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Try Out Tux Racer This Weekend
Forager writes: "Tux the Penguin is no longer just a logo. He's also a racecar. Sort of. Sunspire Studios has just released the game Tux Racer for the Windows and Linux operating systems (OpenGL required). From their website: "Tux Racer lets you take on the role of Tux the Linux Penguin as he races down steep, snow-covered mountains. Enter cups and compete to win the title! Tux Racer includes a variety of options for gameplay, including the abilty to race courses in fog, at night, and under high winds." Great graphics. Slick gameplay. Cool stuff. Getting great reviews, too. Oh, and did I mention it's totally free? Very cool stuff indeed." Quite cool looking. It's in apt so Debian users can just 'apt-get install tuxracer' and check it out. It ain't no Mario Kart 64, but then again, what is? Screenshots are impressive too.
I'm the Debian package maintainer for TuxRacer, getting /.ed by mail asking for potato (Debian 2.2) packages.
And I am currently looking for an adequate potato machine to recompile my package, that does have the apropriate -dev packages installed or where I can have them installed easily. If I can't find one, I'll try to create an chroot() potato environment. So be patient and wait a few more days. Unfortunatly, I can't afford to keep an extra machine running potato.
Of course, you can always recompile from source. Do a s/stable/unstable/ on your deb-src line in /etc/apt/sources.list, apt-get update and apt-get source tuxracer tuxracer-data Don't we just love Debian?
PS: Potato binaries won't have sound and joystick support, unless you use libsdl* from unstable.
okay, thanks. I got mine. you can all head for the cliff...
--
Liberty uber alles.
Erm - TuxRacer actually has environment mapped ice - and the snow certainly *looks* bumpmapped.
And the hybrid Parrot/Tux idea has also been
done before - it's the mascot of 'PrettyPoly',
a 3D modeller.
http://prettypoly.sourceforge.net
www.sjbaker.org
the penguin hardly symbolizes the open source movement as one of teamwork, progress and widescope.
You don't seem to comprehend what the open source movement is all about. It's not about teamwork or progress, it's about eating raw fish, and personally I think the penguin is an excellent symbol for that.
With this game, grassroots Linux gaming has entered the big league. Oh, and don't forget Parsec. And a *lot* of others on the way. Check out crystal space. How long before we have an open source game to rival half life or unreal? (John Carmack is *already* open source so I don't count him:)
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Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
you're missing my objection
mentioning it every post is completely obnoxious
he might as well end every post with 'save the whales'
What libGL dependencies are you going to use? I am running XFree86 4.0.1 and don't want utah to be installed on me. Are there any debian options or am I just going to have to wait for the official 4.0.1 packages and for everything to depend on that?
They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- C. Sagan
Coming this Holiday Season....
Tony Tux - Pro Penguin
-Julius X
-Julius X
remove "-whatkindofspamdoyoutakemefor-" from email to send
it's sure not just you :(
-------------------- the list is long. dirac angestung gesept
Same deal here. It took forever for the .exe to load and then the game was so slow to be unplayable. I know it's not OpenGL because other games that use that run fine.
It looks sweet though.
- Apple Computer......proudly going out of business for over twenty years.
(I'm hoping the author sees this)
Other than that, A real solid game. I was unable to compile it on my linux box, which doesn't have OpenGL, but I played on windows at work, and it was a quality, fun game. Much improved since I first saw it months ago.
________
Thats my favorite map also. I got to 197kph at one point before I hit a sharp turn and flew off the track :) My record is only 1:38 with 51 herring
I tried playing on my PII/500, 256MB, Matrox Millenium G200AGP box, and it was getting frame rates of like 1 FPS. Once I installed the newest drivers direct from Matrox, I was getting great frame rates - it's actually playable now. FYI.
Is it just me, or is that music kind of perky?
I also remember an old FAQ response from the Be website, shortly before the Be Book came out in print from O'Reilly:
That's pretty weird guys. Ran sweet for me in Win98, I'm on Celery 466@581, 128mb ram, GeForce2 MX...
Super Mario _Land_ was NEVER on SNES, only Gameboy.
Idiot.
My statement still stands regardless.
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
> Wilber the Gimp (finally, we get to see what the rest of him looks like)
/ 1.11.ppm.gif
The rest of him looks like this...
http://tigert.gimp.org/gimp/gimp-splash-history
Shouldn't the $ amount stay fixed at 0?
Seriously, that game's got the worst controls ever. Frustrating as hell.
Hands in my pocket
would you all mind not hitting the server until my download is done? thanks!
mike
--
Liberty uber alles.
