Hello...  sorry for the length of this message....  For those interested
in 3d shoot'em ups...

Loki games [http://www.lokigames.com] has ported Heretic 2 to Linux/i386.
This is a sequel to the popular Heretic game.  The original was based on
DOOM code, the sequel on the Quake 2 engine.  If you have managed to get
Quake 2 working on your system, then Heretic 2 should not be a big
challenge.

To get Heretic 2 demo to run under NetBSD/i386 download the demo from:

	ftp://sunsite.auc.dk/pub/os/linux/loki/beta/heretic2

or

	ftp://boudicca.tux.org/misc/lokigames/beta/heretic2

The main file of interest is:

	heretic2-beta-demo.run

Down load this file, however, keep in mind that it is around 55MB.  It is
in the form of a quasi shell script that when run will unpack the game.
It would be a good idea to place it in the location where you want the
game to reside.

After the down load is complete, make the file executable and run it.
The shell script part of this file uses 'test' and there is likely to be a
complaint about a number operation exceeding an upper limit.  This didn't
seem to harm the game.

The total amount of space required for the unpacked demo is around 88MB.


If all went well there should be a directory called 'heretic2_demo'.  To
run the game:


1) cd heretic2_demo

2) ./heretic2_demo +set nosound 0


This should start the game with audio enabled and using software
rendering.  For whatever reason, audio does not seem to be enable-able from
the game itself.  There were some odd references to /dev/dsp1, where '1'
was sometimes 2 or 3.


Wart:  if you get an error like the following:

./heretic2_demo: error in loading shared libraries
: undefined symbol: __bzero


then you will have to use some binary editing.  Use your favorite binary
editor on the program 'heretic2_demo' and the shared object 'ref_glx.so',
if you are going to try using GLX with the game.  Carefully change all
references of '__bzero^@' to 'bzero^@'.  Be very careful to not alter the
size of these files.

Try the game again....  This wart may be related to using an older version
of libc.so.6 or some such thing.


To run Heretic 2 in GLX mode:

1) Acquire a working Linux libGL.so for your hardware.  I used the one I
use with Quake 2.

2) Start the game with:

./heretic2_demo +set vid_ref glx +set gl_driver _location_of_libGL.so

3) If you want audio add '+set noaudio 0' to the command line.


If all worked out, the game should start up in the much nicer GL mode.
The detail in Heretic 2 appears to be higher then Quake 2.  The end result
is that certain scenes are slower.


Note: There is a patch file in the same directory has the game called
'heretic2-1.06a-beta-x86.run'.  This appears to apply only to the real
game and not the demo.  The demo seems to already be version 1.06a.
However, if you try running this patch on a NetBSD system the install
script will likely need to be modified.  I have not tried the real game
yet.




Brad Spencer - brad@anduin.eldar.org   http://anduin.eldar.org
[finger brad@anduin.eldar.org for PGP public key]