Hexen 2 - Portal of Praevus support?

[LardLad]

I was able to easily get Hexen 2 running, and it looks and plays really well.  Unlike Darkplaces and Yamagi Quake 2, however, it doesn't seem to have a console command to point to a game folder which would allow me to start the mission pack.  In Darkplaces, for instance, I could just type gamedir portals then map <startmapname> and I'd be up and running.

Anyone get the mission pack running?

 

[TrashyMG]

If I recall with the quake 1/Hexen 2 engine you had to set the game by command line argument on start up.. back when the offical game installer just made an icon shortcut with the proper command.. for the pandora, my guess you could do some trick with PND_pre script or something.. kind of drawing a blank and only have my phone at the moment.

 

[LardLad]

Thanks for replying.  I know you can run the mission pack using the command line parameter, but since the command line is invoked when the PND is run I think I'm out of luck there.  Quake and Quake 2 both allow you to specify a game folder from the console, but a search of the console commands for Hexen 2 didn't find an equivalent command.

I guess you'd have to build a new PND to run the mission pack.

 

[TrashyMG]

I may have a few ideas, but need to get home to install the expansion.

 

[edgex004]

Thanks for replying.  I know you can run the mission pack using the command line parameter, but since the command line is invoked when the PND is run I think I'm out of luck there.  Quake and Quake 2 both allow you to specify a game folder from the console, but a search of the console commands for Hexen 2 didn't find an equivalent command.

I guess you'd have to build a new PND to run the mission pack.

Can you pass the necessary command line arguments through pnd_run.sh?

 

[LardLad]

Thanks for replying.  I know you can run the mission pack using the command line parameter, but since the command line is invoked when the PND is run I think I'm out of luck there.  Quake and Quake 2 both allow you to specify a game folder from the console, but a search of the console commands for Hexen 2 didn't find an equivalent command.

I guess you'd have to build a new PND to run the mission pack.

Can you pass the necessary command line arguments through pnd_run.sh?

Actually that might work...  If the game defaults to the Data1 folder then it's probably being run by the Hexen2.pnd with no parameters, so maybe you could run it and specify the -portal parameter to run Portal of Praevus.

I've never used pnd_run.sh but I read about it on the boards.

 

[edgex004]

Script is located at /usr/pandora/scripts/pnd_run.sh

If you just run the script with no arguments, it will bring up a usage page that I think is very helpful.

 

[LardLad]

Script is located at /usr/pandora/scripts/pnd_run.sh

If you just run the script with no arguments, it will bring up a usage page that I think is very helpful.

Thanks!  I'll try it out.

 

[frefol]

I just tried this and it does work using pnd_run.sh, at least the way I did it.  I created a script in the appdata folder with ./glhexen2 -x11 1 -portals and then run that file with pnd_run.sh.

 

[TrashyMG]

Okay my crude and hacky solution, since I never use the SDL version of the game and only the NanoGL one.. I will overwrite what that icon does and have it launch Portal of Praevus.

So....

Create a Hexen2.ovr file in the location of where the Hexen2.pnd file is located.

Contents:


[Application-1]
title Hexen II: Portal of Praevus

Create a file just called hexen2 in the hexen2 appdata directory, this will override the SDL version executable.

Contents:


#!/bin/bash
./glhexen2 -x11 1 -portals

If you have an EXT formatted SD card you may have to make it executable: chmod +x hexen2
 
May have to eject the SD card for it to pick everything up properly... You should see a Hexen II: Portal of Praevus icon just below the regular NanoGL version and it should launch the expansion without issues.


Edit 1:

Also I was sick of setting the nub mode to joystick every time I wanted to play this game due to that menu bug... so I added these PRE and POST scripts to switch the modes for me.

Contents of PND_pre_script.sh (in appdata folder):


#!/bin/bash
cat /proc/pandora/nub0/mode > /tmp/hexen2_nub0mode_before
cat /proc/pandora/nub1/mode > /tmp/hexen2_nub1mode_before

echo "absolute" > /proc/pandora/nub0/mode
echo "absolute" > /proc/pandora/nub1/mode

Contents of PND_post_script.sh (in appdata folder):


#!/bin/bash
cat /tmp/hexen2_nub0mode_before > /proc/pandora/nub0/mode
cat /tmp/hexen2_nub1mode_before > /proc/pandora/nub1/mode

rm /tmp/hexen2_nub0mode_before /tmp/hexen2_nub1mode_before

Edit 2: Also another note on a 1Ghz Pandora you need to use the default or 4.03.00.02 SGX driver to launch the game.. the latest 4.10 driver doesn't work with the NanoGL.


Edit 3: seems like a lot of hacky work to just play the game.. Maybe Pickle could get time to repackage it or I could do it with his permission..

Edit 4: modified the pre and post scripts to Ptitseb's example in another thread.. It will detect what the nubs where set to prior to launch and set them back after..

 

[LardLad]

The pns_run.sh doesn't work for me - clearly I'm doing something wrong syntactically.  I created a .sh with the line ./glhexen2 -x11 1 -portals in it (called portals.sh) and tried to use pnd_run.sh to execute it:

./pnd_run.sh -p /media/sd5/pandora/menu/hexen2 -e /media/sd5/pandora/appdata/hexen2/portals.sh

It successfully mounts the pnd but fails in executing portals.sh

I'll try the .ovr method next

 

[TrashyMG]

^ let me know, I set this up on my machine and confirmed it's working for me.. I think I got the steps all down.

 

[LardLad]

Any hints on what I did wrong with the portals.sh script and pnd_run?

 

[TrashyMG]

Any hints on what I did wrong with the portals.sh script and pnd_run?

Not sure, I couldn't really get that method to work either..  your command is a bit wrong I know that for sure... there  are two pnd_run commands...I think you are using the verbage of the pnd_run.sh command which resides in a script directory...  No luck with my solution?


Edit: The goal of my solution was to not have to worry about launching it from a script from command line or thunar, but to have it just show as a regular icon in XFCE or minimenu.. A bit more work upfront, but I think a more elegant solution.

 

[frefol]

Did you add #!/bin/bash as the first line?  Also just to be sure, did you make your script executable?  Otherwise that is pretty much exactly how I did it.  The only change is that I didn't put the whole path to the script after -e.  

The contents of my script is:

#!/bin/bash

/usr/pandora/scripts/pnd_run.sh -p /media/BOOT/pandora/menu/Hexen2.pnd -e portal.sh

Edit: The contents of my portal.sh is just:

#!/bin/bash

./glhexen2 -x11 1 -portals

 

[frefol]

I just tried using the OVR method and it works much better.  I had not thought about doing it that way.

 

[LardLad]

Any hints on what I did wrong with the portals.sh script and pnd_run?

Not sure, I couldn't really get that method to work either..  your command is a bit wrong I know that for sure... there  are two pnd_run commands...I think you are using the verbage of the pnd_run.sh command which resides in a script directory...  No luck with my solution?


Edit: The goal of my solution was to not have to worry about launching it from a script from command line or thunar, but to have it just show as a regular icon in XFCE or minimenu.. A bit more work upfront, but I think a more elegant solution.

Your fix with the .ovr file works perfectly!  Thanks for the help. 

For a Microsoft guy owning a Pandora is like being getting your hands on a computer for the first time and not knowing how to perform the simplest tasks...  My first was a Commodore PET.

 

[TrashyMG]

^ The PND system is a bit of black magic all of it's own and it's really just a Pandora only thing not entirely just a Linux thing.. I just seem to have gained an understanding of all this witchcraft.

Glad it all worked!