The perils of GMAX

[A Nonny Moose]

gmax won't start up after the initial time. The messages I am getting indicate that it has become case sensitive with respect to names. The installer put in a directory named 'stdplugs' but the program wanted it to be 'StdPlugs'. So I renamed it. It still says these libraries fail to initialize. I must be missing a windows module but I did put in the recommended winetricks things, and now, I am stuck. Any ideas?

[Bryan Baldwin]

On 07/16/2010 06:04 AM, A Nonny Moose wrote:

gmax won't start up after the initial time. The messages I am getting indicate that it has become case sensitive with respect to names. The installer put in a directory named 'stdplugs' but the program wanted it to be 'StdPlugs'. So I renamed it. It still says these libraries fail to initialize. I must be missing a windows module but I did put in the recommended winetricks things, and now, I am stuck. Any ideas?

Hi,

WINE will read in additional DLL files that you specify manually on the
command line. Use the WINEDLLOVERRIDES environment variable, placed
before your launch command, following the syntax specified in the manual:

http://ftp.winehq.org/pub/wine/docs/en/ ... tml#AEN586

The actual library files should preferably be in the directory from
which you are entering the launch command. In these cases, I cd to the
actual "Program Files" directory inside the WINE bottle, copy the DLL's
there, and always launch the program from there. I've found that
character case in DLL filenames was irrelevent when loaded in this way,
but your mileage may vary.

Bryan

[vitamin]

gmax won't start up after the initial time.

Terminal output? Wine version?

[A Nonny Moose]

I figured so much had gone wrong while messing about that I started over.

I reinstalled UBUNTU on a fresh partition, reinstalled wine, and moved over my downloads directory. After some messing about setting up UBUNTU the way I like it, I installed Gmax, and ran in the winetricks vcrun6 script. Gmax has stopped hiccuping.

However, when I copied the help files (unzipped) into the C:\gmax\Help directory, gmax couldn't find it, and, in fact, terminated with some exotic error. So much for Gmax help. The files are fine, I can read them out of the application.

I also tried to install the maps library of textures which seemed to go ok, but the Material Navigator could not open the folder. Don't know why yet.

For the benefit of the previous poster, I am on UBUNTU 10.04 and wine 1.2-rc7

After I have some time to think about this, I'll work on it some more.

[A Nonny Moose]

Only if I am desperate. I generally run from the GUI.

[James McKenzie]

A Nonny Moose wrote:

Only if I am desperate. I generally run from the GUI.

A Nonny:

When a program is run from the terminal, Wine generates error messages
and other information that the project might find useful to help solve
this problem.

Can you please also create a bug report so the project can track
progress on solving this issue?

Thank you.

James McKenzie

[Bryan Baldwin]

On 07/17/2010 03:34 AM, A Nonny Moose wrote:

I figured so much had gone wrong while messing about that I started over.

I reinstalled UBUNTU on a fresh partition, reinstalled wine, and moved over my downloads directory. After some messing about setting up UBUNTU the way I like it, I installed Gmax, and ran in the winetricks vcrun6 script. Gmax has stopped hiccuping.

I heartily recommend using the WINEPREFIX to compartmentalize
installations of programs you use with WINE. Even when you haven't, you
could have restarted everything you'd done with gmax simply by deleting
the .wine folder in your home directory. If you don't specify a
WINEPREFIX, WINE will automatically create a spanking new vanilla .wine
folder for you the next time you run a command with wine, winecfg, or
winetricks. Reinstalling your entire operating system for WINE is so
incredibly unnecessary!

Using WINEPREFIX also gives you the added benefit of being able to take
any program you like using under WINE and copy it to any other computer
you are using. Simply copy the WINEPREFIX directory and the data files
the program created in your home directory (if any) to your other
computer and you will find you not only have another working copy of the
program, but also that it is in the same exact working state of the
original installation. Very handy.

