GOG: If Only There Was Support For...

Update 27 Jul 2014:

GoG has announced support for Linux. Currently there are 50 or so games.

Original post (13 Dec 2013):

In the past I've bought quite a few games from awesome DRM-free games site Good Old Games. But it's been a while now, primarily because I haven't used Windows for a couple of years.

They send me regular emails like this one, asking me to come back:

And I keep saying "I'd love to buy more stuff, but none of the games will run on Linux".

I understand why they can't support the platform, so I'm not blaming them, but it makes me sad, because I'd love to support their efforts.

:(

Review: TP-Link TL-WN722N USB Wifi Adapter

Yesterday a friend from work lent me his TP-Link TL-WN722N USB wireless adapter to try out.

I plugged it into a machine running Linux Mint 15 (Cinnamon) 64-bit. At first everything seemed fine: it connected to the router flawlessly, and started getting data as fast as the internet could provide it.

Then I moved the machine into another room, to see how it would go through walls. It was about 8 metres away, going through two brick walls. It could no longer connect.

You mad bro? (Definitely didn't like being moved away from the router)

I gradually moved the machine closer, but found that I had to be in direct sight of the router and less than 1 metre away before it would connect up. I can't imagine this is normal, and must be a fault with the hardware. Bit unfortunate! If you've got one of these and get similar symptoms, I'd be returning it straight away.

Unfortunately I can't really do a proper review (even for me, I'm pretty rough after all) with these results. :(

Review: MSI B75MA-E33 and MSI DVD-RW

I hadn't used an MSI motherboard before, so I thought I'd give one a go. They apparently have a relatively high fault rate compared to competitors, so I don't see them recommended as often.

The B75MA-E33 is a budget board, I guess targeted at low cost builds. It was the cheapest B75 chipset board at my local parts store.

The PCB wasn't too thin or flimsy, no more so than other B75 boards I've used anyway. I paired it with a G1610 CPU, and it booted up first time with no problems. All ports were functional, so no issues at all. Didn't spend long in the BIOS, seemed okay, but the case didn't have a fan that could be controlled by the motherboard, so didn't get to really test any of their fan control features. I had to pop open the manual to find the placement of the case power, reset and LED pins, since there was no indication printed on the board itself.

It only has D-Sub and HDMI ports for onboard graphics, but if you've got a HDMI monitor it seems like a fairly solid budget board.

MSI DVD-RW

In the same build I grabbed an MSI DVD drive as well, again the cheapest on offer at $16.

It came in a box (unusual these days) with a set of screws and a replaceable faceplate for people with white cases -- cute.

I was pleasantly surprised with the noise, no louder than any other drive. About the only limitation is the white text on the faceplate, unlike, say, the Pioneer DVD drives, which is in black so it's not as obvious.

But overall another decent budget option.

Review: Shaw GT-GM1 Computer Case

After reading this review on OCAU forums, I was curious as to whether the Shaw cases were really a viable option for budget builds.

So I picked up the $33 Shaw GT-GM1 from MSY to give it a test (no PSU of course -- as all good children say in their prayers at night, please don't let Daddy use a Shaw power supply).

I must admit the sound of parts rattling around inside the box was a bad sign. Turned out to be a couple of 5.25" and 3.5" clips that hold drives in place had fallen out and needed to be clipped back together -- no big deal.

First impressions: the case appearance was far from pretty, but not too garish. The crinkly front doesn't look as bad in real life as it does to me in the photos. Top-mounted power supply position is getting rarer these days, but was common a few years back and seems the way ultra-cheap cases are still made. The back screws felt a little cross-threaded. The side panels were flimsy (as noted in the other review), pretty much as expected in a cheap case.

Notes on the rest of the setup:

• One of the 3.5" plastic disk holder clips was missing.
• Two missing expansion slot plates at the back.

• Motherboard risers were pre-installed. Some risers were loose and couldn't be tightened -- cross-threaded out of the box. Reworking some of the other risers (there were more than would be needed for the mATX board I had) fixed the problem, but it didn't instill any confidence.

