Monzool's Personal Publishing » Games

Linux Nvidia Driver GLX Failure

monzool — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 10:01:14 +0000

I’VE BOUGHT A copy of the game Sacred Gold in an edition that is ported to Linux. This would be very exiting… if it didn’t segfault every time I start it :-(

$ sacred
sacred 1.0.1, built for i386        
Segmentation Fault: I dont believe in dragons! oh...
 
This is a BUG, please report it to http://support.linuxgamepublishing.com
Stack dump:                                                             
{                                                                       
        [0xb8024400]                                                    
        /usr/lib/gtk-2.0/modules/libcanberra-gtk-module.so [0xb68299a6] 
        /usr/lib/gtk-2.0/modules/libcanberra-gtk-module.so(gtk_module_init+0x5d) [0xb6829a5d]
        /usr/local/games/sacred/lib/lib1/libgtk-1.2.so.0(gtk_init_check+0x3f3) [0xb7700443] 
        sacred [0x860422e]                                                                  
        sacred [0x8620770]                                                                  
        sacred [0x860839b]                                                                  
        sacred [0x809ab90]
        /lib/i686/cmov/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xe5) [0xb71557a5]
 
        sacred(gtk_widget_grab_focus+0x31) [0x8053849]
}

The game publisher Linux Game Publishing has provided a test tool that evaluates if your system should be able to execute the game…

# testtool
Testing installation... OK, installed at /usr/local/games/testtool
Base system Test
----------------
Testing architecture of system... 32 bits
Testing system CPU... 1242MHz
Testing CPU flags... MMX SSE SSE2 SSE3
Testing system memory... 2025MB
 
Graphics Test
-------------
Looking for OpenGL library
Accepting /usr/lib/libGL.so.1
X Error of failed request:  BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes)
  Major opcode of failed request:  155 (GLX)
  Minor opcode of failed request:  5 (X_GLXMakeCurrent)
  Serial number of failed request:  26
  Current serial number in output stream:  26

So It appeared that I had some trouble with the proprietary Nvidia driver. I ran glxinfo and indeed it gave an error.

$ glxinfo | grep -i error
Error: glXCreateContext failed

On the world wide web I found some hints about adding the following lines to xorg.conf.

Section "Files"
    ModulePath      "/usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions"
    ModulePath      "/usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers"   
    ModulePath      "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"           
EndSection

That didn’t help. :-(

Grepping the logs however revealed some useful information

$grep -i glx /var/log/*
/var/log/Xorg.0.log:(II) "glx" will be loaded. This was enabled by default and also specified in the config file.
/var/log/Xorg.0.log:(II) LoadModule: "glx"
/var/log/Xorg.0.log:(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions//libglx.so
/var/log/Xorg.0.log:(II) Module glx: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
/var/log/Xorg.0.log:(==) AIGLX enabled
/var/log/Xorg.0.log:(II) Loading extension GLX
...
/var/log/Xorg.0.log:(EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to initialize the GLX module; please check in your X
/var/log/Xorg.0.log:(EE) NVIDIA(0):     log file that the GLX module has been loaded in your X
/var/log/Xorg.0.log:(EE) NVIDIA(0):     server, and that the module is the NVIDIA GLX module.  If
/var/log/Xorg.0.log:(==) NVIDIA(0): Enabling 32-bit ARGB GLX visuals.

It was clear that the Nvidia driver failed to intitalize the GLX module, but before that, it can be seen that another GLX module was actually loaded Module glx: vendor="X.Org Foundation". This was a big hint.

Looking into earlier investigated directories I could see that I had two different versions of the glx library files installed?

/usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions# ll
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1269220 2009-07-25 13:10 libglx.so.173.14.20
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  337008 2009-09-28 07:32 libglx.so

It seemed strange that I had two so differently sized versions of libglx laying around, and also that the Nvidia version appeared not to be the default file.
Searching for the libglx file revealed that only the fglrx-driver and the Nvidia drivers supplied that file.

$ apt-file search libglx.so
fglrx-driver: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so
nvidia-glx: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so
nvidia-glx: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so.185.18.36
nvidia-glx-legacy-173xx: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so
nvidia-glx-legacy-173xx: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so.173.14.20
nvidia-glx-legacy-71xx: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so
nvidia-glx-legacy-71xx: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so.71.86.07
nvidia-glx-legacy-96xx: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so
nvidia-glx-legacy-96xx: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so.96.43.13
xserver-xorg-core: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so
xserver-xorg-core-dbg: /usr/lib/debug/usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so

Although the only glx package that was installed on the system was libgl1-mesa-glx.

$ aptitude apts glx
p   fglrx-glx
i A libgl1-mesa-glx

Looking at libgl1-mesa-glx showed that that package installed a OpenGL library file

$dpkg -L libgl1-mesa-glx
/.
/usr
/usr/share
/usr/share/doc
/usr/share/doc/libgl1-mesa-glx
/usr/share/doc/libgl1-mesa-glx/copyright
/usr/share/doc/libgl1-mesa-glx/changelog.Debian.gz
/usr/share/lintian
/usr/share/lintian/overrides
/usr/share/lintian/overrides/libgl1-mesa-glx
/usr/lib
/usr/lib/libGL.so.1.2
/usr/lib/libGL.so.1

Strangely also here a Nvida version of the library existed in /usr/lib

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   667528 2009-07-25 13:10 libGL.so.173.14.20

This seemed like the Nvidia installer have had collisions with other already installed packages and had failed to resolve the situation properly. Unfortunately the installer had warned nothing about this situation. What I did then was to remove the existing libraries and make a symlink to the Nvidia libraries for libglx and libGL.

/usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions# ll libglx*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      19 2009-10-01 22:22 libglx.so -> libglx.so.173.14.20
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1269220 2009-07-25 13:10 libglx.so.173.14.20

/usr/lib# ll libGL*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root       18 2009-09-13 13:40 libGL.so.1 -> libGL.so.173.14.20
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root       18 2009-10-01 22:52 libGL.so.1.2 -> libGL.so.173.14.20
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   667528 2009-07-25 13:10 libGL.so.173.14.20

And then… glxinfo ran with no errors.

The log also changed for the better

$grep -i glx /var/log/*
/var/log/Xorg.0.log:(II) "glx" will be loaded. This was enabled by default and also specified in the config file.
/var/log/Xorg.0.log:(II) LoadModule: "glx"
/var/log/Xorg.0.log:(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions//libglx.so
/var/log/Xorg.0.log:(II) Module glx: vendor="NVIDIA Corporation"
/var/log/Xorg.0.log:(II) NVIDIA GLX Module  173.14.20  Thu Jun 25 19:49:59 PDT 2009
/var/log/Xorg.0.log:(II) Loading extension GLX
/var/log/Xorg.0.log:(II) NVIDIA(0): Support for GLX with the Damage and Composite X extensions is
/var/log/Xorg.0.log:(==) NVIDIA(0): Enabling 32-bit ARGB GLX visuals.
/var/log/Xorg.0.log:(II) Loading extension NV-GLX
/var/log/Xorg.0.log:(II) Initializing extension GLX

Unfortunately Sacred still segfaults big time :-(

Warlords II, Flashback and Abuse Revisited

monzool — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 22:26:09 +0000

THE TITLE FOR this post could almost as well have been “Warlords II, Flashback, Abuse and How I Spent My Youth“. Well, perhaps not really; I did play a lot of other games too :-D. When I think of great games I played in my long “carrier” of PC days, those three games I’ve always categorized as games with exceptional gameplay and a spellbinding atmosphere. No matter how horrible the graphics may look today, these properties was what kept you playing hours upon hours.

Warlords II

When it comes to Warlords II, me and my friend Michael Rasmussen that lived a couple of houses down the street, used to battle in this game for an almost infinite amount of hours – and before that, we played Warlords I for almost as many hours. Actually when hearing the hours being clocked by people playing WoW it reminds me of myself playing Warlords. I guess its the same magic.

Warlords II is reincarnated in an free open source clone LordsAWar. This project builds on the C++ implementation of FreeLords ( FreeLords it self, seems to have spawned as a Java implementation instead). LordsAWar is a multi platform game and can also be fetched from the Debian repository.

Flashback

What Flashback have in gameplay and story it also had in graphics and jaw-dropping animation sequences.

Presented in a dystopian theme, it were almost something like a “Indiana Jones meets Blade Runner” feeling of the game.

Flashback is released for Amiga and DOS platforms, but some talented fans have written the game engine REminiscence as a multi platform replacement for the original game engine. Supplying the game data files, downloadable from Abandonia, and compiling REminiscence is that enough revisit Flashback ;-) on a Linux box. A later extended CD-ROM version of Flashback is also available on Abandonia. Old reviews can be read on the Amiga Magazine Rack.

Abuse

Abuse is also abandonware and is available from Abandonia, but also exist in a free open source edition called Abuse-SDL. Like Flashback, Abuse is a dystopian game where one guy must escape from prison where all his cell mates has become monster due to experiments gone wrong.

Abuse is both a horizontal-scrolling and vertical-scrolling platform game. The controlling of the main character is somewhat unusual for a platform game, as the keyboard moves the character and the mouse controls the gun aiming. A review is available on the Amiga Magazine Rack.

Well… time for some more gaming. How needs sleep anyway?

Learning GO

monzool — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 15:16:26 +0000

FOR A COUPLE of years now I’ve wanted to learn to play the game of Go, but I just haven’t managed to find the time. Go is a strategic game for which the saying is “easy to learn, hard [impossible] to master”.

There exists a brilliant live-cd called Hikarunix. The Hikarunix CD contains a huge set of the quality information on Go found on the internet. A great asset is also the collection of tutorials, trainers and databases over played Go games. In theory Hikarunix bundles all that is required to study, learn and play Go.

Hikarunix is definitely recommendable, but experience tells me, that if you really wanna learn a subject to depth, get a book written by experts in the field and benefit from their hard earned knowledge. Hence I have bought the book Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go.

The book comes highly recommended (e.g. from www.godiscussions.com) so I’m looking forward to reading it.

I am also very exited about playing on my Go board.

This beautiful board is actually handmade by my mother. When wooden Go boards are generally price tagged in range of a Ariane space rocket, its nice to have a family that got talent :-)

The wood is a 48.3[cm] x 55,5[cm] leftover from a kitchen table and then drawing of the grid and cutting grooves for all the lines as well as coloring the lines and applying the sealer is handmade.