View Full Version : UrQuan Masters!
Hedgecore
2006-03-01, 20:23
Given the seemingly older user base here, you guys should get a kick out of this:
http://koti.welho.com/jkukkone/uqm/
I've already played the PC version and beaten it (as well as the original SC2 back in the early 90's)... but... Star Control ][... on a 770? I'm grinning like stink right now.
Hedgecore
2006-03-02, 14:39
Installed, and it works! I cranked the graphics right up and it's not very playable. I need more time to experiment to see if I can get it right. Given how bad the D-pad is for gaming, I think I may leave ship combat on cyborg and let the game fight for me.
I can't believe nobody else has soiled themselves over this. Star Control 2 is the best game, of all time, ever. Nothing touches it. I remember waking up at 6am on weekends just to boot it through hyperspace and figure out what the hell it was the Ilwrath wanted me to do.
NokNok770
2006-03-02, 15:28
God this game looks like another game I use to play a very loonnnnggg time ago maybe 1985-1988...not sure, but I forgot what it was called. Looks very simular to this one, you explore different planets and gather resources, fight with aliens, or make friends. It came with a large map of space where you can track worm holes and all that stuff. I played it on the Tandy 1000TL. Never got to finish though cause I borrowed it from a friend...I wonder if this is that game....
Installed, and it works! I cranked the graphics right up and it's not very playable. I need more time to experiment to see if I can get it right. Given how bad the D-pad is for gaming, I think I may leave ship combat on cyborg and let the game fight for me.
I can't believe nobody else has soiled themselves over this. Star Control 2 is the best game, of all time, ever. Nothing touches it. I remember waking up at 6am on weekends just to boot it through hyperspace and figure out what the hell it was the Ilwrath wanted me to do.
So, no problems installing on a stock 770? Does the sound work without starting from a command line? Let us know if its playable with lower graphic settings!
Thanks for any updates :)
Hedgecore
2006-03-03, 21:14
I haven't launched from the menu so I can't confirm the sound quality is any worse. From the command line with sound quality at the default low it's fine. I turned graphic detail to low and tried it at 640x480 but it was kind of laggy. 320x200 reduces things to the size of a postage stamp, but it's fast... providing you don't care being able to tell which way your ship is facing in combat.
As a work in progress, Super Melee seems doable however when I try to visit a planet it crashes; when the UrQuan drone comes to warn me about approaching Earth, the UrQuan just sits there twitching - - no speech/text.
The RPG isn't playable at all, Super Melee should be providing you can configure it properly. Hats off to this ambitious attempt, best game of all time.
thoughtfix
2006-03-03, 22:11
Here's an ur-quan masters wiki
And it's teh awes0me.
ARR
http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/Main_Page
I'm the guy who did the porting/Maemo packaging, hi all.
I haven't launched from the menu so I can't confirm the sound quality is any worse.
The sound problems when starting from menu should now be fixed (thanks to Frantisek Dufka).
I turned graphic detail to low and tried it at 640x480 but it was kind of laggy. 320x200 reduces things to the size of a postage stamp, but it's fast...
There is an option that uses 320x200, but "pixel-doubled" and that should be on by default (can't remember what the mode was called in the game.. )
As a work in progress, Super Melee seems doable however when I try to visit a planet it crashes; when the UrQuan drone comes to warn me about approaching Earth, the UrQuan just sits there twitching - - no speech/text.
Interesting, I had no problems with planet landing or the encounters -- and I played quite a lot farther than just Earth... will have to look into it. The problem is that my 770 is currently in repairs, so testing is a little difficult.
God this game looks like another game I use to play a very loonnnnggg time ago maybe 1985-1988...not sure, but I forgot what it was called. Looks very simular to this one, you explore different planets and gather resources, fight with aliens, or make friends. It came with a large map of space where you can track worm holes and all that stuff. I played it on the Tandy 1000TL. Never got to finish though cause I borrowed it from a friend...I wonder if this is that game....
Sounds correct, except for the time. Star Control 2 was released in 1992 (the original SC was of course a little earlier, but that had no story so you're probably not remembering it). A magnificent game, years ahead of its time.
God this game looks like another game I use to play a very loonnnnggg time ago maybe 1985-1988...not sure, but I forgot what it was called. Looks very simular to this one, you explore different planets and gather resources, fight with aliens, or make friends. It came with a large map of space where you can track worm holes and all that stuff. I played it on the Tandy 1000TL. Never got to finish though cause I borrowed it from a friend...I wonder if this is that game....
I remember the one you are talking about.... I love google. I remembered 1 word from the game and came up with the title:
Star Flight
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Maze/4979/starflight.html
Now that was a cool game! Time to go see if I can legally download it for DosBoxer.
David
Edit:
Found it:
http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?name=StarFlight
NokNok770
2006-03-10, 23:39
Oh my god..that is it!!!! Star Flight was the game I played. I searched for this game too but I didn't find it....I can't beleive it...I'm going to try and get it too.
I remember the one you are talking about.... I love google. I remembered 1 word from the game and came up with the title:
Star Flight
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Maze/4979/starflight.html
Now that was a cool game! Time to go see if I can legally download it for DosBoxer.
David
Edit:
Found it:
http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?name=StarFlight
Hedgecore
2006-03-24, 19:37
Jussik: I know developers don't hear this much, but I want to give you my extreme thanks. Hands down, SC2 is the best game of all time. I just replayed UQM on the PC and having it on the 770 got me excited. I haven't tried going further than what I've described above, but 320x200 pixel doubled sounds like the way to go. In the meantime I would just watch computer vs. computer melee battles to alleviate boredom on the commute to work.
Again, thanks so much!
Oh the shock and horror when you see that Earth has been slave shielded! While SC II maybe wasn't the best game ever (we have titles like Eve Online), it was no doubt the top of the day. Would be nice to see other great titles on Linux/in open source as well, like MAX (came out in 1996 I think).
I have the same problem with the first dialogue with the Ur-Quan drone at Earth. Could it be because of how the libraries are setup or packaged?
The 770 controls are really not the best for gaming (and 2 hand operation). But the melee is somewhat playable. Small, fast ships are difficult to play, so bigger ships are more important here...
Hedgecore
2006-04-30, 16:10
I think what did it for me about games like that was that they were so simple yet got you so enthralled. I can remember my heart pounding when I entered the system where the Sa Matra was parked, and feeling cool as hell when I blew it up (hint: pkunk ;) ).
If you remember that era, XCOM is being ported to the 770... they managed to play it but are still working on it, so soon. Turn based tactical games like that would be insanely good for the 770 (and it's crappy directional pad)
This is cool I can't wait to install it (how did I miss this?). However the games I'd like to see ported would be the Quest for Glory serise.
Hedgecore
2006-05-01, 18:34
Let me know how the latest build goes, they fixed the sound issues and one of the devs was saying it's playable earlier in this thread. I haven't gotten around to installing the latest since I flashed for fear of the D-pad.
I have the same problem with the first dialogue with the Ur-Quan drone at Earth. Could it be because of how the libraries are setup or packaged?
Must be.. Though I never saw that myself.
I haven't dropped this project, other things have just gotten in the way -- first I spent 2 months trying to get my 770 fixed (and finally got a replacement that works fine), now I'm really busy In Real Life.
We'll have to see which one is out first, the 2006 OS or the next update on UQM :)
I noticed UQM can be addictive. Fortunately I'm pretty busy these days as well, so my playing time has been limited to just a few hours.
I can still beat many ships with the Vux. CHMMR is a ***** as an opponent. Could be fun to start modding this game, but then again time is limited etc.
Hedgecore
2006-05-03, 23:10
The Chmmr Avatar isn't too bad, just use ships with shields like the Yehat or the Utwig so you can go through the satellites sans damage. Or be a prick and use the Kohr-Ah Marauder's flame field to destroy them the second the Chmmr sucks you in. :)
This is a fantastic game. Thanks jussik! Some notes:
Current debs are only for OS2005.
No source code on jussik's site.
No diffs for his changes available.
Hardware 2x scaling is possible on the 770. Tak in #maemo on irc.freenode.net has implemented this for fceu/xmame. This would be nice to have.
Current UQM is 0.6.x
This is truly one of the great games of all time. I have patched mine to slow down combat enough to make it playable for me (and perhaps the 770 keypad).
Many thanks again to Jussik, but we can not run this on OS 2006 please share the source. The power of GPL compels you. :)
Package dependencies: libxpm4 libxrandr2 libxt6 libsdl-image1.2
OMG! I love SC2! Any way to enable the two player mode wirelessly? :)
Netplay for super-melee was added to Ur-Quan-Masters 0.6.0; so yes, we should be able to engage in online duels. :)
While you're waiting, please sign the petition to Toys for Bob, for a Star Control 3.
http://sc2.sourceforge.net/petition/petition.php
Hedgecore
2007-03-12, 14:20
... signed months ago. And I need to seriously chime in again. This is one of the top ten games of all time (if not the greatest). 20 years from now it'd still be playable.
I still haven't gotten a response from jussik. Hope he's still alive.
The UQM port is dead unless we can get it compiled for OS2006.
It looks like the dsp mp3 decoder is fairly easy to use, so we might be able to get music in there as well without a slowdown. The .oggs from the remix project are fantastic. Just need to be converted with lame.
Melee will certainly be difficult, and i think we may need to add buttons on the right side of the screen, since the left hand can't do keypad and two action buttons well at the same time. I'll be testing with synergy or a bluetooth keyboard for starters.
If anyone knows how to get in contact with Jussi please do. I need his diffs to get this working on OS2006.
Maybe if those who are interested would email jhkukkon (the at sign) cc.hut.fi, he could become motivated to release his source.
I still haven't gotten a response from jussik. Hope he's still alive.
Heh. Your message had ended up in my spam folder (university spamassassin is mostly very accurate, I don't know what happened).
Anyway, I sent you a diff. The changes aren't big, but they might save you some work (although the bulk is going to be repackaging for the new and shiny maemo version -- what is it with these people, breaking every possible compatibility every six months? :)) I'll push them on my web space also...
I stopped maintaining when all my hardware seemed to break down at the same time -- the 770, a hard drive and my main development machine -- I've got replacements now (including a new N800, whee), so I might be interested in working on this too. Not promising anything, but I'd appreciate it if you'd keep me posted on your work.
The mp3 idea is good one -- as you might know I had to lower the sound quality on the ogg playback to get it even working (not that it mattered on the sound quality, the 770 speaker is so lousy).
Thanks.
The uqm devs have offered access to the original .wav files for the mp3 encoding. Actually given the size constraints, the 770 speaker is quite good: Electrostatic, very loud.
There is quite a todo list to make this package work well on the 770 / 800. I've applied for a project page (uqm) on garage.maemo.org so development and discussion can be publicly coordinated.
Open Discussion Forum for Ur-Quan masters port now active.
UQM 0.6.2 builds and runs cleanly within Scratchbox for i386; some info to get started here:
https://garage.maemo.org/forum/forum.php?thread_id=888&forum_id=858
To get added as a developer, drop me a line.
ATTENTION INTERLOPER, HEED THIS RECORDED MESSAGE:
Ur-Quan Masters 0.6.2 prerelease binary is for OS2006 is now available!
https://garage.maemo.org/frs/?group_id=224.
:D
It's not yet been packaged or maemoized, so if you're not comfortable with linux and shells, don't bother.
For speed reasons, it must run at 320x200 mode with low quality sound, but everything's there, everything works. Music, sound, speech, load/save etc.
You can customize button preferences in the in-game setup, though i find it's most playable with a keyboard.
Cheers,
Should this work on N800? Did what the README told me to, but I still get 'Could not find content'-error messages.
Thanks for testing! But it is compiled for os2006 (770), so i'd be surprised if it ran on the 800. You need to be in the directory above 'content' and invoke the uqm-debug with the full path to the executeable in your home dir.
I've gotten pixel doubling sort-of working, btw, but it only doubles currently updated bitmaps, there seems to be some backing store or page flipping that draws at 1x.
Well the binary seems to run, but can't find the content.
Nokia-N800-51:/media/mmc2/uqm$ ls
README content libs obj uqm-debug uqm-indent
Nokia-N800-51:/media/mmc2/uqm$ /home/user/uqm-debug
The Ur-Quan Masters v0.6.2 (compiled Mar 17 2007 21:38:48)
This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY;
for details see the included 'COPYING' file.
Netplay protocol version 0.3. Requiring remote UQM version 0.5.4.
Initializing base SDL functionality.
Using SDL version 1.2.8 (compiled with 1.2.8)
Using config dir '/home/user/.uqm/'
Fatal error: Could not find content.
Nokia-N800-51:/media/mmc2/uqm$ du -h content
...
512.3M content
Next lines should be:
Using '/media/mmc1/Games/sc2_armel/content' as base content dir.
Saved games are kept in /home/user/.uqm/save/.
Initializing Pure-SDL graphics.
...
Jussi has a N800, so i expect this can be solved soon.
