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StarsWine - Stars in BoxedWine on Windows

Fri, 20 April 2018 18:16

raptor

Chief Warrant Officer 1
Creator of StarsWine
Created StarsWine

Messages: 138
Registered: June 2014

Here I present another effort at getting Stars! to run better in Windows 64-bit: StarsWine 1.0

Download

https://github.com/stars-4x/starswine/releases

Usage

1. Unzip the download, go into the extracted folder
2. Run 'stars.bat', wait a little bit
3. Enter your serial number
4. Play!

Description

This is an attempt at better integration and performance with Windows 7, 10, etc. 64-bit: starsbox works fine but has mouse issues that I couldn't fix, and it was sometimes very slow.

The technology used is called BoxedWine (http://www.boxedwine.org/). It is basically a bare-bones x86 emulator that runs just enough of Linux 32-bit internally to run WINE (https://www.winehq.org/) and load up old 16-bit games. BoxedWine is still in heavy development so this may be crashy (but I haven't noticed it yet).

Known Issues

* Large download of 48 MB and extracts to about 200 MB. Better than a full VM but worse than StarsBox
* Stars! cursor changes can be a little weird - like the little hand that drags waypoints might be something else
* If the main window loses focus, emulation stops entirely (maybe this is a feature)

Enjoy!

P.S. Please let me know of your experience using it, especially if it is any better or worse than using StarsBox or a full VM

[Updated on: Sat, 21 April 2018 03:36]

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Re: StarsWine - Stars in BoxedWine on Windows

Mon, 20 August 2018 10:54

mrvan

Officer Cadet 1st Year

Messages: 220
Registered: May 2014

I like how (emulated) linux+wine is now a better way to run old Windows games than using Windows itself Smile

Setting up a virtual machine with e.g. ubuntu on it should also be a breeze, but it will take more HDD space probably.

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Re: StarsWine - Stars in BoxedWine on Windows

Wed, 22 August 2018 11:56

Ron

Commander
Forum Administrator
Stars! AutoHost Administrator

Messages: 1230
Registered: October 2002
Location: Collegedale, TN

I still prefer DosBoxStars. Less than 30meg (I believe), and pretty fast, and easy to share with a new player. Easy to transfer .m/.x files into and out of. I really don't see the point of setting up and emulating an entire virtual machine of several hundred megabytes, when I can easily use DosBoxStars.

If you prefer the entire virtual machine route, I'd like to hear your reasoning why.

Ron Miller
Stars! AutoHost

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Re: StarsWine - Stars in BoxedWine on Windows

Wed, 22 August 2018 12:08

platon79

Chief Warrant Officer 3

Messages: 184
Registered: February 2004
Location: Norway

This seems very interesting. Will test it some, if it works well, then maybe it is time to change my dosbox plus win31 setup.
Alas, it seems I have to drag my windows start menu to one of the sides to be able to play, or else the new game, open game, continue and exit buttons are obscured. And in the game, it seems that a little bit of the bottom is missing.
Never mind, just found out about the resolution parameter in the bat-file. And my windows default screen setting on my 1920x1080 laptop was set to enlarge apps by 150%. So a resolution of 1280x660 seems to fit nicely.
Unfortunately it doesn't seem that the symlink I created to my dropbox-starsgames-folder in the \filesystem\home\username\stars folder is mounted, it doesn't show up in stars Sad

I would really avoid having to copy files to and fro. In my dosbox setup I mount the dropbox folder and it works as a charm. Do you know if there is some way of mounting additional windows drives/folders in addition to the /filesystem folder?

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Re: StarsWine - Stars in BoxedWine on Windows

Wed, 22 August 2018 15:50

mrvan

Officer Cadet 1st Year

Messages: 220
Registered: May 2014

Ron wrote on Wed, 22 August 2018 11:56

I still prefer DosBoxStars. Less than 30meg (I believe), and pretty fast, and easy to share with a new player. Easy to transfer .m/.x files into and out of. I really don't see the point of setting up and emulating an entire virtual machine of several hundred megabytes, when I can easily use DosBoxStars.

If you prefer the entire virtual machine route, I'd like to hear your reasoning why.

I run linux on my computer, so I don't need to mess with this. I just found it amusing that where normally people use Windows as a gaming platform (even if they run linux or mac for work) there is now at least one game that is easier to run on linux Smile

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Re: StarsWine - Stars in BoxedWine on Windows

Sun, 26 August 2018 18:50

Ron

Commander
Forum Administrator
Stars! AutoHost Administrator

Messages: 1230
Registered: October 2002
Location: Collegedale, TN

mrvan wrote on Wed, 22 August 2018 15:50

Ron wrote on Wed, 22 August 2018 11:56
I still prefer DosBoxStars. Less than 30meg (I believe), and pretty fast, and easy to share with a new player. Easy to transfer .m/.x files into and out of. I really don't see the point of setting up and emulating an entire virtual machine of several hundred megabytes, when I can easily use DosBoxStars.

If you prefer the entire virtual machine route, I'd like to hear your reasoning why.

I run linux on my computer, so I don't need to mess with this. I just found it amusing that where normally people use Windows as a gaming platform (even if they run linux or mac for work) there is now at least one game that is easier to run on linux

More power to you! Stars! AutoHost uses Wine to generate turns, all command-line.

Ron Miller
Stars! AutoHost

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Re: StarsWine - Stars in BoxedWine on Windows

Thu, 30 August 2018 04:10

mrvan

Officer Cadet 1st Year

Messages: 220
Registered: May 2014

Ron wrote on Sun, 26 August 2018 18:50

More power to you! Stars! AutoHost uses Wine to generate turns, all command-line.

I guess that makes sense Smile

. How do you prevent it from needing to open a window when generating a turn? Do you have a "fake" display (like xvfb) or is there a command line switch that prevents it from opening a window for generating?

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Re: StarsWine - Stars in BoxedWine on Windows

Tue, 04 September 2018 09:34

Ron

Commander
Forum Administrator
Stars! AutoHost Administrator

Messages: 1230
Registered: October 2002
Location: Collegedale, TN

mrvan wrote on Thu, 30 August 2018 04:10

Ron wrote on Sun, 26 August 2018 18:50

More power to you! Stars! AutoHost uses Wine to generate turns, all command-line.

I guess that makes sense . How do you prevent it from needing to open a window when generating a turn? Do you have a "fake" display (like xvfb) or is there a command line switch that prevents it from opening a window for generating?

It runs a very small Xwindows, and two PERL programs run inside of that, in infinite loops. One detects when a turn needs to generate and calls Wine. The second Perl program is the watchdog, and keeps an eye on the first one. If it detects that the first one has hung, it emails me.

Ron Miller
Stars! AutoHost

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Re: StarsWine - Stars in BoxedWine on Windows

Mon, 05 April 2021 12:36

Loïc

Crewman 3rd Class

Messages: 8
Registered: December 2018
Location: France

Aaaah, enfin je vais pouvoir rejouer à Stars! sur un ordinateur moderne ! Shocked

With today's big screens, it is even more comfortable than in the past. Very Happy

Thanks you very much for this StarsWine !

--
Loïc

--
Loïc

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