Talon and Virtualbox (Hint: Use WINE)

sdfgeoff · 2014-01-15 11:14:34

Talon runs perfectly under Wine, which is easier to set up, uses less resources, and doesn't have framerate problems. No tweaking of Wine was necessary, it just worked.
Talon runs properly and fluidly, even multiplayer, which is neat.

Tip for people with tiled window managers: turn off fullscreen. At least in my case, i3wm doesn't make it fullscreen, and then it goes black if you change desktop or resize the 'window' it it running in.

-------------- Old Guff ------------
Pre-story
I tend to run linux, and Talon is one of the ~4 windows-only programs I use (one of the others is Torque Constructor for making maps!)

For the past few months I've been using the Windows 8.1 Consumer Preview, but now it is about to expire. I have a valid Windows 7 license, but instead of installing it to dual-boot in the same way as I did for Win8.1, I decided I might try using Virtualbox. It solves all sorts of problems to do with transferring files, not-shared /home directories, driver issues, and a couple more.

So I went ahead and installed Windows 7, and inside it installed Talon.

The Problem:
Well, it didn't run. Looking through console.log, it complains about missile openGL commands, so I went and checked the OpenGL version, which turned out to be v1.1. After a bit of playing with the VM, I updated that to OpenGL 2.1 with GLSL 1.3.

But Talon still didn't run.

The Solution(ish):
Out of interest, I copied across my existing Talon version, rather than a fresh install. (note that this was version 1.0.2 rather than 1.0.0, which may be the difference), which ran fine, albiet at a slow, but manageable frame-rate (~15. Settings don't seem to make a difference).
Initially, I had the problem where the mouse wouldn't reset back to the center, and so it flew 'joystick style' rather than 'mouselook style.' This was fixed by disabling Mouse Pointer Integration in Virtualbox.
The mouse does have some lag to it, and so flying is a challenge.
Talon must be run windowed.
I'll play around with it some more, and see if I can:
a) get the framerate up
b) reduce the lag (or see what a joystick does)

Physical Hardware Details:
HP Envy m6 laptop
2.6 quad core
8Gb ram
Radeon 7670M graphics with drivers installed and working.

Virtual Hardware Details:
Windows 7 64 bit
2Gb ram
256mb Vram with 2D and 3D acceleration
Using virtualbox 'Guest Additions' to give OpenGL2.1
Single Core 2.6 Ghz

-- Edit --
Upping the processor to dual core, and changing the way the mouse was transmitted made no difference. I suspect that the game is running at a full 60 or so FPS, but is only being transferred to my screen at ~15-20 FPS. I wonder if using VNC would make any difference

Interestingly, Talon goes completely black if the screen resolution changed mid-game. Not sure if that's a problem with talon or the VM. Probably the VM.

Last edited by sdfgeoff (2014-01-19 12:22:06)

VEX-Munk · 2014-01-15 19:43:13

I mean it is not that Talon promises to run on VirtualBox, it is VirtualBox who promises it will run Windows software. Hence any incompatibility experienced is a problem of VirtualBox, not of Talon.

I would suggest you wait for the Talon Linux version, and inbetween you could use a dual boot system.

Do_Checkor · 2014-01-15 20:34:06

If I was about to be running Talon on Linux:

I heard from Lion that Talon (Demo) would work fine in "Wine".

sdfgeoff · 2014-01-15 23:09:34

@Vex-Munk
Yeah, I've just got tired of maintaining a dual-boot system. Quite a few times when Windows 8.1 does an update, it mucks up the grub installation. I've had enough fun staring at this prompt:

grub rescue>_

to last me a very long time.

Also, I was not trying to attack or accuse Talon of having problems with Virtualbox. I am well aware that it's not Talon's job to do so. I just thought it would be good to let other people know that it does work.

@Do_Checkor:
I'm convinced that when I tried Talon on Wine a month or two ago, it didn't work. But I've just tried it again now, and it runs perfectly! This is probably worth noting to the Mac fans (and the obscurer linux distro fans) as well.

Do_Checkor · 2014-01-16 01:41:30

True.

I was about to say that here, but then got around that. Well. Good I saw your hint.

I think "EXI" is already playing Talon on MAC - but I would need to verify.

However: Cool that it appears to run perfectly (and that is the same Lion said).

Announcement

#1 2014-01-15 11:14:34

Talon and Virtualbox (Hint: Use WINE)

#2 2014-01-15 19:43:13

Re: Talon and Virtualbox (Hint: Use WINE)

#3 2014-01-15 20:34:06

Re: Talon and Virtualbox (Hint: Use WINE)

#4 2014-01-15 23:09:34

Re: Talon and Virtualbox (Hint: Use WINE)

#5 2014-01-16 01:41:30

Re: Talon and Virtualbox (Hint: Use WINE)

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