I suppose the good news is that without scaling activated (screen the size of a postage stamp) and music, meelee runs at a playable framerate.
Thus, Pixeldoubling lends itself as the clear path to performance. Unfortunately i haven't been successful with it.
https://garage.maemo.org/forum/forum.php?thread_id=895&forum_id=858
:confused:
I could really use help from someone who has scratchbox and a 770. Can you compile and test the latest fceu source package? Does the pixel-doubling work for you? If so please contact me.
"Let us don the Mask of Gruelling but Necessary Activity together!"
:D
EDIT: For those who don't know what you're missing, here's a review of Star Control 2 (ur-quan masters) that does it justice:
http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/features/all/greatestgames/p-7.html
ZerionSeven
2007-03-19, 16:08
Perhaps I should have checked BEFORE starting, if anyone was already working on this, but anyway, I thought I'd see if I could play UQM on my N800, so I threw together some packages for it. It's a rather quick port, but it actually works suprisingly well, so I thought someone else might be interested too.
Ignore this, check the website (http://www2.lut.fi/~thietan1/) for new packages.
The game itself is uqm_0.6.2-4zs_armel.deb (http://www2.lut.fi/~thietan1/uqm_0.6.2-4zs_armel.deb) and you'll also need to have libvorbisidec1_1.2.0-1_armel.deb (http://www2.lut.fi/~thietan1/libvorbisidec1_1.2.0-1_armel.deb) installed first.
The game expects to find the content packages in /media/mmc2/uqm/content/packages/ (that's the internal mc) and the remixes will also work if placed in /media/mmc2/uqm/content/packages/addons/uqmremix/. (http://sc2.sourceforge.net/downloads.php)
This is the first time I've done anything such, so don't blame me if your device decides to melt trying to play those, but atleast I haven't run into any problems yet.
Edit: Put up a simple webpage for the packages http://www2.lut.fi/~thietan1/.
This is great work guys! Exactly what the tablets need! :)
Well Xsp really could use some looking-into. After 6 hours of SDL hacking / testing i've learned more and made some progress:
The SDl documentation project has been a big help:
http://docs.mandragor.org/files/Common_libs_documentation/SDL/SDL_Documentation_project_en/
Anything done with SDL_Flip seems to break it, as does calling SDL_LockSurface.
Initial Credits screen and Intro Videos are playing fine doubled.
Main game menu shows only currently selected menu item doubled, rest is single.
Configuration screen flips back and forth between double and single.
Planetary Navigation shows as mostly single, with occasional flickering doublesize flashes.
Conversations are strange beyond description.
Melee runs ~nice~ and ~fast~ now! Not noticeably slower than pc. But single size junk is being shown and ship status regions are flashing over the playing field.
Interstellar travel is displaying mostly doublesize, but coordinates upper left are single sizing and the display is shifting up and down like an earthquake effect.
Anyway, just wanted to let you know there's some progress after banging my head against this for the last few days.
Update 2007.04.02: No good news yet on the pixeldoubling. I'm still learning by trial and error what works, and what breaks with sdl and pixel doubling. It's like an impenetrable black box being steered by a malevolent demon-imp. Need to take a break from it for a while.
Update 2007.04.08: Here's a picture of the problem...
http://home.arcor.de/arnim.sauerbier/UQM_Xsp_SDL_Pixeldoubling_Problem.jpg
I've hosted a Video of Ur-Quan Masters with pixel doubling on the 770.
http://home.arcor.de/arnim.sauerbier/UQM_Xsp_SDL_Doubling_Bugs.avi
It's rather fuzzy, but suffices to show the problems i'm seeing. Note that the intro and settings menus have no problems with partially doubled areas, and Xsp turning off doubling.
For those who aren't into the programming aspects, you can at least get an idea of one reason the game is such a treat during the conversation with the spathi, a cowardly mollusk-like race that you meet early in the game.
The dialogue options i am choosing are threatening to the Spathi, and combat ensues.
The framerate during the melee is very satisfactory in pixel doubled mode - averaging 18-21 fps. Unfortunately the terrible dpad and keys make effective fighting very difficult. It is not a problem with a bt keyboard however.
For dpad users, i will implement a couple of easier difficulty settings, once this pixel-doubling nightmare is over.
Cheers
Arnim:confused:
Should this work on N800? Did what the README told me to, but I still get 'Could not find content'-error messages.
Btw you can specify location of your content directory at the command line.
/path/to/uqm -n /path/to/content
I exceeded traffic limits on the arnim.sauerbier homepage so i've set up on a new domain which will serve site for my Nokia 770 and 800 ports and work-in-progress software.
http://pupnik.de
Update on Ur-Quan Masters, i managed to reduce doubling problems, but not eliminate them by changing the way UQM uses sdl. There are a few possible solutions which involve changing the way UQM draws to screen, but they're not clean, meaning that future releases of UR-Quan Masters would also need significant maintenance to keep the port active.
ZerionSeven
2007-04-19, 04:58
I'm a bit confused now, is someone else working on making some packages of UrQuan for the N800? No point in duplicating effort, but since I didn't see any better packages, than the ones I made earlier anywhere, I updated the packages a bit. Wrote a simple launcher in python for selecting the content directory and maybe runs a bit smoother now too.
The downloads and some instructions are available here (http://www2.lut.fi/~thietan1).
I'm a bit confused now, is someone else working on making some packages of UrQuan for the N800?
Wrote a simple launcher in python for selecting the content directory and maybe runs a bit smoother now too.
The downloads and some instructions are available here (http://www2.lut.fi/~thietan1).
Excellent, ZerionSeven!
Note however, that i am developing for the Nokia 770, which does not run the game acceptably fast. Framerates for the straight compile are below 10fps on busy planets and in combat.
Could you please share the source so i can look at your changes?
I would like to add you as developer to the garage.maemo.org ur-quan masters project and host your N800 deb there.
ZerionSeven
2007-04-20, 15:30
Could you please share the source so i can look at your changes?
I would like to add you as developer to the garage.maemo.org ur-quan masters project and host your N800 deb there.
I haven't made any changes to the actual code, just added the packaging stuff, the launcher, some default config and changed some optimization flags in the build system. But I'll put that up when I get home for monday.
Note that I've only tested the files on my own device, which I've played around with quite a bit, so might be a good idea, to get some feedback from someone else too first, that the packages actually work for others too, before adding them to the garage project, but otherwise go ahead. Probably far more people can find them there.
I haven't made any changes to the actual code, just added the packaging stuff, the launcher, some default config and changed some optimization flags in the build system. But I'll put that up when I get home for monday.
Note that I've only tested the files on my own device, which I've played around with quite a bit, so might be a good idea, to get some feedback from someone else too first, that the packages actually work for others too, before adding them to the garage project, but otherwise go ahead. Probably far more people can find them there.
Garage is fine for works-in-progress. It's also a way to generate interest and feedback.
If your installer requires python, just add that dependency to the .deb.
Since i don't have an 800, i can't do testing for 800 versions myself, so having anyone on-board the garage project with an 800 would be a help. :)
ZerionSeven
2007-04-20, 20:55
Garage is fine for works-in-progress. It's also a way to generate interest and feedback.
If your installer requires python, just add that dependency to the .deb.
Since i don't have an 800, i can't do testing for 800 versions myself, so having anyone on-board the garage project with an 800 would be a help. :)
The package should already depend on python2.5-runtime. Probably should make that python2.5, python2.5-hildon and such, but I'm not sure exactly which are needed, but the runtime package should depend on all the necessary ones. I probably should also add n800 or something to the package version, since I don't think the binary would even run at all on 770, but I won't be able to do anything until I get back to home.
I'd be glad help anyway I can. :)
I have a sad announcement to make.
After several weeks of discussions with the core development team of the Ur-Quan Masters, we have concluded that there is no simple way to increase framerates to playable levels on the Nokia 770 without use of hardware scaling (Xsp Pixel Doubling).
The Xomap/Xsp pixel doubling implementation for the Nokia 770 has been broken since the day of its' release, and the Ur-Quan Masters (among other SDL applications) can not use it without major modification.
According to my research, these problems have been fixed for the N800 and possibly (pending confirmation) the IT2007 'Hacker Edition' release, but I have not seen any indication that the majority of Nokia 770 owners will be flashing their devices with the 'Hacker OS'.
Potential solutions (in approximate order of preference) are:
A means is found to fix Xsp pixel doubling in IT2006.
IT2007 implements the fixes and the 770 user-base installs it.
Someone writes replacement SDL 2x scaling/blitting methods for the 770 that are as fast as unscaled SDL.
Someone finds a way to restructure UQM's use of SDL to be compatible with the broken pixel-doubling.
The UQM developers rewrite the entire graphics core to be 2x as fast.
Until one of these things happens, I have no way to bring a viable Ur-Quan Masters to the 770 gaming audience and therefore suspend my work on this project.
(edit) According to some N800 owners it's 'fast enough' on their machines, but no one has reported fps figures for various configuration options or dealt with the combat problems. If anyone wishes to submit a debian package with sources for the N800, i would be happy to host it on the Ur-Quan Masters project page at https://garage.maemo.org/projects/uqm.
Rocketman
2007-04-28, 08:12
ArnimS, you have jumped in headfirst to Nokia development and done a lot in a very short time. I sure hope that Nokia recognizes the value of having you active in the community and would offer you a discount code to get a N800 for a $100.
ArnimS, you have jumped in headfirst to Nokia development and done a lot in a very short time. I sure hope that Nokia recognizes the value of having you active in the community and would offer you a discount code to get a N800 for a $100.
Thanks :)
Good news! With fOSSil's help I found (_finally_) the SDL call that triggers the problem with Xsp doubling and sdl. It applies to it2006, 2007 hacker edition and latest bora for n800 equally.
A workaround has been found for UQM. Now getting 20+ fps in all game situations tested. F i n a l l y :)
I'm moving on to onscreen controls, difficulty tweaking, settings restrictions and packaging / hildonization.
Thank you guys!!! This was one of my favorite games soooo long ago. I just got a 770 and Im giddy to load this.
This...is awesome. I can't believe this thread isn't 20 pages long.
Sorry for not spending much time on this lately. I'll try to put some time in this week. Glad to see you're interested robbh6, airhurt. Do you have some experience with the game?
I need people who are somewhat practiced at combat to test it for me. I am too slow to be a playtester.
The frabjous day has arrived. Ur-Quan Masters onscreen buttons working!
If you have experience playing UQM, and can use the various ships and techniques (special weapon techniques etc), i need testers.
Drop me a note if you can help test. I have a feeling this game is way too hard as-is for the nokia controls.
Good news! With fOSSil's help I found (_finally_) the SDL call that triggers the problem with Xsp doubling and sdl. It applies to it2006, 2007 hacker edition and latest bora for n800 equally.
So which call caused the problem?
So which call caused the problem?
mu
Any drawing to screen broke it, unless the updated area was 320x240.
A simple program to demonstrate the effect:
http://pupnik.de/aliens-1.0.2_Nokia.tgz
Discussion here (wherein the problem is simply denied)
http://lists.maemo.org/pipermail/maemo-developers/2007-May/thread.html#10087
So far no-one has been able to show - using the aliens source above - how to update small regions in SDL without breaking xsp. (it2006 and 2007he)
Sorry, I was not clear. Yes, I know about the problem you had. I was interested in the solution - i.e what you changed to make your code working.
As I remember it was not denied, people told you that maybe you are doing something wrong (i.e. draw outside of halved coordinates etc.). So what was the problem exactly?
Thanks.
Sorry, I was not clear. Yes, I know about the problem you had. I was interested in the solution - i.e what you changed to make your code working.
As I remember it was not denied, people told you that maybe you are doing something wrong (i.e. draw outside of halved coordinates etc.). So what was the problem exactly?
Thanks.
The solution was to update full 320x240 rectangles, every frame.
Well, the packages from the .fi website work just fine on my N800, even with the speech pack, 3DO music, and the remix music addons.
Very addictive game and it reminds me of the old PC game Starflight.
The solution was to update full 320x240 rectangles, every frame.
Thanks for explanation.
Hey, guys. Thanks for the great work on this!! I've been playing Ur-Quan on my PC a lot during the past week (thanks to this thread for pointing out it was available..I played either SC or SC2 a long, long time ago). Yesterday, I decided I should get it working on my N800, too. So, I downloaded ZerionSeven's package and the content files and attempted to play. I initially had problems with ZerionSeven's launcher getting uqm to run, but after launching uqm manually from xterm & playing w/ the settings, it works. It doesn't work completely, though. I get no sound from uqm. When loading, it says:
Initializing SDL audio subsystem.
SDL audio subsystem initialized.
Opening SDL audio device.
Unable to open audio device: No available audio device
Sound driver initialization failed.
So, I have to use the "--sound=none" option. Do any of you know how I can get this to work?
Hedgecore
2007-08-01, 18:19
Arnim:
I'm at work right now so I can't try any of the links provided.
THANK YOU. I started this thread over a year ago I think and I'm still just as excited to get UQM working. I bought Star Control 2 in 1991 (4x1.44s I think!) and gaming has never been the same since.