Does anybody else remember the old apple game (I think it was a Beagle Brothers product) called "I/O Silver". Aside from being a bad pun, it was also a very good pengo play-alike. You were a frantic programmer running around a lab, killing bugs instead of ice-creatures =:-)
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Play Six Pack Man. I
jesus, could cmdrtaco spew more about debian, apt-get, and his someone-please-think-i-am-a-cool-geek debian swirl t-shirt?
nearly every single post of his nowadays mentions apt-get, how much he loves debian, and what debian clothing he's wearing that day.
were you wearing your debian swirl shirt when you posted that article, cmdrtaco? if so, why didn't you tell us again?
Which means I won't be able to play it at work all afternoon. Damnit!
--------- Beware the dragon, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.
This was a free game while it was under development... I guess it's done now. Hmmm.
Prediction: You mentioning a cockatiel will bring on at least four hundred lame-ass joke posts and another two-hundred penis bird posts.
Bite my yammer.
I just installed it on my machine at work which is a 466 celeron with 384MB RAM and it seems a little chunky. Anyone else having this problem. IF not what processor are you using.?
This would make a really nice mini-game in Tux Adventure...
It sure does give an example of *nix for the common man -- that it isn't.
I think after I made my first MySQL/PHP4 connection, I was enthralled by how fast and to the point the whole process was. FreeBSD that I was running it on worked great even on a p133. However, I guess install complexity with *nix is of course because of decentralization.
However, I think it'd be reasonable to have nice install processes (star office), but things of course do get bloated.
Anyway... have fun this weekend you guys!
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Clippy gets to be the Windows mascot...
TeX... you may have heard of it...
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...is maybe more characters from other alternative OS's.
:)
Just think about it for a second. Add in the FreeBSD Daemon, maybe the Linux Fox, Wilber the Gimp (finally, we get to see what the rest of him looks like), and maybe even Clarus the Dogcow (Darwin and all that). Of course, we'd have to think of something to represent Be too; any Be users know of a candidate?
And maybe just for fun, even throw in the Windows logo as a secret character, but it's only half as fast as the other characters and automatically aims toward obstacles so it crashes all the time
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From this LinuxWorld article: (in relation to track editing for Tux Racer)
...
There are three layers that are used for elevation, terrain, and trees. The rules for each of those individual layers are as follows:
Elevation is measured by colors. White is high, and black is low.
It sounds to me like the whole dammed track is one huge bump map. Not really a bump map in the current normal usage but more like a heightfield from POVRay and similar.
Quite a clever, and very cheap (Gimp) way of coming up with a map editor.
0daymeme.com: Great stuff.
It would have been possible to optimize the Windows version a little more. I would like to think that my rig isn't to blame for the 1/5 fps rate.
Pax Digitalia
I have had the same problems. It is ridiculous, I have a PIII 667, w/128 MB RAM and a Rage IIC 8MB 3D video card, but the game moves at a pitiful pace. The image refreshes about once per second, making it nearly impossible to steer well. It is a great looking game, and once I get the right sound and joystick drivers, I'll try it under Linux, with the hopes that it'll be better. Does anyone have any idea what is causing this sluggishness?
He must be using an alpha heatsink ;-)
<O
( \
XPlay Tetris On Drugs!
Will I retire or break 10K?
The question is, what will they do with the Cow from Practical C Programming?
Starcraft cheat code: "there is no cow level" does this give you any ideas? It sure gave the Diablo team some ideas, as Diablo II includes a cow bonus level. (Yes, I know they're both Blizzard but...)
Think Earthworm Jim. Think the official PC Space Invaders. Think South Park 64. Cow levels all over the place.
<O
( \
XPlay Tetris On Drugs!
Will I retire or break 10K?
TSIA (title says it all)
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
=(.\')=
What would O'Reilly do with the dustpuppy (#5260) on the cover of Evil Geniuses in a Nutshell?
<O
( \
XPlay Tetris On Drugs!
Will I retire or break 10K?
I think this is one of the first Slashdot posts where people are actually clicking the link and downloading before posting... I'm at 3% right now...
--
Feminism is the wild notion that women are human beings.
The BEST Penguin simulator, EVER. I can't remember one with more staunch, out right playability and action than this one. Sure, there was SimPenguin, and Pengulator 2000 in the 80's, but this takes the cake.
Ah, another fan game, one that sounds like it could be as much fun as xBill. Of course, will we have the option of running a biathalon with panicked Bill Gates as the targets? Just a thought...
-TBHiX-
Short answer: Buggy video drivers.
Long answer:
The Win2K driver development kit is not part of the standard MSSDK; it costs extra (filesystem drivers alone are $1000). NT4 driver developers whose companies wouldn't foot the bill had to reverse-engineer the W2K driver model, and this produced buggy drivers (don't run NT servers in more than 640x480x4-bit). This has crashed Win2K Pro (brought the whole system down; dumb stupid graphics-in-the-kernel) several times on Allegro library-based games that run fine in Win95/98/ME, Windows NT, DOS, and Linux.
