Teotwawki
Recruit
I am writing this post in an effort to help other Linux/steam users enjoy this wonderful mod.
First I would like to note that I am running this PC using XFCE as my desktop manager.
I am not a fan of Unity desktop, I am using a fairly ancient PC, and XFCE can be configured to look and act almost exactly like the old GNOME2 desktop manager that I adored.
My PC is an AM2SN-LA motherboard, dual-core 1.2Ghz (seriously), 4Gb RAM, running Nvidia N8400GS (1Gb) graphics card (one or two steps down from the best graphics-card that I could put in this machine) with drivers fully updated from the x-swat ppa repository recommended by steam.
As a side note, a friend was having bad overheating issues when running 3D games on his laptop, under Unity desktop. He was seeing temperatures well into the 90ºC range. I helped him install XFCE, where playing the same game resulted in temperatures of around 68ºC to 73ºC as an average, when played under XFCE.
Unity is HEAVYWEIGHT, XFCE is lightweight
There are 2 ways to get the latest 1.03 Kill the Peasants edition of 1257AD that I know of.
One is to download the 1257AD_1.03.exe version.
To unpack this we need p7zip-full from the standard repository.
I use synaptic package manager by preference, but I am sure this can be searched and installed via Ubuntu Software Center, or via terminal with sudo apt-get or aptitude, whichever you prefer.
7zip integrates into your desktop manager, so you should simply be able to right click the 1257AD_1.03.exe and select "Extract here". When the .exe file unpacks you should have a new 1257AD_1.03 folder in your current directory.
This folder can then be moved into your M&B:W Modules folder.
In my (default pathway) installation, my Modules folder can be found at
home/username/.local/share/Steam/SteamApps/common/MountBlade Warband/Modules
Note that .local is a hidden folder and you will need to select "Show hidden files and folders" to navigate to it within your window manager GUI.
Also, a couple of unneeded folders will be within your 1257AD_1.03 folder, both of these folders will have "$_" as a prefix to their folder names, I renamed these to remove the "$_" though they can probably be left as-is or even removed completely.
The second way is via Subversion repository, the address of which can be found in the "Final Final version of 1257ad" thread http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,307553.0.html
I would recommend using RapidSVN, from the Ubuntu repository. It's a simple easy-to-use GUI.
Start RapidSVN, then click Repository and choose Checkout.
A sub-window will appear, the top field is named URL, put the svn address here.
The next field is Destination Directory, navigate to your chosen directory here by clicking the "..." icon. Another sub-window will appear, you will need to right click inside this window and choose the "Show Hidden Files" option. Navigate to your Modules folder and click the "Create Folder" button at the top of the window. I created a folder called anno1257, you could call it svn1257 or whatever you wish.
Once that is done, you can click "OK" in the Checkout sub-window. The default settings should be fine, the "Use latest" box should already be ticked, as should the "Recursive" box.
1257AD will now be downloaded.
I am using both the .exe installed version, and the SVN version. I have been editing a lot of files in the .exe version to correct a lot of transparency issues with .dds files, I am leaving the SVN version untouched.
The transparency issues are not purely related to 1257AD, the native Warband game has some issues
1) in some weather conditions there will be a horrible flickery black sky with a bright red version of the character shadow covering the sky.
When I first saw this I thought it was a corrupted lightning storm graphic, eventually I realised it was the character shadow, my "fix" was to simply uncheck the character shadow box in the in-game options.
2) Pitch-black sky with no cloud detail.
I have had some success removing the pitch-black sky, it seems caused primarily by the "particles.dds" image file, identical versions of which can be found in both the native textures folder and the 1257AD mod textures folder.
I have edited this file and have not seen a pitch-black sky in some time.
Other files that I have edited to help fix this issue are as follows;
In the native MountBlade Warband > Textures folder:
skybox.dds
skybox_clearday_exp.dds
skybox_cloud_1_exp.dds
skybox_cloud_2_exp.dds
skybox_sunset_1_exp.dds
sun_core.dds
In the 1257AD > Textures folder:
skybox_clearday_exp.dds
skybox_cloud_1_exp.dds
skybox_cloud_2_exp.dds
skybox_sunset_1_exp.dds
This has helped a great deal, mostly giving me some magnificent sky views,
however I still occasionally do see bland single-colour skies ranging from light orange and light blue through to almost-black with some hint of red shading.
Bluish
Brownish
Not-black
I have made some edits to the (native) sun_bloom.tga file which I *think* is the main cause of this, but so far with little success.