If you need any help in testing, I know how the game should behave inside and out:
hedgecore geemail com
(Let's see if that one gets around spam spiders)
I'm tweaking the sound for best performance right now. combat is supposed to run at 24 fps, and with all tweaks on, i see 22-28 fps right now. it is ~hard~.
The Xsp doubling is rock solid. I can hit the menu key, kill the process, do anything i want (on it2006) and i don't screw-up the display.
The onscreen button implementation has one flaw still - if you hit the edge of a button and move the thumb off it before releasing, the button gets stuck down.
As soon as the onscreen buttons are stable i'll put together a testing binary for you hedgecore. This game needs* players who can actually beat the enemies and evaluate the feasibility of combat (Super Melee).
I'm very tempted to add a difficulty slider to compensate for the suboptimal controls. Thanks for the interest and support.
Hedgecore
2007-08-03, 13:26
Tell ya what, just for you I'll take out every other ship using just a Pkunk Fury. :)
...
*haaaalelujah!*
Tell ya what, just for you I'll take out every other ship using just a Pkunk Fury. :)
Good grief.
Ok i just solved the onscreen button problem with shifting finger off button before release
now it runs just about perfectly - but the hildon integration and the packaging remain, and that's a pain in the ***.
Good grief.
Ok i just solved the onscreen button problem with shifting finger off button before release
now it runs just about perfectly - but the hildon integration and the packaging remain, and that's a pain in the ***.
And you'll be making this new build/package when? ;)
Anxiously waiting for packaged version!
Thanks!
Arnim, anyway to compile TWO versions of Ur-Quan, one with the [/url=http://uqm-mods.sourceforge.net/]time hack and invasion mod .diffs applied[/url]?
Tried compiling it myself but it kept tripping over SDL netlibs or something and I don't feel much into debugging it at the moment.
ZerionSeven
2007-10-11, 09:28
Sorry I sort of disappeared after making those few packages of uqm for the N800, but I kind of forgot the whole thing.
But I did remember this again, and I noticed there still doesn't seem to be any better packages around than the ones I made earlier, though ArnimS work looks promising, I hope you'll finish it someday.
In the meanwhile, I thought I'd finish a simple change I started some time ago to make the game render to an YUY2 overlay (I think the N800 uses Xv to draw this), and the game now has fairly nice smooth scaling, and can be stretched to any size and still runs fairly well.
I've updated the packages on my site at http://www2.lut.fi/~thietan1.
I did not test it all that thoroughly, but the game didn't crash once or any such during what little I did.
I think currently the largest slowing factor is the RGB->YUY2 conversion I wrote, and if someone had the ability and time to optimize it, the game could probably run considerably better, but I struggled to get it working at all, so I probably won't be doing it any time soon atleast.
on this website:
http://sc2.sourceforge.net/downloads.php
the debian contents ae not available no more...
any other links?
I think currently the largest slowing factor is the RGB->YUY2 conversion I wrote, and if someone had the ability and time to optimize it, the game could probably run considerably better, but I struggled to get it working at all, so I probably won't be doing it any time soon atleast.
Well, I already commented that in quake2 thread :) Judging from N800 hardware capabilities, software RGB->YUY2 conversion is just a useless waste of cpu cycles. The only reason to use it is the missing software interface to support this feature (Xv only supports YUV formats). RGB hardware scaler is also exposed through pixel doubling API, but is somewhat more limited as it is restricted to 2x scaling only and does not have tearsync enabled (BTW, xserver patch to force tearsync for pixel doubled screen updates is trivial). What do you think, is it worth submitting a feature request asking for some API for RGB hardware scaling support in maemo bugzilla? Technically there are many ways to achieve that, for example RGB565 color format support could be added to Xv, looks like NVidia already supports 32bpp RGB color formats, so using Xv for RGB formats is not something completely new: http://osdir.com/ml/video.vdr.softdevice/2006-08/msg00022.html).
The only drawback is very slow deployment of these improvements to end users as they will require xserver update and it is only updated with new firmware releases. But without doing anything now, we may just wait forever and be forced to keep using inefficient screen update methods for the games which need low resolution :)
ZerionSeven
2007-11-11, 18:22
Well, I already commented that in quake2 thread :) Judging from N800 hardware capabilities, software RGB->YUY2 conversion is just a useless waste of cpu cycles. The only reason to use it is the missing software interface to support this feature (Xv only supports YUV formats). RGB hardware scaler is also exposed through pixel doubling API, but is somewhat more limited as it is restricted to 2x scaling only and does not have tearsync enabled (BTW, xserver patch to force tearsync for pixel doubled screen updates is trivial). What do you think, is it worth submitting a feature request asking for some API for RGB hardware scaling support in maemo bugzilla? Technically there are many ways to achieve that, for example RGB565 color format support could be added to Xv, looks like NVidia already supports 32bpp RGB color formats, so using Xv for RGB formats is not something completely new: http://osdir.com/ml/video.vdr.softdevice/2006-08/msg00022.html).
The only drawback is very slow deployment of these improvements to end users as they will require xserver update and it is only updated with new firmware releases. But without doing anything now, we may just wait forever and be forced to keep using inefficient screen update methods for the games which need low resolution :)
It would obviously be better to have scaling of the RGB formats directly and not have to waste time with the color conversion, and I don't see how it could hurt to have a request for the feature. I'm fairly new to all this maemo stuff, and software development in general, so it would probably be better if someone with a bit more knowledge about these things than me would write the request.
Actually as I've written in the quake2 thread, I've optimized the conversion to a point, where even with overhead caused by it, the SDL_DisplayYUVOverlay with a 400x240 image scaled to 800x480 seems to be so much faster than doing SDL_UpdateRect with XSP pixel doubling that it actually gets better fps with the overlay. Also, with overlay, I can do partial screen updates, which I believe is broken with XSP. Though I've not yet made an version of UQM to use the faster version, since it will need some changes to make it work with 16-bit surfaces, where quetoo uses only 8-bit, and I've been a bit busy with other things lately.
on this website:
http://sc2.sourceforge.net/downloads.php
the debian contents ae not available no more...
any other links?
The content links are working fine for me. They are not debian specific, but the .uqm files at the bottom half of the page, atleast the uqm-0.6.0-content.uqm is needed to play the game. Or if you're looking for the N800 debian packages for the game program itself, you can get that from http://www2.lut.fi/~thietan1.
ZerionSeven
2007-11-13, 00:30
I've posted an updated version of my packages to http://www2.lut.fi/~thietan1/ that have a faster version of the color conversion and also fixes the menu icons not appearing properly.
The content links are working fine for me. They are not debian specific, but the .uqm files at the bottom half of the page, atleast the uqm-0.6.0-content.uqm is needed to play the game. Or if you're looking for the N800 debian packages for the game program itself, you can get that from http://www2.lut.fi/~thietan1.
thanks, but just to be sure:
i have the loader on my n800 but cant seem to find the files to load...
where do i find those???
is it this?
http://www2.lut.fi/~thietan1/repo/dists/bora/user/binary-armel/uqm_0.6.2-7zs.n800_armel.deb
thanks:cool:
ZerionSeven
2007-11-13, 01:36
thanks, but just to be sure:
i have the loader on my n800 but cant seem to find the files to load...
where do i find those???
is it this?
http://www2.lut.fi/~thietan1/repo/dists/bora/user/binary-armel/uqm_0.6.2-7zs.n800_armel.deb
thanks:cool:
That is the package that contains the game program and the loader. The content packages are available for download at http://sc2.sourceforge.net/downloads.php. The links are right above the "The official Ur-Quan Masters remix packs" section. The only one needed to run the game is uqm-0.6.0-content.uqm (http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/sc2/uqm-0.6.0-content.uqm?download), but all will work, including the remixes, lower on the page.
It would obviously be better to have scaling of the RGB formats directly and not have to waste time with the color conversion, and I don't see how it could hurt to have a request for the feature. I'm fairly new to all this maemo stuff, and software development in general, so it would probably be better if someone with a bit more knowledge about these things than me would write the request.
Well, I'll try to do something about this. Generally you go bugs.maemo.org, search for "resolution" keyword, browse through the list of already submitted issues and see that nobody has requested support for setting low screen resolutions yet. This is what needs to be done.
Actually as I've written in the quake2 thread, I've optimized the conversion to a point, where even with overhead caused by it, the SDL_DisplayYUVOverlay with a 400x240 image scaled to 800x480 seems to be so much faster than doing SDL_UpdateRect with XSP pixel doubling that it actually gets better fps with the overlay. Also, with overlay, I can do partial screen updates, which I believe is broken with XSP. Though I've not yet made an version of UQM to use the faster version, since it will need some changes to make it work with 16-bit surfaces, where quetoo uses only 8-bit, and I've been a bit busy with other things lately.
This probably explains why YUV overlay is competitive to XSP and actually faster for quake2. As 8-bit paletted mode is not native for N800 and not supported directly by hardware, it also requires software conversion to 16-bit when blitting.
UQM renders at 32bpp internally.
UQM renders at 32bpp internally.
Then it also requires conversion to 16bpp on blitting right now degrading performance.
LCD controllers of both Nokia 770 and N800 support 32bpp RGB modes in hardware according to documentation (http://vdc.epson.com/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=192&Itemid=99), but kernel framebuffer driver does not have code to support this color depth. Most likely adding support for 32bpp to framebuffer driver is simple (fanoush already has a patch to fix broken YUV420 mode on Nokia 770 (https://garage.maemo.org/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=881&group_id=164&atid=683), and this work is somewhat similar), it should just copy some existing video mode support code and set a different value in LCD controller register. But more problems have to be solved in userland as we don't have any flexibility in video modes selection (the same problem as with setting low resolution). Another problem is that 32bpp mode will require twice the video memory and will double RFBI/SOSSI bandwidth requirement which will be quite bad for N800 with slow video bus. But if we assume that 32bpp mode will be always used together with pixel doubling (or upscaling 2x and more), it should fit video memory size and layout fine (it will be enough to store two 400x240 32bpp screens and even implement double buffering).
Do many games want 32bpp video mode? Will they be fine with 400x240 resolution restriction?
Then it also requires conversion to 16bpp on blitting right now degrading performance.
LCD controllers of both Nokia 770 and N800 support 32bpp RGB modes in hardware according to documentation (http://vdc.epson.com/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=192&Itemid=99), but kernel framebuffer driver does not have code to support this color depth. Most likely adding support for 32bpp to framebuffer driver is simple (fanoush already has a patch to fix broken YUV420 mode on Nokia 770 (https://garage.maemo.org/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=881&group_id=164&atid=683), and this work is somewhat similar), it should just copy some existing video mode support code and set a different value in LCD controller register. But more problems have to be solved in userland as we don't have any flexibility in video modes selection (the same problem as with setting low resolution). Another problem is that 32bpp mode will require twice the video memory and will double RFBI/SOSSI bandwidth requirement which will be quite bad for N800 with slow video bus. But if we assume that 32bpp mode will be always used together with pixel doubling (or upscaling 2x and more), it should fit video memory size and layout fine (it will be enough to store two 400x240 32bpp screens and even implement double buffering).
Do many games want 32bpp video mode? Will they be fine with 400x240 resolution restriction?
About 2/3 of the games i've seen use 32bpp internally.
Approximately 1/2 of the games can run at 320x240.
I don't think that 32bpp framebuffer mode is interesting. The 320x240 games run fast enough with Xsp, and 800x480 or 640x480 games would require too much framebuffer memory.
Exult is one of my top priorities - it is almost fast enough on 770. It renders to 800x480 in 8bpp, so could it benefit from some optimized final-blit using these strange yuv tricks?
I've got uqm_0.6.2-7zs.n800 running on my N800 with latest OS2007. It seems to be a very nice game to have on this device. Unfortunately, it repeatedly crashes the whole machine to a reboot after about 20 minutes of playtime. Before, it will often stall in between for some seconds with controls not responding, but it will come back.
Another problem is that I can't get back to the game screen once tabbed out to the desktop. Only way to stop the game is to kill the process then.
Thanks for the work on the port and packaging. I'm looking forward to upcoming releases...
I LOVE being able to have UQM on my N800. I'm also very excited to update to the new IT OS2008 (especially to remove that under clocking from my CPU).
Unfortunatly, I'm afraid if I upgrade that I won't be able to re-install UQM on my N800.
Does anyone know if uqm_0.6.2-7zs.n800 works or can be made to work on IT OS2008???
Now that I'm used to having it, a Nokia tablet without UQM just isn't worth having!
I'm also very curious if UQM will ever be ported up to work on OS2008. Star Control 2 has always been #1 on my list of best PC games ever.
Um, the game is working beautifully in n8x0 with whatever os... :)
Um, the game is working beautifully in n8x0 with whatever os... :)
Yeah, I never actually saw anything that said that. Seemed like a lot of people had it running in 2007, but nobody had it up in 2008 last I checked.