Furthermore, any special configurations needed for one program that is
difficult to install is localized to its own WINEPREFIX, and doesn't
effect any other programs you want to install.

Save yourself time and your hard disks wear and tear. Try WINEPREFIX today!

http://wiki.jswindle.com/index.php/Wine_Prefixes
http://wiki.jswindle.com/index.php/Adva ... stallation


Bryan

[A Nonny Moose]

Thanks for the kind words. I'll spend more time with the documentation and take your advice.

I do have an account on Bugzilla (two in fact, by accident), and I am on the AppDB as well.

Further investigation with gmax will not happen until about Wednesday of this week as I have other fish to fry.

Again, thanks for the tuition.

[A Nonny Moose]

I guess it is like playing a piano. [b]No more surface playing[/b]. I just pulled a pile of documentation to read when going to sleep, or trying in this heat. I am convinced that I need to delve into the WINEPREFIX and other system variables in greater depth.

Is there any reason I couldn't set myself up with a script to create all this stuff, then call the relevant program? I think it might save a lot of typing since I am going to test the blazes out of this package. Naturally, I can set up the redirects within the scripts as well to grab whatever happens.

I get your point about running from a user console.

Oh, and a 61 page PDF manual. I only took a quick look, but it seems very thorough. Congrats to the author.

[Bryan Baldwin]

On 07/19/2010 11:41 AM, A Nonny Moose wrote:

I guess it is like playing a piano. No more surface playing. I just pulled a pile of documentation to read when going to sleep, or trying in this heat. I am convinced that I need to delve into the WINEPREFIX and other system variables in greater depth.

Is there any reason I couldn't set myself up with a script to create all this stuff, then call the relevant program? I think it might save a lot of typing since I am going to test the blazes out of this package. Naturally, I can set up the redirects within the scripts as well to grab whatever happens.

I get your point about running from a user console.

Oh, and a 61 page PDF manual. I only took a quick look, but it seems very thorough. Congrats to the author.

Scripts are a great way to control WINE invocation. It only gets a
little complicated when you are launching a program that takes
arguments, such as the name of a file you wish to open with the program
running through WINE. Its also handy to deactivate compiz fusion before
starting a 3D game, then starting it up again afterward.

Another caveat I've discovered are programs that do not launch correctly
unless WINE is invoked in the installation directory of the program.
Scripts can also be used in launchers you create on panels on your
desktop or desktop panels. Here is an example script with comments:

---Start Code---
#!/bin/bash

# Simple script to launch Tomb Raider - Legend with WINE

# Stop composite desktop panel
killall -KILL avant-window-navigator

# Switch to non-composite window management (GTK desktop)
metacity --replace &

# Change working directory, tra.exe will not launch otherwise!!!
cd ${HOME}/wine/trl/drive_c/Program\ Files/Tomb\ Raider\ -\ Legend/

# Set WINEPREFIX, disable debugging for performance, lanuch game;
# backslashes allow commands to stretch over multiple lines!
WINEPREFIX=${HOME}/wine/trl \
WINEDEBUG=-all \
wine trl.exe

# Switch back to composite window management
compiz --replace ccp &

# Start composite desktop panel
avant-window-navigator
---End Code---

You don't have to use all of the stuff I've included here. The most
important part is the launch command starting with WINEPREFIX. Note that
if you are having problems with your program, you will need to omit the
WINEDEBUG setting and launch the program from the terminal to get
debugging info with which to file a bug.

If you start using WINEPREFIX and shell scripts to launch programs, the
next thing you are going to notice is that you won't get the program
icons for launchers you make from the scripts. This can be done manually
by ripping the icons from the Windows binary file and copying them to an
appropriate directory. I keep them in their own folder in my home
directory. Then you can assign the correct icon to your desktop launcher.

To rip the icons, you need the icoutils package from your distribution's
package manager. The command to rip the icons is:

$ wrestool -x <filename>

Where filename is the .exe file that launches your program. BEWARE:
wrestool will rip ALL resource files embedded in the binary, so I
recommend unpacking them in a controlled directory, e.g.

