Aug 25, 2010

CS: Source in Linux

I run a dual-monitor Ubuntu 10.04 system for work. It actually has two dual-port nVidia cards in it, but I'm only using the 9800 GT right now.
I used a utility called PlayOnLinux to install steam and tweak my WINE (Wine Is Not an Emulator - it emulates Windows programs for Linux. Yeah go figure on the name, that's geeks for ya!)

Installing steam and CS:Source was easy enough. Tweaking it to work since I have two monitors was a challenge. If you only run one monitor, none of this would be necessary.

First, I had to tweak my Xorg file to make sure it knew what to do when a Windows program asks for full screen. It was as easy as changing one line in the xorg.conf file from:

Option "metamodes" "DFP-0: nvidia-auto-select +0+0, DFP-1: nvidia-auto-select +1920+0"

to:

Option "metamodes" "DFP-0: nvidia-auto-select +0+0, DFP-1: nvidia-auto-select +1920+0; DFP-0: 1920x1080 +0+0"

Notice it has two pairs of setups now - one for dual-head, and one following the semi-colon for full screen that only uses one monitor.

Next, I tweaked my launch options for CounterStrike to the following:

-fullscreen -width 1920 -height 1080 -heapsize 1048576

Again, due to the dual-head issues, things went slightly strange before forcing it to 1920x1080. The heapsize option lets it take advantage of all the extra RAM I have to improve performance, but I'm not sure it actually did anything for me.

Everything runs just fine - I get around 100fps with moderate detail. I've tried several video options but I do seem to be able to see light sources through the walls. Here's a screenshot from de_nuke while connected to Dizzle's server:

No comments:

Post a Comment