But I installed it, and it's awesome. So, uh, thanks. :D
but kernel framebuffer driver does not have code to support this color depth. Most likely adding support for 32bpp to framebuffer driver is simple
Umm, found this now. Well the chip supports it but IMO it is usable only for lower resolutions, you can't fit 800x480x32bits into Epson controller memory (770 - 768KB, N8x0 1280KB). Or do you mean some automatic conversion to 16 bits? Sounds like wasting of memory bus to me but maybe it can work.
Heh battle of the UQM ports.
If you could hack together something whereby we can fake SDL 320x240 or 400x240 @ 32bpp well... that would be pretty sweet.
ZerionSeven
2008-02-20, 11:45
The old packages probably worked fine with OS2008 too, I didn't actually even try it, but anyway I rebuilt the package with the new Maemo 4.0 SDK, might be a bit better for OS2008.
The new package can be downloaded from http://www2.lut.fi/~thietan1/uqm.html. And I also added it to maemo.org downloads.
The old packages probably worked fine with OS2008 too, I didn't actually even try it, but anyway I rebuilt the package with the new Maemo 4.0 SDK, might be a bit better for OS2008.
The new package can be downloaded from http://www2.lut.fi/~thietan1/uqm.html. And I also added it to maemo.org downloads.
OK, So I installed this from the one click install on this website (not maemo) and downloaded the content from the project site, put those files in /media/mmc2/uqm/content/packages/ and launched the application. I get the launcher, select the content folder by picking one of the uqm content packages (the uqm-0.6.0-content.uqm file just for the sake of detail) and then when I click LAUNCH I get a nice black screen and nothing. It stays at a black screen until I give up (about 8 minutes the last time I tried) and force it closed.
N800 - os2008
libvorbisidec1_1.2.0-1 and
python2.5_2.5.1osso5
any ideas?
BAH, never mind I think I figured it out, when I try and run it in xterm I see these errors:
Error: Zip file corrupt; could not find 'end-of-central-directory record'.
Warning: Could not mount 'uqm-0.6.0-content.uqm': Input/output error.
So I think the content I downloaded is corrupt. I will re-download and try again...
thanks,
-John
Redshift
2008-03-03, 17:51
This is so awesome, I loved this game when I was growing up!
Tip for N810 users: configure the center button on the D-pad as Thrust, if you find that the top edge of the D-pad is a little too hard to hold down while engaging those blasted Sylandro probes =)
quicksilver524
2008-07-04, 22:36
i was hoping someone could help me get ur quan masters ported on the n800's new operating system called diablo. i can download the interface but the content refuses to let me use it; basically says it needs to be put into a specific file, but i can't seem to accomplish it. please help quicksilver524@gmail.com
You should choose the directory named "content" when looking for the directory from the frontend.
quicksilver524
2008-07-04, 23:43
when i try to launch the game from the launch screen it has you locate the content package. it opens up my folders and i choose the data i've downloaded and it says this:
content must be placed in content/packages/(e.g. into/media/mmc2/uqm/content/packages/)
i dont know if i should place it somewhere else and i don't see where else i could put it. please give my inexperience for this a little more step by step instructions for some reason this is above me. still learning here please help.
quicksilver524
2008-07-05, 04:09
i sent a few threads earlier, if anyone knows how to put ur-quan masters on the n800 os2008(diablo) please help. i can download uqm only but the content seems to not allow me to use it. this is my third thread if someone could guide me through this i would be truely greatful.
ZerionSeven
2008-07-05, 15:31
i sent a few threads earlier, if anyone knows how to put ur-quan masters on the n800 os2008(diablo) please help. i can download uqm only but the content seems to not allow me to use it. this is my third thread if someone could guide me through this i would be truely greatful.
Works fine for me in Diablo.
Here's really simple instructions to setting up the game:
On either your memory cards create a folder with what ever name you want
Inside that folder, create a folder called content
Inside which, create a folder called packages
Copy atleast uqm-0.6.0-content.uqm there and any of the other content packages you want
Start the launcher and tap the Open button
Browse to the folder where you just copied the content and select any of the content packages
The game should now start as you tap Launch
quicksilver524
2008-07-05, 17:30
ok so i tried all three of my memory slots, i created a file with any name then a file called "content", then a file called "packages" all within eachother in that order. i still get the same error message. im certainly not computer illiterate but i must be with the n800:)
i have tried it several different ways including writing it on as the error message said i wrote earlier with the folder aplications. i've redownloaded the material so i still need advice please. its funny i can download the whole thing but it refuses to work together when retrieving the uqm 0.6.0 content. what is it i'm doing wrong, i've specifically followed your last thread.
ZerionSeven
2008-07-05, 18:08
ok so i tried all three of my memory slots, i created a file with any name then a file called "content", then a file called "packages" all within eachother in that order. i still get the same error message. im certainly not computer illiterate but i must be with the n800:)
i have tried it several different ways including writing it on as the error message said i wrote earlier with the folder aplications. i've redownloaded the material so i still need advice please. its funny i can download the whole thing but it refuses to work together when retrieving the uqm 0.6.0 content. what is it i'm doing wrong, i've specifically followed your last thread.
Could you go into xterm and run find /media -name uqm-0.6.0-content.uqm and post the output here.
quicksilver524
2008-07-05, 20:06
i typed in that message you wrote and nothing happened, although i dont think i truely know how to use the xterminal, i tried to click on everything and nothing happened. so basically typing in everything you wrote into the screen nothing happened.
quicksilver524
2008-07-05, 20:42
i figured out xterm a little better, seems to be similar to our old friend dos :) still all that happens is it resets as if it is not the prgram code its looking for so could type it over and over.
quicksilver524
2008-07-05, 20:55
find doesn't seem to be one of the commands for xterminal. do i need to be downloading something to make this work properly? any ideas from here?
ZerionSeven
2008-07-05, 20:58
find doesn't seem to be one of the commands for xterminal. do i need to be downloading something to make this work properly? any ideas from here?
You'd still get an error message as output if the command was invalid.
i figured out xterm a little better, seems to be similar to our old friend dos :) still all that happens is it resets as if it is not the prgram code its looking for so could type it over and over.
If the command generates no output, it means you still don't have the main content package anywhere on the memory cards in your device. When the file is in a correct place, it should output something like /media/mmc2/uqm/content/packages/uqm-0.6.0-content.uqm with the /media/mmc2/uqm part varying.
I don't think I can make the instructions any simpler than, what I already posted earlier.
quicksilver524
2008-07-05, 21:06
i will try to download it again, i just see it says its like 11mb for content. i do appreciate the help. i'll see what i can do by following you directions and let you know,thanks for your patience with me.
quicksilver524
2008-07-05, 21:34
Ok so have you ever heard the 6th time is the charm? it must be for me today, the game loaded and i will now work on the controls aspect, but in regards to your time and effort i thank you, everyday i learn i play with the n800 for like 5/6 hours so i'm getting pretty dang smart. but seriously thanks. i can operate a naval submarine i can download opperating systems but the n800 somewho is like its own playing field.
iskarion
2008-08-18, 05:56
Can somebody please provide a working link to the deb archive with the uqm launcher? http://www2.lut.fi/~thietan1 seems to be down.
Thanks
parejkoj
2008-09-10, 05:10
I'm using Tero Hietanen's version (0.6.2-8zs.chinook) on the latest Diablo update (N800) and I can confirm that after switching away via the home button, one cannot return to it and eventually the system reports the launcher as unresponsive. Force quitting the launcher does not quit the game itself (the game, music and all, is still running in the background), but it can be killed from the command-line. I recall someone above mentioning one version where app-switching did work: what changed?
Otherwise, the game works great. I have not tested the SuperMelee net-battle yet, but may this weekend...
Thanks for the porting work!
UQM is now in the extras-devel repository (http://maemo.org:80/packages/view/uqm/). I originally missed the more recent maemoization of it discussed in this thread (by Tero Hietanen (http://www2.lut.fi/%7Ethietan1/uqm.html)), which seems to have been fairly nice. There was an older project that was out of date.
In any case, i took the latest version (0.6.6) of UQM from the upstream subversion repository and packaged it for Maemo 5. I haven't yet applied any of Tero's optimizations to the SDL canvas, but that can be done if there is demand and/or need.
What needs to happen now is for people with N900s to install the package, see if it works, and fiddle around with the control settings so that i can provide a useful default. Edit: (hopefully) useful default controls now included in altstart. Feel free to suggest alternatives.
I also need someone to see if the sound actually works on the N900. I have it disabled by default because it was crashing on the SDK, but there's no obvious reason for it to not work. If a brave soul could start it like this:
cd /opt/games/
./uqm --contentdir=/opt/share/games/uqm
from a shell, and let me know if it works, i would be most grateful. Edit: Sound works.
This is my first attempt at debianizing an app, let alone maemoizing one, so be gentle.
Edit: I released a small package called uqm-altstart to be installed as well. This will start up uqm fullscreen and with audio enabled, allowing other things that have not already been tested to come to the forefront. It can be removed without affecting uqm itself. See the later post about it. The latest version provides better default keymaps. I recommend installing it before playing.
Installed - ok
Game started - ok
Menu - can't move up or down, new game started with enter
Intro movie/sequence with sound - ok
Issues: not full screen, nor centered.
Once game starts, not all of the screen is visible (down right, it say "GAME" but only half of the letters are visible). I guess if the title/status bar of maemo can be hidden all is visible?
Seems to be a fine start...touchscreen support would be a must (there is some...I was able to move to another system somehow and talk with some encounter...).
Lost a fight, no idea how to play this really :)
Seems to run a good speed, sound worked flawlessly. Good job!
//K
Installed - ok
Game started - ok
Menu - can't move up or down, new game started with enter
Intro movie/sequence with sound - ok
Issues: not full screen, nor centered.
Once game starts, not all of the screen is visible (down right, it say "GAME" but only half of the letters are visible). I guess if the title/status bar of maemo can be hidden all is visible?
Seems to be a fine start...touchscreen support would be a must (there is some...I was able to move to another system somehow and talk with some encounter...).
Lost a fight, no idea how to play this really :)
Seems to run a good speed, sound worked flawlessly. Good job!
//K
Thanks so much for trying it and reporting!
Fullscreen: It fits nicely when set to fullscreen. It was doing that on its own in the SDK before i uploaded it. When i reinstalled the broken SDK it went back to the way you see it, so needless to say --fullscreen is already added for next release.
Audio: So you ran it from the shell with sound enabled and it works? That's great news! Did you get sound effects in the game in addition to the intro slideshow music? I ask because i can see a possible scenario where the music would work fine and the sound effects would fail.
Controls: The original game used only keyboard (generally arrow keys, Ctrl, shift, spacebar. etc to turn, accelerate, fire, etc.), so adding touch will have to be hacked on as pseudo-keypress inputs.
There's a lot of room for improvement on that front, but i want all the actions to be possible on the default setup for a start. I'm not sure if the Ctrl, Shift, Esc are mapped to anything on the N900 keyboard...
Rather than have everyone upload the full 10MB package again for a very minor update, i created a package called uqm-altstart that should be showing up on the repository soon. It provides a separate icon on the desktop. It will start UQM in fullscreen mode and with sound enabled. It can be added or removed without affecting UQM.
I received some more useful feedback in an email and will update the uqm-altstart package to change the default keymaps as soon as i get a bit more information.
The plan is to wait until it seems that everything is working and presentable enough for mainstream users, and then release an update to uqm that combines all the fixes, as well as content packs with the (currently missing) 3DO voiceover and music data.
More comments on useful key mappings (using the options in the first menu) and overall experience would be appreciated. Comments on the desirability of putting in some hacks to use screen taps as imitation keypresses, and whether performance is "good enough" in melee mode would also be nice.
Without any generation of IT to test this on, i really have no idea what the user experience is like. ;)
I have couple of notes of the package itself.
Please change the the installation directory to /opt/uqm or use normal paths and maemo-optify tool.
Wouldn't it be usefull to follow (and copy&alter) debian uqm packaging? http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=uqm&searchon=names&suite=stable§ion=all
Put data files to separate uqm-content package and binary and configs to uqm package. Then you can update uqm package separately and you don't need any temporary packages (which usually are very hard to get rid of).
I have couple of notes of the package itself.
Please change the the installation directory to /opt/uqm or use normal paths and maemo-optify tool.
Wouldn't it be usefull to follow (and copy&alter) debian uqm packaging? http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=uqm&searchon=names&suite=stable§ion=all
Put data files to separate uqm-content package and binary and configs to uqm package. Then you can update uqm package separately and you don't need any temporary packages (which usually are very hard to get rid of).
These are all good points. I had trouble finding something to indicate where specifically in /opt big things should go, just that they should go there. I treated it like a another /usr tree (games and shared), and then put the script under /usr/games. It seems after reading the opt readme (http://maemo.gitorious.org/maemo-af/maemo-optify/blobs/master/README) that the maemo way would be to put everything under a single directory with the name of the package in /opt. That i can do; it's easier than what i do now.
