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1. Installation 1.1 Getting Started 1.2 Software Requirements 1.3 Running the Game 1.4 Sound Options 1.5 OSS Audio workarounds 1.6 Networking/Multiplayer 1.7 SaveGames and Configuration files 1.8 Thanks 2. Notes 2.1 Tweaks 2.2 Mods and Crazy Polygons 2.3 Lines on Screen 2.4 Hardware Acceleration 2.5 System Stability 2.6 Other 2.7 Links ---------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Installation --------------- 1.1 Getting Started ------------------- Linux Hexen II requires Hexen II game files updated to version 1.11. There are two ways to do this: a. Using the installer (easy way): The installer will get the files from your original cdroms, apply the latest patches (gamedata 1.12g) and install the binaries for you. The names of the Hexen2 binaries are: hexen2 - Software Hexen II glhexen2 - OpenGL Hexen II The second option will allow you to install the Mission Pack "Portal of Praevus", should you have it. All you need to do is choosing the Praevus support check-box and readying your cdrom. The names of the binaries are: h2mp - Software Portal of Praevus glh2mp - OpenGL Portal of Praevus Third option on the installer is HexenWorld Multiplayer support. No cdrom is necessary for this option. Names of the binaries are: hwcl - HexenWorld Client (software) glhwcl - HexenWorld Client (OpenGL) hwsv - HexenWorld Server b. Manual install/update of datafiles (harder way): Copy the "data1" directory from the Hexen2 CD to your Hexen2 directory, do NOT overwrite what is already provided by the HoT packages. Do a " chmod 644 data1/* ". All files should be lower-cased, if not already, and can be done with mv_lowercase from the file-rename-utils archive (see Links). To patch your data files, type " sh update_h2 " (this update script and its requirements are included in the HoT-1.2.4 binary package). Confirm the patching by checking with the following md5sums: c9675191e75dd25a3b9ed81ee7e05eff data1/pak0.pak c2ac5b0640773eed9ebe1cda2eca2ad0 data1/pak1.pak 1.2 Software Requirements ------------------------- SDL (min.: 1.2.2) : Simple DirectMedia Layer libraries 1.2.7 and newer highly recommended. SDL_mixer (min.: 1.2.0): Required for midi support (should be compiled with timidity+ support) 1.2.5 and newer highly recommended. ALSA (min.: 0.9.8) : Advanced Linux Sound Architecture libraries and kernel modules. Necessary, if you use alsa-sound. 1.0.7 (or newer) recommended. nasm (0.98 +) : x86 assembler (if you compile your own binaries.) 0.98.38 recommended 1.3 Running the Game: ---------------------- Simplest way of running the game is running the game launcher. Either choose it from your start menu, or type "hexen2" on the command line. Choose your options and press "Launch Hexen2". Old school way of running the game: Go into the installation directory and run the binary. The default mode is windowed. Use "glhexen2 -f" to start the game in full-screen mode. The following options are accepted: -f | --fullscreen Run the game fullscreen -w | --windowed Run the game windowed -g | --gllibrary Select 3D rendering library -width Width Select screen size -height Height Must be used with -width -bpp Color depth for GL fullscreen mode -nomouse No mouse in windowed mode -heapsize Bytes Heapsize -sndalsa Use ALSA for audio -sndsdl Use SDL for audio -nocdaudio Disable cdrom music -nomidi Disable MIDI music -listen N Enable multiplayer with maximum N players -s | -nosound Run the game without sound -v | --version Display the game version -h | --help Display this help message Others may work, but aren't really supported. You may wish to brighten the display with "xgamma". The script I use is: cd /usr/local/games/hexen2 xgamma -q -gamma 1.3; # brighten the display ./glhexen2 -width 800 -height 600 -f -heapsize 48000 # default heapsize is 32768 xgamma -q -gamma 1; # restore old brightness 1.4 Sound Options ----------------- Linux Hexen II includes three sound drivers all in one binary: a. OSS sound code ----------------- The default sound driver uses OSS (Open Sound System) kernel modules. It is compatible with most of the Linux distributions but it is known not to work for some people, too. If you use the game launcher, select the OSS option from the sound menu. If you use command line, no