• No case screws! Other than the motherboard risers, nothing at all.
• Front panel cords were cable-tied in such a way they wouldn't reach the motherboard. Pretty difficult to cable-manage them in any neat way.

• Case comes with a single fan at the back. The fan had to be powered directly from the PSU via a Molex plug, rather than a 3- or 4-pin plug into a motherboard header.
• Noise levels aren't great. The case fan runs flat out due to its Molex plug.

I can't remember ever feeling so dubious about a case working properly, but on first boot everything seemed okay. USB, headphones, power/reset switches and fan all worked upon testing, frankly to my surprise at that point.

So my conclusion is a little different to the OCAU reviewer's: given the problems I found with this case, I couldn't recommend it, even taking into account the price. It not unlikely that someone looking to do a cheap-as-possible build may be doing their first or at least be inexperienced. The lack of case screws and dodgy motherboard risers would likely stymie them. I was okay because I had a heap of spare parts, but that isn't everybody. Anyone actually using the case should be prepared to either replace the stock fan or fit a voltage regulator (taking the price closer to the next-case-in-line anyway).

In my opinion, you're far better off paying an extra $15 for a fifty-dollar case. Even though they may not be fantastic either, I think it's money well-spent.

Convert M4V to AVI Using ffmpeg

I tried numerous ffmpeg settings to convert some M4V (MP4) files into AVI. Most either didn't work or crashed with a segmentation fault.

The only one I found that worked was this answer at StackOverflow. However, the quality of the file produced using the settings in the answer wasn't great, so this is what I ended up using:

ffmpeg -i input.m4v -f avi -b 2048k -ab 160k -ar 44100 output.avi

The output files are about twice the size of the input file, unfortunately, but they look decent.

AMD GPU on Linux, Revisited

It's been almost a year since I first tried to run an AMD graphics card on Linux. After some success with an AMD A-CPU build a few weeks back, I picked up a 2nd hand HD7770 yesterday to try out and see if things have improved.

There were a number of tests I was interested in doing. I didn't have a convenient dual-monitor setup available, so everything is on a single screen (dual screen was one of my major problems last time, so I might get around to this at some point). The tests were:

• Dragging a window around, looking for tearing
• Scrolling in a web browser, looking for tearing again
• Playing a HD video
• Playing a game

I installed the card on my old Intel Q6600 system, and ran off the onboard graphics to start with, to get a baseline. I installed a fresh Kubuntu 13.04 as the test platform. These are the results, discussion at the end:

Test 1: Intel i915 (onboard) Graphics

Action	Result	Comments
Drag window	X	Noticeable glitches
Browser scroll	X	Occasional glitches
Movie	:)
Game	X	Unplayable (took a few minutes and hadn't even made it through the intro to the title screen)

Test 2: Open Source (Radeon) Drivers

Action	Result	Comments
Drag window	X	Noticeable glitches
Browser scroll	X	Occasional glitches, similar in appearance to the onboard performance
Movie	:)
Game	X	Game ran, going from 20 FPS sometimes down to 5. Some major glitching, and eventually a black screen. Not playable.

Example of the in-game glitching with the open source drivers

Test 3: AMD Catalyst 13.4

Action	Result	Comments
Drag window	:)	Looks nice, but need to ensure "Tear Free" option is selected in AMD Control Centre
Browser scroll	:)	Again, need to ensure "Tear Free" option is selected
Movie	:)	And again
Game	:D	Very good results (eventually), no noticeable lag on full-screen.

I intended to use 13.10, but the current version of Catalyst wouldn't install properly, so I dropped back to 13.04.

Installing the driver is still fraught with difficulties. The first couple of attempts failed -- even using the ubuntu libraries with apt-get install fglrx fglrx-amdccle wouldn't work. In the end, the way I got it going was by following the instructions in this askubuntu answer. In particular, I think getting all the dependencies is critical.

The proprietary driver may have an unfair advantage in my tests drag/scroll tests, since I found the "Tear Free" switch. I'm not sure if such an option exists for the open source drivers.