$ wrestool -x <filename> -o $HOME/icons

Where "icons" is a folder in your home directory. After you do this you
will have to view each file manually to identify the proper icon for the
program. Sometimes the icons are pretty low-res, so you may wish to find
alternatives on the Internet. Not all programs keep their icons as an
embedded resource either, so look around the installation path for .ico
files or folders, too.


Bryan

[A Nonny Moose]

Thanks, Bryan. I am a little rusty on scripts, so that is very useful. I haven't done any serious console work since 1980. Shows how interest waxes and wanes,eh?

[Bryan Baldwin]

On 07/20/2010 12:32 AM, A Nonny Moose wrote:

Thanks, Bryan. I am a little rusty on scripts, so that is very useful. I haven't done any serious console work since 1980. Shows how interest waxes and wanes,eh?

Yeah, my dad was the same way. He used to be a database consultant in
the MS-DOS era. Now if you show him a console, his eyes cross. I
couldn't pry him away from Windows with a John Deere. If you have any
problems with a script you've written to launch WINE, pop it up here.
You also can learn almost everything you will ever need to know about
bash shell programming here:

http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/

You can get a pdf copy of the same at:

http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/abs-guide.pdf


Bryan

[A Nonny Moose]

Thanks, Bryan. I'll bet there was a time when we could have made beautiful scripts together. I learned UNIX when I was working on staff at the University of Waterloo for a couple of years. I needed a break. This was in 1980, and when I left, I went back to sales support on main frames, so there wasn't much scripting there.

When I started out, the Byte hadn't been invented by the It Beats Me company. That happened the year we were evaluating the first main frame for the bank I was working for at the time. The I've Been Moved company interfered with the board of directors and got a year's delay so they could announce the /360, but it didn't do any good. We now really needed the machine, and the /360 wasn't deliverable at the time of the announcement. We went with NCR because they had a lot of American banks already and had drivers we needed for the cheque sorters.

So, I go back a long, long way. Microcomputers? What? You've got to be kidding.

[Bryan Baldwin]

On 07/20/2010 11:17 AM, A Nonny Moose wrote:

Thanks, Bryan. I'll bet there was a time when we could have made beautiful scripts together. I learned UNIX when I was working on staff at the University of Waterloo for a couple of years. I needed a break. This was in 1980, and when I left, I went back to sales support on main frames, so there wasn't much scripting there.

When I started out, the Byte hadn't been invented by the It Beats Me company. That happened the year we were evaluating the first main frame for the bank I was working for at the time. The I've Been Moved company interfered with the board of directors and got a year's delay so they could announce the /360, but it didn't do any good. We now really needed the machine, and the /360 wasn't deliverable at the time of the announcement. We went with NCR because they had a lot of American banks already and had drivers we needed for the cheque sorters.

So, I go back a long, long way. Microcomputers? What? You've got to be kidding. [Laughing]

My first computer was a PC clone with the Intel 8088 processor.
Glorified calculator. It had two 5.25" floppy drives. Later, I expanded
and put in a 5.25" HDD with 20MB. 20MB! (-:

I learned scripting GW-Basic on that thing when I was 13 years. I only
discovered that language because my Dad got a huge batch of free
software and public domain stuff from the nearby University, and I quite
liked a version of the game Star Trek that was implemented in GW-Basic.
At the time, I didn't know what a complier or build system was or that I
needed one, so I never discovered DJGPP. Microsoft certainly wasn't
telling tales and didn't include a build system with their limey DOS.
Instead I became on artist and studied drawing, painting, sculpture,
aesthetics, art history, etc etc.