additional arguments are necessary for OSS sound. If OSS doesn't work for you, then please try the other options below. b. ALSA sound code ------------------ Second driver is based on the new ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) 1.0.x libraries and can be used with new Linux distributions such as Mandrake 10.x, Fedora Core 2/3, Debian- unstable and the like. If you use the game launcher, select the ALSA option from the sound menu. If you use command line, then start the game with "-sndalsa" argument. Example: # ./glhexen2 -sndalsa [other possible arguments] c. SDL sound code ----------------- This third option isolates you from many compatibility issues and should be usable on most Linux distributions. If you use the launcher, select the SDL option from the sound menu. If you use command line, then start the game with "-sndsdl" argument. Example: # ./glhexen2 -sndsdl [other possible arguments] If you can't get the sound working, "-nosound" argument will disable it. Send a bug report on the project page. 1.5 OSS audio workarounds: -------------------------- If you *really* have to use OSS and it doesn't work, you may try using the ALSA kernel sound modules (doing that on a distribution which doesn't come with ALSA by default isn't very easy, though.) Once the alsa sound modules are installed and configured, you can do (for example, on Mandrake): rmmod emu10k1 ;# remove OSS sound module for SBLive /etc/init.d/alsa start ;# start ALSA sound modules Make SURE oss-emulation is enabled: lsmod should list snd-pcm-oss. Check with alsamixer that the volumes are not turned down to zero. With ALSA + OSS Emulation, oss-sound in hexen2 should work fine. On Mandrake (9.0 and newer), Fedora Core (2 and newer) and SuSE (8.2 and newer) alsa-0.9.0 or better is already included. Users of Fedora Core 1, RedHat 9 and older can see the FreshRPMS site and the ALSA site for alsa-sound support. 1.6 Networking / Multiplayer ---------------------------- Linux Hexen II binaries here WILL NOT play over network with Windows Hexen2-1.11 binaries: Do not try, it simply WON'T. However: The mission pack IS compatible across platforms. This has nothing to do with us: Raven didn't give us original Hexen2-1.11 source, and the network code had changes during the 1.11-1.12 transition. We only have the 1.12 sources. Deathmatch, TeamPlay, etc: - HexenWorld is highly recommended at both sides. Cooperative games: - Linux side : (gl)hexen2 or (gl)h2mp, - Windows side: * (gl)h2mp (original CD version), or * jshexen2 executables, or * Pa3pyX' 1.14-1.15 executables should work just fine with each other. Here is a network-compatibility table: ============================================================== Binary Windows Linux Game Status ========== =========== ======== ========== ====== (gl)hexen2 <= 1.11 >= 1.12 Hexen II FAILS >= 1.12 (*) >= 1.12 Hexen II Runs ========== =========== ======== ========== ====== (gl)h2mp >= 1.12 >= 1.12 Hexen II Runs Miss. Pack Runs ========== =========== ======== ========== ====== *) Recompiles/ports of the source such as the ones from Pa3Pyx or jshexen2, newhexen and such. ============================================================== 1.7 SaveGames and Configuration files ------------------------------------- Your savegames and configuration files are stored in a folder named .hexen2 in your home folder: ~/.hexen2 For the demo version, it's ~/.hexen2demo instead. Saves/configs for Hexen2 are stored directly under ~/.hexen2/ For the Mission Pack, they are stored under ~/.hexen2/portals/ 1.8 Thanks ---------- Thanks to ID Software, Raven Games and Activision for a great game and for supporting open source software. Also thanks to Dan Olson and Clément Bourdarias for the initial Linux port (AoT) and to Sourceforge.net for hosting HoT. Mega thanks to all the unheralded Doom/Quake/Hexen modders. ---------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Notes -------- 2.1 Tweaks ---------- Quake games are very friendly to tweakers. The best performance gain I have found is by increasing the value "_snd_mixahead". For users with slow video cards, changing the gl_ variables may speed up your system. Here are just a few of those that can be changed. For more info see various Quake tweaking sites. variable values -------- ------ _snd_mixahead 0.1 - 0.9 : 0.1 = less latency, 0.9 = better performance gl_ztrick 0|1 : 3% performance tweak (some cards unsupported) gl_picmip 0|1|2 : 0 is default. 