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Author Topic: Outpost 2 For Other Platforms  (Read 7060 times)

Offline Drakmar

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Outpost 2 For Other Platforms
« on: June 16, 2009, 11:42:39 AM »
I've been thinking that the fact that Outpost 2 was designed for Windows 95/98 alone might hamper anyone on alternate operating systems from being able to try the game out. The thought occurred to me, since I just replaced my Windows XP laptop with a Mac OS X one. I'm thinking that there is probably a way to "bundle" the core game with a Wine/Darwine (*nix and OSX respectively) so that the game can run semi-natively on most OS' without much effort. Excluding those that can program, or are familiar with Linux/*nix and the Wine project, most people aren't familiar with putting Wine on their non-Windows PC. Those with Mac OS X, or those with new Linux-based netbooks, for example.

Let me know of what you guys think of this, and of any ideas you may have that could help me with this. I'm currently working on the planning-stage of this at the moment.

Edit: Also, Networking shouldn't be an issue, as there are Linux and Mac OS X versions of Hamachi.
« Last Edit: June 16, 2009, 12:00:36 PM by Drakmar »
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Offline Drakmar

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« Reply #1 on: December 30, 2009, 01:44:40 AM »
Update:

I was able to bundle the latest release of OP2 (1.3.5 Beta 2) into a native Mac OS X application. The game runs very well, and can run on OS X 10.4 (Tiger), 10.5 (Leopard), and 10.6 (Snow Leopard). It's Intel only (obviously), and requires Apple's X11 installed to run. X11 comes default with Leopard and Snow Leopard, so only Tiger users will have to worry about installing it.

So far, it plays Single player without a fault, and it's only issue at the moment is networking. I'll probably have that fixed shortly. If anyone is interested in testing it on their Mac, let me know!

Here are a few screenshots for anyone who is curious.









 
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Offline WooJoo

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« Reply #2 on: December 30, 2009, 09:46:56 AM »
impressive work  (thumbsup)  
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Offline AmIMeYet

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« Reply #3 on: December 30, 2009, 10:39:46 AM »
Yes, good job :)
Not sure if there's, other than yourself, a real market for mac users though.. :P

Can OSX natively grab transparency from the screen?
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Offline Hooman

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« Reply #4 on: December 30, 2009, 11:40:16 AM »
This is an interesting project. Not one that I'll likely ever be able to use though. I've never owned a Mac, and considering their prices, I don't plan to buy one.

Still, nice and polished looking.

Why is it so big? Does it include the music? Or is that because Wine is bundled with it?
 
« Last Edit: December 30, 2009, 11:41:20 AM by Hooman »
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Offline Simpsonboy77

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« Reply #5 on: December 30, 2009, 06:21:41 PM »
Nice work!

As for linux, most users would know how to configure WINE for themselves. Some programs need to be configured specifically to that distro, so packaging it together might be hard. I'm sure there are some people on this forum willing to help get it up and running on *nix, myself included. I got OP2 to run correctly on Backtrack 4 prerelease, which is based off Ubuntu 8.10.

EDIT: I don't know how to bundle WINE with a program on Linux, but I'd be happy to help you make a general configuration if you wanted.
« Last Edit: December 30, 2009, 06:22:47 PM by Simpsonboy77 »
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Offline Drakmar

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« Reply #6 on: December 30, 2009, 10:30:25 PM »
Thanks for all the comments!

I do realize that OP2 doesn't have much demand in the Apple side of things, but it could help expand OP2 -- after all, OPU does get new members on a regular/semi-regular basis.

It's size is due to the inclusion of Wine, not due to the AVI's and the OP2.clm file. I'm working on reducing it's size. OP2 isn't so complex and demanding, and therefor probably doesn't need ALL of the Windows APIs to run well.

AmIMeYet: Yes, OS X can natively grab transparency from it's windows, images, etc.

So, my to-do list so far is to fix the networking issue (I've figured out what it's doing, I just need to fix it. Fortunately it's minor.), reduce the size to a manageable level, and figure out a way to distribute it easily once it's finished. Maybe I should ask Lev or Blackbox. (Not sure who's in charge anymore.... been out of the loop too long, lol.)

After I fix the couple issues with the OS X version, I'll work on a Linux bundle. However, as it has been pointed out, it may not be necessary to do so. Nonetheless, it couldn't hurt. There are many other OS's out there that could benefit from this. And other OP-themed projects as well.

Edit: After compressing 'Outpost 2.app', it's size shrunk from 265 mb to 75, just using the .zip format. Putting it into a DMG would probably compress it further, so it's size may not be quite a huge issue.
« Last Edit: December 30, 2009, 10:33:10 PM by Drakmar »
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Offline Hooman

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« Reply #7 on: December 30, 2009, 11:43:46 PM »
If you've bundled Wine, could that interfere with an already installed version? Maybe it should be handled with package dependcies instead? That would also offload the size of your package to an external one hosted by people distributing open source packages.

Btw, your sig image is kind of wide. It's messing with the forum layout for me.
 