About eight years or so ago, I got back into computers during the XP
era. Shortly thereafter which I discovered Debian Sarge, and made my
first GNU+Linux installation. I escaped Microsoft forever and used
Debian based systems for a few years. Due to a mixture of their politics
and packaging system, I switched to Archlinux and have used nothing else
since. Now I work as a support consultant for an international free
software developer and I am designing a custom build system to create
GNU+Linux from Source Code (GLFSC). (-:

Now I am a full time free software programmer/support tech who can draw
or paint anything he sees or imagines. Funny how the world works, no?

[A Nonny Moose]

I have a very chequered career. I thought I wanted to be a chemical engineer, but was saved when there was a steel strike one summer and my job disappeared so I couldn't make my fees and expenses. So in the summer of 1959 I went to work for a chartered bank as a "supernumerary", a.k.a. gofer.

I learned a lot in about six months, and wound up being transferred to the big T.O. as a teller. I got to be head teller, then assistant accountant. I sent in a flow chart of a system I devised to operate the branch posting machine to post something that had just come out, and for which there were no instructions. Working with the ledger keepers and the proof teller, we got the thing working, so I documented it, and sent it in to the methods guys. Boom! I got transferred down town to the methods department. They seconded me to the EAM (you remember those, clunkety-clunk) section supervisor to work on acquisition of the bank's first major computer to do Demand Deposit Accounting (current accounts) for all the Toronto area branches. We had all the cheques, so all we had to do was capture the data, and have the branches report any other transactions. While we were waiting for proposals to come in from our short list of vendors (IBM, GE, NCR, Burroughs), I was assigned to assist the local printers to get their E13B cheque encoding right (yes, that's when it happened). So I did that, and since we had a sorter, did a program to test the cheques. By then, I was a self-taught programmer in assembler.

That's when the International Brotherhood of Magicians got in the act with the board of directors, so we got to cool our heels for another year, getting ready to convert all the EAM applications to the new machine. We had a room full of clankers, three operators, and a supervisor who were being obstinate. We persevered.

So the bank got an NCR 315 that had 10,000 (no fooling) words of 12-bit decimal addressed memory, some Card Random Access Units, a line printer, a paper tape reader, an English Electric Card shuffler (I mean reader), and two 16-pocket cheque sorters. The machine did arithmetic in decimal. In those days, mucho dinero.

About this time, since I was the only programmer, I collapsed. When I got back to work, I had this nice staff of 14 novices who knew only a little less than I did. We got the applications running anyway. Remember, in those days if a university had a computer at all, it was a curiosity in the EE lab.

After a few years the bank had a political falling out with NCR and decided to go Honeywell. I liked neither the Honeywell machine (a fancier 1401) nor the attitude of its people, so I found a job with GE's Information Systems and Defence Products Department. We sold main frames, jet engines, radar, rockets, and other things that are probably still classified. I was attached to the Toronto data centre as a support programmer and sales support analyst. That's when I got my first taste of Multics. We actually sold a few of them to various classified outfits, and one to Bell Canada. We also sold smaller stuff, like the 600 line (72-bit words), the 400 line (24-bit words) and the 200 line (18-bit words). Byte? Wazzat?

Well, I did some career searching and wound up back with the GE group, now part of Honeywell. At the time we figured they would soon be merged with Fairchild Semiconductor and the new company would be called Fairwell Honeychild. Anyway, Honeywell stuggled along for a while by making their best salesman into the general director with the usual results. "Apparently the rot had set in worldwide because one day we found that we had been bought by CII-Honeywell-Bull (a.k.a. Charles de Gaulle and Co.). After a few years of doldrums, Bull decided that main frames were not for them. After a failed experiment with Zenith, the folded the large scale side of the business and let all 8,000 of us go in one day world-wide.

After I got over the shock that, in fact, the big computer business was as dead as a dodo (1990), I became a professor of computer science in a local college, working part time until I retired at age 65. I'll be 73 in September.

So here I am playing catch up with the baby boomers just for fun and something to do.

[Bryan Baldwin]

On 07/20/2010 02:30 PM, A Nonny Moose wrote:

So here I am playing catch up with the baby boomers just for fun and something to do.

