Testing TDM on Linux on Windows 11

[joebarnin]

I've got a Windows 11 machine. TDM players on Linux are running into problems with my mission; it appears these are Linux-specific issues. I'd like to have a Linux install of TDM, to verify these issues (and maybe be able to submit bug reports). What's the best technique for getting a Linux install on my Windows computer? My ignorance of Linux knows no bounds . How do these options look? https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/how-to-run-any-linux-distro-alongside-windows-11

Thanks!

[datiswous]

I think Hyper V is probably better

What Linux issues, apart from the autosave bug that was known, but never reported?

Edited December 11, 2023 by datiswous

[nbohr1more]

I've personally had no issues running Linux Mint in dual boot with Windows 10. Just need to disable secure boot when installing Linux then upgrade to the latest kernel and grub2 then re-enable secure boot. My Windows has its own SSD so your experience may vary.

[joebarnin]

3 minutes ago, datiswous said:

What Linux issues, apart from the autosave bug that was known, but never reported?

The keyhole lean/peek problem - some Linux players report all you see is black when peeking.

[datiswous]

Edit: I don't know how often you want to use Linux, But I see the following options:

• Having Linux on a vitual environment (Hyper V)
• Dual booting Windows and Linux.
• Booting a Linux Live usb-stick and then booting tdm from a seperate Linux partition or harddrive (or maybe from that same usb-stick?). I never tried this, but possibly this is fast enough?

You might need GPU passthrough for decent performance in Hyper V:

https://www.techtarget.com/searchvirtualdesktop/tip/Running-GPU-passthrough-for-a-virtual-desktop-with-Hyper-V

Also you need minimum Windows 11 pro (doesn't work on Home).

 

Btw. I have no experience with Hyper V (because I don't use Windows)

Edited December 12, 2023 by datiswous

[datiswous]

What you can do is:

1. Download Manjaro Linux XFCE edition. (XFCE edition has best performance)
2. Put it on usb-stick (usb 3.0 minimum, otherwise too slow). You can use Rufus for this.
3. Boot from it, using the Proprietary drivers option in boot menu.
4. Inside Manjaro linux, go to your Windows drive to the folder with your tdm installation.
5. Start thedarkmod.x64 (NOT TheDarkModx64.exe)

I tested this and it loads pretty fast.

Edited December 12, 2023 by datiswous

[chakkman]

I'm surprised that there can be OS-specific bugs in a mission. The keyhole peeking is just a script, isn't it? Does it make use of OS specific graphical stuff?

Edited December 12, 2023 by chakkman

[Xolvix]

16 hours ago, chakkman said:

I'm surprised that there can be OS-specific bugs in a mission. The keyhole peeking is just a script, isn't it? Does it make use of OS specific graphical stuff?

I can't say this about TDM necessarily but I have seen quirks that happen on Linux that don't happen on Windows even with cross-platform software. I was testing some Quake map packs in Linux using the Quakespasm engine, a very popular source port. I noticed a particular map pack was missing music in Linux but worked fine in Windows. I thought it may have been a codec issue, until I discovered the map in question was requesting audio file "track102.ogg" but the actual title of the file was "Track102.ogg" and Linux filesystems are by default case-sensitive. Renaming the file fixed it but man that was some bullshit the end user shouldn't have to deal with.

[datiswous]

1 hour ago, Xolvix said:

until I discovered the map in question was requesting audio file "track102.ogg" but the actual title of the file was "Track102.ogg" and Linux filesystems are by default case-sensitive.

Indeed, I was already wondering if it's something in the script-code that Linux chokes on and Windows doesn't.

[stgatilov]

The most reliable approach is installing Linux natively.
But if you don't want to actually use it regularly, you'll just waste a lot of time and space for nothing.

It is possible to run TDM in virtual machine, but you should check that virtual machine supports at least OpenGL 3.3 on Linux guest (and Windows host). Most of them do not. VMWare is perhaps the only one which does support it.

I currently build and test TDM on Linux inside VMWare.
Here are the instructions: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=VMWare:_Virtual_machine_with_Linux
With non-default cvar "r_gpuBufferNonpersistentUpdateMode 1" it runs more or less OK performance-wise.

[Heuli]

I can access joebarnin to my PC via VNC ubuntu 22.04 LTS cinamon Desktop 50s vdsl give. only if he can play my dark mod One question is, is there a remote maintenance software that can do this? I don't have anything personal on my PC, just Darkmod

[stgatilov]

There are free VNC clients for Windows, like TightVNC for instance.
It should work of course, but I'd expect performance would be awful over network.

[Heuli]

That's right, but it would have to be better than a virtual Linux for testing scripts

go.Test and test are 2 different words for Linux

[joebarnin]

6 hours ago, Heuli said:

I can access joebarnin to my PC via VNC ubuntu 22.04 LTS cinamon Desktop 50s vdsl give. only if he can play my dark mod One question is, is there a remote maintenance software that can do this? I don't have anything personal on my PC, just Darkmod

Thanks for the offer, but that sounds a bit too complicated. I think I need to decide how to get Linux going on my machine. I'll probably try @stgatilov's idea of VMWare.

[chakkman]

@joebarnin Do you have a decommissioned PC somewhere? I used to install Linux on those, rather than doing the dual boot "mess".

Of course, the hardware should be capable of running TDM.

Edited December 17, 2023 by chakkman

[joebarnin]

2 hours ago, chakkman said:

@joebarnin Do you have a decommissioned PC somewhere? I used to install Linux on those, rather than doing the dual boot "mess".

Of course, the hardware should be capable of running TDM.

Good idea, but no, I don't have an extra machine.

[datiswous]

7 hours ago, joebarnin said:

Thanks for the offer, but that sounds a bit too complicated. I think I need to decide how to get Linux going on my machine. I'll probably try @stgatilov's idea of VMWare.

I think my solution of booting from usb-stick is the easiest solution and probably gives best performance.

Edit: I guess I didn't have to state this twice though.

Edited December 17, 2023 by datiswous

[Heuli]

If you install Linux on a USB stick you have to pay attention to the persistence mod, which is important

[datiswous]

4 hours ago, Heuli said:

persistence mod

What are you talking about?

Edit: Ah I see:

Quote

A persistent Live USB allows its users to save data changes back to the USB storage device instead of leaving the information in the system Random Access Memory (RAM). Ideally, in this section, a separate Persistent storage space (persistent overlay) is used with a compressed Live Linux OS.

It's not really important I think if you use the already excisting TDM installation (but starting TDM with the Linux executable) from the Windows drive. If you install TDM (from Linux) on the persistent storage space, it might be slow. But maybe it's not really so bad.

Edited December 18, 2023 by datiswous

[chakkman]

Booting from a USB stick is not performant though. Especially when you plan to play games, that's a bad solution IMO.

If it's that important, I would consider buying a second PC second hand, if you don't want to do a dual boot installation.

[datiswous]

2 hours ago, chakkman said:

Booting from a USB stick is not performant though. Especially when you plan to play games, that's a bad solution IMO.

No it isn't. I thought that would be the case as well, but in my solution, it only boots the system from usb stick. The game itself is played from the original harddisk. It's really not that slow from personal experience and it uses the original gpu fully. Btw. booting from (usb 3.0+) usb-stick is actually quite fast nowadays, especially if you use a light but capable distro. I think it's best to try that first before going for more complicated solutions.

I get that it might not be best for more serious use, but if you only want to test a couple of Linux bugs, I think it's the best solution.

Edited December 18, 2023 by datiswous