Running Trainz on Linux

W

wilts747

Well-known member
I've been tinkering with Linux longer than I have Trainz and while presently 2012 is a no-go let alone T-ANE I do have 2009 working satisfactory on Ubuntu 14.04 LTE.

I know others have expressed an interest in Linux but does anyone currently use it to run a version of Trainz on a regular basis and if so how successfully. Peter
 
When it comes to gaming on a PC, Linux is a dead loss, it will be until the major software companies port their stuff
to it, they won't do that because, there just aren't enough users out there to warrant the cost.

Trainz is made for PC or Mac, that's enough choice for the majority of game players.
 
Peter,

This is a great idea, though due to market limitations, the graphics support at both the OS and program level is poor. There are programs, as you know, such as Wine and other virtual machines which can run older less demanding programs in their environment, but the raw-speed and low-level hardware compatibility isn't there.

This issue then brings up another one. In order to make a program work at it's best, especially those demanding the full horsepower and capabilities that the hardware can support, the native drivers have to be available. Since Linux is a tiny market, compared to the more common Mac OS/x and Windows markets, the device manufacturers have not created the optimal drivers to support the hardware for the smaller market. This leaves a smaller choice for those running 'Nix of some kind since it's now up to third-party developers to write the device drivers.

Speaking of OS's, I have Ubuntu, Solaris 10, and Windows 2000 running in VMs. Being retired now, I have no purpose other than to play with these and try to keep my skills sharp, but in the past I had a Sun Sparc Ultra 10 and two older Sparcs running as servers. In my old IT days, I supported multiple operating systems and the old Solaris machines would be rebooted once a year, while the Windows machines needed a reboot at least once a month. What a difference the quality and stability of both the hardware and the operating system makes.

John
 
That sounds interesting John. I actually had given Puppy Linux a try on my laptop. It wasn't too bad, but it could be far better. As for 2000 VM's, I just did a 2000 VM the other day for older game that i can't run on 10, even if I do have a physical XP computer.
 
My question was never intended to generate a debate on the pros and cons of Linux, for which I apologize, as I don’t believe many who tinkers, or use it on a regular basis would expects Trainz or any other Windows/Mac based game to become available in a Linux version. Most I believe do it for the challenge and the satisfaction of getting it working as I guess those who still enjoy the early visions of Trainz do, and many have been saying of T-ANE these past few months.

Until recently you would be struggling to get Trainz 2006 working properly at all on all but a handful of Linux based computer but unlike some other OS, developments in Linux within the past few years together with Wine, the Windows compatibility layer and new graphic drivers from leading manufacturers has provided non-geeks with a plausible free alternative OS to that of Windows/OS X etc.

While I agree it is currently unimaginable that the majority of gaming software houses are likely to extend the availability of their games beyond that of Windows and Mac, although the same was said about Windows over DOS thirty plus years ago, and DOS over CPM prior to that, it is perhaps ironic that their success today is so dependent on Linux powering their servers and our router, NAS and DAS. Peter
 
We owe a lot to the early developers to get us where we are today. CP/M, DOS, and other operating systems are all built around the same core in some fashion. DOS and CP/M are very closely related and DOS has other things that came from VAX/VMS and the Unix world.

The earlier Trainz versions work because these Trainz versions can use Open/GL as well as Windows-based DirectX. With T:ANE we still don't have a working version with Open/GL, but whose to say this won't be the case in the future. I agree there have been some interesting developments in the 'nix realm, and hopefully this will ensure that the non-geeks can use this operating system. I commend Ubuntu for this since installing and getting a program to operate in a 'nix operating system is not for the faint of heart! :D

A few months ago I decided to install Firefox on Solaris 10 because I could. I downloaded the pkg files which I had to untar and gunzip then use pkg-add to install. I got it to work eventually, but I can't envision my dad doing something like this. In reality, I would have gotten the call and the subsequent visit to install Firefox for him. :)

Ubuntu, on the other hand, worked in a snatch. I had stuff up and running on that in less than 5 minutes.

I agree as much as people are mainstream-centric when it comes to their computers, they don't realize that their infrastructure is running on Solaris and Linux. My OKI-data printer for example, is running embedded Linux for its configuration and setup. I accessed it yesterday to configure some color settings - set them to the Euro-Color color-set to cut back on the saturation. The login was done via root and not administrator, which tells all. :) What's interesting here is I didn't expect to see this in a $145 printer.