I wanted to put the basic (required) content in the same package as the code for two reasons. First, this is a port of a largely finished project. The debian package is based on the last official release from two years ago (0.6.2). In starting with a much more recent version (0.6.6), i don't expect to be doing updates after it works right. Second, i wanted to minimize the packages the user would have to install and also show up front how much space it would take. I forget that It shows the installed size when clicking on it, so that last bit isn't much of a reason in retrospect.
The patch-type package is already in the repository, and i'll set uqm to replace it when i release the finished version, along with the optional content packages. Hopefully that will not be too problematic.
The debian package is based on the last official release from two years ago (0.6.2). In starting with a much more recent version (0.6.6), i don't expect to be doing updates after it works right.
I meant the packaging structure and change the content to newer one. But it's done so it's fine, it was more like a general comment that it's usually much easier and faster to start from there :)
The patch-type package is already in the repository, and i'll set uqm to replace it when i release the finished version, along with the optional content packages. Hopefully that will not be too problematic.
Temporary package are always problematic in the long term.
If possible don't put optional packages, but just one user visible package which installs everything. Unless of course the optional packages change the whole game to another one.
Hmm. It seems like there's no way to remove packages once in extras-devel. I hadn't really counted on that. Anyway, the temp package was probably a bad idea as you say, but only because it clutters up the repository. It can be installed and removed without affecting the main package (uqm), and will be automatically replaced at the next main release if at all possible. (Apt could do it, but i know app installer has narrower tolerances.)
The reason for optional content packages is that they are 130 MB addition to a 10 MB game, and represent the 3DO content vs. included PC content. Perhaps people don't care as much about the bandwidth and space issue for the N900 as i am projecting on them.
What's the thought on this, people? Should install pull in all 140 MB of content, or should there be an optional add-on package?
attila77
2009-10-28, 17:30
IMO Add-on package, for many reasons - tinkering does not require to regenerate the whole pack, and binary data can be in an _all.deb so both X86 and ARMEL targets can make use of it without redundant packages.
IMO Add-on package, for many reasons - tinkering does not require to regenerate the whole pack, and binary data can be in an _all.deb so both X86 and ARMEL targets can make use of it without redundant packages.
It think you are talking about separate data package (not visible to user), which not the same as having an additional add-on package.
attila77
2009-10-28, 22:00
Ah, yes, I read back a bit, I get it now. In that case the 'standard' procedure is to do a metapackage.
So you would have:
uqm-3do (empty package, depends on uqm and uqm-3do-data, conflicts with uqm-pc)
uqm-pc (empty package, depends on uqm and uqm-pc-data, conflicts with uqm-3do)
uqm
uqm-3do-data
uqm-pc-data
and then expose to the user (through Maemo user/games category) uqm-3do and uqm-pc
Does that make sense ?
There's a lot of room for improvement on that front, but i want all the actions to be possible on the default setup for a start. I'm not sure if the Ctrl, Shift, Esc are mapped to anything on the N900 keyboard...
There is control and shift keys, but there isn't esc or actual return key. Instead of return key there kp_enter. Enter key seems to mostly work, but I couldn't start super melee match because none of the keys worked in the final ship selection screen. Though I'm not sure if enter is supposed to be used there.
Sound works, but the volume seemed a bit low to me.
edit:
oh, and the content dir is set wrong in the altstart package
Sigh, you're right.
I used the content directory from the (unreleased) working version of the uqm package instead of the one in the repository. Sorry for the newbish mistake--i uploaded the fixed altstart package just now.
If i had an N900, i wouldn't have to keep embarrassing myself publicly. Hopefully it is released soon!
Ah, yes, I read back a bit, I get it now. In that case the 'standard' procedure is to do a metapackage.
So you would have:
uqm-3do (empty package, depends on uqm and uqm-3do-data, conflicts with uqm-pc)
uqm-pc (empty package, depends on uqm and uqm-pc-data, conflicts with uqm-3do)
uqm
uqm-3do-data
uqm-pc-data
and then expose to the user (through Maemo user/games category) uqm-3do and uqm-pc
Does that make sense ?
Sorry, i should say that the 3do content is mostly in addition to, not instead of, the PC content. There are voiceovers for all the dialogues, for example.
Ah, metapackages. Could that be an answer to my concern that making the required content and game binary separate packages wouldn't ensure that both get removed when uninstalling? I'll have to try it and see if it works. I'm not that familiar how metapackages are handled.
Mikkov, the problem entering melee should be fixed with the new keymaps. You use the "Weapon" key (shift) to choose a ship.
Updated altstart
I have uploaded a new version (3) of altstart that provides better default keymaps. It should be available for autoupdate soon. If you have at any point opened the setup menu in the game, you'll have to delete the flight.cfg file in ~/.uqm before the new defaults will take effect.
Command:
rm ~/.uqm/flight.cfg
attila77
2009-10-29, 16:04
Ah, metapackages. Could that be an answer to my concern that making the required content and game binary separate packages wouldn't ensure that both get removed when uninstalling? I'll have to try it and see if it works. I'm not that familiar how metapackages are handled.
You don't need metapackages for that. I think the appmanager does autoremove, too, when you uninstall, which basically removes packages that were pulled in as dependencies and have nothing depending on them any more. And if it doesn't, it should be filed as a request in bugzilla :)
You don't need metapackages for that. I think the appmanager does autoremove, too, when you uninstall, which basically removes packages that were pulled in as dependencies and have nothing depending on them any more. And if it doesn't, it should be filed as a request in bugzilla :)
It does that. But if packages were not installed by application manager, but for example with apt or dpkg, then packages are not automatically removed.
attila77
2009-10-29, 20:55
If you're man enough to install apps via apt or dpkg you should be man enough to remove them that way, too. Right ? :D
If you're man enough to install apps via apt or dpkg you should be man enough to remove them that way, too. Right ? :D
Exactly :)
Awesome that this is being worked on, thank you so much!
I'd make the packges for the addon 3DO content an optional feature, a bit like they are on the PC also.
This also because people who often only get it to play Super Melee, they would not have to download a lot of content which would never be used. And thus make it downloadable over air, which it otherwise would not be.
If you did a full port, am I correct in asuming that the networked melee play will also be fully supported?
I had a response to this prepared and then lost it through a combination of cosmic rays and t.m.o. shenanigans.
You make a good point regarding the dual-purpose nature of the game. Those wanting to play super melee only don't need the 3do content. I'll definitely leave the 3do media as an optional package. What i'm trying to decide is whether to put the default required content in a separate package than the executable.
If it is really true that App Manager removes automatically dependencies that were pulled in during the install of the dependent app then i can't see any more good reasons not to separate them. I can't test whether this actually works as it should because App Manager doesn't work right in my SDK, so i have to use dpackage or apt to install.
Regarding network play: it compiles with network options enabled, but i am not in a position to test whether those options work. If someone could report on that, it would be helpful.
Here's the plan to get this into extras:
(1) release another update of the altstart package that includes the executable with joystick support enabled. Let the wii mote users test it (had one request for this). If Joystick support doesn't cause any problems, then...
(2) release an updated uqm and new uqm-content package that replaces the current uqm and uqm-altstart packages. These would put everything into /opt/uqm, and uqm-content would not be visible in App Manager (only a dependency of uqm).
(3) if those work properly, submit it to testing. Also provide the uqm-3do content in an optional (App Manager-visible) package.
Some things still to test: what happens on the N900s when uqm is put in the background? Does it come back up ok? It does on the SDK. What's the power draw like with it in the background? To actually get into extras, an app is supposed to behave responsibly when in the background. I don't know what that means in the context of a game, but i suspect that this could be an issue for uqm because i haven't modified the multithreaded game code. Does anyone actually expect an old DOS game to behave in a chivalrous fashion in the background? Maybe this is a non-issue.
If it is really true that App Manager removes automatically dependencies that were pulled in during the install of the dependent app then i can't see any more good reasons not to separate them.
I can confirm that App Manager removes automatically unneeded depencies which are not in user/ category.
Here's the plan to get this into extras:
Plan sounds good.
Some things still to test: what happens on the N900s when uqm is put in the background? Does it come back up ok? It does on the SDK. What's the power draw like with it in the background?
I didn't test backgrounding but if it works in SDK you can assume it works in device too. Power draw in background is about the same as in foreground unless you do something about it.
At minimum sound should be muted when focus is lost. Then you could try to halt the as much as possible. With SDL library runnig it's not possible achieve good power saving. If you'd like to do very good power saving, you should look at hildon-games-wrapper
To actually get into extras, an app is supposed to behave responsibly when in the background. I don't know what that means in the context of a game.
This is very good question. Most games suck at powersaving, mostly because it's very hard to do with SDL.
There is an update for uqm available (uqm-0.6.7-0maemo). Please uninstall the uqm-altstart package first, and it wouldn't hurt to uninstall the previous version first, either.
This release separates the content package (uqm-data) from the binary package, puts everything into /opt/uqm/, and adds all the fixes discovered through the uqm-altstart releases. It also updates the upstream source code to today's svn, which is tagged as 0.6.7 and includes a patch i submitted that will make uqm pause and go into a lower-power sleep mode automatically when it loses fullscreen focus.
The content package is a dependency and should install automatically when uqm is installed. It should also automatically uninstall when uqm is removed using app manager.
Also in the repo is uqm-3do-data. This optional package will add the dialogue voiceovers and music from the 3do Star Control 2 release.
Testing
* New in this release is enabled joystick support. I don't know if this will work with the wii mote and any other game controller solutions. Please test and report.
* Also in need of testing is network play and power consumption, especially when "minimized" to the task switcher (ctrl-backspace).
* I've observed that the color palette is wrong in the SDK. This is easy to see with the syreen ship, which is blue instead of red, and the starbase captain, who is blue instead of peach. Is this the case on the N900? Tester screenshots confirm this is just a SDK problem.
This release may be promoted as a testing candidate once i get some feedback on these points.
Thanks to screenshots from a tester, i was able to cross off the color palette issue as being SDK-specific. The remaining features to be tested are not essential for enjoyment or functioning of the game, so i have promoted it to extras-testing.
Please vote it up (http://maemo.org/packages/package_instance/view/fremantle_extras-testing_free_armel/uqm/0.6.7-0maemo/) unless you find a problem. In that case, please post about it here!
Let's get this on the list of games for the end users getting their N900s.
PS I'll also be promoting the uqm-3do-data package as soon as m.o and midgard overcome their fail enough to not time out with php errors.
One more note on the new release. If you installed uqm previously and changed any settings, your own ~/.uqm/flight.cfg config file will be overriding the keymap defaults, which were bad in the previous uqm version. Please delete the ~/.uqm directory and its contents to revert to the default settings.
UQM has 4 out of 10 needed karma (tester reports): extras-testing page (http://maemo.org/packages/package_instance/view/fremantle_extras-testing_free_armel/uqm/0.6.7-0maemo/)! If you have an N900, please take a few minutes to install it and test it and vote.
UQM now has its own bug tracker (https://bugs.maemo.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=UQM). It's the new official place to report issues or make feature requests, but if you find it too intimidating, feel free to discuss it here.
I'm interested to hear feedback on adding a "grannie" option that will reduce the game melee speed by 20% to compensate for the limited controls. It's straightforward to do but would take a bit of work. Upstream developers have no interest in it, so unless maemo users have use for it, i'll not implement it.
attila77
2009-11-24, 17:50
Might be too much of a bother, but have you considered alternate input methods ? I was thinking along the lines of what the Quake3 port does. You could use accelerometers for orientation, the proximity sensor for thrust and the keyboard for fire/alternate (or prox for fire and kdb for thrust).
Yeah, i have considered it. At one point i was looking into wrapping the accelerometer readings into a generic joystick device (for multiple projects), but i decided to put all device-specific things on hold until i have a device to test with. That includes optimizations and controls.
Furthermore, UQM has fairly simple controls that are not very fine-grained, so i'm not sure how useful something as analog as a tilt interface would work.
In any case, i'm open to specific suggestions, but am not likely to make changes until i can try them for myself OR get a lot of similar feedback from the community.
attila77
2009-11-24, 18:33
I know it's not fine-grained, but I don't think it's an issue. Just say a tilt over 15 degrees left is Left, over 15 degrees right is Right. If all you miss is a tester, let me know, I have a loaner so I can try it out (or do minor code fixes if I ran into problems that do not require the understanding of further UQM code)
edgedemon
2009-11-29, 18:19
Im expecting my n900 through this week and I have bookmarked this thread for when it arrives..
Tried this, since Star Control 2 is one my all time favorites. The keymapping was not good for my scandinavic keyboard. For those who don't know it - up and down keys are fn+left / fn+right. I wasn't able to move on the main menu. Enter worked and I was able to create a new game. In the game I was able to move the spaceship left/right, but not able to accelerate. Space took me to the menu and I was able there to move up/down.
Tried this, since Star Control 2 is one my all time favorites. The keymapping was not good for my scandinavic keyboard. For those who don't know it - up and down keys are fn+left / fn+right. I wasn't able to move on the main menu. Enter worked and I was able to create a new game. In the game I was able to move the spaceship left/right, but not able to accelerate. Space took me to the menu and I was able there to move up/down.
