I finished reading a sci fi book titled "Saturn Run". It is about an alien starship which is detected decelerating into our solar system. Surprisingly, it stops at Saturn, remains for several months then flies away. This prompts a race between the Chinese and Americans to get to the rings first and see what the aliens did. It's a very good read!
The two authors wrote about their use of a free space flight simulation program called Orbiter. They used it to determine which routes would be feasible to fly to Saturn given the technology of the time in which the story was set, 50 years from now. As a former physics teacher that intrigued me so I set about installing Orbiter. Here is what I did.
Orbiter comes with D3D7 installed, but D3D9 gives higher res graphics. A note of caution to anyone trying to install Orbiter. Several installation tutorials include downloading and installing DxWine in order to get d3d9 working. DxWine is no longer available and the rest of those tutorials fail because of that absence. Also, if your GPU does not support SSE2 then D3D9 won't run.
Just downloading D3D9ClientR15.zip and unzipping into into the orbiter directory doesn't work. You have to do it, but doing that alone won't give you sound.
PlayOnLinux is not necessary.
Here is what worked for me
Download the Orbiter100830.zip file.
Download the D3D9ClientR15.zip file.
Download directx_9c_redist.exe. No other version of d3d9 redistributable worked for me.
Install wine, winetricks, libwine-gecko, wine-gecko, libmono and libmonoboehm from the repository.
Do a fresh install of Orbiter_100830: Using Ark I extracted all the files of the Orbiter100830.zip file into a directory I created for the purpose, ~/orbiter2010. I downloaded and played with the msi for the Orbiter and used the wine installer on it. The only difference I could see was that the second time a desktop icon launcher was installed, but it's "work directory" wasn't pointing at~/orbiter2010, so I fixed that. IMO, the zip file is easier and faster to install. Later, if you want to delete Orbiter, just delete the directory you created for it.
Then, using Dolphin's right mouse click context menu on the D3D9ClientR15.zip file, chose Ark again. Selected the Orbiter2010 directory as the target. Overwrite existing files.
In a console:
winetricks d3dx10 d3dx9_36 vcrun2005 corefonts
Using Dolphine's right mouse context window on wine directx_9c_redist.exe I selected the wine installer.
You will be asked to select a directory to install the directx files into. I had previously created ~/dx9
Inside ~/dx9 is DXSETUP.exe
Using Dolphin I right moused on that exe and chose the wine installer program.
When it was done I again used the right mouse context menu of Dolphin to launch orbiter_ng.exe. The "ng" means "no graphics", but when properly installed it creates a graphical display of the simulation.
Strangely, the orbiter.exe program, even with D3D9 installed, launches a D3D7 version of the simulation, which has a lower resolution than the D3D9, but is acceptable. even if it cannot be changed to D3D9. When the GUI for orbiter_ng.exe displays you must go to the Module section and check the D3D9 module to activate the D3D9 version of DirectX, otherwise the D3D7 version will be used. Click the Video button and select which display size you want. UNCHECK the gdi option. I chose a 16:9 using 1400 as the X and it automatically set Y to 778. Make any other configuration changes you want.
Choose the Atlantis from the Demo button. Press the "Launch Orbiter" button. You will be taken on a one hour ride into orbit using D3D9 display resolution. The orbit will run forever if you let it. The "T" button speeds up the sim by a factor of 10X for each press, and the "R" button slows it down the same way. I sped it up for several orbits to see if it would land itself. It didn't. So, I rotated Atlantis to fire the main engines in retrograde until the MFD (MultiFunction Display) orbital diagram showed that the periapsis dropped below 150Km, which guarantees atmospheric drag will bring it down. I actually dropped periapsis to 100Km to speed up re-entry. I survived the fireball re-entry by using the reaction control thrusters to maintain the proper re-entry alignment, but I hadn't yet read how to control the aerodynamic controls so I crashed and burned trying to land. Pieces flew everywhere!
On my mediocre graphical hardware, a six year old Intel i3 "Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)" GPU, I got an FPS that varied between 14 and 65. Press "F" to show that value. I am not sure that my GPU supports SSE2 because I didn't notice that D3D9 showed much improvement over D3D7, but that may be because the demos I've tried so far aren't written with texture files that have D3D9 resolution. As you can tell, I have a lot to learn about orbiter.
My next task was to get the OrbiterSound 4.0 working. Download the exe from the link and run it from the right context menu of Dolphin using the wine installer. When it asks where you want to install it chose the directory in which you installed Obiter. In my case ~/Orbiter2010.
Running orbiter_ng.exe again, checking the Sound module in the Modules tab and launching Atlantis you won't get any sound. That is because a link is missing.
The button on the ng GUI is supposed to create a link in the ~/orbiter2010/Modules/Server directory for a "Sound" directory, but it attempts to create Windows type links, which doesn't work in Linux. To set up the link between the ~/orbiter_2010/Sounds directory and a virtual Sound directory in ~/orbiter_s010/Modules/Server/ directory using Dolphin, I dragged the Sound folder to under the Server directory and then chose "Make Link" instead of Move or Copy. Worked perfectly. Sound is gorgeous!
I experimented with a method described here to install Orbiter2010 under PlayOnLinux but several of the steps involved bypassing POL's gui and manually creating directories and unzipping files into "virtual drives" created by POL. It's a WHOLE LOT EASIER just to create your own directory under your home account and manually unzip (by hand or using Ark) the zip files. It is also a LOT easier to manually create desktop icons for both orbiter_ng.exe and orbiter.exe on the desktop. AND, it is a lot easier to delete orbiter from your home directory by merely deleting the directory it is installed under.