John
 
after all, Mac - is a Unix too, and Android, for it is able to make the client and running it through the Open GL
 
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OK I'll play...

Games I have got working in Linux either by acquiring a Linux Binary or using Wine or Native Linux versions
AlephOne-20060701
Amp2
Blood 2
Breed
Cube
Day of Defeat
Delta Force Dagger
Delta Force Land Warrior
Doom 1
Doom 2
Doom 3
Doomsday open GL port of Doom stuff
Duke Nukem - Manhattan Project
Duke Nuken 3D
Final Doom
Half-Life
Half-Life2
Half-LifeL Blue Shift
Half-LifeUplink
Half Life 2 Lost Coast
Half Life2 2e1
Halo
Hexen
Hexen2
Jazz2Sw
Klingon Honor Guard
MiniMetro
Monster Studios
Q3Ademo
Quake
Quake III Arena
Quake2
Quake4
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Sauerbraten ( Linux game)
Tomb Raider Chronicles
Trainz TC3
Trainz 2009
Trainz 2010 - less content manager
Unreal
Unreal2
Unreal Tournament
Vegastrike
Click to expand...

There are a load more that I haven't got installed on a Linux box at present and I will admit some are not easy to get working but it can be done.
 
BLACKWATCH said:
When it comes to gaming on a PC, Linux is a dead loss, it will be until the major software companies port their stuff
to it, they won't do that because, there just aren't enough users out there to warrant the cost.

Trainz is made for PC or Mac, that's enough choice for the majority of game players.
Click to expand...
Blackwatch,Google OS is entirely based on linux software and has been since the operating system was launched in 2009. All Chromebooks purchased have linux as there core operating system which I find works faultlessly whenever I use it. I am at present using google voice recognition software ( Google now) on my Chromebook to dictate this posting.

The Google OS system (not to be confused with Google android) is the only system at present which is 100% cloud based and therefore I believe that the Google servers running the system must also be Linux-based but no doubt someone will correct me if I am wrong in that.

There are many games that can be played on the system just visit the Google web store (again not to be confused with the Google play store) to see the huge range available along with photo editing applications etc, including a cloud based version of Photoshop together with a cloud based version of Office 360.

I believe that Linux also plays a large part in the Google Android system which of course holds the largest gaming selection available on any platform.

Hope this helps
Bill

 
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wholbr said:
Blackwatch,Google OS is entirely based on linux software and has been since the operating system was launched in 2009. All Chromebooks purchased have linux as there core operating system which I find works faultlessly whenever I use it. I am at present using google voice recognition software ( Google now) on my Chromebook to dictate this posting.

The Google OS system (not to be confused with Google android) is the only system at present which is 100% cloud based and therefore I believe that the Google servers running the system must also be Linux-based but no doubt someone will correct me if I am wrong in that.

There are many games that can be played on the system just visit the Google web store (again not to be confused with the Google play store) to see the huge range available along with photo editing applications etc, including a cloud based version of Photoshop together with a cloud based version of Office 360.

I believe that Linux also plays a large part in the Google Android system which of course holds the largest gaming selection available on any platform.

Hope this helps
Bill
Click to expand...

For something like Trainz you need computer muscle, so a fairly strong GPU and CPU connected by hardware such as PCIe, Intel does it slightly differently on their integrated GPUs but the general idea is short distances and much wider connection bandwidth than the Internet can offer. Don't confuse it with something with much lower computing requirements.

Then you get to the interesting bit, both AMD and nVidia are very secretive about their software drivers for commerical reasons, the UNIX environment which encompasses LINUX is too open to allow them to use their best drivers so performance will alawys be better under Windows or some other operating system.

Then you get into what is Linux or UNIX? The American Government had just that problem so came up with the POSIX procurement standard. The first operating system to meet it was Windows NT.

Windows, UNIX are in fact very similar, they are both based on the Multics operating system.

