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Re: ANNOUNCE: 1.99o5



>>>>> "Jason" == Jason Yanowitz <yanowitz@eternity.cs.umass.edu> writes:

    Jason> I got and installed this, with Xfree 3.1.2... same behavior
    Jason> as reported before (Linux-1.2.11, S3 server) with the
    Jason> Marathon demo.  No refresh of doom-like-view screen (menus
    Jason> are fine, the radar works, and the map/moving in overhead
    Jason> mode works).  behavior is both during interactive mode
    Jason> (i.e., playing the game) and when it's in demo mode.

First off, I have yet to get Marathon running under Executor.  I know
that it works "better" than it did previously, but it is not something
I have had time to look into yet.

However, the problem that you are having is definitely one of refresh.
Executor is not so smart about how refresh works.  If you specify
"-refresh 10" on the command line, that will start refresh up, *BUT*
as soon as a configuration file turns refresh off, the command line
request will be forgotten.  It could be that your Browser
configuration file is turning refresh off, or it could be even more
difficult and your Marathon configuration file is turning refresh off.

Here's how to reset it.

Fire up Marathon and click to get past the Bungee splash screen and
click again to get past the Marathon splash screen.  Then Marathon
should bring up the screen that gives you the option of starting a
game.  Use Cmd-Shift-5 to bring up the preferences panel, then put
"10" in the refresh box and click on the "Save" button.

After you're done with Marathon you should be able to see the
configuration file in /usr/local/lib/executor/Configuration.

    Jason> is anyone else getting this symptom?

    Jason> note: I have tried a plethora switches, mucking with
    Jason> -refresh (different values), memory sizes, colormap, etc.

You'll still want to run with "-privatecmap" just for speed.

    Jason> -- Jason

    Jason> ps: if I force a redraw of the whole screen (minimize and
    Jason> maximize window) then it shows the latest frame (but it
    Jason> doesn't do that if it goes from map mode back to "normal"
    Jason> mode.

Right.  That's the telltale sign of refresh getting botched.

Marathon runs well enough now that we think we'll be able to get it to
be quite playable by the time 2.0 ships, although under Linux it will
probably require a video board that can be linearly mapped by SVGAlib
and under DOS it will probably require a video card that can be
linearly mapped via VESA 2 calls.  We should also get Solarian,
Maelstrom, Apeiron, Chiral and hopefully Swoop running as well.  Once
2.0 is shipping we hope to have enough money to hire an engineer to do
a bang up job on sound support.

Before 2.0 ships we'll also be concentrating on big ticket apps like
Quark 3, Illustrator 5.5 and Photoshop 3 as well as various scientific
Mac-only software like NIH Image.  We put time into games because they
make good showcases for the speed of Executor (or they will, when the
public can see how we do on a linearly mapped framebuffer).

	--Cliff
	ctm@ardi.com



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