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Running TDM in Ubuntu 12.04 -- 64 bit and other troubles


plasticman

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Yesterday I installed TDM for the first time on Ubuntu 12.04 (64-Bit). Here is how it went so far.

 

Download and Install

 

I did not need to install any 32-bit compatibility libraries (ia32-lib), since they were already there. It may be the default, may also be they came as a dependency for something else I did before.

 

Download and installation for Doom 3 for linux worked as expected. The tdmupdater had no trouble as well.

 

The process is not very friendly for Linux-newbies, since both, Doom and TDM installation require root operations via the command line. Doom's pk4s need to get copied by root, then given read access for users. Installation routines must be made executable.

 

Running TDM

 

Instructions on the Webpage still refer to the now obsolete tdmlauncher.linux. Thanks to Obsttorte the wiki is up to date, thedarkmod.x86 is the executable.

 

First run of thedarkmod.x86 results in a crash: libjpeg.so.62 is missing. The internet tells me its part of the libjpeg62-package, which I could install via apt-get or synaptic. Doing so however did not solve the problem. TDM misses the 32-bit library, synaptic and apt-get will install the 64-bit variant by default.

 

To run TDM I needed to force the 32-bit version:

 

sudo apt-get install libjpeg62:i386

 

This has been the only major issue. I think it is a hard one for people who are not used to fighting their OS an a daily basis. In case anyone is willing to set up a TDM-repository in the future, things like this could be handled by defining dependencies without user interaction.

 

Lesser problem has been fixing the audio lag. That part did not change since the last time. :P

 

Remaining troubles I need help with

 

Vsync and anti-aliasing. I can't seem to get it working at all. My hardware is an AMD Radeon HD 6770 and I am using the native fglrx-driver. There are way too many places where I can enable or disable vsync:

  • Catalyst Control Center. It has several options to influence tearing.
  • Compiz. The Compiz Config Settings Manager allows to enable sync_to_vblank.
  • There is an environment variable called vblank_mode. Can be set to 0 or 1 via the command line. I have no idea if this is the same switch Compiz uses.
  • There is a cvar: r_swapinterval.

I fiddled with all of these. For ioquake3 it works to disable it everywhere else and then set the swapinterval to 1. In TDM I still get visible tearing and r_swapinterval seems to have no effect at all.

 

Same goes for anti-aliasing. No matter what I set r_multisamples to or what overrides I set in the CCC -- it has no effect.

 

On the positive side, anisotropic filtering works. Vsync and AA issues apply for D3 as well.

 

Help me Obidark Modforum! You're my only hope!

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I already posted about the web page and tdmlauncher, but it hasn't been updated (don't know who can do this) .

 

The hope is that this will be easier with v1.09.

 

As for the antialiasing etc, I can' speak about this, maybe Serpentine knows something. In any event, you should file a bug report so we can properly track the issue.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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The wiki was updated. It seems someone updated the web page instructions for Windows, but somehow missed the other two OS.

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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I can update the webpage but someone needs to give me whatever the text is they want to see there.

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Hey plasticman,

 

I'm not sure about the AA / VSync issues - that sounds a bit strange. I will put a bit of time into seeing if there's possibly something wrong there. Your AA should be set to a max of 8, if TDM allows you to select 16 then there is something wrong and it will not work (setting it to 8 or lower will fix it). VSync and interval are slightly different, however they both work for me, so I suspect it might be something to do with Compiz. I really don't think we can/will/should cater for different wm and stuff if they require special workarounds or anything.

 

That said, 1.09 should at worst, be easy to get built and working if you have any trouble with the binaries. And having native amd64 means you don't even need to fiddle much with packages, whee.

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I can update the webpage but someone needs to give me whatever the text is they want to see there.

Actually only the executable names.

  • tdmlauncher.linux is now thedarkmod.x86
  • tdmlauncher.macosx is now thedarkmod.macosx

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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VSync and interval are slightly different, however they both work for me, so I suspect it might be something to do with Compiz.

I took that one out of the equation. Looks like it wasn't to blame (in fact I never had any troubles with playing while using Compiz).

 

Before reading your post I did not notice TDM has menu options for AA, AF and vsync (I looked for them in the advanced settings). However, no matter what I do via the menu or via the cvars (r_swapinterval, r_multisamples), it does not change anything and it seems to ignore any settings in the CCC.

 

The only progress I made: There is an option in Catalyst to enable "Tear Free Desktop". My guess is, this enables triple buffering for desktop applications. While Vsync settings in TDM or the CCC seemingly do nothing, this option makes a visible difference and stops tearing windows apart when dragging.

 

I found out this also works with TDM -- in windowed mode only. Now I am looking for a way to enable triple buffering for TDM in fullscreen. When there is no cvar for this, I guess I have to tell fglrx somehow to do it. Since the control center misses the option there must be a non-gui way to do this. Command line tools or manual editing of the xorg.conf.

 

What's also puzzling ist why vsync without triple buffering doesn't work. With my previous card (nvidia) it was enaugh to disable vsync on the driver site an enable it in compiz. There is propably a misunderstanding between my actual radeon card and my TFT screen...

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However, no matter what I do via the menu or via the cvars (r_swapinterval, r_multisamples), it does not change anything and it seems to ignore any settings in the CCC.

CCC settings apply directly to the driver (or parts of the X session), TDM has no way of knowing if its values are being used or what CCC's are. Technically there is a way, realistically, no one ever uses it, it's overboard and you need a pile of constantly changing and breaking libs.

 

The only progress I made: There is an option in Catalyst to enable "Tear Free Desktop". My guess is, this enables triple buffering for desktop applications.
vsync in X is a real mess - it's one of Waylands selling points... meh. It's generally easier to get vsync if you're running windowed, but fullscreen is somewhat iffy and depends a lot on how everything else is configured, truthfully I've never really tested it on nix, will do sometime soon tho.

 

What's also puzzling ist why vsync without triple buffering doesn't work. With my previous card (nvidia) it was enaugh to disable vsync on the driver site an enable it in compiz. There is propably a misunderstanding between my actual radeon card and my TFT screen...

This goes back to the previous point, iirc if you are using compositing you will need triple buffering to get vsync to work in a window. I know KWin handles this quite nicely in that fullscreen stuff disables compositing which helps things work smoothly, but Compiz in the old days used to not do this (and since it's pretty much a dead project, I wouldn't be surprised if thats still the case). That said, I've seen a number of people report issues with DDC(and the newer version, whatever its called) not working on Ubuntu with radeon drivers (different project), both open and closed. Ubuntu screw around a lot with packages and I really wouldn't be surprised if the X plugin is completely broken. But If your res and stuff is being correctly detected, I'm sure it'd get your refresh timings right.
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Enlightening, thank you!

 

If one compares development of Compiz and TDM in terms of liveliness and active contributors -- yes, Compiz is dead. But the fun fact is that Ubuntu's Desktop shell, Unity (the panel and the launcher), is technically a Compiz plugin. So the Desktop depends on Compiz (since 11.04 IIRC). There is also a QT-based 2D-Unity fallback mode, but it got scrapped in the last release (12.10) to save development resources.

 

With all those Ubuntu releases depending heavily on Compiz it will be around in it's zombiefied state for years -- and only slowly fade away as Wayland takes over (I don't think Sam is going to port Compiz to Wayland).

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