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Hi...

For performance reasons I want to run Open Arena from the command line - without GDM at all.
(Running Ubuntu here...)

Details:
1) With GDM running, Open Arena runs fine using the NVidida drivers - no problems at all.
2) I have disabled GDM during boot using rcconf at it works just fine. Linux does in fact boot to a command line.
3) I can change directories and "launch" open arena using command ./ioquake3-smp.i386.  Anyway, OA does try to run but fails loading the gl subsystem, like: Sys_Error: GLimp_Init() - could not load OpenGL subsystem

So, how can I get OA to run from the command line without using GDM - or is GDM mandatory?

PS, I posted this on the Ubuntu forums and a guy said that GDM was mandatory - hopefully he's wrong...

Thanks a million - B

It's mandatory to be running X Windows (the graphics system of Linux).

GDM is one way of starting X Windows.
There are other ways of starting X, e.g. try the "startx" command.

I really doubt though that GDM itself is slowing OA down in any way.  However GNOME likes to start many programs, you can turn these off by going to: System -> Preferences -> Sessions

HTH

yeah i tried that too. thought- why run this massive window manager, it slows down the fps, lets run it from console. but its not possible. gnome is a very heavy window manager. i use fluxbox (have kde on system too). u could use flux, or icewm. there are a couple light window managers that dont hog resources. you can install them using your package manager.

You can replace the GDM with XDM which if memory serves me right, is the default for the X Window System.

Though I don't think the GDM will affect performance in any manner that you would notice. However if you use XGL/Compiz then you will notice when running 3D accelerated games.

I guess I look at OA as an old DOS program that didn't need "Windows" to be played.
Now if you play OA in Windows, then it will open a "Window" and create a new DOS shell to run it in.
So my last gasp, can anyone validate that XWindows or any type of window manager is needed to run OA?

There exist many playable games with graphics that ran in old DOS, and I assume linux as well, - why is this any different ?

Yes.

Just install Fluxbox. It's lightweight and fast.

OA isn't a DOS game though. OA can use windows of its own to display the game.  You need a window system running at all for it to display graphics. OA also requires 3d acceleration, so rasterizing any 2d at all wouldn't be enough for it.

p.s. who wants to port OA to DOS lol, memory issues abound and having to write a software renderer or a Glide port would be difficult, but other than that... it's more possible than DOS Quake2

It is indeed , but it doesn't use OpenGL rendering ... just use icewm or openbox+lxde

So what's the point if there are no problems at all? What frame rate do you get?

I didn't get what you're talking about so weird it sounds :o So I asked my m8 to clear things up:


Same as I thought before... Or did you mean something different? :o

Also:

For that purpose xgame (http://freshmeat.net/projects/xgame/) can be used for launching a separate xsession for the game only. You gain a little performance with that, but I mailny use it for launching games with Wine, they sometimes mess up the desktop.

I meant that I've tried hard to make any 3D application working under FluxBox ( packaged or compiled by sources ) and I've never got any application working.

I found openBox+LXDE as a good compromise between the ideal of a good lightweight WM with not so few functionalities.

I hadn't understood you either...I'm pretty sure Fluxbox doesn't interfere with OpenGL, you must have had bad luck with something.

There are tons of light WMs out there, the functionality doesn't really matter if all you want to do is launching the game. You could just start the server with a one liner ~/.xinitrc. I still don't think you'd be gaining much; after all, that's almost what I do normally. This thing about starting a game within its own X session comes from old times, when there were memory issues and performance was crap (I read this trick in a really old Linux gaming guide); nowadays it doesn't make much sense.

I've installed FluxBox more than once (via debian package or recompiled by sources ) but I wasn't able to launch any application that makes use of OpenGL.

So I guess FluxBox was interfacing only with the 2D driver (it's known that also compiz doesn't work )

Everything works fine here. Debian Squeeze.

In my experience OpenBox alone eats up more memory than FluxBox. As for LXDE it's Vista-themed by default and has icons on desktop... doesn't give a good image :E

Functionality of FluxBox is pretty enough for me.


Compiz is window manager on its own.

http://fluxbox-wiki.org/index.php?title=Faqs#Can_I_use_fluxbox_or_parts_of_it_with_XGL.2FCompiz.2FBeryl.3F

I've installed the latest version ( 1.1.1 ) and yes ... it all works fine also here : idk why it didn't in the past , but last time I tried was few years ago :-)

Thanks for the new input :-)


Themes are managed by OpenBox and they can be changed , and so the taskbar background .

Anyway I've upgraded my LXDE to the version 0.4.2 ( not the latest ) and it actually uses a lower amount of memory than the old version.

As now LXDE/OpenBox and FluxBox use both quite the same amount of memory on my system ; you are right, fluxbox a bit less but not so much ;-)