Halo: Combat Evolved for Modern Linux

Halo: Combat Evolved is a first-person shooter produced by Bungie for Microsoft. The game runs well under WINE, but it won't install unless you first put mfc42.dll in C:\Windows\System32.

I used Codeweaver's Crossover to install the game. Before the actual installation begins, make sure you have copies mfc42.dll to C:\Windows\System32 or the game will not install.

Once done, you can install the updates, Patch-108 (the no-cd patch) and Patch-110 (removes and replaces Game-Spy servers plus several fixes).

And finally, install msxml6, the Microsoft XML Parser to have the game display text.

You can also download a full set of saved games. This allows you to play and level rather than forcing you to work your way through each mission.

There's a nice tutorial by Benjamin7 at HaloWaypoint that details a generic WINE install and provides a nice startup script. He also provides install instructions for creating custom maps.

The source for many things about Halo:CE is at PC Gaming WIKI. There you will find info on widescreen, FOV settings and so on.

A mod that adds several useful visual and gameplay features is Chimera.

Custom maps can be found at Halo Maps and some at OpenCarnage.

A detailed Wiki is at Halo Nation and at PC Gaming Wiki.

Halo Custom Edition is a free add-on to Halo. You must have you installation key to install the game. You also need the Patch.

I haven't yet used any hi-res textures for Halo, but there are some out there. If you are aware of any, please let me know.

Here is the Halo Ultimate Enhancement mod from Bungie. There are several interesting things there to "improve" your game experience.

The Chimera mod mentioned above does allow you to remove the capped frame rate of 30 FPS and makes game play smoother.

And you might want to check out Halo Anniversary.

RESOURCES

PC Gaming Wiki

Mod DB

Halo Maps

Comments

DOS4GW.EXE Version 2.01a and Alternative DOS Extenders

DOS4GW.EXE The Tenberry DOS extender DOS4GW.EXE was used by many early DOS games. I still enjoy playing many of these games and DOS4GW.EXE is usable with DOSBox , so they can be played on Linux. However, the version of DOS4GW.EXE that was included with the game was whatever was current at the time. The most recent version that includes many bugfixes that possibly affected the games when used with DOSBox have been fixed in the latest version, 2.01a. It's not free at US$49, but you can downloaded it here . Simply substitute it for whatever version of DOS4GW.EXE your game provided and enjoy the bug-fixed goodness. Tenberry also makes a "high-performance" "pro" version of DOS4GW.EXE, but it costs $300. I think that they could sell quite a few of these to hobby users (since, you know, DOS is dead) for US$5. Open Souce to the Rescue There are better performing, free and Open Source alternatives available and worth a look. DPMI Explained Let's unders...

Unpack those .EXE game files from GOG.com (Plus other un-packers)

I just came upon innoextract today. I have many of the wonderful games from GOG.com, some of which have native Linux Clients. Before now, I've had to use PlayOnLinux or Crossover to install these for use with WINE, then add the Linux client. InnoSetup as a way to create an installer to install the games on Windows. Daniel Scharrer has created innoextract to allow the unpacking of those archives on a non-Windows platform. The website provides information on using innoextract , but this information from the page is very useful: GOG.com Installers GOG.com installers with a 2.x.x version number on the download page or in the filename use InnoSetup 5.5.0 and cannot be extracted by innoextract 1.2 and older. Older installers use InnoSetup 5.2.3 and usually have no version in the filename. Some GOG.com multi-part installers with version 2.1.x or higher use RAR archives (renamed to .bin) to store the game data. These files are not part of the InnoSetup installer and require...

Lighttpd and Simple Virtual Hosts Configuration.

I manage some websites for car clubs I belong to. They had been paying for web hosting and had some volunteers who knew not quite enough about maintaining and administrating the sites. Having some prior experience with similar small club sites, I volunteered to host them and admin them. With the first site, the pages were a train wreck of PHP and making even a small change on the existing pages caused the site to crash. Way back around the turn of the last century, I had a few Linux user’s groups that wanted a website, so I worked with Cynthia Manuel of Flamingo Internet Navigators to make a template for a web site that would be easy to maintain and easy to add static content. She developed templates that relied on Server Side Includes (SSI) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to make administration and content additions simple and easy, so I ported all the content over to that template and hosted the site myself. Later, another car club needed the same assistance and I ported it ov...

MaximumHoyt

Search This Blog