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Running decade-old games in containers

misha.brukman.net

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Re: Running decade-old games in containers

#31

Post by djhworld »

jayd16 wrote: post #15
Groxx wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's covered explicitly in the "goals and principles" section. They're aiming for a reusable environment for older games, not a single-purpose one.

They could make a base image and then an image layer that contains the game files only. Now you have a single file image per game with a consistent base.

I guess one concern might be the author wanting to push the images to a public repo so other people can use them - which would probably get the author into a bit of trouble for distributing paid content.

Re: Running decade-old games in containers

#32

Post by mbrukman »

4restm wrote: post #29

can those containers run Crysis?

Blog post author here.

Looks like Crysis (https://www.gog.com/game/crysis) is a Windows-only game, so you'll need a different approach than what I've described in my blog post, which is running Ubuntu inside containers.

If you want to play it on Linux, you may be able to do it using Wine (https://www.winehq.org/), which you can run directly, or inside a Docker container.

Alternatively, if you are using Windows, you may be able to utilize Windows containers (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/windowsconta...), but that's not what I did in my blog post, so YMMV.

If you do try this out, let us know if it works for you!

Re: Running decade-old games in containers

#33

Post by dllthomas »

butz wrote: post #12
dllthomas wrote: post #9

I've been trying to get Obsidian ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsidian_(1997_video_game) ) to run under emulation, but so far it's been too choppy to be playable.

How did you run it? WineHQ lists compatibility as "Gold", but report is three years old. Might be worth trying it out on latest Wine version.

I put the most effort into QEMU. I think I tried Wine briefly first, but don't recall what trouble I ran into.

Re: Running decade-old games in containers

#35

Post by chongli »

dllthomas wrote: post #9

I've been trying to get Obsidian ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsidian_(1997_video_game) ) to run under emulation, but so far it's been too choppy to be playable.

Obsidian has a Mac port. Have you tried running it under SheepShaver? You may have better luck there.

I have been playing a bunch of old Mac games on SheepShaver. Sometimes they just work better than the Windows versions under Wine.

Re: Running decade-old games in containers

#36

Post by rabidrat »

markus_zhang wrote: post #2

I'd really love to see a similar approach but applied to games much older, like the ones you have to pull out a DOSBOX to play, or a Win95 virtual machine. The Win95 games are going to be much more difficult to set up because the VM needs a bunch of stuffs to work properly (sound, video) while the DOSBOX does everything for you.

I did a project back in 2013 that made unikernels for really old games. One was a bare-metal z-machine interpreter to instantly bootup interactive fiction game. Another was a Linux+C64 emulator+modded game (one of the first graphical adventure games, Below The Root, from 1984).

http://arcade.saul.pw/games/

Re: Running decade-old games in containers

#37

Post by reificator »

jayd16 wrote: post #28
Groxx wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, as a follow-up they could do that. That's (very clearly declared to be) not the goal of the author though.

My point is that by separating the layers it does fulfill the declared goals but in a more portable way. As implemented, there could be hidden dependencies on the local file system or across game installs.

But it then prevents redistribution of the container images in a legal manner, because the game files themselves are still under copyright.

Re: Running decade-old games in containers

#38

Post by dllthomas »

chongli wrote: post #35
dllthomas wrote: post #9

I've been trying to get Obsidian ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsidian_(1997_video_game) ) to run under emulation, but so far it's been too choppy to be playable.

Obsidian has a Mac port. Have you tried running it under SheepShaver? You may have better luck there. I have been playing a bunch of old Mac games on SheepShaver. Sometimes they just work better than the Windows versions under Wine.

> Have you tried running it under SheepShaver?

I've not. When I get back to it, that'll be on the list of things to try.

Re: Running decade-old games in containers

#39

Post by galgalesh »

If it runs on 16.04 you could put it in a snap package. I really like it for installing older software. I created a snap package for Scratch For Arduino (S4A), which is a pain to get working natively, but in the snap I can mess with multilib and weird dependencies without it affecting my main install.

I think the advantage of snaps is that you can get easy access to the host system using interfaces. S4A requires access to the USB Serial devices of the host. In snap the snap I just added the `serial` interface but I'm not sure if Docker has an elegant way to do that.

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