Wine backport 1.3.33 Notes

I did a backport using the oneirc package that is available on Launchpad here's a few things I noticed:

1. ttf-symbol-replacement-wine1.3 has been removed.
2. wine package doesn't seem to be requiring gcc4.
3. removed oss4-dev (just like the last time).
4. changed debhelper version from 7 to 5.

Seems to be working well. Will be doing more tests.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

Hmm... beta testing, eh? Interesting times. :)

Even better solution - ICONV!

Well, that was fast. I figured a better way of dealing with this. Codepage 936 is Simplified Chinese and BIG5 is the traditional one.

iconv -f cp936 -t utf-8 chsimplified.srt >& simplified.srt

iconv -f cn-big5 -t utf-8 chtraditional.srt >& traditional.srt

These will convert the codepage subtitles to utf-8 which is something Ubuntu (and mplayer) can figure out much better. Now to back up these subs!

Subtitles Mayhem - Finally Solved!

God damn it! This has taken a long time to figure out! I was trying to get Chinese subtitles to work on mplayer and everytime I tried it, I get crazy garbage text. After installing truck load of language packs on Ubuntu, I am not successful. One guy suggested loading up specific a codepage for the subtitles but I had no clue what the encoding was for my srt subtitles.

After taking a couple of months break from it, I decided to start looking again and this time, I lucked out. Someone suggested to use smplayer instead for the subtitles and it only took a few clicks on the preferences to make it work. I changed the fonts on the preferences to use Code Page 936 Simplified Chinese for the subtitles. Voila! Subtitles are appearing there!

Unfortunately, I tried to use it on mplayer, I still get garbage text. Whatever. As long as I can read the subtitles, I'm fine.

DCUO Update

Okay, this game is completely unplayable by the mere fact that it keeps crashing outside of Gotham Police Station. Well, if anything, I can at least send some messages to my buddy there.

DC Universe Online

I'll keep this very brief. DCUO has just gone Free to Play and seeing as one of my buddies is so addicted into this game he doesn't even go online on chat anymore. I tried my hand and saw if the game worked on Wine.

Basically, the winehq entry says it works and I simply followed the instructions to install ie8, xact and vcrun2005 using winetricks. The installer is freely available on DCUO's website and it only installs a launchpad program that will grab the actual game. For the most part, the installer installs all other prerequisites like flash. When the installer runs, it fails in Wine dropping into the debugger, but this didn't stop the installer from proceeding. I guess no harm done.

I had a problem with the launchpad program because it wouldn't get me the actual login. The forums discussion on it helps a lot as it told me to edit the Launchpad-user.ini to add the 'curtain=disable' setting.

One 14.1 GB download later, the game is up and running. The mouse implementation is pretty bad, but otherwise, it runs fine. I'm not sure if it's a Wine issue or a game issue, but be warned when playing.

Anyway, it seems like a generic MMO with lots of killing. *Yawn*

Funny thing about Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory

I've been playing a lot of Splinter Cell games lately. Something funny came to mind and I thought I'd share it.

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory on the DS features multiplayer modes Shadownet vs Mercs and Coop. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory on the Gamecube features only a Coop multiplayer mode. Splinter Cell 3D (3DS remake of Chaos Theory) has no multiplayer.

What an interesting case of de-evolution!