Looking for advice on running games...Forum: Games Topic: Looking for advice on running games... started by: hfwarner3 Posted by hfwarner3 on Oct. 10 2005,14:10
Our employer has issued us laptops that are locked down - the HD is encrypted, the whole 9 yards. This is great for security, but those of us who travel can not use it for personal stuff on the road even though we have permission.I showed my employer how Knoppix and a USB drive could be used for personal web browsing and email on the road without touching the HD. They loved it and have given our laptop users permission to use it with an understanding that it is unsupported by our tech staff. In the GVP's words, "As long as it doesn't break the laptop or touch the hard drive, you can do whatever you want." Being the sysadmin who started all this mess, some of the sales weasels have come to me about Civ4. They know I am a huge Civ fan since I gave some of them FreeCiv to run on the road. Here is where it gets fun - they want to find a way to run Civ4 on the road when it comes out this month. They have offered to pitch in $50 to buy me the game, but I have already bought it and am willing to pass that money on to someone who can give me a clue. I have looked at BartPE and tried putting a plugin together with no success. I am looking at DSL and Cedega as of this morning and have no clue where to start. Does anyone have any advice? Is anyone willing to try to get it running in return for a $50 bounty? I do not want copyrighted binaries, just detailed instructions on how to make a LiveCD that runs Civ4 and saves games to a USB thumb drive. Posted by Your Fuzzy God on Oct. 10 2005,18:55
Hmm. According to < this >, Civ4 has not even been tested with Wine, so the only way (I can think of) would be to use a program called Qemu to boot to a windows install that you make. You can read about how to do this < here >. The biggest problem you are going to have is that you need 1.7Gb for Civ4, another 1.5Gb for a Win2k install (the smallest OS Civ4 supports) plus the space for DSL with Qemu, another 100Mb. I don't think this undertaking will be possible with just a pen drive due to the shear size of Civ4 .
Posted by hfwarner3 on Oct. 10 2005,20:09
I agree. I have been pursuing the LiveCD with save the thumb drive idea to date.Right now I am messing with getting Civ3 to work since that is supposed to be well supported. Posted by Your Fuzzy God on Oct. 10 2005,20:58
Perhaps you could remaster a DVD?
Posted by hfwarner3 on Oct. 10 2005,22:19
Since all the laptops have DVD drives, that works, but it still puts me back to square one - how do I setup the distro and should I be starting with something like Knoppix instead of DSL? Posted by AwPhuch on Oct. 12 2005,17:38
There is another optionThere is a version of Windows that can run as live cd...the utility cd version of it is called < Ultimate Boot CD for Windows > Its based off of < Bart's Preinstalled Environment (BartPE) > and the only thing is you have to build it yourself (licensing stuff), however I believe you can then build the game for it..however you will probably have to use a DVD to fit the OS and the game on thier..but it should work. It uses XP or 2003 and should be able to make a decent game platform for you (or you will be able to build a plugin (check licensing 1st)) Otherwise ask your admin gurus to allow you to have a Gig of "unencrypted" harddrive space for you to put your game on and use the UBCD4Win to do the OS stuff What about using a [url=http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/usb_hard-drive.html#9200]USB 2.5" laptop harddrive for your gaming stuff? (I used mine to hold my U2K4 install directory and play from that instead of the harddrive (to save space)) Will the laptop boot from a USB device?? Brian AwPhuch |