Hello all. I just recently discovered this diamond in the rough that is the SCP and I'm all excited about Freespace 1&2 etc. I've also begun the switch over to linux for various reasons and am slowly learning this material, but the open source mind-set is something I very much appreciate.
I have some n00bish questions, though, regarding fs2_open though, and I'm hoping I can get some help on them.
First, the hardware info:
I'm using an HP Pavilion dv6000 with Intel Celeron processor (1.8GHz, 512MB ram)
Graphics are Intel 965GM chipset
Sound is Intel chipset (don't have the machine in front of me at the moment)
Linux distro is OpenSUSE 10.2
First, I followed the installation instructions and compiled the binaries (first things I've had to compile!) and the game starts and all that. However, I seem to be having some sound issues... at least with fsport (haven't tried Media_VPS). I didn't do any build optimizations.
During the first cut scene, the sound seems to be lagged from the video quite a ways (~40sec) and there's this weird chopping effect, like the sound itself is lagging, but the graphics are working fine. Is there a way for me to try and test cut scenes outside fo the game to try and debug this? Also, the sound just plain seems slow in game during briefings. Not sure what it's supposed to be like since I never played retail, etc.
I had been trying to update my ALSA material to get my headphones on my machine working, but it's entirely possible that I didn't quite get this right? any suggestions on trouble shooting this or finding out if it's an OpenAL problem or ALSA? Again, total n00b here.
Second and perhaps more directed at the SCP, am I playing the updated game when I do the fs2_open_r -<options> -fsport in the command line? or do I need the -MediaVPS? AGain, I want to play through the game in the "regular" order of things, so I've been using the -fsport stuff. Is that the correct way to do things or am I missing out on some of the hard work that's been going on to update the game?
Finally, are there any good resources on playing the game with a mouse? It's been years since I owned a joystick and using a laptop starts getting ridiculous if I were to get one. IIRC, Freelancer had a decent mouse input system for ship flight (the mouse would "remember" home and pushing it off of center would be the same as pulling on a joystick). Does anyone know what I'm talking about and is there a way to implement this in FS2_Open? I suppose I've flown the first few missions well enough with the mouse, but I feel variously hampered/frustrated and/or castrated trying to fly with the mouse. What options/guides/setups are there around? Straight keyboard flight is not an option since the laptop keyboard is smaller than standard (no separate keypad).
Thanks again for all the help and this project is really amazing.
-Mike