Glest on the Asus Eee PC (?)

[velcroman]

I have managed to install Glest 3.0 beta1 on the standard Xandros Linux Eee PC but I'm afraid it is about as fast as Golem (i.e. sloooww).
It only seems to run at about 2 fps which is not very usable in a fast paced strategy game.
'top' shows less than 30% of memory in use (so that isn't the problem) but the CPU is 99%.
It is totally unusable in full screen mode because the cursor update is too slow, but in windowed mode, the XWindows cursor can be used to show where the glest (red) cursor will appear at the next screen refresh, and so it is 'just' usable for building etc. (but I wouldn't like to get involved in a battle).
I now use my Eee PC for most things but I guess I will need to keep a 'big PC' for playing Glest unless it can be tweaked to improve the refresh rate.

Has anyone got any ideas to speed it up ?

Here is what I did to get it going (after installing extra repositories)...

sudo apt-get install g++
sudo apt-get install subversion
sudo apt-get install autogen
sudo apt-get install automake
sudo apt-get install libxerces27-dev
sudo apt-get install libopenal-dev
sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2-dev
sudo apt-get install libvorbis-dev
mkdir glestsource
cd glestsource/
svn co https://glest.svn.sourceforge.net/svnro ... unk/source
svn co https://glest.svn.sourceforge.net/svnro ... t/trunk/mk
cd mk/linux/
./autogen.sh
./configure

download the datafile from...
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/glest/ ... 0beta1.zip
then extract the datafile folders (into the current directory (glestsource/mk/linux)

replace the "glest.ini" with the following...
; === Properties File ===

AiLog=0
AiRedir=0
CheckGlCaps=1
ColorBits=8
ConsoleMaxLines=10
ConsoleTimeout=1
DayTime=1000
DebugMode=0
DepthBits=8
FactoryGraphics=OpenGL
FactorySound=OpenAL
FastSpeedLoops=2
Filter=Bilinear
FilterMaxAnisotropy=0
FirstTime=0
FocusArrows=1
FogOfWarSmoothing=1
FogOfWarSmoothingFrameSkip=3
FontConsole=-*-fixed-*-*-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
FontDisplay=-*-fixed-*-*-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
FontMenu=-*-fixed-*-*-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Lang=english.lng
MaxLights=1
NetworkConsistencyChecks=1
PhotoMode=0
RefreshFrequency=10
ScreenHeight=360
ScreenWidth=600
ServerIp=86.7.216.52
ServerPort=6666
ShadowAlpha=0.1
ShadowFrameSkip=2
ShadowTextureSize=256
Shadows=Disabled
SoundStaticBuffers=32
SoundStreamingBuffers=32
SoundVolumeAmbient=80
SoundVolumeFx=80
SoundVolumeMusic=90
StencilBits=0
Textures3D=0
Windowed=1

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
then run glest
./glest

[djezer]

I think this file is missing Platform=Linux
???

This was needed when we set up a multiplayer between two linux boxes, but does not affect the one player local game.

[velcroman]

I tried 'over' clocking the CPU to 900MHz but it is still too slow.(*)

I think I will try installing some extra memory because it looks like only 8M of the 512M RAM is being allocated for video.

The video RAM cannot be allocated manually in BIOS. It seems to be allocated automatically. EEE users with 2G RAM report having 128M allocated for video.

(*) Note: The CPU in the EEE is normally underclocked to 630MHz (fast enough for a Linux desktop) but is actually capable of 900MHz (without overclocking)

[velcroman]

Tried fitting 2G of RAM but it is still slow (There is no way to manually allocate video memory in BIOS).

The problem seems to be because I am using software rendering.

If I install the Intel 915 'direct rendering' driver, Glest stops with an error...
Exception: OpenGL extension not supported: GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar, required for Glest

Can Glest run on the Intel 915 in direct rendering mode ? We might just have to get a newer driver.