How to play openGL based games with full 3D acceleration on XGL/compiz

arnieboy · #1 May 15th, 2006

FULL credit goes to "jesper" from the compiz forums ( http://compiz.net ) for the following work. I have tested it and it works and hence warrants a complete howto here.
The original howto is here

CAVEAT:
1) I have only tested this on GNOME.
2) lithorus has reported that this does not work with the fglrx (ATI) driver. Trying the below with the same will result in an XGL crash.

First of all, do the following:

Code:

sudo visudo

and add the following to the end of the file:

Quote:

%user_name ALL=NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/Xorgallowlocal

where user_name is the group to which your user_name belongs (generally they go by the same name on a default Dapper install)
press ctrl-X and hit "Y" to save and exit.
now do the following:

Code:

sudo gedit /usr/bin/Xorgallowlocal

and paste the following:

Quote:

#!/bin/sh
DISPLAY="$2" XAUTHORITY="$1" xhost local:

save and exit and do the following:

Code:

sudo gedit /usr/bin/nonXgl

and paste the following:

Quote:

#!/bin/sh

DISPLAY=":93"

if [ -z "$1" ]; then
echo "Usage: nonXgl <command>"
exit 1
fi

isdisplay=0; isauth=0; for test in $(ps ax | grep "$DISPLAY" | grep Xorg ); do if [ $isauth -eq 1 ]; then export XAUTHORITY="$test"; isauth=0; fi; if [ "$test" = "-auth" ]; then isauth=1; fi; done;

sudo /usr/bin/Xorgallowlocal "$XAUTHORITY" "$DISPLAY"

exec $@

save and exit.
IN the above one thing needs to be kept in mind. you need to be sure that your display number is indeed "93" (by default it is 93 on almost all systems). To double check however, do the following:

Code:

ps uax | grep Xorg | grep Xgl

and look at the end of the line just before "terminate". There you will see your screen number. If it is anything other than 93, change the value of DISPLAY accordingly in "/usr/bin/nonXgl"

Now do the folllowing:

Code:

sudo chmod 755 /usr/bin/nonXgl
sudo chmod 755 /usr/bin/Xorgallowlocal

Now you are all set.
To run any openGL based game, play it as follows:

Code:

nonXgl <game>

for example:

Code:

nonXgl ppracer

and enjoy full 3D acceleration!

If it works for you, you can go a step further and change the path of the game executable in your menu by using alacarte or some other way to be able to launch it from menu.

We can get this thread stickied if it works for others.

lithorus · #2 May 15th, 2006

Would just like to add that this does NOT work with fglrx(ATI). Fglrx doesn't support acceleration on 2 X servers at once. If you try the above it'll just crash your XGL session...

arnieboy · #3 May 15th, 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by lithorus

Would just like to add that this does NOT work with fglrx(ATI). Fglrx doesn't support acceleration on 2 X servers at once. If you try the above it'll just crash your XGL session...

thanks for the update will add that.

mithras86 · #4 May 25th, 2006

Realy awesome!

Never thought how I could solve the ploblem: eye candy with compiz/xgl and still have the possibility to play ET!
Thanks!

grendelkhan · #5 May 25th, 2006

I've added the files remotely, I am so going to test this tonight when I get home from work!

kno · #6 May 25th, 2006

Quote:

Would just like to add that this does NOT work with fglrx(ATI). Fglrx doesn't support acceleration on 2 X servers at once. If you try the above it'll just crash your XGL session...

Maybe fixed in the latest drivers :

Quote:

ATI 8.25.18 drivers
Resolved Issues

The following section provide a brief description of resolved issues with the latest version of the ATI Proprietary Linux driver. These include:

* Running two X servers simultaneously no longer results in the system failing to respond. Further details can be found in topic number 737-220
[...]

leech · #7 May 25th, 2006

That truly is a thing of beauty! Also another great reason to use an nVidia card over ATI. Anyone tested the latest ATI drivers to see if it will work on it?

Hopefully now that AIGLX stuff is fully in X.org 7.1, the next revision of all the nVidia and ATI drivers will have the proper extensions, and the next release of Ubuntu will have native XGL.

Speaking of which, I'm sure this has been discussed elsewhere, but with Dapper's delay, does that mean that the next Ubuntu release will be in December?

Leech

SqRt7744 · #8 May 25th, 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnieboy

First of all, do the following:

Code:

sudo visudo

...
press ctrl-X and hit "Y" to save and exit.

this only works if nano or pico is called by visudo, but by default visudo uses vi, as the name implies. So to ensure that nano is used, your instuctions *must* look like this

Code:

export VISUAL="nano"
sudo visudo

otherwise nice, thanks.

arnieboy · #9 May 25th, 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by SqRt7744

this only works if nano or pico is called by visudo, but by default visudo uses vi, as the name implies. So to ensure that nano is used, your instuctions *must* look like this

Code:

export VISUAL="nano"
sudo visudo

otherwise nice, thanks.

on Ubuntu, visudo does indeed call nano (not vi/vim).

QuacoreZX · #10 May 25th, 2006

I just tried integrating this into Cedega, I do say that direct rendering DOES indeed function, but it doesn't exactly work and look how I would like it (I didn't have time to boot up a game, but the menu alone looked sorry to say the least).

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