I keep telling people who think I'm crazy to say that the best
technology that we are using today was already invented and used in the
'50s and '60s. There is very little invention to find in hardware that
is not simply a refinement of pre-existing technology.

The baby boomers are my parent's generation. I'm considered GenX, born
April 1st, 1977. Theres at least two recognized generations after me,
but who's counting anyway?

Bryan

[A Nonny Moose]

So I am two score older than you. All that means is that I am less patient and more subtle. Long experience just makes looking back more fun.

Where I come from, by the way, a generation is thirty years. You GenX, Y and Z types move too fast for me.

Anyway, good morning. It's my grocery shopping day, so I'll be out most of the day. I have a ton of research to do on this, so I probably won't post until I finid something interesting. TTFN.

John.

[Bryan Baldwin]

On 07/20/2010 11:58 PM, A Nonny Moose wrote:

So I am two score older than you. All that means is that I am less patient and more subtle. Long experience just makes looking back more fun.

Where I come from, by the way, a generation is thirty years. You GenX, Y and Z types move too fast for me.

Its probably due to the climate of narcissism in the current culture. As
society pushes younger and younger people onto the stage of adulthood we
find that the measure of time becomes shorter to match their perception
of it. No matter how many super nannies we get to teach us how to train
children more efficiently, no amount of teaching or nurturing can really
change a person's perception of time aside from the experience of moving
through it. At the rate we are going, I expect that people born in
different months of the same year will consider themselves different
generations.

Enjoy your shopping.

Bryan

[A Nonny Moose]

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. The French say it better.

[James McKenzie]

A Nonny Moose wrote:

I have a very chequered career. I thought I wanted to be a chemical engineer, but was saved when there was a steel strike one summer and my job disappeared so I couldn't make my fees and expenses. So in the summer of 1959 I went to work for a chartered bank as a "supernumerary", a.k.a. gofer.

I learned a lot in about six months, and wound up being transferred to the big T.O. as a teller. I got to be head teller, then assistant accountant. I sent in a flow chart of a system I devised to operate the branch posting machine to post something that had just come out, and for which there were no instructions. Working with the ledger keepers and the proof teller, we got the thing working, so I documented it, and sent it in to the methods guys. Boom! I got transferred down town to the methods department. They seconded me to the EAM (you remember those, clunkety-clunk) section supervisor to work on acquisition of the bank's first major computer to do Demand Deposit Accounting (current accounts) for all the Toronto area branches. We had all the cheques, so all we had to do was capture the data, and have the branches report any other transactions. While we were waiting for proposals to come in from our short list of vendors (IBM, GE, NCR, Burroughs), I was assigned to assist the local printers to get their E13B cheque encoding right (yes, that's when it happened). So I did that, and since we had a sorter, did a program to test the cheques. By then, I was a self-taught programmer in assembler.

That's when the International Brotherhood of Magicians got in the act with the board of directors, so we got to cool our heels for another year, getting ready to convert all the EAM applications to the new machine. We had a room full of clankers, three operators, and a supervisor who were being obstinate. We persevered.

So the bank got an NCR 315 that had 10,000 (no fooling) words of 12-bit decimal addressed memory, some Card Random Access Units, a line printer, a paper tape reader, an English Electric Card shuffler (I mean reader), and two 16-pocket cheque sorters. The machine did arithmetic in decimal. In those days, mucho dinero.

About this time, since I was the only programmer, I collapsed. When I got back to work, I had this nice staff of 14 novices who knew only a little less than I did. We got the applications running anyway. Remember, in those days if a university had a computer at all, it was a curiosity in the EE lab.