So, I had better luck than last time round, but the installation process is still daunting, and dual-screen support would be good to try out.

Fixing KDE Games Menu Crash

After installing the game "A Virus Named Tom" from the Humble Bundle 9, trying to view the "Games" menu in KDE started crashing.

The problem is due to the file avirusnamedtom_com-avirusnamedtom_1.desktop in ~/.local/share/applications. It contains a reference to an image where either a) the reference is invalid because it contains spaces, or b) the image is unreadable.

To fix the problem, I edited the Icon line from:

Icon=/home/ash/Software/games/installed/
  VirusNamedTom/A Virus Named TOM.bmp

to:

Icon="/home/ash/Software/games/installed/
  VirusNamedTom/A Virus Named TOM.bmp"

(Line break above is for clarity -- there is no line break in the file).

After logging out and logging back in, the Games menu should work again (although the icon for AVNT still doesn't appear properly, and I can't open the file in the default image viewer, which makes me think it's broken in some way. GIMP can open it without any problem, so I'm not sure what the issue is).

An alternative solution is to rename or delete the .desktop file, but then you lose the AVNT menu entry.

Also note this should fix a crash when clicking on the menu and selecting "Edit Applications..." -- which also occurred until I made this fix.

Hat tip to abelthorne, who posted the clue that led me to track this down.

Update 17/10/2013:
After a bit more experimentation, I found that the image can be made to work in the Games menu by saving as it as .PNG in GIMP, removing the spaces in the filename, and removing the quotes in the Icon entry in the .desktop file. There are some weirdnesses or limitations in the .desktop format it seems, and also something strange with the .BMP that comes with AVNT.

MakeMKV + Handbrake

Handbrake is a great transcoding tool, but I've come across situations where it refuses to format shift some DVDs. To get around it, I installed MakeMKV which knows how to do such things.

The process is a little more drawn out though, here's how I did it:

1. Download the MakeMKV binary and source as per the MakeMKV Linux wiki page.
2. In a command prompt, execute the following commands (assuming version numbers are the same):

$ tar xvf makemkv-bin-1.8.5.tar.gz $ tar xvf makemkv-oss-1.8.5.tar.gz $ cd makemkv-oss-1.8.5/ $ make -f makefile.linux $ sudo make -f makefile.linux install $ cd ../makemkv-bin-1.8.5/ $ make -f makefile.linux $ sudo make -f makefile.linux install $ makemkv

3. The last command starts the newly installed makemkv GUI. The GUI is fairly easy to work through, but this guide for using it is pretty good. I didn't need to change any of the default settings, just let it do its thing.
4. Once MakeMKV has ripped its stuff, it will create an MKV file. You can then load this file into Handbrake and transcode into any other format as normal. The MKV can be deleted after transcode if you don't want it anymore (it can be pretty big).

---

Update for MakeMKV 1.8.10 Beta (14 Jun 2014):

Current instructions on the wiki page work fine, not sure why I had slightly different process above. You also need to register a key to use the beta.

Review: Rapoo RP-X1800 Wireless Keyboard/Mouse

Since my Shintaro wireless keyboard decided to go on the fritz, I needed a cheap replacement while the Shintaro goes off on its warranty journey.

The Rapoo RP-X1800 was $19, and I have to say I'm pretty impressed with it. They keys are a little squishy (as to be expected with a cheap keyboard), there is no caps lock LED (also common for wireless keyboards) and no off switch on the keyboard (there is one on the mouse).

But the wireless connectivity was flawless. Compared to the Shintaro, which was never quite right, the Rapoo just worked straight away with no key presses lost, and moving the mouse will wake the computer from screen saver, something the Shintaro trackball never did, to my annoyance. The wireless USB adapter isn't as small as a Logitech one, but is smaller than Shintaro's.

The biggest drawback for use as a HTPC input device is the separate mouse and keyboard parts, but I'd have no hesitation recommending the Rapoo X1800 as a solid budget wireless KB/mouse combo.