I had similar problems last night when trying this out. It seems that fn button is not recognized at all in the game and that is why default arrow key up/down is impossible with scandinavian key layout.
I managed to solve the problem by manually editing the key config files in uqm installation folder. Easiest way is to just edit the menu.keys in uqm/content folder and change up/down to something else. After that you can access the in game key config which is more convenient to use. Editing requires root shell so be careful not to mess up the device.
BTW, it's really awesome to have SC2 ported to maemo. I used to play the super melee with my current desktop machine also.
Sorry guys, i haven't been checking Talk as much since the rabid hordes of new users showed up and overran the place. ;) Unfortunately i just pushed out an update without seeing your comments, but i did adjust the default mapping so it may work for you.
The best way to help out (because (a) i don't yet have an N900 or any NIT and (b) i won't have a Scandinavian one) would be to create a bug report (if one doesn't already exist) on the uqm bugtracker (https://bugs.maemo.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=UQM) and then upload your flight.cfg file (located in ~/.uqm/) as a comment/attachment to the report. Alternatively, tell me what the codes are in the keymapping page of setup for each action. There is room to create a few different custom maps, so i can provide options for those with peculiar keymaps.
Now for the original reason i'm here: a new version!
Warning: Software in extras-testing and extras-devel may be unstable.
See the wiki (http://wiki.maemo.org/Extras) for a description of the maemo repositories and this post (http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=343619) for specific comments on testing.
uqm-0.6.7-0maemo2 should be in extras-devel momentarily. It has some optimistic and rather untestable (by me) changes to allow for accelerometer control. Feedback is greatly appreciated! Note: If you have at any time made changes to your control settings, the custom flight.cfg file will override the new defaults. If you would like to try the new defaults, select the new menu option "Revert Defaults" in the control configuration menu.
If you're not feeling quite that adventurous, you can still help out by enabling extras-testing and trying uqm-0.6.7-0maemo (http://maemo.org/packages/package_instance/view/fremantle_extras-testing_free_armel/uqm/0.6.7-0maemo/), which now has 8 out of 10 necessary positive tester reports. Two more and it will be promoted from extras-testing to extras!
Here's the changelog:
uqm (0.6.7-0maemo2) unstable; urgency=low
* New default control bindings. Fixes: MB#6369
* Default bindings use accelemymote to control directions.
* Installs udev rules file to make uinput part of group users.
* Chgrps /dev/input/uinput to users on install.
* Accelemymote actually checks accelerometer instead of dummy file. ;)
-- Flandry Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:15:56 -0500
uqm (0.6.7-0maemo1) unstable; urgency=low
* This includes (and tries to run by default) an experimental accelerometer joystick driver
called accelemymote. Note that this will fail without fixing udev rule. See readme.DEBIAN
* Added "Revert to default" option in control config menu.
* Lander discovery font color has been changed to a light green color to
increase visibility. (Thanks pupnik for reporting.)
* Bugtracker field added to control file as per requirements
XSBC-Bugtracker: https://bugs.maemo.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=UQM
* Slight alteration to short description on account of OCD (game is intra-, not intergalactic!)
-- Flandry Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:11:56 -0500
I just upgraded UQM on my N900 and hit the "Revert to default" option under the control settings.
However, in both skirmish and single player story mode, the accelerometer doesn't seem to control my ship's direction. It's still tied to the arrow keys...
Thanks for testing. First of all, can you confirm that the default control profile that you were reverted to was "N900 Tilt"?
It sounds like any of a number of aspects of installation i couldn't test on scratchbox failed. FYI: the arrow keys are also mapped to the directions for that profile as a fall back just for such an occasion. ;)
Could you please run
/opt/uqm/accelemymote
from the command line and tell me what it says? Also, the output of
ls -l /dev/input/uinput
?
yes, the game displays "N900 Tilt".
Here's the output from your requested commands:
$ /opt/uqm/accelemymote
accelemymote V0.01
Trying to access accelerometer ...
opened accelerometer at /sys/class/i2c-adapter/i2c-3/3-001d/coord.
Uinput device node (at /dev/input/uinput) has the wrong permissions.
I'd blame udev. Your options are to fix the udev rules and reboot or chgrp/chown/chmod the device node.
~ $ ls -l /dev/input/uinput
crw-rw---- 1 root root 10, 223 Dec 31 1969 /dev/input/uinput
Thanks. Ok, so the post install script failed to change the group of uinput. That's probably because it didn't have sufficient privileges.
Unfortunately, that's not the biggest problem. I worked through this with a tester on irc and came to the awful realization that fremantle doesn't include the joydev kernel module. I assumed it would be in there because of people attaching gamepads via USB to previous NITs, but apparently as near as i can tell it has always been missing.
So, unless i'm missing something, this is going to take a rather involved work-around, or new, hackish approach.
attila77
2009-12-01, 22:09
Also, changing ownership and/or access rights directly on stuff in /dev is BAD. I'm no udev expert, but there has to be a better way. Kernel modules (if they are part of the mainline) are not THAT big of an issue, we had dm_loop stuff in Diablo, for example.
Now for the original reason i'm here: a new version!
Warning: Software in extras-testing and extras-devel may be unstable.
See the wiki (http://wiki.maemo.org/Extras) for a description of the maemo repositories and this post (http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=343619) for specific comments on testing.
uqm-0.6.7-0maemo2 should be in extras-devel momentarily. It has some optimistic and rather untestable (by me) changes to allow for accelerometer control. Feedback is greatly appreciated! Note: If you have at any time made changes to your control settings, the custom flight.cfg file will override the new defaults. If you would like to try the new defaults, select the new menu option "Revert Defaults" in the control configuration menu.
If you're not feeling quite that adventurous, you can still help out by enabling extras-testing and trying uqm-0.6.7-0maemo (http://maemo.org/packages/package_instance/view/fremantle_extras-testing_free_armel/uqm/0.6.7-0maemo/), which now has 8 out of 10 necessary positive tester reports. Two more and it will be promoted from extras-testing to extras!
Here's the changelog:
uqm (0.6.7-0maemo2) unstable; urgency=low
* New default control bindings. Fixes: MB#6369
* Default bindings use accelemymote to control directions.
* Installs udev rules file to make uinput part of group users.
* Chgrps /dev/input/uinput to users on install.
* Accelemymote actually checks accelerometer instead of dummy file. ;)
-- Flandry Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:15:56 -0500
uqm (0.6.7-0maemo1) unstable; urgency=low
* This includes (and tries to run by default) an experimental accelerometer joystick driver
called accelemymote. Note that this will fail without fixing udev rule. See readme.DEBIAN
* Added "Revert to default" option in control config menu.
* Lander discovery font color has been changed to a light green color to
increase visibility. (Thanks pupnik for reporting.)
* Bugtracker field added to control file as per requirements
XSBC-Bugtracker: https://bugs.maemo.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=UQM
* Slight alteration to short description on account of OCD (game is intra-, not intergalactic!)
-- Flandry Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:11:56 -0500
Fremantle only?
Also, changing ownership and/or access rights directly on stuff in /dev is BAD. I'm no udev expert, but there has to be a better way. Kernel modules (if they are part of the mainline) are not THAT big of an issue, we had dm_loop stuff in Diablo, for example.
The chgrp was only to prevent the user from needing to reboot; the next reboot would accomplish the same result (via a udev rule), so i don't see it as a problem. Having uinput node as root:root isn't very useful.
There must be a better way to do it, like replugging uinput, but is calling modprobe or whatever any better than a chgrp? Anyway, i'm open to suggestions. Everything i could find on the web about setting up drivers to use uinput simply said to reboot...
In other news, a kind soul on irc compiled the joydev kernel module for the vanilla fremantle kernel. This is probably the answer to this problem; the challenge is figuring out how to get the autobuilder to spit it out.
In the meantime, if a tester would be willing to install the module directly, it's attached in the bug report (https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6492). This is not for casual users! Installing this is akin to carrying baggage from unknown people onto an aeroplane.
To summarize the current situation, uqm should work with accelerometer control after installing uqm-0.6.7-0maemo2, installing the joydev kernel module, and restarting your N900.
I need someone to verify that.
attila77
2009-12-02, 00:41
The chgrp was only to prevent the user from needing to reboot; the next reboot would accomplish the same result (via a udev rule), so i don't see it as a problem.
Might be my udev noobity, but doesn't HUP-ing udevd, 'udevadm control --reload_rules' or some equivalent work ?
In other news, a kind soul on irc compiled the joydev kernel module for the vanilla fremantle kernel. This is probably the answer to this problem; the challenge is figuring out how to get the autobuilder to spit it out.
I have some experience with that, was it just a matter of CONFIG_INPUT_JOYDEV or were some modifications made to the code ?
Might be my udev noobity, but doesn't HUP-ing udevd, 'udevadm control --reload_rules' or some equivalent work ?
I'm more of a udev noob than you because i had completely forgotten about those options. ;) Still, i thought udev was supposed to refresh the rules on a regular basis anyway so i'm not sure what's going on. I'll replace the chgrp with udevadm control --reload_rules.
I have some experience with that, was it just a matter of CONFIG_INPUT_JOYDEV or were some modifications made to the code ?
It's just the vanilla source right now, but it might make sense to move the functionality into the module since it''s needed anyway.
attila77
2009-12-02, 02:05
Hm, I would suggest keeping the kernel module clean - there might be other apps that need it, and would also make it more difficult to update on new kernel iterations. Long story short, if you need it I can try to make an extras-devel package for it tomorrow (I need to update dm_loop anyway). If somebody else is already working on this, let me know so we don't trip over each other.
That seems reasonable. If you already have the mechanism for creating kernel module packages on the autobuilder figured out, i'd very much appreciate a joydev one in extras-devel. This last update has eaten a lot more time than i had expected. :)
Fremantle only?
Yeah, sorry. The previous port should still work on Diablo though. The tilt control isn't really going to be a useful addition for earlier devices anyway. :)
attila77: I'm going to push an update to the autobuilder before heading off for work and list "joydev" as a dependency, so please call the package that if you upload it.
Released! (extras)
uqm-0.6.7-0maemo
For those who didn't notice yet, uqm hit downloads (http://maemo.org/downloads/product/Maemo5/uqm/) (extras repository) not long ago. It is still showing up on the front page because it is the most recent upload, and has had 25 downloads in the few hours it's been listed, and a very nice comment. I used the occasion to report the new port (http://forum.uqm.stack.nl/index.php?topic=4665.0) on the official UQM forum. Thank you to everyone who tested and please enjoy the game!
3DO Content Package
For those who would like to add-on the 3DO voiceovers and music, i'm sorry to say that the package is stuck in -devel due to a bug (https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6301) in the promoter scripts. The music in particular is quite excellent, and i recommend you grab this package (uqm-3do-data) whenever it hits extras. Alternatively, you can download and install the .deb directly (it has no dependencies) or temporarily enable extras-devel to install it.
Next Version (extras-devel)
uqm-0.6.7-0maemo3
Attila is working on the kernel module necessary for uqm-0.6.7-0maemo3 to install so you brave testers can tell me how the tilt (accelerometer) control works. Keep your eye on the maemo3 version page (http://maemo.org/packages/package_instance/view/fremantle_extras-devel_free_armel/uqm/0.6.7-0maemo3) to see when it's ready to go.
electristan
2009-12-06, 16:09
Is there ant way of changing the key bindings? I have the Norwegian version of the N900, which does not have the UP or DOWN arrow keys.
Thanks.
Is there ant way of changing the key bindings? I have the Norwegian version of the N900, which does not have the UP or DOWN arrow keys.
Thanks.
Yeah i couldn't imagine they would possibly release a version of the phone without full arrow keys, so i didn't expect to need a workaround. A new version will have alternatives, but for the version in extras you'll have to either use an external keyboard to select the configuration menu and remap keys from within the game, or load up the uqm.key file in /opt/uqm/content/ and change the mapping there (it should be fairly straightforward what to do). See the posts on the previous page about this.
electristan
2009-12-07, 06:55
Yeah i couldn't imagine they would possibly release a version of the phone without full arrow keys, so i didn't expect to need a workaround. A new version will have alternatives, but for the version in extras you'll have to either use an external keyboard to select the configuration menu and remap keys from within the game, or load up the uqm.key file in /opt/uqm/content/ and change the mapping there (it should be fairly straightforward what to do). See the posts on the previous page about this.
Thanks again. I'll try the uqm.key method for now.
You can change the mapping for tour keyboard in Setting.
Setting---> Text input----> Hardware keyboard layout , then choice your language . I have a french keyborad and i must choice US-QWERTY keyboard to play game like SuperTux or UrquanMaster
electristan
2009-12-07, 10:57
You can change the mapping for tour keyboard in Setting.
