TuxRacer on RH 7.3 running choppy!

[RodNICE]

I installed RH7.3 in my Linux class, and at home, and my friend installed it on his laptop also.

In class, I had no problems with running the games.

At home, the intense games like TuxRacer and Maelstrom were running so choppy as to make the whole system run the same. Mouse was choppy too.

My friend says he's having the same problem (even with a GForce graphix card) on the laptop. He said that with earlier distros, and other distros, he had the exact same problem. He doesn't believe it to be a hardware thing but perhaps related to the XFree86 not having the specs for the cards (I think that's what he said).


Please help old wise ones; I implore you!

[Takaznik]

I had this problem i know exactly what you're talking about here's what to do:

1) Goto your hardware vendors website (for your videocard) nVidia is mine so i went to nVidia.com

2) try to find the linux drivers (if they are avaialbe) mine were so i downloaded them

3) change your runlevel in /etc/inittab to 3

5) login in text mode (dont startx)

6) su -l <password> (dont login as root its dumb)

7) cd to the directory you downloaded your RPM or tar.gz 's to

8) Make sure you've read the README

9) install the rpms or tar.gz's the way the README told you too

10) change the settings in ur XF86Config-4 (for redhat 7.3 uses XF86 4.x) like the README told you to

11) startx or change ur runlevel back and reboot

12) i hope this works for you... it did for me, although now nVidia has branded X's Startup... oh well

[odoe]

Ok, I have this same problem, but also the problem is the games start in this small square that only take up a 1/4 of the screen, like TuxRacer and Quake3, will the new NVidia drivers fix that also. It was unable to change the resolution of the game to a playable one.

[Takaznik]

it should... my tuxracer starts full screen

[carlywarly]

There's a config file for Tuxracer in your tuxracer directory - /home/username/.tuxracer/options (if you're using a file manager, make sure you select View hidden files)

It's prettty self-explanantory in there how to alter lots of settings.

[orionrogue]

I think I have a similar problem to Odoe. It's not a matter of tuxracer being displayed in a window rather than fullscreen... it's a matter of there being a big black border around the area the game is using. So if your displaying your screen at 1024x768, and the game wants to display at 640x480, it cuts a 640x480 window out of the black 1024x768 space, leaving that large black border of nothing.

Other than this, the 3D drivers do seem to actually be doing their job.


Also, carlywarly, the .tuxracer/options file is useful for upping the size of the game's resolution, but unfortunately it doesn't solve the underlying problem. Besides, running tuxracer at 1280x1024 is kinda neat, except that my video card has a hard time keeping up :-)

Could anyone else shed a bit of light on this one?

(forgot to mention: Also using RH 7.3 with Nvidia card and new drivers downloaded from their website.)