fgfs

[Donald R. Ziesig]

John Dangler wrote:

>I found flightgear on synaptic this afternoon and decided to try it.  I
>installed it and the dependencies for it, but on executing it in Gnome,
>after the splash banner appeared, nothing else happened.  I went to a
>terminal window and entered the command to start it (/usr/games/fgfs),
>and got this for output...
>
>freeglut (/usr/games/fgfs): Unable to create direct context rendering
>for window 'FlightGear'
>This may hurt performance.
>  
>
I've seen this from the GLUT package when I run with the X-Server on a 
different machine than the graphics program (fgfs and others).  It is 
correct about the performance ;)  I have never seen it when I'm running 
the graphics code on the machine that hosts the display (but that 
doesn't mean it can't happen).  Perhaps there is something strange about 
your video/x-server configuration?

>opening file: /usr/share/games/FlightGear/Navaids/carrier_nav.dat
>/usr/share/games/FlightGear/Navaids/TACAN_freq.dat
>fgfs: indirect_vertex_array.c:1359: __indirect_glTexCoordPointer:
>Assertion `a != ((void *)0)' failed.
>Aborted
>
>  
>
I had a problem like this a few years ago when my machine didn't have 
enough real and virtual memory available.  It seems that some parts of 
fgfs do not check for malloc failure, resulting in attempts to 
dereference 0x0.

Try running the System Monitor before starting fgfs and watch it for 
signs of  insufficient memory while fgfs starts.

>Anyone know why this would abort?  Is the version in synaptic the
>culprit?  Is it the video card I'm using? (0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible
>controller: nVidia Corporation NV17 [GeForce4 MX 420] (rev a3) )
>
>Thanks for any input...
>
>
>  
>
I have fgfs working fine on an Ubuntu 6.06 machine running on a 64-bit 
AMD processor with 3 GB of RAM and 16 GB of swap space.  The video card 
is a "no-name" brand based on an ATI chip set.
If I recall correctly, I had to build fgfs from source (a very fast 
process) to work on the 64-bit system.

I have it working (but not that fast) on an older 32-bit AMD processor 
using the default Ubuntu 6.06 install with 1 GB RAM, 4 GB swap and 
whatever video chip set was included on the mainboard.  It uses almost 
all of the available RAM and virtual memory when it starts, then settles 
down to about 5 fps (really jerky ;( ) with memory usage hovering about 
800 MB.

Hope this points you in the right direction.

donz