*My second theory is that there is some transparency issue with one or more sky images, which look correct in GIMP, but do not display correctly in-game. Perhaps at some stage I will edit all the sky files to see what happens.
**My third theory is that there is some "race-condition" happening where sky files are either loading in the wrong order or not loading at all.
Still my skyscapes are much better than the pure black skies that I used to see quite often.
When it comes to the 1257AD "menu" screens (town, village, pre-battle etc), the transparency issue caused big black boxes to cover significant portions of the screen, making a lot of text unreadable.
Town menu
I use GIMP and the GIMP DDS plugin to handle .dds files, unfortunately a lot of the .dds files in 1257AD I can get no readable or useable image from, even though one of them (tournament menu) did show correctly in-game.
Here is a small screenshot of my editing folder, showing the issue I have with some image files.
Interestingly, even some of the files which I can read correctly in GIMP, will show as black boxes in-game.
At first I simply swapped a lot of native files into place, but this was unsatisfactory to me, not only because it meant the image was often stretched, but also because they did not truly fit into this great mod.
I have downloaded all of the .jpg images from http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,256153.0.html the SCRIPTORIUM AMANUESIS - 1257 AD Artworks thread and now made usable menu .dds images for my Linux install.
I *think* I have all the images in their correct places, though perhaps they are of slightly lesser quality than the Windows versions, I did not spend any time on smoothing the drawn lines, so they look like they need some anti-aliasing, in-game.
Catholic Fort
Catholic Town
Message
Seige
Victory (not sure this is correct image)
Perhaps some kindly, passing windows user can let me know if these look significantly worse than the original versions... I *might* be motivated to try to make them look better.
The only other issue I have is a black box for some flags, such as Jotvingiai, but I am not sure which of the pic_arms files are used for the ones which I cannot see.
Jotvingiai
Finally, I have no clue about licenses, and would appreciate a word of advice, in the event that other Linux users may experience similar issues and request these files, as to whether there would be any issues with uploading a zip file of my changes and linking to it on these boards.
Thanks for your time, and for the wonderful mod. It may not be perfect, Sir James de Audley, Justiciar of Ireland seems to dream of becoming Queen of Calradia
and Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester tells a mysterious story of his brother Sanjar
also there seems to be an uncompleteable quest from Guild Masters regarding Berbers and Emir Hanif
but all in all, this mod is very, very, very good indeed.
In fact, it is truly magnificent.
TL;DR - enjoy your day.
First I would like to note that I am running this PC using XFCE as my desktop manager.
I am not a fan of Unity desktop, I am using a fairly ancient PC, and XFCE can be configured to look and act almost exactly like the old GNOME2 desktop manager that I adored.
My PC is an AM2SN-LA motherboard, dual-core 1.2Ghz (seriously), 4Gb RAM, running Nvidia N8400GS (1Gb) graphics card (one or two steps down from the best graphics-card that I could put in this machine) with drivers fully updated from the x-swat ppa repository recommended by steam.
As a side note, a friend was having bad overheating issues when running 3D games on his laptop, under Unity desktop. He was seeing temperatures well into the 90ºC range. I helped him install XFCE, where playing the same game resulted in temperatures of around 68ºC to 73ºC as an average, when played under XFCE.
Unity is HEAVYWEIGHT, XFCE is lightweight
There are 2 ways to get the latest 1.03 Kill the Peasants edition of 1257AD that I know of.
One is to download the 1257AD_1.03.exe version.
To unpack this we need p7zip-full from the standard repository.
I use synaptic package manager by preference, but I am sure this can be searched and installed via Ubuntu Software Center, or via terminal with sudo apt-get or aptitude, whichever you prefer.
7zip integrates into your desktop manager, so you should simply be able to right click the 1257AD_1.03.exe and select "Extract here". When the .exe file unpacks you should have a new 1257AD_1.03 folder in your current directory.
This folder can then be moved into your M&B:W Modules folder.
In my (default pathway) installation, my Modules folder can be found at
home/username/.local/share/Steam/SteamApps/common/MountBlade Warband/Modules
Note that .local is a hidden folder and you will need to select "Show hidden files and folders" to navigate to it within your window manager GUI.
Also, a couple of unneeded folders will be within your 1257AD_1.03 folder, both of these folders will have "$_" as a prefix to their folder names, I renamed these to remove the "$_" though they can probably be left as-is or even removed completely.
The second way is via Subversion repository, the address of which can be found in the "Final Final version of 1257ad" thread http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,307553.0.html
I would recommend using RapidSVN, from the Ubuntu repository. It's a simple easy-to-use GUI.
Start RapidSVN, then click Repository and choose Checkout.