Setting---> Text input----> Hardware keyboard layout , then choice your language . I have a french keyborad and i must choice US-QWERTY keyboard to play game like SuperTux or UrquanMaster
Thats a pretty good quick fix, thanks :D
If someone makes working bindings for scandinavic keys, please share them here. I tried to bind the 'ä'-key to up, but it doesn't work.
I think the optimal would be these:
left = .
down = left
right = right
up = ä
You can change the mapping for tour keyboard in Setting.
Setting---> Text input----> Hardware keyboard layout , then choice your language . I have a french keyborad and i must choice US-QWERTY keyboard to play game like SuperTux or UrquanMaster
Thanks Soleil. That's probably the best workaround for now.
If someone makes working bindings for scandinavic keys, please share them here. I tried to bind the 'ä'-key to up, but it doesn't work.
I think the optimal would be these:
left = .
down = left
right = right
up = ä
I could release an alternative config file to install, but if it doesn't work to bind 'a' to "up" in-game, i don't think binding it in the config file is going to work, either. I have no idea why 'a' wouldn't bind in-game, though.
@Flandry, it wasn't the normal "a"-key, but scandinavic "ä", which is a with two dots above it. I couldn't make the in-game bounding since the arrows are not working. I was trying editing the uqm.key file manually.
@Flandry, it wasn't the normal "a"-key, but scandinavic "ä", which is a with two dots above it. I couldn't make the in-game bounding since the arrows are not working. I was trying editing the uqm.key file manually.
I know that SDL's keyboard event generator has problems with unicode characters; it may be that there's no way to make it see that "a umlaut" key. However, if you can change the binding for the arrows to something else and then use the in-game key binder to see what (if any) key code it detects for the "a umlaut", i'll make the alt config for nordic users to download.
Dunno what Nokia is thinking releasing a mobile computer without directional arrows.
Edit: This was filed as Bug 6623 (https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6623). Out-of-the-box resolution will probably have to wait until the tilt-control version makes it to extras. I can release a version with two letters mapped to up and down as well as the arrows, but i'd rather focus on getting tilt control working and through testing. Soleil's workaround (http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=414048&postcount=151) sounds usable to me.
Is there a tutorial for installing this game?
Is there a tutorial for installing this game?Go to the uqm download page (http://maemo.org/downloads/product/Maemo5/uqm/) in your N900's browser and click the big "Install" button (or click this:http://static.maemo.org/style_maemo2009/img/icons/application_install.png (http://maemo.org/downloads/product/raw/Maemo5/uqm/?get_installfile)). Let it install the package.
If you have an N900 without up and down arrow keys (French, German, Finnish, ....), go into N900 Settings---> Text input----> Hardware keyboard layout , and choose US-QWERTY (or English, Nederlands if that's not available).
Go to your application loader and click the icon that looks like this http://static.maemo.org/static/e/e7caf6e6c28611de837991d81a1b968a968a_uqm_icon.
Play. :D
If you have no up and down arrow keys, when you are done playing, go back into Settings and reset the keyboard to your native language.
The 3DO content package is now in extras-testing (http://maemo.org/packages/package_instance/view/fremantle_extras-testing_free_armel/uqm-3do-data/0.6.7-0maemo/). If you have an N900 and are playing uqm, please consider installing the uqm-3do-data package, testing that it meets the QA requirements (http://wiki.maemo.org/Extras-testing/QA_Checklist) and then voting it up.
It's over 100 MB, so make sure you're on wifi before grabbing it!
The 3DO content package is now in extras-testing (http://maemo.org/packages/package_instance/view/fremantle_extras-testing_free_armel/uqm-3do-data/0.6.7-0maemo/). If you have an N900 and are playing uqm, please consider installing the uqm-3do-data package, testing that it meets the QA requirements (http://wiki.maemo.org/Extras-testing/QA_Checklist) and then voting it up.
It's over 100 MB, so make sure you're on wifi before grabbing it!
The music is *totally* worth it, folks. Do not miss-out!
If you have an N900 without up and down arrow keys (French, German, Finnish, ....), go into N900 Settings---> Text input----> Hardware keyboard layout , and choose US-QWERTY.
I cannot choose US (QWERTY) on my French N900, only european keyboards (but sadly not UK's Qwerty either..)
There should really be a way to set keys for this game.
I cannot choose US (QWERTY) on my French N900, only european keyboards (but sadly not UK4s Qwerty either..)
There should really be a way to set keys for this game.
Hmm, that's not good. Soleil said he has a French keyboard, so i don't know what the difference is between your N900s. There must be some European layout that has full arrow keys, right? If you discover one, please let me know so i can revise the instructions.
There is a way to set keys for the game, but the current control mapping uses up and down arrows to navigate to that menu. There's also the option of modifying the configuration file. If you want to do that, copy the default mapping to your own config file like this:
cp /opt/uqm/content/uqm.key ~/.uqm/flight.cfg
and then edit the ~/.uqm/flight.cfg file in a text editor
As i mentioned before in this thread, i'm willing to make alternative control configuration files available as a more satisfying fix for users, but that requires someone with one of the defective keyboards to share with me a working configuration.
The tilt control acts as a generic joystick, so it will be a working default when that version is ready for extras.
Fortunately, I found that the "English, Nederlands" keyboard has functional arrow keys, so you can add it to your tutorial.
As for the config file, I'll try to make one myself once I have time (not now sorry :/)
I tried to change the uqm.key keybindings, but I think I finally figured why it doesn't help. The main menu doesn't seem to follow those bindings! They are only used in game. I was able to navigate in the main menu with up and down when using Netherland keyboard setting - even though up and down were mapped for u and i letters (I tested with those). In game up and down would then work from u and i letters, not up and down arrow keys.
So in summary: I don't think any keybinding settings will fix this :/
suihkulokki
2009-12-11, 13:45
If someone makes working bindings for scandinavic keys, please share them here. I tried to bind the 'ä'-key to up, but it doesn't work.
I think the optimal would be these:
left = .
down = left
right = right
up = ä
I think these would be better no confuse things with left=down kind of changes.
left: J
down: K
rifght: L
up: I
As they do not overlap with arrow keys, you can make both keysets (IJKL and arrows) work by default.
Thus all that is needed is to show the default keys on startup.
I'm sorry, i had forgotten that the menu controls are independent. They are in /opt/uqm/content/menu.key and can't be changed in-game (that's why it says that control configuration is only partially complete in the menu text). I originally intended to make sure all the important actions mapped in that file were assigned to real keys on the N900 once i got mine to test. Some of the controls mapped there aren't very important and should be left alone (page up and down, fullscreen, special), but others are obviously useful (zoom in and out, select, etc.) and could possibly use new mappings.
Copy /opt/uqm/content/menu.key to ~/.uqm/override.cfg and edit it.
Replace the line
up.2 = STRING:key Keypad-8
with
up.2 = STRING:key (whatever the key code is for your "up" key)
and do the same for the down.2 map.
I think an arbitrary number of keys can be mapped to a single action, and since editing config files is not something i expect users to do, send me the key codes for whatever the "up" and "down" keys have become on your localized keyboards and i'll add them to menu.key in the next release. That will make menus navigable; you'll still be on your own to change the flight control bindings to your taste (from the menu option).
AFAIK joystick works on the main menu, so tilt control is still planned to be a universal solution for giving everyone working controls, regardless of their keyboard.
Thanks for reporting.
Hi,
Any way to know the key code for a key, from the Terminal maybe ?
If someone makes working bindings for scandinavic keys, please share them here. I tried to bind the 'ä'-key to up, but it doesn't work.
I think the optimal would be these:
left = .
down = left
right = right
up = ä
Currently the game doesn't seem to recognize special letters such as "ä". You can try this by changing the menu keys to something that works for you and then navigating to the "Edit controls" menu. Setting UP as "ä" will return an unknown key, and uqm will set "key Unknown" to the users config file. If you now try to play the game, ä as UP will work, but when you quit and try again, the up key will just be listed as "----", and won't work until you set it again.
I feel there should be a default way (in every game) to bind keys for us who don't have the full set of arrows. Following the physical layout of the keyboard with arrows (., left, right, Ä - with a scandinavian model) seems more logical to me than using, for instance the J, K, L, I set. Also the lower right corner is much easier to access, and it will be easier to find the keys while not looking at the keyboard.
Currently the game doesn't seem to recognize special letters such as "ä". You can try this by changing the menu keys to something that works for you and then navigating to the "Edit controls" menu. Setting UP as "ä" will return an unknown key, and uqm will set "key Unknown" to the users config file. If you now try to play the game, ä as UP will work, but when you quit and try again, the up key will just be listed as "----", and won't work until you set it again.
I feel there should be a default way (in every game) to bind keys for us who don't have the full set of arrows. Following the physical layout of the keyboard with arrows (., left, right, Ä - with a scandinavian model) seems more logical to me than using, for instance the J, K, L, I set. Also the lower right corner is much easier to access, and it will be easier to find the keys while not looking at the keyboard.
As i suspected and warned, vcontrol (http://hkn.eecs.berkeley.edu/~mcmartin/vcontrol/), the wrapper for the SDL input, doesn't really support very many non-qwerty keys. There's no way to support both user-mappable keys and nonsupported keys within the existing framework of uqm without some degree of hacking it up. It might be as simple as adding the keycodes to the relevant file in /src/libs/input/sdl, but i won't be looking into that at this time.
My reticence to spend time making dirty hacks to an upstream source to work around Nokia's poor design decisions continues unabated. I will try making a modification to the menu control keys to make "left" and "right" arrows move up and down in the menu for the next release, and if there are no significant side effects, leave it in (anyone who wants to try this and report on it gets thanks and brownie points from me--the most likely place for side effects could be in the starmap mode or the menu mode). Otherwise, it will be left to the tilt control as a universal solution. I'm sorry. Please submit a bug report or brainstorm request to get full arrow keys on all Nxxxx devices with any keyboard to avoid this mess in the future. This is not something the Maemo community really has any control over, so i'm not sure what's the proper venue.
On a somewhat related note, my N900 should be delivered by Amazon while i am home for Christmas, so i will finally be able to test things on my own. This will (as you can imagine) make the development cycle immensely faster.
I see the omaemo3 update available in extras-devel, but t refuses to install because I don't have something called joydev. Should I install it, and if so, where?
2disbetter
2009-12-22, 14:53
Folks, I've searched high and low on the nets, and repositories for the missing joydev kernel. (without which i can't install urquan) I read in this thread that it was supposed to be pushed to the repositories, do we know if this kernel has been pushed there yet, and if not when it might be.
ALso is there a way to install urquan in it' scurrent state missing the joydev kernel as a dependency?
Thanks! This game is great. I had it working before (was an earlier version not dependent on joydev yet), but had to reflash the phone and can only get this version. Any help is MUCH appreciated.
2d
The version in Extras is fully functional and complete, as it should be. i recommend you disable the Extras-devel repo by default, as it has incomplete packages and you are going to get yourself into trouble.
Attila ran into some problems with the kernel module package, so the -devel version isn't complete. The module itself is attached to the bugtracker issue if you want to install it and force the install of the -devel version. If you do that, please give me feedback on the accelerometer control.
I finally got my N900 and installed uqm and uqm-3do-data and it really is awesome seeing uqm on the phone. 8)
I see the omaemo3 update available in extras-devel, but t refuses to install because I don't have something called joydev. Should I install it, and if so, where?
"JoyDev" is the agreed upon future named of a yet-to-be published package that includes what is basically a plugin to better access the accelerometer.
Well, not really "better", but a way that UQM can access the accelerometer that doesn't require a major over hall to the UQM program itself.
The joydev package is being authored by someone who is not on the UQM devel team specifically, so the UQM version that calls it was published in anticipation of this other team's package publishing.
The only thing you're missing by not getting this newest UQM build is the ability to steer your ships by tilting the N900.
Okay, good to know, thanks!
End users like me should indeed stay out of devel, but it's tempting because it has so much useful and well enough working software, flashlight and nano for example, stuff that the phone really needs but doesn't have yet. If the normal extras repo wouldn't have to wait for so long, people like me wouldn't maybe want to risk their phones as much. :)
It's all perfectly understandable of course - I'm not saying unfinished software should be put to extras. Just explaining my point of view. And for the same reason, a lot of end users probably see the new UQM version in their updates, wondering why they can't upgrade, because like me they have devel enabled for the software and for curiosity, despite being told not to.
attila77
2009-12-23, 14:56
Yeah, sorry, the joydev module is all my fault, when I got rid of my build environment problems, meatspace end-of-year activities caught up with me grinding dev efforts to a halt. I have not given up on it, and going to push it to extras-devel this week even if I have to do it on an N900 while commuting. Ditto for the dmsetup thing for qole.
Thanks for the explanation, cddiede. As you said, the "best" way to add accelerometer control to the game seemed to be by making tilt show up as stick movements using the linux joystick driver, hence the need for the joydev kernel module. I had just assumed it would be included as it is in most distributions of linux, and when i discovered that it wasn't, attila77 kindly offered to package it up as he is already doing some kernel module work.