<O
( \
XPlay Tetris On Drugs!
Will I retire or break 10K?
But he's also Super Mario!. Fun for all us fanboys.
These comments and opinions are mine and mine alone, although they shouldn't be.
I agree that Nintendo's Mario Kart 64 software for its Nintendo 64 console had bugs in both design and implementation. Here's a small sample:
Before you say, "That's not a bug; it's a feature," remember that Windows's BSODs are considered by some to be "a feature."
At least the MK64 CPU cheats less than the SMK-16 CPU.
<O
( \
XPlay Tetris On Drugs!
Will I retire or break 10K?
On an offtopic note, does anyone think that a cockatiel would make a good mascot for an Australian distro of Linux? (for some Cockatiel pictures, check out www.cockatiel.com)
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Who's the crack smoker?
There are no games in the samples folder of the DirectX SDK (In both versions 7a and 8 RC0)..
xer.xes -- 4181
I may not get to post till this weekend, takeing forever to download...
How many times can you mention apt-get in a single day on Slashdot? I think right now the string "apt-get" appears more frequently on the front page than in this post. I mean, I know you love it but the way you rave about it it sounds like you want it to do you in the butt. While I'm sure it's a neat way to update/install programs, DONT MAKE IT THE FOCUS OF YOUR ENTIRE LIFE.
Umm... I'm not sure if this is actually going to be enough of a reason to bring linux to the masses.... I mean games are cool and all, but until we have more reliable drivers for all the cool graphics cards, they won't ever be able to compete with some of the more complex Win32 games. I think maybe some time should be spend working instead on more PRACTICAL applications, like a good Professional document publishing suite that doesn't use WINE.
The origianl Super Mario Kart destroys both of them.
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
If you could race other people over the internet, it would really make the game worth getting...
.sigs??
Nothing like showing up those windows players who can play the better tux...
-- Don't you hate it when people comment on other people's
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I could get this thing to work properly. Anyone here have any suggestions?
The question is, what will they do with the Cow from Practical C Programming?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Did anyone notice the requirements on Ingava?... To bad I got linux so I can't install it :(
--
If noone rtfa, then what's the slashdot effect?
There *is* a MarioKart64 clone for Linux, it's here: http://tuxkart.sourceforge.net
www.sjbaker.org
Look at the screenshot where Tux is cruising at 174 km/h.
Hot damn. Even on ice, anyone that can avoid bursting into flames when sliding on their stomach at that speed HAS to be the ruler.. of.. well, something.
Last time I gave a Windows CD that much friction, it wouldn't even install anymore (CD under tire, pop the clutch, we've all done stuff like that, right?).
It's the same in most entertainment industries. Remeber "Blair Witch Project"?
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
Another troll bites the dust.
Is this post not nifty? Sluggy Freelance. Worshi
Okay, so we're reached the point where the mere mention of Linux or its theme animal make something worthy of posting?
There are a TON of free games and free game demos out on the net. It must be nice for this one's author to get so mnay free hits just for tossing in a penguin...
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Let me give you the lowdown
Penguins in general might mean that, but this is TUX! He's fat, he's lazy, he does nothing but sit there with a stupid grin on his face. It's everything every aspiring UNIX admin should be, and more!
Is this post not nifty? Sluggy Freelance. Worshi
Install service pack 1, that improved my game speeds a lot.
Also the voodoo 5500 might have helped too
Are you using Win9x or Win NT or Win2k? I am using Win2k and it crawls. Hell, it sits at that opening screen and chews up 99% of system resources. I'll have to give it a go on 98 and see how it does...
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
from the online manual: Note that you will need a hardware-accelerated implementation of OpenGL in order for Tux Racer to be playable.
It runs very quickly on my PIII 450, TNT2.
Crappy vid drivers perhaps?
Tux Racer is and always will be an open source Linux game. There is nothing shady going on here. Sunspire is not a big faceless corporation. We're just a bunch of graphics geeks from Waterloo. We hope to maintain goodwill and popularity by keeping Tux Racer an open source product. We do need to make a living somehow, so we hope to create high quality course packs and pretty shrink wrapped boxes with CDs and manuals. These will be sold for a small fee. We can also possibly make some income for advertising billboards on the sides of courses. Check us out in November when this should all be ready (along with more free features.) We hope people (particularly /. types) will support our efforts with an open source game development model. We really don't appreciate being refered to as "shady."
- CEO Sunspire -
Gaming industry is just the same as IT. Everyone expects the same company to churn out quality software all the time, mayit be ID Software or someone else. But sometimes some unknown group of people put together a gem and it takes the industry by its balls. There are quite a few of them which has proved that it doesnt always take an established company to churn out something good.