A sub-window will appear, the top field is named URL, put the svn address here.
The next field is Destination Directory, navigate to your chosen directory here by clicking the "..." icon. Another sub-window will appear, you will need to right click inside this window and choose the "Show Hidden Files" option. Navigate to your Modules folder and click the "Create Folder" button at the top of the window. I created a folder called anno1257, you could call it svn1257 or whatever you wish.
Once that is done, you can click "OK" in the Checkout sub-window. The default settings should be fine, the "Use latest" box should already be ticked, as should the "Recursive" box.
1257AD will now be downloaded.
I am using both the .exe installed version, and the SVN version. I have been editing a lot of files in the .exe version to correct a lot of transparency issues with .dds files, I am leaving the SVN version untouched.
The transparency issues are not purely related to 1257AD, the native Warband game has some issues
1) in some weather conditions there will be a horrible flickery black sky with a bright red version of the character shadow covering the sky.
When I first saw this I thought it was a corrupted lightning storm graphic, eventually I realised it was the character shadow, my "fix" was to simply uncheck the character shadow box in the in-game options.
2) Pitch-black sky with no cloud detail.
I have had some success removing the pitch-black sky, it seems caused primarily by the "particles.dds" image file, identical versions of which can be found in both the native textures folder and the 1257AD mod textures folder.
I have edited this file and have not seen a pitch-black sky in some time.
Other files that I have edited to help fix this issue are as follows;
In the native MountBlade Warband > Textures folder:
skybox.dds
skybox_clearday_exp.dds
skybox_cloud_1_exp.dds
skybox_cloud_2_exp.dds
skybox_sunset_1_exp.dds
sun_core.dds
In the 1257AD > Textures folder:
skybox_clearday_exp.dds
skybox_cloud_1_exp.dds
skybox_cloud_2_exp.dds
skybox_sunset_1_exp.dds
This has helped a great deal, mostly giving me some magnificent sky views,
however I still occasionally do see bland single-colour skies ranging from light orange and light blue through to almost-black with some hint of red shading.
Bluish
I have made some edits to the (native) sun_bloom.tga file which I *think* is the main cause of this, but so far with little success.
*My second theory is that there is some transparency issue with one or more sky images, which look correct in GIMP, but do not display correctly in-game. Perhaps at some stage I will edit all the sky files to see what happens.
**My third theory is that there is some "race-condition" happening where sky files are either loading in the wrong order or not loading at all.
Still my skyscapes are much better than the pure black skies that I used to see quite often.
When it comes to the 1257AD "menu" screens (town, village, pre-battle etc), the transparency issue caused big black boxes to cover significant portions of the screen, making a lot of text unreadable.
Town menu
I use GIMP and the GIMP DDS plugin to handle .dds files, unfortunately a lot of the .dds files in 1257AD I can get no readable or useable image from, even though one of them (tournament menu) did show correctly in-game.
Here is a small screenshot of my editing folder, showing the issue I have with some image files.
Interestingly, even some of the files which I can read correctly in GIMP, will show as black boxes in-game.
At first I simply swapped a lot of native files into place, but this was unsatisfactory to me, not only because it meant the image was often stretched, but also because they did not truly fit into this great mod.
I have downloaded all of the .jpg images from http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,256153.0.html the SCRIPTORIUM AMANUESIS - 1257 AD Artworks thread and now made usable menu .dds images for my Linux install.
I *think* I have all the images in their correct places, though perhaps they are of slightly lesser quality than the Windows versions, I did not spend any time on smoothing the drawn lines, so they look like they need some anti-aliasing, in-game.
Catholic Fort
Catholic Town
Message
Seige
Victory (not sure this is correct image)
Perhaps some kindly, passing windows user can let me know if these look significantly worse than the original versions... I *might* be motivated to try to make them look better.
The only other issue I have is a black box for some flags, such as Jotvingiai, but I am not sure which of the pic_arms files are used for the ones which I cannot see.
Jotvingiai
Finally, I have no clue about licenses, and would appreciate a word of advice, in the event that other Linux users may experience similar issues and request these files, as to whether there would be any issues with uploading a zip file of my changes and linking to it on these boards.
Thanks for your time, and for the wonderful mod. It may not be perfect, Sir James de Audley, Justiciar of Ireland seems to dream of becoming Queen of Calradia
and Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester tells a mysterious story of his brother Sanjar
also there seems to be an uncompleteable quest from Guild Masters regarding Berbers and Emir Hanif
but all in all, this mod is very, very, very good indeed.
In fact, it is truly magnificent.
TL;DR - enjoy your day.