1 and 2 scale down the textures (low quality), but the help screens and some small fonts become unreadable and ugly. gl_playermip 0|1|2 gl_texturemode gl_nearest (least quality, best speed) gl_nearest_mipmap_nearest : ^ gl_linear_mipmap_nearest : gl_linear_mipmap_linear : v (best quality, least speed) snow_active 0 - 255 : 0 = none, 1 = normal (amount designated by the map), and higher acts as a multiplier 2.2 Mods and Crazy Polygons --------------------------- Some mission-packs/mods for Quake based games can cause existing player and monster models to be drawn with lines all over the place. To fix this, delete the directory ~/.hexen2/glhexen and/or ~/.hexen2/portals/glhexen. When you next run the game, it will remake this directory and everything should be fine. The biggest mod I've seen for Hexen II is the awesome Fortress of Four Doors (fo4d.zip). Make sure to check out the botmatch mod "hcbots" available at our project page. 2.3 Lines on Screen ------------------- A common problem (esp. with 3dfx cards) is flickering lines across the screen caused by gl_ztrick. To fix this, bring down the console with the '~' key and enter 'gl_ztrick 0'. With fresh installations of HoT-1.2.3 and later, this option is disabled by default. 2.4 Hardware Acceleration ------------------------- Setting up hardware OpenGL acceleration under Linux used to be a big deal in the past. Modern distros do this automatically now. Nvidia's drivers for all of their modern video cards are not open source, and because of this many distributions do not include them. If your Nvidia card is running slowly, this is probably the cause, you should visit Nvidia.com to download the linux installer. In my experience these drivers are great, but not all versions work 100% with all cards. If you have a misbehaving Nvidia video card, try a different (older) driver. Linux kernel 2.6.8 / Nvidia driver version 6111 /TnT card and possibly other cards and kernels have issues with the GL game. Upgrade to NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-7167 to fix these problems. If you don't want to change your nvidia driver and the game seems to halt, try using the alt-enter key combination to switch to windowed mode and redraw the screen. This behaviour is the same for glquake. 3dfx Voodoo1/Voodoo2 is no longer hardware accelerated under recent XFree-4.0 releases. For OpenGL acceleration of 3dfx Voodoo Graphics/Voodoo Rush/Voodoo2 boards, you will have to use old versions of XFree86 (3.3.x), Glide, and Mesa compiled against Glide. Setting up a Voodoo1/Voodoo2 card under linux can be a bit of work. 2.5 System Stability -------------------- 3D games are probably the most intensive workout you can give your PC. Problems with them are not always easy to track down. I recently had some trouble with glquake which I eventually racked down to Mandrake's XFree86-4.3 packages - probably due to compiler pentium optimizations. I switched to XFree86-4.3 (from Redhat-9.0) and quake now is rock solid. I've also had crashes in 3D games associated with * Hard drives overheating, seizing system. * Bios ram settings being too aggressive, crashing game. * Cpu overheating with unpredictable results. 2.6 Other --------- "Thyrion is the world Hexen II takes place in. An anvil is used by blacksmiths to create weapons and tools. I stole the anvil paradigm from AoT's distant cousin, QuakeForge. "Raven didn't give us Hexen 2 source, they gave us Portal of Praevus source. PoP is a few levels short of being an entirely different game.... I think once I nail a few simple physics bugs, we'll have PoP emulating Hexen 2 quite nicely, but it's been suggested that I'll need a whole different physics engine." - Dan Olson 2.7 Links --------- Hammer of Thyrion : http://sourceforge.net/projects/uhexen2 Anvil of Thyrion : http://aot.linuxgames.com/ Pa3Pyx source-port : http://sky.prohosting.com/pa3pyx/ JSHexen2 port : http://jurajstyk.host.sk/ Hexen II FAQ : http://www.raven-games.com/hex2faq/ Linux GlQuake : http://mfcn.ilo.de/glxquake ALSA sound : http://www.alsa-project.org Lowercase Utility : http://sourceforge.net/projects/filerenameutils |