Cheerio John
 
I think there is some misconception that Windows is for the more powerful computers while Linux is intended for those old Windows castoffs but the reality couldn't be further from the truth. Yes there are Linux distributions specifically tailored for low specification computer but equally I have Windows 10 on a very old AMD 1.8GB E1 two core laptop I'm typing this on. My two desktop computers both use removable HDD/SSD drives with Intel 6700K/nVidia GTX970 and AMD 960T/nVidia GTX750 Ti combinations respectively. I have Windows 10 and Windows 7 on separate drives for both machines and Linux Mint, Ubuntu and LXLE on three other drives which are compatible with both machines. Running TR2010 under Windows 7 and Mint 17.3 (using Wine as the Windows compatibility layer) on the AMD machine the difference in frame rate is 55-60 fps Windows to 50-55 fps Linux for a given Trainz session. Running TS2012 under Windows 10 and Mint 17.3 (using a trial version of Codeweavers as the Windows compatibility layer) but on the Intel machine the frame rates increases as would be expected to 70-75 fps Windows and 60-65 fps Linux again for the same Trainz session.

Linux distributions incorporates a wide range of drives by default and is far more tolerant to hardware variations than Windows has ever been, however they are not the most efficient. Fortunately many of the leading manufacturers also provide proprietary drivers and up date them regularly but as with Windows to frequently you need to initially download and install them yourself.

Trainz is a Windows based program and there is no argument that in theory it will always run faster on Windows than Linux if for no other reason than the need for the Windows compatibility layer required by Linux to run Windows programs. While Wine is open source, Codeweaver is commercial and I'm not sure it would make financial sense to buy it to enable TS2012 to run under Linux when for little more a copy of Window could be purchased if needed. However the apprehension that Linux is not capable of being a top end gaming platform is outdated and poorly informed. It may not be the most suitable for Trainz although reading some of the threads on this Forum Window at times is not quite so perfect. Peter
 
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wilts747 said:
I think there is some misconception that Windows is for the more powerful computers while Linux is intended for those old Windows castoffs but the reality couldn't be further from the truth. Yes there are Linux distributions specifically tailored for low specification computer but equally I have Windows 10 on a very old AMD 1.8GB E1 two core laptop I'm typing this on. My two desktop computers both use removable HDD/SSD drives with Intel 6700K/nVidia GTX970 and AMD 960T/nVidia GTX750 Ti combinations respectively. I have Windows 10 and Windows 7 on separate drives for both machines and Linux Mint, Ubuntu and LXLE on three other drives which are compatible with both machines. Running TR2010 under Windows 7 and Mint 17.3 (using Wine as the Windows compatibility layer) on the AMD machine the difference in frame rate is 55-60 fps Windows to 50-55 fps Linux for a given Trainz session. Running TS2012 under Windows 10 and Mint 17.3 (using a trial version of Codeweavers as the Windows compatibility layer) but on the Intel machine the frame rates increases as would be expected to 70-75 fps Windows and 60-65 fps Linux again for the same Trainz session.

Linux distributions incorporates a wide range of drives by default and is far more tolerant to hardware variations than Windows has ever been, however they are not the most efficient. Fortunately many of the leading manufacturers also provide proprietary drivers and up date them regularly but as with Windows to frequently you need to initially download and install them yourself.

Trainz is a Windows based program and there is no argument that in theory it will always run faster on Windows than Linux if for no other reason than the need for the Windows compatibility layer required by Linux to run Windows programs. While Wine is open source, Codeweaver is commercial and I'm not sure it would make financial sense to buy it to enable TS2012 to run under Linux when for little more a copy of Window could be purchased if needed. However the apprehension that Linux is not capable of being a top end gaming platform is outdated and poorly informed. It may not be the most suitable for Trainz although reading some of the threads on this Forum Window at times is not quite so perfect. Peter
Click to expand...

I think your reply supplies the answer. For a hardware platform that is optimised for games and SIMs currently the frame rates for Trainz are better with the optimised drivers under Windows. Yes it is possible to get fairly good performance out of Linux or Unix which maybe sufficent to run Trainz but in general the same frame rates could be obtained under Windows on lesser hardware.

Then also you have to take into account the amount of expertise needed to run Linux and keep it upto date with security patches etc. Android at the moment is showing how important that is, many devices are not running a secure version, was it 90% I seem to recall and there doesn't seem to be any way for the consumer of one of these phones to get an update other than depending on the manufacturer to provide one. The Nexus range is better, Google at least supply updates. Apple is based on a varient of UNIX and has a tightly controlled environment but even there there is Malware encrypting files and doing other tatty things and denial never was my favourite form of security.

Unfortunately I think for the normal consumer Windows is the most reliable operating system available and generally gets the most out of the hardware although I think its getting bloated.

Cheerio John
 
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