---

Update 14-Dec-2013:

After running with this combo for a while now, I have noticed occasional glitches when typing, usually trying to type something really fast. Isn't much of an issue (doing passwords is probably the most annoying), but I didn't notice this issue when I first started using the Rapoo so thought I'd update to mention it.

For me Logitech is still the best as far as quality of wireless connectivity goes.

Conky Config

^{(Update 25-Oct-2014: Slightly updated version posted.}

Just installed conky and looked around for some cute configs. This one by asoliverez looked nice, so I grabbed it and started playing around.

It didn't quite work for all values, since I didn't have all the pre-requisite software installed. So I hacked it up a little bit, and came up with the following that works with sensors (I worked out how to do it using this guy's example as a template), nvidia-smi (since I've got an nVidia GPU installed) and my particular file systems setup:

File: .conkyrc

background no
font Sans:size=8
#xftfont Sans:size=10
use_xft yes
xftalpha 0.9
update_interval 5.0
total_run_times 0
own_window yes
own_window_type normal
own_window_argb_visual true
own_window_transparent yes
#own_windiw_class conky
own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
# To make conky always on top, swap 'below' in above line to 'above':
#own_window_hints undecorated,above,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
double_buffer yes
minimum_size 220 5
maximum_width 220
draw_shades yes
draw_outline no
draw_borders no
draw_graph_borders yes
default_color CDE0E7
default_shade_color black
default_outline_color green
alignment top_right
gap_x 12
gap_y 35
no_buffers yes
uppercase no # set to yes if you want all text to be in uppercase
cpu_avg_samples 2
override_utf8_locale no

TEXT
${color white}SYSTEM ${hr 1}${color}

Hostname: $alignr$nodename
Kernel: $alignr$kernel
Uptime: $alignr$uptime
MB Temperature: ${alignr}${iconv_start UTF-8 ISO_8859-1}${exec sensors|grep 'Physical id 0'|awk '{print $4}'}${iconv_stop}
CPU Temperature 0: ${alignr}${iconv_start UTF-8 ISO_8859-1}${exec sensors|grep 'Core 0'|awk '{print $3}'}${iconv_stop}
CPU Temperature 1: ${alignr}${iconv_start UTF-8 ISO_8859-1}${exec sensors|grep 'Core 1'|awk '{print $3}'}${iconv_stop}
CPU Temperature 2: ${alignr}${iconv_start UTF-8 ISO_8859-1}${exec sensors|grep 'Core 2'|awk '{print $3}'}${iconv_stop}
CPU Temperature 3: ${alignr}${iconv_start UTF-8 ISO_8859-1}${exec sensors|grep 'Core 3'|awk '{print $3}'}${iconv_stop}
Fan 1: ${alignr}${hwmon 1 fan 1} RPM
Fan 2: ${alignr}${hwmon 1 fan 2} RPM
#Battery: ${alignr}${battery_percent BAT0}%
CPU: ${alignr}${freq} MHz
GPU Temp: ${alignr}${exec nvidia-smi | grep '. ..\% ..C'|awk '{print $3}'}${iconv_start UTF-8 ISO_8859-1}°${iconv_stop}C
Processes: ${alignr}$processes ($running_processes running)
Load: ${alignr}$loadavg

CPU1 ${alignr}${cpu cpu1}%
${cpubar cpu1}
CPU2 ${alignr}${cpu cpu2}%
${cpubar cpu2}
CPU3 ${alignr}${cpu cpu3}%
${cpubar cpu3}
CPU4 ${alignr}${cpu cpu4}%
${cpubar cpu4}

Ram ${alignr}$mem / $memmax ($memperc%)
${membar 4}
swap ${alignr}$swap / $swapmax ($swapperc%)
${swapbar 4}

${color gray}Highest CPU $alignr CPU% MEM%${color}
${top name 1}$alignr${top cpu 1}${top mem 1}
${top name 2}$alignr${top cpu 2}${top mem 2}
${top name 3}$alignr${top cpu 3}${top mem 3}