Sometimes individuals or groups of people are enough. For eg. Serious Sam, the new First PErson Shooter from Croteam, a small group of people in Croatia has put out a beautiful engine which could handle vast detailed areas, just like what Doom used to do. I get incredible framerates with 32 bit color on my GTS card. Its rumored that Croteam could very well have put out an engine which would rival the Quake3 engine when it comes to OpenGL.
Same goes for another demo called XIsle, which could be found from the Nvidia downloads page, which should be coming out soon, which again is truly a work of art. Last but not the least, GunMan Chronicles, which started out as a mod for Quake2 and then got ported to be a Half Life mod, is not being released by Valve as a new Game.
Its gonna be a "take no prisoners" battle ahead for 3D Game Engines. And when ID comes out with their new engine for Doom, I could only wait breathlessly because every day of my life, I fall in love with Quake3 Engine.
Rapid Nirvana
i don't think that TuxRacer for windows will have quite the desired effect.
maybe it's just me. What they should do is have a real small linux kernel hidden in the binary and if you beat the game, it loads it into memory. If you lose, well, you get windows.
"I hope I don't make a mistake and manage to remain a virgin." - Britney Spears
Come to think of it ... I'd love to play the Camel Racer game :)
I'm getting sick and tired of being moderated down for ccomments.
I like to participate in slashdot discussions, but every time I post something it seems, I get mod'ed down to 1 because my post is overrated. What's the fucking point of the plus 1 bonus then?
Apparently me having trouble running the software in the featured article on a specific os is of no interest to anyone and therefore should be fucked straight to hell.
I hate bullshit moderators who strike anything down because it's not their fancy instead of basing their decisions on any bit of intelligence.
--------- Beware the dragon, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.
I sure hope this is steganography and not just a cry for help.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If you still think that Mario Kart 64 is the best multiplayer go-cart racer out there, you obviously haven't tried Crash Team Racing for the Playstation. Its a clone, but a superior clone.
For once I'm ahead of the /. crowd. I have had the new version of Tux-racer for three days now.
It is quite slick (especially when compared to the 0.12 release). I have ran into some problems with it, however. The most noticeable one is that it segfaults alot. Some tracks just won't work.
The other is that it requires very up to date Open GL. On my machine at home I had to download the latest Mesa to get the right header files (the nvidia xf86-4.0 drivers had the right routines) on my machine at work, which is still running the nvidia hacked xf86-3.3.5 server, it won't link.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I've been playing for the last few days since it game out and I have to say that my favorite practice race is "Who Says Penguins Can't Fly?"
Nothing beats the insane speed and air you can get in this course. My current record is 1:36 with 48 Herring.
Anyone better?
"It ain't no Mario Kart 64, but then again, what is?"
uhh.. Mario Kart 64. do i get my prize now?
Yeah, but in the screenshot, Tux has no fish.
That is not a happy penguin.
Must have fish, or can't compile.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Well, it's rather refreshing to see a game give realistic minimum requirements. Good job.
;-)
Min. specs are given as P200MMX, 64MB and a fully supported OpenGL card. My setup is a P208/83MMX, 64MB and a nVidia Riva128 4MB, and I managed to get through the first level. Sure, the framerate is atrocious (I guess under 15 fps), but playable
- Also Sprach Doktor Merkwurdigliebe
Sure! I think that the cockatiel fits those criteria:
Speed: Ever tried to run after your 'tiel when he's flying around? Not very easy.
Flexibility: Just look at it when they stretch one wing! That's one of the coolest things that they do.
Stability: My tiel, Spike, keeps his balance pretty well. On shaky ground, he extends his wings in the air, and if it gets too shaky, he takes off for a new perch!
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Ever looked at wet ice? That's where the environment-mapped surface fits in. How about snow? Most winter 3D games I've seen have tesselated slopes. This might do at least something to boost the detail (that and light control).
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Is it just me, or is this really slow on my p-466 running cmdrtaco approved debian?
SAme probs. Fast machine, fscking perfomance on win32 . Gonna try the Linux version
you can't ack before you balls.. you just
I saw it: environment-mapped ice patches on the slopes! And the snow was beautiful, but I can't confirm if it's bump mapped. The game uses GLUT32.DLL (and the same Linux module, most likely). Can anyone find out if that module can do bump-mapping?
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
It was quite a refreshing change, even soothing with the nice music tracks. Nicely done! Does anyone know how the trackmaps are done?
Calum
I was at the Seattle Museum of Flight this summer and noticed that one exhibit was a hanggliding simulator where you had to follow another penguin pilot in for a landing. The other pilot appeared to be none-other-than 3D Tux.
It takes me about 3 minutes for the game to start in windows, after I run the exe, it doens't look like it did anything until a few minutes later.. Using a TNT2 if that helps...
the penguin hardly symbolizes the open source movement as one of teamwork, progress and widescope. it has become a symbol of similarity and loss of identity which hopefully open source does not promote.
The Meaning of Life
great comedy company.