After a few years the bank had a political falling out with NCR and decided to go Honeywell. I liked neither the Honeywell machine (a fancier 1401) nor the attitude of its people, so I found a job with GE's Information Systems and Defence Products Department. We sold main frames, jet engines, radar, rockets, and other things that are probably still classified. I was attached to the Toronto data centre as a support programmer and sales support analyst. That's when I got my first taste of Multics. We actually sold a few of them to various classified outfits, and one to Bell Canada. We also sold smaller stuff, like the 600 line (72-bit words), the 400 line (24-bit words) and the 200 line (18-bit words). Byte? Wazzat?

Well, I did some career searching and wound up back with the GE group, now part of Honeywell. At the time we figured they would soon be merged with Fairchild Semiconductor and the new company would be called Fairwell Honeychild. Anyway, Honeywell stuggled along for a while by making their best salesman into the general director with the usual results. "Apparently the rot had set in worldwide because one day we found that we had been bought by CII-Honeywell-Bull (a.k.a. Charles de Gaulle and Co.). After a few years of doldrums, Bull decided that main frames were not for them. After a failed experiment with Zenith, the folded the large scale side of the business and let all 8,000 of us go in one day world-wide.

After I got over the shock that, in fact, the big computer business was as dead as a dodo (1990), I became a professor of computer science in a local college, working part time until I retired at age 65. I'll be 73 in September.

So here I am playing catch up with the baby boomers just for fun and something to do.

A Nonny:

You are the same age as my father who was force retired from the
International Brotherhood of Magicians (we called it several names when
I was growing up) at the ripe old age of 55. I started as an APL
Programmer at the age of 16 with the only Computer based Explorer Scouts
at one of their locations.

I served 20 years with the U.S. Military and currently work as a
software engineer with a U.S. Federal Government contractor. I work
with Wine/Linux in my spare time. I switched from Fedora Linux to a Mac
after a great deal of frustration and a shouting match on their User
list....

So, why Wine? The same reason a lot of us are using it, because the
bastards that build software think that Microsoft is the only way to
go. Sorry, but I tend to seriously disagree. I've seen alot of Android
applications and some are spectacular and do things that the Wizards of
Redmond would never think of.

Keep on going and keep on pushing the envelope. We will get there,
slowly, surely and with great pain.

James McKenzie

[James McKenzie]

A Nonny Moose wrote:

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. The French say it better.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Good idea.

Have a happy day, A Nonny.

I'm still beating my head against a possible mistake in MSDN that I
cannot confirm by Goggling the heck out of the function I'm trying to
implement.

James McKenzie

[A Nonny Moose]

I am afraid that my interest in getting gmax functional has waned for the moment. I got tired of bashing my brains against several things at once and decided to slay the dragon one head at a time. Of course you know what when you cut off a head, two more grow in its place. *sigh*.

I hear that you can slay one of these things by burying it in horse manure. Or maybe that only works with Dr. No.

[James McKenzie]

A Nonny Moose wrote:

I am afraid that my interest in getting gmax functional has waned for the moment. I got tired of bashing my brains against several things at once and decided to slay the dragon one head at a time. Of course you know what when you cut off a head, two more grow in its place. *sigh*.

I hear that you can slay one of these things by burying it in horse manure. Or maybe that only works with Dr. No.

ah, the old Hydra. Yes, once you fix one problem, two more come up to
replace it. Not nice, but a real rule of computing.

Yes, it does pay to step back and look at the entire problem, rather
than concentrate on one particular facet of it.

BTW, is there an Applications Database entry for this program? If not,
could you take some time to create one and give the program a rating?

James McKenzie

[A Nonny Moose]

I think so, but I'll have a look tomorrow. Not seeing straight tonight.

[A Nonny Moose]

I can get it to give me solid colours from the Materials Navigator, but it still will not access files containing (I forget the term) patterns for skins that get tiled over the model. Is there a winetricks entry that will give me access to the file structures? This may be what's missing.

Yes, there is an entry in AppDB, and yes, I updated it, but here is no editor for the app.

One of the interesting things in UBUNTU is that gmax is in the 'other' menu and can be called from there. wine apparently sticks entries there. Hmmmm.