${color gray}Highest MEM $alignr CPU% MEM%${color}
${top_mem name 1}$alignr${top_mem cpu 1}${top_mem mem 1}
${top_mem name 2}$alignr${top_mem cpu 2}${top_mem mem 2}
${top_mem name 3}$alignr${top_mem cpu 3}${top_mem mem 3}

${color white}Filesystem ${hr 1}${color}

Root: ${alignr}${fs_used /} / ${fs_size /}
${fs_bar 4 /}
Files: ${alignr}${fs_used /files} / ${fs_size /files}
${fs_bar 4 /files}

${color white}NETWORK ${hr 1}${color}

Eth0: ${addr eth0}
Down ${downspeed eth0} k/s ${alignr}Up ${upspeed eth0} k/s
${downspeedgraph eth0 25,107} ${alignr}${upspeedgraph eth0 25,107}
Total ${totaldown eth0} ${alignr}Total ${totalup eth0}

Wlan0: ${addr wlan0}
Signal: ${alignr}${wireless_link_qual wlan0}%
Down ${downspeed wlan0} k/s ${alignr}Up ${upspeed wlan0} k/s
${downspeedgraph wlan0 25,107} ${alignr}${upspeedgraph wlan0 25,107}
Total ${totaldown wlan0} ${alignr}Total ${totalup wlan0}

(Text wrap doesn't work real well...sorry. It should cut and paste okay though if anyone is interested in it).

(Update 23-Dec-2013: Added option to keep conky "always on top").

(Update 27-Sep-2014: Fixed CPU bar always showing same % issue).

Looks pretty good sitting there over in the corner of the screen:

Fixing Tearing with Kubuntu 13.04 and nVidia 304.88

UPDATE 26th May 2014: I tried this same fix on Kubuntu 14.04, and it black-screened the system. I'd also been tinkering with some other stuff at the same time, so haven't tracked it down exactly (or what the new fix might be), but I suspect it is the GL_YIELD change to /etc/profile below. I don't recommend doing it unless you're ready to rollback/recover the original.. UPDATE 20th Oct 2014: Tried a very similar fix on 14.04 and this time it worked, so not sure what was going on here.

After finding a workaround to fix tearing on Mint 15 Cinnamon, I jumped to Kubuntu 13.04 because there were some strange issues with screen recording in Mint, I assume because of the tearing workaround affected some of the internals in the graphics stack that screen capture uses.

Unfortunately, Kubuntu had the same tearing issue that Xubuntu exhibited. The solution again was a workaround, but different:

• Install KDE 4.11 as per the instructions at this noobslab article:

  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports
  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

  (Not sure if this was actually necessary, but it was one of the other things I tried first).
• In "Desktop Effects -- KDE Control Module" => Advanced tab, set Compositing type to "OpenGL 3.1" and Tearing Prevention (VSync) to "Re-use screen content".
• Add:

  export __GL_YIELD="USLEEP"

  To /etc/profile as per this KDE forum post. _{NOTE: But see above regarding this possibly having problems in more recent versions}.

That should fix the tearing.

Note on Fullscreen Games

For some reason, the above worked in the general desktop environment, but fullscreen games were still tearing. The fix that worked in that case was to uncheck "Suspend desktop effects for fullscreen windows". Not sure why that made things better, since I would have thought the other way around would work, but that's the change that fixed it.

Things That Didn't Work

For reference, here are the things I tried that didn't work:

• Turn off compositing with Alt+Shift+F12 (no effect).
• Install KDE 4.11 (as noted above, this by itself didn't help, but may be necessary for the workaround).
• Install compiz. The tearing was perhaps a little better, but still not great, and compiz just doesn't look as good as kwin.

And one last resort I would have tried eventually: Re-compiling KDE with this patch.

Running Card Hunter in Linux

I read a recent PAR article on new browser-based game Card Hunter so I signed up to give it a shot.

Unfortunately if you're using Linux and Firefox, depending on the version of the flash player you have installed, it probably won't work.

To get it going I installed Chromium and the Pepper flash plugin, following these instructions (as referenced in the Card Hunter forums). This works perfectly.