Now to get back to my original purpose: to explore various flight paths from Earth to the rings of Saturn via supposedly existing photon propulsion technology fifty years from now.
The two authors wrote about their use of a free space flight simulation program called Orbiter. They used it to determine which routes would be feasible to fly to Saturn given the technology of the time in which the story was set, 50 years from now. As a former physics teacher that intrigued me so I set about installing Orbiter. Here is what I did.
Orbiter comes with D3D7 installed, but D3D9 gives higher res graphics. A note of caution to anyone trying to install Orbiter. Several installation tutorials include downloading and installing DxWine in order to get d3d9 working. DxWine is no longer available and the rest of those tutorials fail because of that absence. Also, if your GPU does not support SSE2 then D3D9 won't run.
Just downloading D3D9ClientR15.zip and unzipping into into the orbiter directory doesn't work. You have to do it, but doing that alone won't give you sound.
PlayOnLinux is not necessary.
Here is what worked for me
Download the Orbiter100830.zip file.
Download the D3D9ClientR15.zip file.
Download directx_9c_redist.exe. No other version of d3d9 redistributable worked for me.
Install wine, winetricks, libwine-gecko, wine-gecko, libmono and libmonoboehm from the repository.
Do a fresh install of Orbiter_100830: Using Ark I extracted all the files of the Orbiter100830.zip file into a directory I created for the purpose, ~/orbiter2010. I downloaded and played with the msi for the Orbiter and used the wine installer on it. The only difference I could see was that the second time a desktop icon launcher was installed, but it's "work directory" wasn't pointing at~/orbiter2010, so I fixed that. IMO, the zip file is easier and faster to install. Later, if you want to delete Orbiter, just delete the directory you created for it.
Then, using Dolphin's right mouse click context menu on the D3D9ClientR15.zip file, chose Ark again. Selected the Orbiter2010 directory as the target. Overwrite existing files.
In a console:
winetricks d3dx10 d3dx9_36 vcrun2005 corefonts
Using Dolphine's right mouse context window on wine directx_9c_redist.exe I selected the wine installer.
You will be asked to select a directory to install the directx files into. I had previously created ~/dx9
Inside ~/dx9 is DXSETUP.exe
Using Dolphin I right moused on that exe and chose the wine installer program.
When it was done I again used the right mouse context menu of Dolphin to launch orbiter_ng.exe. The "ng" means "no graphics", but when properly installed it creates a graphical display of the simulation.
Strangely, the orbiter.exe program, even with D3D9 installed, launches a D3D7 version of the simulation, which has a lower resolution than the D3D9, but is acceptable. even if it cannot be changed to D3D9. When the GUI for orbiter_ng.exe displays you must go to the Module section and check the D3D9 module to activate the D3D9 version of DirectX, otherwise the D3D7 version will be used. Click the Video button and select which display size you want. UNCHECK the gdi option. I chose a 16:9 using 1400 as the X and it automatically set Y to 778. Make any other configuration changes you want.Choose the Atlantis from the Demo button. Press the "Launch Orbiter" button. You will be taken on a one hour ride into orbit using D3D9 display resolution. The orbit will run forever if you let it. The "T" button speeds up the sim by a factor of 10X for each press, and the "R" button slows it down the same way. I sped it up for several orbits to see if it would land itself. It didn't. So, I rotated Atlantis to fire the main engines in retrograde until the MFD (MultiFunction Display) orbital diagram showed that the periapsis dropped below 150Km, which guarantees atmospheric drag will bring it down. I actually dropped periapsis to 100Km to speed up re-entry. I survived the fireball re-entry by using the reaction control thrusters to maintain the proper re-entry alignment, but I hadn't yet read how to control the aerodynamic controls so I crashed and burned trying to land. Pieces flew everywhere!
On my mediocre graphical hardware, a six year old Intel i3 "Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)" GPU, I got an FPS that varied between 14 and 65. Press "F" to show that value. I am not sure that my GPU supports SSE2 because I didn't notice that D3D9 showed much improvement over D3D7, but that may be because the demos I've tried so far aren't written with texture files that have D3D9 resolution. As you can tell, I have a lot to learn about orbiter.
My next task was to get the OrbiterSound 4.0 working. Download the exe from the link and run it from the right context menu of Dolphin using the wine installer. When it asks where you want to install it chose the directory in which you installed Obiter. In my case ~/Orbiter2010.
Running orbiter_ng.exe again, checking the Sound module in the Modules tab and launching Atlantis you won't get any sound. That is because a link is missing.
The button on the ng GUI is supposed to create a link in the ~/orbiter2010/Modules/Server directory for a "Sound" directory, but it attempts to create Windows type links, which doesn't work in Linux. To set up the link between the ~/orbiter_2010/Sounds directory and a virtual Sound directory in ~/orbiter_s010/Modules/Server/ directory using Dolphin, I dragged the Sound folder to under the Server directory and then chose "Make Link" instead of Move or Copy. Worked perfectly. Sound is gorgeous!
I experimented with a method described here to install Orbiter2010 under PlayOnLinux but several of the steps involved bypassing POL's gui and manually creating directories and unzipping files into "virtual drives" created by POL. It's a WHOLE LOT EASIER just to create your own directory under your home account and manually unzip (by hand or using Ark) the zip files. It is also a LOT easier to manually create desktop icons for both orbiter_ng.exe and orbiter.exe on the desktop. AND, it is a lot easier to delete orbiter from your home directory by merely deleting the directory it is installed under.
Now to get back to my original purpose: to explore various flight paths from Earth to the rings of Saturn via supposedly existing photon propulsion technology fifty years from now.
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