This FAQ allows you to navigate through the answers by category, or individually, or to view the entire FAQ at once. The full view is also suitable for printing.

This FAQ is modelled on the Linux HOWTO documents for consistency and ease of navigation.

The maintainers of the FAQ can be reached by e-mailing faqs@lokigames.com. Please send all correspondance directly related to the FAQlist tool to that address.

The Heretic 2 demo is available through our Demo Launcher (http://www.lokigames.com/products/demos.php3).

Yes. The command to launch in hardware acceleration is the same, too. Please see the answer to "How can I run Heretic 2 in 3D hardware-accelerated mode?" for more details.

If you are on a recent distribution or have upgraded to glibc2.2 you will want to use our downloadable installer as discussed here.

Otherwise you may follow these instructions:

1. Mount the CD-ROM using the "mount" command. If you are unsure how this works, please check the documentation for your Linux distribution. Generally, the format for mounting a CD-ROM under Linux is similar to:

       mount -t iso9660 -r /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
   

2. Under X11, enter the command "sh [Mounted CD-ROM Path]/setup.sh". Be sure to replace the [Mounted CD-ROM Path] portion of this command with the correct path for the mounted CD-ROM. In the example above, the command would be:

       sh /mnt/cdrom/setup.sh
   

3. Under "Global Options":
   • Enter the directory into which the game should be installed in the Install path: box. In the box labeled "Binary directory", enter a directory in your $PATH where a symbolic link for the binary should be set up. Make sure you have write permissions in both of these directories.
4. Under "Install Options":
   • You must install "Base Install" (the basic game files). You may choose to leave the movies on the CD. If you wish to write these MPEG files to your hard drive, click in the corresponding box.
   • Below the Install Options, the installer will display how much space is left on your partition, and how much the game will use per the options selected (270 MB just for the base install, 324M for everything).
   • Check in the box for KDE/Gnome menu items if you would like them installed.
5. You may view the game README at this point if you wish, by clicking on "View Readme". Otherwise, click on "Begin Install" to begin the copying of files.
6. When the game has finished installing, you may choose either to launch it directly (click on "Play!") or to simply exit and run the game from the console.
7. To run the game generally, just type "heretic2" from the console (you shouldn't have to enter the complete path). If you chose to install desktop icons, and you are running one of the desktops, you will be able to launch the game from the installed icons.

Please do not install any of the 3D drivers that are on the Heretic 2 CD. They were compiled specifically for 3.3.6, and they will interfere with getting the game running under XFree86 4.0.x.

The default renderer for Heretic 2 is the software renderer, which only works when your X server is running at 16bpp. If you are running at 8 bpp or 24 bpp, you will see the error described, and the trace will look something like:

Initializing VID module
Initialize software renderer
Setting mode x11 for device mouse
Initialized 1024x768 16bit display
Shutting down sound.
Shutting down input handling
Shutting down sound.
Warning: currently only R5G6B5 mode supported

Exiting Heretic II...
recursive shutdown

You will either need to launch your X server at 16 bpp mode (which can be done from the command-line with a command such as 'startx -- -bpp 16' for XFree86 3.3.x, or 'startx -- -depth 16' for XFree86 4.0.x), or by changing the defaults in your X configuration.

However, you also have the option of running the game in 3D accelerated mode. To do so, follow the instructions in the README.more file on the Heretic 2 CD.

We have released a downloadable installer (available from ftp://ftp.lokigames.com/pub/installers/heretic2/) which will install the game from the Heretic 2 for Linux retail CD. This installer correctly handles more recent distributions (e.g. Mandrake 8, Red Hat 7.x, SuSe 7.x, Debian unstable, etc.), and it also patches the install to Heretic 2 1.06b during the installation.

The 1.06b patch is available through loki_update (http://updates.lokigames.com/). The Heretic 2 patch requires loki_update 1.0.10 or later.

This patch also includes localization support, so the game can be converted (through loki_update) from any of the supported languages to any of the supported languages: English, French, German, Italian, or Spanish.

The expansion pack added some skins and player models for multi-player mode, and it was originally released after the retail release of Heretic 2 for Windows. However, since it had already been released by the time we ported Heretic 2, we included the expansion pack as part of the retail release of Heretic 2 for Linux.

So, there is no need to download the expansion pack, it's already part of the game!

Yes, we also released a map pack containing some of the most popular DeathMatch maps. You can fetch the map pack from http://www.lokigames.com/products/heretic2/addons.php3.

Make certain you are already in the Heretic 2 install directory before unpacking. The installer will not prompt you for this information.

Launch Heretic 2 with the following command-line:

    heretic2 +set vid_ref glx +set gl_driver /path/to/your/preferred/libGL.so

(specifying the correct path in place of the placeholder, of course)

This is described in the file README.more on the Heretic 2 CD. In short, you will need to have 3D drivers already configured for your setup (as described elsewhere in our OpenGL FAQs). You will also need to know the location of the correct, accelerated libGL.so or equivalent.

The command-line to launch the game with OpenGL acceleration is:

    heretic2 +set vid_ref glx +set gl_driver /path/to/your/preferred/libGL.so

(specifying the correct path in place of the placeholder, of course)

You may also specify a video mode, by adding '+set vid_mode X' to the end of the command-line, with X being a number from this table:

      0           320 x  240
      1           400 x  300
      2           512 x  384
      3           640 x  480
      4           800 x  600
      5           960 x  720
      6          1024 x  768
      7          1280 x 1024
      8          1600 x 1200

Not all 3D cards support all resolutions.

Please consult README.more for more detail.

You are probably running the game using software GL rendering (which is distinct from the built-in software renderer). You must have your 3D card configured for hardware accelerated rendering. Updated information on supported 3D cards and drivers is available at: 3ddriverandopenglassistfaq.html

Nothing is wrong with your installation. The game does not support using the mouse in the menu, you will need to use the arrow keys to navigate, and the ENTER key to select your option.

This is identical behavior to the Windows version of the game, and it is not expected to change.

Please visit our publicly accessible bug database (http://fenris.lokigames.com/) and post a bug report. Be sure to first check the list of known bugs and fixes/patches.

We support our products by e-mail (preferred) and phone. Phone support is available by calling (714) 508-2140 between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. (Pacific Standard Time) Monday through Friday, except holidays.