New Linux Install -- Software List

Software and setup for a new distro install:

Setup/Config

• /etc/fstab SSD tuning
• Case insensitive bash
• Copy over .fonts folder
• Copy over .xsetwacom, .vimrc, .hgrc

Software

• GPU drivers (if needed)
• Firefox, plus add-ons:
  • AdBlockPlus
  • NoScript
  • FlashGot
• Mercurial
• Thunderbird
• Gvim
• KeepassX
• ia32-libs
• Handbrake
• Unetbootin
• Imagemagick
• VLC
• lm-sensors
• Gimp
• Krita
• Eclipse

Optionals/As Needed

• VirtualBox
• Wine
• Wallch
• SimpleScan
• k3b, xfburn (or some other DVD burner)

Experimentals

• Tupi2D
• recordMyDesktop
• Vokoscreen

Budget Small(ish) Web Browser Box

I wanted a small box to sit in the corner as basically nothing more than a web browser. Since mITX parts were so difficult to source locally, I went the smallest mATX case I could find.

Here is the parts list:

• CPU: AMD A4-5300 $55
• Mobo: Asus F2A55M-LK-Plus $49
• RAM: 1x4GB 1600 (already had)
• SSD: Plextor M5S 128GB $89
• Case: Coolermaster RC361 $49
• PSU: Corsair VS450 $49
• KB/Mouse: USB combo (already had)

Total: $291 (would have been about $350 if I didn't have RAM/KB/mouse already).

Some happy snaps:

The motherboard, fresh out of the box. Notice how it captures the light...(because of my crappy photography)

The motherboard was fairly low end, but was a good price so I grabbed it. It doesn't have a USB 3 header of SATA 3, but since the build didn't need either, it filled the requirements.

CPU, pins pins pins

Motherboard with RAM, CPU and HSF mounted

Mounting the AMD HSF was straightforward: stick it on the CPU and clip it into place. Easier than Intel's "four pins" mechanism, which takes a little getting used to.

The empty case

The Coolermaster RC361 is about the smallest micro-ATX case I could source locally. It's a "sideways" mini tower, so can stand upright or on its side. For a case that cost less than $50, it's not too bad.

Case with the power supply (tucked away, unusually, in the front of the case)

Mounting the power supply was fairly tricky, and given its unusual location, there's no way to turn the PSU on or off without pulling the front of the case off (which, unlike some cases, came off easily). I don't think access to the PSU switch will prove too much of a problem for my uses. The case also has no place to mount an SSD. Since I didn't have a mounting kit, I just taped it to the bottom of the case. The RC361 does come with a comprehensive set of extra screws and cable ties.

The completed build. SSD isn't visible because it's taped to the bottom of the case

Installed Kubuntu 13.04, it worked really well. The AMD A4-5300 (with proprietary Catalyst drivers installed) will even play some games at a reasonable level (if with low settings).

Installing SmoothDraw on Linux

At the moment, SmoothDraw is my "one application" that means I have to keep my old dusty Windows box in the corner.

I investigated installing SmoothDraw on Linux under Wine, and the good news is that you can get it to work, but there are caveats.

To start with, the latest version of SmoothDraw (version 4) requires .NET Framework 4.0. I couldn't get this running properly under Wine.

But winetricks can be used to install .NET 3, and with this running you can get SmoothDraw3 to work. The only drawback is that tablet input loses its pressure sensitivity (think it's treated as a regular "mouse-like" device by the wine driver).

An option to get pressure sensitivity working was the SAI (1.5.5) version of wine specifically set up for this. But then I couldn't use winetricks, and only winetricks seems to "know" how to install .NET...

Anyway, having it work allows me to open, view and manipulate existing files, so it's worth having. This is the process for installing SmoothDraw3 under wine 1.4.1 (pieced together from my history...forgot to write it up at the time :/)

$ sudo apt-get install wine
$ export WINEARCH=win32
$ winetricks dotnet35
$ wine SmoothDraw3Setup.exe
$ wine .wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/SmoothDraw/SmoothDraw3.exe