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From jClassicRPG
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System Requirements
Before downloading jClassicRPG you should now the system requirements of it.
First you'll need a PC with an operating system that has Sun's Java Runtime Enviroment and OpenGL accelerated hardware + driver. Linux, MacOS X, Windows are all good choices.
You should have an OpenGL compatible video card (around a GeForce 6200Go or better) with an installed and working driver. You'll need a free memory of around 500 Megabyte (although when starting the game it may consume only around 350 MByte with lower settings) so you better have a system with 1GB RAM. A Pentium 4 or compatible processor around a speed of 1.6 GHz is good enough.
If you meet these requirements go and download jClassic Role Playing Game! :)
Downloading jClassicRPG
Downloading jClassicCRPG's latest release can be done by going to jcrpg's sourceforge.net download section. It contains all the previous releases too on one page if you want to see the evolution. ( I guess you don't. ;-) ) The release file in general is platform independent, so you only have to click the Download button that belongs to the jcrpg package.
Alternatively under OpenSuSE you can install it in a one-click-way as well as Tony Graffy has created an RPM package for your SuSE linux.
Installing & Running jClassicRPG
It's quite an easy task supposing that you have a Java Runtime Environment already on your PC. Java runtime environment is the program that's supposed to run Java programs platform-independently. So if you don't have one, you should install the one created by Sun Microsystems. Java version required by jClassicRPG is 5+. Currently Java stable revision is Sun JDK 6. There's an alternative solution too as on certain Linux machines you can install prepackaged OpenJDK version 6.
If you want to download Sun JDK for your system here is the link:
Under ubuntu you just have to type the following:
# sudo apt-get install openjdk-6-jre
if you want the runtime environment only or
# sudo apt-get install openjdk-6-jdk
if you want to develop in Java later (this will install the development kit + runtime environment of Java).
Under arch just type:
# su - # pacman -S openjdk6
Under other Linux distributions please look up and install Sun's Java Runtime Environment or OpenJDK-6 package. (GNU-gcj, blackdown-java is not compatible with jcrpg /or so was when I last tested/.)
Now if you have the JRE (Java Runtime Environment) installed on your machine, you only have to unzip the downloaded jcrpg release to your hard disc and start it with 'jcrpg.sh' (Linux,Macintosh) or 'jcrpg.bat' (Windows).
Unzipping the tar.gz can be done by WinRAR or 7zip gui too, or under linux / cygwin with the standard ' tar -xzf jcrpgXXXXXX.tar.gz ' command.
If you have any problems with the process, visit the General & Troubleshooting subforum of jcrpg and look for a suitable topic or start a new one.
Sun Microsystems' official installation notes on Java for Windows.
Under Mac use Java provided by Apple. To run the game you'll have to start a console and use one of the .sh files (jcrpg-lowest.sh -> jcrpg-highest.sh).
Tuning the performance
(From release 20080813 you can use prepackaged detail level configurations by starting the game with jcrpg-lowest.sh / jcrpg-low/normal/hight/highest.sh scripts. It doesn't cover all of the configuration switches possible so you may want to tune the config.properties file manually and start jcrpg with the jcrpg.sh script.)
If you are testing JCRPG and it runs slow then there are a few things you can check to improve performance.
Firstly there's config.properties in the root directory of the game that can be modified with a text editor. Things to care about in ascending order of impact on game aesthetics:
* WATER_SHADER - turn it "false" for more FPS
* RENDER_GRASS_DISTANCE - set it to 0 to switch of grass, this may help a lot in
terms of FPS and memory usage too
* TEXTURE_DETAIL - set it to 0 or 1 for low and middle settings, can be a big FPS
and memory eater, (2 is for high detail)
* DETAILED_TREES - set it to false for less detailed trees with less foliage
* VIEW_DISTANCE - a really large factor in FPS - as much as in the look of the game.
Set to lower values for bigger FPS
* RENDER_DISTANCE - helps out the loading and the memory usage - big memory usage
may load the Java VM too. Set it to lower values, especially if you have little memory
* RENDER_DISTANCE_FARVIEW - the higher this is the more memory and CPU/GPU it will
consume rendering it. If using far view a sane value is used to be
VIEW_DISTANCE/RENDER_DISTANCE/RENDER_DISTANCE_FARVIEW = 26/52/80. You will be
able to see ~ 13 cubes distance detailed plus 27 cubes distance undetailed
tiles magnified/simplified.
* FARVIEW_ENABLED - set it to false, will help a great lot, cutting down the whole far view part
(this option might be turned off at all from release after 2008.08 till resolving some problem with it)
Second you can have hogging problems if you set high detail values and Java runs with low memory parameters or your system has small free memory. If you plan to run on high settings you may consider edit jcrpg.bat or jcrpg.sh and modify the -Xmx parameter to a higher value. (Example: -Xmx300m.) I recommend you to have at least 400MB free memory or more for the current default configuration.
Thirdly you may try to run it in lower resolutions - this can help a lot too. This can be achieved by choosing a lower resolution upon starting the game.
Downloading Developer version from SVN
I recommend developers to use Eclipse (or Netbeans) for checking out the project and work on it. SVN plugin is a requirement of course (for example subversive or subclipse for Eclipse).
SVN repository:
https://javacrpg.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/javacrpg
If you want to check out with CLI svn use this command:
# svn co https://javacrpg.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/javacrpg javacrpg
Visit jcrpg developer's subforum for more information.
