 7. It's still the only classic Unix that can run many popular games and applications from that period. We don't have to use DOS.

IRIX was cool for someone interested in running some popular applications. On the other hand, the prices of these computers are scary.

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Quoting: HamishThey do ship a modified version including their own Matrox HAL library it seems though:
https://www.matrox.com/de/video/apps/drivers/graphics/download?id=143 [External Link]

This is a driver that I was thinking about.

Quoting: HamishI was working on another old computer with my brother the other week, and inside his big antistatic bag of old expansion cards was, unbeknownst to him, a Diamond Stealth II S220 (Rendition Vérité V2100) graphics card. While useless for Linux this is still a very collectible and historically significant graphics card, as the Rendition Vérité was the first series of video cards to support 3D acceleration in Quake weeks before the Voodoo did.

My brother had no idea that the card was that valuable, nor did the person who sold it to him at a flea market. It was actually part of the same $1 CAD lot of cards that my Sound Blaster 16 PnP came from.

EDIT: Not entirely useless on Linux as 2D support for the Vérité was released through the back door:
"I got on to the beta tester team with Rendition and they were constantly upgrading the drivers and making them better and faster but the manufacturers couldn't be bothered with updating their drivers ... I also got the Verite engineers to "leak" the 2D driver specs because there wasn't a way to make it work with Linux. So I tried shopping the specs around to different Linux distros (there were only a few back then) and Redhat turned me down flat and Debian did too after a few weeks but I finally got the interest of some German programmers at SUSE and they got them to work (2D only) in no time and because of the way Linux works you could download them from SUSE and they would work in Redhat or Debian or any other distro"
Source: https://www.techspot.com/community/topics/rendition-gone-but-not-forgotten.278896/post-2010465 [External Link]

Thanks for the story.

It's one of these situations. I remember that someone sold me GeForce 6200 512MB for 15 zł (= above 3 dollars). I was expecting getting a brick in the box. I got the dirt cheap graphic card, but it's still one of the weakest in the 6000 series.

It's an intersting graphic card, but problematic even on DOS:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7zADH80vQA [External Link]

It's great that someone is working on the Linux driver for it.
The behavior of Debian developers is disappointing to me.

I live in a small town, which is two hours away from Warsaw. It's not worth even visit most of the stores with used computers in my hometown

Sometimes, it's much easier to get the cool stuff if you live much closer to the U.S.A.

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Quoting: HamishCertainly by the time of Red Hat Linux 7.3 any Matrox G200 or G400 card should just work out of the box with DRI drivers. The G400 MAX would be a compelling alternative for Dianoga, but they are about as expensive as Voodoo cards are these days.

Thank you for the clrafication.

How good were closed source drivers for Matrox cards?

Sometimes, people sell old graphics cards for a few dollars because they think it's a piece of useless junk.

Some graphics cards don't deserve to be so popular like Geforce 4 MX 440 - they are horrible.

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Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: gbudny

Quoting: slaapliedjeAnyhow, love this series, makes me want to try on one of the old PCs I built recently.

I hope that more users start to build old PCs to play games for Linux.

I saw the AGP graphic cards like GeForce 7950 GT 512 MB or even 8400 GS 512 MB. My GeForce 7300 GT 512 MB isn't terrible. However, I like to see some room for the performance improvements in some games.

I have several Marvel G400TV cards, I am planning on going a different route with productivity on old PCs. Granted originally I wasn't thinking of using Linux...

But now that I think about it, I may very well do so.
Equipment list I'm going to be using to produce videos (when I get around to it)
Amiga 4000 Video Toaster (For old school effects)
I have two cameras that can do digital / analog for recording.
Marvel G400TV can be used for capturing some stuff (may use OBS or something and toying with doing live videos maybe?)
M1 Macbook for any post processing stuff.

For music/audio, I have an Atari Falcon+Cubase, and Logic Pro on the mac.

So my plans are really a mix of old tech+modern tech. The work flow is going to be really wacky, but fun I think.

It looks like the interesting way of combining different computers and operating systems.

I never had a chance to use Matrox cards Linux. I watched somewhere it was tricky to install drivers back then. In my opinion, Matrox Parhelia still looks like a nice alternative for the old PCs.

Did you try to run Amix on Amiga 4000?

I know there was a version Unix for Atari:

http://www.atariunix.com/ [External Link]

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Quoting: slaapliedjeAnyhow, love this series, makes me want to try on one of the old PCs I built recently.

I hope that more users start to build old PCs to play games for Linux.

I saw the AGP graphic cards like GeForce 7950 GT 512 MB or even 8400 GS 512 MB. My GeForce 7300 GT 512 MB isn't terrible. However, I like to see some room for the performance improvements in some games.

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Quoting: Lightkey

Quoting: gbudnyI don't know if you have plans to write the article about Mobility for Linux. However, their refreshed website is back online after a few months:

https://www.mobility-online.de/download-registrierung/download [External Link]

I didn't expect it.

..and then they just point to Holarse for the Linux version instead of hosting it themselves, those freeloaders!
Seems like there was a lot added with later versions but not for the Linux version, sadly.

They didn't disappear with the registration keys, and more users could buy now this game for Linux.

I was able to run it even on Ubuntu 20.4, which is crazy.

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Thank you for the article.

GarageGames was one of the pivotal companies for Linux users.

I hope that they publish the official DRM-free version of Marble Blast for Linux in the near future.

I want to point that out that one the of the games that used Torque 2D Engine was Galacticards from Killer Bee Software:

http://www.killerbeesoftware.com/kbsgames/gc/ [External Link]

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