The advantage to this approach is that it allows for any program that supports a joystick to also get accelerometer support; indeed i plan to break out the accelemymote portion as an independent package once i get it refined through the uqm testing.
Speaking of testing, with my new N900 in hand, i installed the devel version of uqm and then used insmod and the joydev kernel module in the bugtracker to get the module installed, and the accelerometer control actually does mostly work as expected (much to my surprise :D). It's not the easiest way to control all the directions. I'm thinking the best default would be for just up and down. I welcome input on the subject when others get a chance to try it. Also, the way the accelemymote program works right now leaves very little neutral area in the center, so it's pretty touchy. Again, comments from those who have had a chance to try it on what the minimum value to start sending stick motion would be useful.
Only two testers lacking: http://maemo.org/packages/package_instance/view/fremantle_extras-testing_free_armel/uqm-3do-data/0.6.7-0maemo/
Edit: Yay, it's done! Now in Extras for everyone's enjoyment. Thank you for testing.
aironeous
2009-12-31, 11:44
I' m sorry but I've been trying to play this game for 3 hours now and they always always always face your ship away from the attacking ship making it a complete burden to slowly maneuver your ship in the right direction.and shoot.
Very low level of imagination. If the best thing you can do is force me to not be able to fight by pointing me in the wrong direction every m'fing time I get attacked making it very hard for me to even play the game then sorry you get a
F grade.
That is your idea of a game?
Grade equals F
Try again
I'm un-installing this and saving my space for something more intelligent.
DrWilken
2009-12-31, 12:00
For anyone with non-US keyboard qwerty12 has created an applet for easy switching between local and English keyboard... :)
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=446655&postcount=6
Direct link to .deb file -> http://qwerty12.qole.org/kb/keyboard-layout-applet_0.1_armel.deb
2disbetter
2009-12-31, 13:07
I' m sorry but I've been trying to play this game for 3 hours now and they always always always face your ship away from the attacking ship making it a complete burden to slowly maneuver your ship in the right direction.and shoot.
Very low level of imagination. If the best thing you can do is force me to not be able to fight by pointing me in the wrong direction every m'fing time I get attacked making it very hard for me to even play the game then sorry you get a
F grade.
That is your idea of a game?
Grade equals F
Try again
I'm un-installing this and saving my space for something more intelligent.
aironeous, if you've never played the game, you can't expect to just pick it up and understand it. Read the manual, practice in super melee, and then give it a go. The game came out before players had to have their hands held for everything. Seriously, give it a real chance and you'll see it for what it is. A friggin amazing game that you can play anywhere now.
2d
I' m sorry but I've been trying to play this game for 3 hours now and they always always always face your ship away from the attacking ship making it a complete burden to slowly maneuver your ship in the right direction.and shoot.
Very low level of imagination. If the best thing you can do is force me to not be able to fight by pointing me in the wrong direction every m'fing time I get attacked making it very hard for me to even play the game then sorry you get a
F grade.
That is your idea of a game?
Grade equals F
Try again
I'm un-installing this and saving my space for something more intelligent.
If you prefer quick arcade games the single player game isn't going to be your thing. It's more like an RPG where your character (ship) gets stronger/faster/better over time and you gain more allies. There's also some strategy involved in using the right ship against the foe, and in not going places where you will probably die right away.
As for your ship's facing, i believe that depends on which way it is facing when you get sucked into the encounter (that's how it works for planets, anyway), so if you are always running away, you'll probably always end up facing away.
I find your tantrum rather sad, but i do understand it's not a game for everyone. It was and is almost unique in having a working open-ended and interesting plot, and for how old it is i think it still rates better than an "F" from any reasonable tester. Try the super melee mode and get a feel for the different ships, and that will help you survive in the single player campaign.
I have had a couple requests for a "granny mode" that would let you slow down the action 20% or so. I might add that still if there is more interest just so people who aren't really excited about the combat aspect can enjoy the game.
I' m sorry but I've been trying to play this game for 3 hours now and they always always always face your ship away from the attacking ship making it very hard for me to even play the game then sorry you get a
F grade.
That is your idea of a game?
Grade equals F
Try again
I'm un-installing this and saving my space for something more intelligent.
Wah, Wah....
Go back to playing Halo and stop clogging our forum with your complaining.
You want someone better, go compile it yourself.
optimaxxx
2010-01-02, 06:44
could we add "stylus cues" such as in the emulators for the nin-consoles?
i would love to play the game with the keyboard tucked away!
Edit: can we add an option to preserve the 3do data?
I've had to reflash my N900 a couple of times, and having to re-install the 3d0 data (130Mb!) everytime is so annoying!
i've just befriended the pkunk.. those loving bastards!
I' m sorry but I've been trying to play this game for 3 hours now and they always always always face your ship away from the attacking ship making it a complete burden to slowly maneuver your ship in the right direction.and shoot.
Very low level of imagination. If the best thing you can do is force me to not be able to fight by pointing me in the wrong direction every m'fing time I get attacked making it very hard for me to even play the game then sorry you get a
F grade.
That is your idea of a game?
Grade equals F
Try again
I'm un-installing this and saving my space for something more intelligent.
Well...
a.) guess you never played star control 1 back in the old-school pc gaming days.
b.) guess you never played star control 2 which is the basis for UQM.
c.) guess you don't have the patience to learn new games so by extension, I wonder if you have the patience with the n900. This phone isn't for the faint of heart. Think about it.
REMFwhoopitydo
2010-01-05, 17:13
why do i only see the 3DO data package in "downloads" and not the Urquan Masters game package?
I did have QM installed in early december, but i removed it, and now i cannot find it in the package manager to reinstall it.
if i open the package manager and go to downloads/games i see only the 3DO package
if i open the package manager and go to uninstall i can confirm the game is not still installed
any help appreciated
That is strange. You should make sure you have the Extras repository enabled, but not Extras-Testing or Extras-Devel. Once you have verified that, update and make sure The Ur-Quan Masters isn't in your list of downloads one more time.
If you still don't see it, you should try using the apt-get utility from the command line. Make sure you have rootsh installed, close App Manager, and then open an xterm (Ctrl-Shift-x) and type
root
apt-get install uqm
exit
If that doesn't solve the problem, please let me know what output the apt-get command gives you.
Interesting game, a bit to old school to what I'm used to though so it will take some time to get into it but a big thanks to you Flandry for porting this seemingly deep game to the N900.
The battles do not always start you facing away from enemy. At least here.
They are *hard*. You have to learn techniques for each enemy. That's part of the fun!
A tip for beginners, fill Fwippo's ship with crew, run away from the enemy and drop the auto-seeking missiles. That will give you a fighting chance as a beginner.
Flandry, I have a UQM stuck in the N900 update queue. Can you push a new version without the broken joystick dependency?
REMFwhoopitydo
2010-01-06, 09:28
That is strange. You should make sure you have the Extras repository enabled, but not Extras-Testing or Extras-Devel. Once you have verified that, update and make sure The Ur-Quan Masters isn't in your list of downloads one more time.
If you still don't see it, you should try using the apt-get utility from the command line. Make sure you have rootsh installed, close App Manager, and then open an xterm (Ctrl-Shift-x) and type
root
apt-get install uqm
exit
If that doesn't solve the problem, please let me know what output the apt-get command gives you.
i have never messed about with repositories, i only install stuff from extras.
i'm going to install the 3DO data and see if the game will then show up in the standard repository, and if not, then uninstall the 3D0 data and hope that both will once again show up.
apt-get seems top have installed it ok, but why did it not show up in the app manager?
2disbetter
2010-01-06, 09:34
The battles do not always start you facing away from enemy. At least here.
They are *hard*. You have to learn techniques for each enemy. That's part of the fun!
A tip for beginners, fill Fwippo's ship with crew, run away from the enemy and drop the auto-seeking missiles. That will give you a fighting chance as a beginner.
Flandry, I have a UQM stuck in the N900 update queue. Can you push a new version without the broken joystick dependency?
You need to disable the dev repo. Generally a good idea notwithstanding. Once it's disabled the update will dissappear.
2d
apt-get seems top have installed it ok, but why did it not show up in the app manager?
Sorry, i have no idea. I've not encountered that before. Apt-get is the reference utility for the debian package system, so if the gui app manager fails you, you can trust apt-get to work if it's at all possible--but you do have to close app manager first.
ArnimS: The extras-devel version has nothing added to it that would work without the joydev package. It's probably a bug that HAM is pushing it as an update when it has broken dependencies... While i'm not very impressed by the accelerometer control, that was the intent of the devel version and it doesn't make any sense to downgrade it. Just disable -devel like an ordinary person. :P
Maybe Attila will give an update on joydev. I have considered packaging up the compiled module, but (1) using a precompiled kernel module package isn't really appropriate on free afaik and (2) i don't really know how to install a kernel module via deb and am willing to leave that to him unless he decides it's not something he wants to do.
It is also a game where you have to take *notes*. Remember that? You will get a lot of hints in conversations, and you *must* take note of them.
Have fun :)
So, I updated UQM the other day ( still no joydev, I think) and the game is still working fine but something has changed with the directional controls.
Now, the US keyboard layout's arrow keys still control the correct up/down movements for menus and conversations, but no longer control the direction of the ship.
The ship's movement in single player is now controlled with "ESDF".
I went into control settings and hit "restore defaults" and I even tried to manually map UP, DOWN, LEFT, & RIGHT to the arrow keys but the ship's direction is still controlled with "ESDF".
Previously, I could control with the arrow keys. Can someone clue me into the change?
I suspect it's because the control profile is changed when it reverts to defaults. There are a number of different profiles you can choose from in the menu; one of them uses arrow keys and one uses ESDF, etc.
If the built-in keyboard layout workaround i added to PrBoom ends up working out without problems for people, i'm going to add it to UQM and make the joydev/accelemymote optional. The motives for that change of plans are Knowing a way to do it that is fairly unobtrusive Having no ETA still from Attila on the joydev package, and Not really liking the accelerometer as a control for the game
UQM for Maemo 5 / N900 now has its own official thread (http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=40868) and a new release that resolves (hopefully) all the issues i am aware of and have control over. Please take all discussion of the Fremantle/Maemo 5 version of UQM there. This thread will remain open for the discussion of earlier releases.
Thanks.
-Flandry
I can't seem to find any packages for diablo (it isn't in extras-devel for diablo) and I doubt the fremantle packages work on the n800 so... would someone mind posting/hosting the older packages or building the updated uqm for the n800?
The original repo for uqm seems to have been hosted on a university personal page which is no longer active. archive.org doesn't seem to have a copy of the files either... which was my first stop in hunting them down.
Also does the n800 package for uqm support a bluetooth joystick like the n900 package seem to (I don't have an n900 I just read that it did)... it seems that would greatly enhance gameplay with a regular bluetooth or possibly usb game controller.
silvermountain
2010-07-09, 05:37
I also can't find a way to install this on Maemo4 any more (latest app + game files).
If anyone have links/files please post them with some steps for how to get this up and running on Mameo4 :)
Is there a way of skipping arcade part of ship fighting?
This is a great game with great storyline, but there's no way I'm going to win ship battles using N900 keyboard...
Creamy Goodness
2010-07-19, 17:38
Is there a way of skipping arcade part of ship fighting?
This is a great game with great storyline, but there's no way I'm going to win ship battles using N900 keyboard...
you're joking, right? it's fine when you play using the ps3 controller, lol
you can also set the battles to auto if you are that bad, but it's better to avoid combat quite often.
2disbetter
2010-07-19, 20:22
avoid battle or upgrade your ships weapons. Maxed out the main ship is pretty formidable. Formidable as in multi-directional homing laser beams.
Pretty awesome.
I agree, when playing the battles I keep thinking, "Man, with a good controller, I would own at this."
Guess practice or upgrades in this case make perfect.
2d
Spotfist
2010-07-19, 20:35
just get rid of the slylandro probes ASAP and then upgrade the mother ship, perhaps find a few rainbow worlds and upgrade with the marshmellow dudes ;) still a tough game to play!
you're joking, right? it's fine when you play using the ps3 controller, lol
I usually play while commuting.
I would need to ask the guy next to me at Metro, to hold my N900 while I'm playing. ;-)
It can be tough to win those first fights, regardless of controls. As was discussed a while ago (possibly in the N900-specific uqm thread), there's a fair amount of strategy involved such as choosing the right ship and tactics. This becomes less of an issue later in the game when you can (if you choose) soup up your flagship into a killing machine and bruteforce any fight (except the last one...)
I still have the idea of modifying the lander controls on the todo list, but if you have any ideas for improving the ship controls, i'd be interested in hearing.
HelloMello
2010-08-19, 12:44
Hi everyone.
I got so fed up with searching for the deb packages for UQM on os2008 that I ended up emailing ZerionSeven about it.
Here is his reply:
Hi,
Seems my school has at some point decided to nuke all the personal web pages for some reason. Fortunately I had a backup and have made a mirror here: http://zerion7.pp.fi/lut-old/
Note however, that I'm not maintaining these nor have any plans to do so in the future.
Hopefully this'll help someone.
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