A standalone PowerPC Game CD for the ODW (Pegasos2) has been released. It's a fully stand-alone bootable CD based on Gentoo. You don't need anything on your harddisc, you only type "boot cd cube" and the game runs fully from CD.

The GameCD is completely graphical. Network, Audio and Graphics are automatically configured. It requires:

- Open Desktop Workstation (Pegasos2)
- ATI Radeon video card
- G4 Altivec enabled cpu
- Monitor capable of 1024x768 and 800x600 in 32bit color

For more information, including screenshots, go to morphos-news.de:

http://www.morphos-news.de/index.php?lg=en&nid=1001&si=1

IMHO, this is a cool concept! Almost like a game console. This concept could perhaps be further developed in lots of ways, not only restricted to games? BTW, wasn't there once talk about a MorphOS live CD for the Mac to achieve a similar thing? Was that just dreams?

[ Edited by takemehomegrandma on 2005/1/31 17:06 ]

I try it with a "normal" Pegasos II (not with the ODW), but networking is dont working for me. I Have tho network connection in my peg, one from the mbs 10/100 to my router (which connects to a micro net) and one with lan card (connects to my xbox). HOw to i configure the network for this game ? Or i need simply use the mbs Gigabit ethernet ? btw. 3d, sound and other features works well.

Very cool!

/me downloading ATM

You guys do of course know that SixK did a MOS native port of this like a year ago right?

Also an MOS bootable "live" cd is possible..

About the CD:
How long to boot into the game?
Can you exit into the Gentoo environment?
Please provide furthur details..

tia

magnetic

@Magnetic

From where to download from?

@hooligan
Try here ftp://trumpetti.atm.tut.fi/gentoo/experimental/ppc/livecd/cube-gamecd-ppc-20050130.iso


nels

I have burned the CD, and looking forward to run it today after work. But now I see, that I must have Pegasos2 with G4 and ATI Radeon?!

WHY! :o(

Jack
Well, I just burned the cd and tried to boot it...
It starts to load and a really nice "Gentoo" logo graphic and "Cube Gamecd" comes up and i'm all excited and then it just stops there, nothing happens...

My specs are below. I was really disappointed as it looked cool and was fun. Any help/advice would be appreciated.

magnetic

The GameCD runs on my Pegasos II G3 and Radeon 9000 but I got only 640x480 and not suitable resolutions for my TFT (46khz and 85hz wont work) and it will get blank. Can only play for some seconds.

[ Edited by DJBase on 2005/2/1 12:53 ]

@ magnetic

Sorry to hear. Perhaps your spec's aren't close enough to the ODW? Possibly the graphics card?

It works just fine here though. After exactly one minute after hitting enter at the firmware prompt, the game is up and running. That includes setting up the whole system, including waiting several seconds in vain for DHCP calls on the gigabit ethernet port that won't come anyway. And all is from CD!

The framerates when you run around alone is pretty decent. You can also "tweak" a little for slightly better performance. When connecting to a server and play with others online it can sometime be more of a slideshow. My belief is that there is plenty of room for optimizing and tweaking here.

Quote:

@magnetic

Possible but not legal for free distribution, unless MOS team releases some "run-time" files for that. It would be a good idea though IMO.

once again my Pegasos I is crying...

Runs fine here ! I wanna buy(racing) games that work this way !

- Sami

PegII, G3/600, 256Mb ram, Club3D Radeon9200SE 128Mb

I'm glad you people like it, Pieter is very skilled in building good LiveCDs. We had a similar CD like this one but with a fully working Gnome environment a couple of months ago. Sadly that was built on the 2004.2 system which only worked on a couple of Apple systems and never officially released.
Building a LiveCD like this is not very difficult unless you want to support a wide range of obscure hardware (like voodoo). Since people seem to appreciate this CD we might very well build more of them in the future. A new, working, desktop LiveCD comes to mind, somewhat like knoppix but less advanced.


@magnetic:
Try pressing F2 which should remove the splash screen so you can see what error messages it throws at you, if any.


@JACK:
All the binaries are optimised for a G4 with AltiVec. It is quite possible it will work on a G3 as well, you tell me.
Regarding Radeon, Voodoo cards are poorly supported in Linux since they are becoming quite rare. The 3D drivers only work on x86 for instance.


@DJBase:
The autoconfiguration code used is still a bit crude, although it has become quite good in the last couple of years. But if the monitor does not provide the graphics card with proper values on horizontal and vertical sync it will not be able to find a suitable mode. This is not necessarily a problem with your monitor but could also mean that the driver isn't capable of fetching the values and fall back on the default settings.


@csabanw:
It should configure automatically if you have a working DHCP server. I don't know if Pieter included drivers for other network cards than the built-in via and marvell controllers though.

no answer for SoundSquare ?

not even a pathetic "upgrade to a peg 2" answer ? come on you can do better !
I'd love to try this live CD on my old and miserable Peg I

@SoundSquare

Why not.. upgrade to Peg2?

Quote:

Its all Articias fault.

@DJBase

Articia got fixed, and even if it didn't fix much i'm tired of this excuse.
Debian Linux works on my Peg I with this goddam Articia, so what ?

@ SoundSquare

Did I forgot the smily?

@SoundSquare:
The Gentoo 2004.3 CD works on Pegasos I. I dunno about the GameCD but I assume that you tested it and it ain't working since your peg is crying. Noone in the Gentoo team has access to a Pegasos I which makes it difficult for us to support it.

@ SoundSquare

The Pegasos1 was discontinued almost two years ago. Only a few hundred (600-700 AFAIK) were built and no more will follow, ever. Don't blame third party developers for only supporting a platform which they have access to and that is still in movement; people are free to develop for whatever they want. Get yourself a second Peg instead ($999 for a complete Gentoo ODW system or $649 for a Peg2 mainboard+G4 CPU), the Pegasos2 is worth it! The Peg1->Peg2 upgrade programme is also said to be relaunched in a not too distant future, but no date is specified and it obviously depends on some larger business goals being reached, so if I were you I would put my faith in my own hands and take care of it myself!

My game-cd booted ok but when the game should have started, it went to a mode my TFT can't handle.. so that was my Cube-experience.

so when will there be a standalone PronCD for OpenDesktopWorkstation ?

Quote:

same here

maybe we can select another resolution by passing an argument to the kernel .
Is it possible please?

Will it works better if I buy the same video card like on ODW ?
Which is this car please?

[ Edited by serge on 2005/2/1 21:24 ]

dholm

How are you? Thanks for the response. I hit "F2" and nothing happens - its frozen. I also tried ctrl c+c and nothing.. seems broken - i checked the iso 's md5 and it burned great.. seems like some other problem.. any other ideas? ( I wish I could get a console )

@Velcro

Yes, what you are saying is accurate but ONLY if you would be doing some sort of public or commercial release.. for your own purposes you can make any kind of cd you want..

magnetic

@ The Gentoo devs responsible for this live cd

Nice CD sticker artwork! Any ideas why it wont boot on my box?

For game suggestions on a live cd

Quake 2 (or quake world)
TUX RACER
Armegtron

other cool non shooter stuff..

and Birdie Shoot... (just kidding - if you are saying wtf is birdie shoot check out your ODW mos install and play it!)

magnetic