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Offline Drakmar

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« Reply #8 on: December 30, 2009, 11:56:04 PM »
It's bundled in such a way that it only works with OP2, and can't interfere with any other Wine prefixes (if any). OS X doesn't deal with dependencies (therefor immune to 'dependency hell'), so a self-contained application is better suited for OS X. Linux probably could benefit from that however, and I will look into that possibility.

Also, I'll fix my sig shortly. Didn't realize it was causing an issue. It's fine for me, but I have a wide-screen, so that may be why. Lol.
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Offline Arklon

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« Reply #9 on: December 31, 2009, 12:32:12 PM »
I have OS X Leopard dual booted on my not exactly Apple machine. :P I've been able to play OP2 by running by Windoze partition as a VM in Parallels 5, though it's a slight bit laggy that way. (If my CPU and mobo supported VT-d (allows VMs direct access to I/O devices, not to be confused with VT-x) then maybe the lag in the VM would be very alleviated?) If you need someone else to test it, I can. Galactic can too if he wakes up again.
« Last Edit: December 31, 2009, 12:38:12 PM by Arklon »
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Offline Drakmar

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« Reply #10 on: March 02, 2010, 11:13:53 PM »
It's depressing that this topic was forgotten about completely until now... and now only being remembered by someone with an idea that is completely unrelated, and not easily done. So sad.

I wish to extend Sirbomber's explanation a tad further. Outpost 2 was built for the x86 (Intel Compatible) platform, and therefor will not run on any other processors without an emulator (like Qemu or Bochs), which is very slow. Beyond that, it will require an operating system to run on within the emulator (Win95+ or Linux w/ Wine), which would slow down performance all the more, as you are emulating not just a processor, but all the hardware required as well as the OS that it would run on.

All I've done is take Wine and Outpost 2 and package them together into a Mac OS X application that doesn't require installing or modifying anything to run it.

Probably a waste of my time, but I feel better sharing my 2 cents.

edit: forgot a line, lol.
« Last Edit: March 02, 2010, 11:15:27 PM by Drakmar »
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Offline Hidiot

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« Reply #11 on: March 03, 2010, 05:34:21 AM »
Drakmar, I'm sure that if I had a Mac, I would've been thankful.
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Offline Spikerocks101

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« Reply #12 on: March 03, 2010, 07:49:04 AM »
But since Darkmar is the only person with a Mac here... >_>
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Offline WooJoo

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« Reply #13 on: March 03, 2010, 08:42:56 AM »
still there might be people that could now get the chance to firstly get introduced to op2 on the platform of OSX


if i wherent such low budget style of person i would get OSX to run it ^^
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Offline Hooman

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« Reply #14 on: March 03, 2010, 01:37:00 PM »
ZigZagJoe has a Mac.
 
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Offline CK9

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« Reply #15 on: March 03, 2010, 03:12:56 PM »
Does ZZJ even visit us anymore?
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Offline Hooman

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« Reply #16 on: March 04, 2010, 02:18:32 AM »
Not really, but he has been bugging me on MSN lately to try out his music thingy. But this is getting off topic.


Hmm, come to think of it, isn't Wine still experimental? When I checked a few months ago, recall seeing a note that things will often break in updated releases. I actually had that problem at work once, where Wine was upgraded and some minor app would no longer display right to the point of being unusable.

Well, hopefully that won't be an issue for OP2.
 
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Offline WooJoo

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« Reply #17 on: March 04, 2010, 09:32:56 AM »
well you still could use a static version of wine

specialy in a OSX package version it should be a complete wine system comming along so as long as this wine version doesnt get updated this package could hold forever
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Offline Drakmar

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« Reply #18 on: March 23, 2010, 02:17:32 AM »
That's exactly what I did. The Wine version bundled with OP2 doesn't update, so stability is consistent. I think I've just about got the major bugs out of it (Networking, etc.). Not sure how online multiplayer works just yet, but once I've worked out a few more things, I'll upload the first version of it.
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Offline neutrino

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« Reply #19 on: November 15, 2010, 06:25:19 AM »
Quote
If you've bundled Wine, could that interfere with an already installed version? Maybe it should be handled with package dependcies instead? That would also offload the size of your package to an external one hosted by people distributing open source packages.
As a packaging system user, I also prefer the dependency approach, since packages are available for OS X using a few robust packaging systems (ie, Fink or NetBSD's pkgsrc).

In a not so recent past (maybe 2-3 years), wine failed to run OP2 on the intel NetBSD box I had. I had to play in VMWare, which meant to have a complete windows installation just to play OP2. But now it seems to work out of the box in wine !

I installed wine 1.3.3 and OP2 work smoothly, with sound and all keyboard/mouse interaction. Indeed, animated cursors do not work but this is not a problem. All that is needed to be tested is multiplayer playing over TCP/IP. Also, I can't seem to be able to resize adequately the display window.

BTW Drakmar, where did you get that high resolution Outpost 2 logo/icon ?
« Last Edit: November 15, 2010, 06:41:36 AM by neutrino »
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Offline Drakmar

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« Reply #20 on: November 29, 2010, 01:41:51 PM »
The ship I took from another thread, and New Terra I rendered myself. I used GIMP to place the ship on top of the planet and generated a PNG and an ICNS file. I can't remember who made the original image, but I believe you can find it by searching the forum for Outpost Icon.
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