Getting Java to work on an old computer with Linux

General Discussions
#1

Recently I switched my sister’s old computer from Windows 98SE to Linus (Debian Sarge 3.1). My sister is a Pogo junkie and I was hoping that the switch to Linux would improve game performance for her as well as be generally more stable. The computer is generally more stable, and most of the games work just as well, but there are a couple that have problems with lagging and hesitating (Tumble Bees is one of them for anyone who might know Pogo). Here is the basic computer hardware and os information:

AMD K6-II 500
192MB SDRAM
GeForce2 MX 100/200 32MB
generic pci sound card (CMI8738 chip)
Fast Ethernet NC100 (tulip driver)
30GB HDD

GNU/Linux Debian Sarge 3.1 (custom compiled kernel 2.6.8.1)
XFCE4
Mozilla Firefox 1.4
Sun JRE 5.0 update 6

I realize this is an old old computer, but upgrading right now just isn’t an option, and even though there were a fair number of crashes and freezes the problem games occassionally worked very well on Win 98SE. I’m wondering if anyone has any suggestions on what I might do to improve the games’ performance. Here are the steps I’ve taken so far:

  1. Compiled and recompiled and recompiled, and then recompiled the kernel some more. As have tried very hard to get rid of everything that is absolutely not necessary, but there may be something that I am unaware of that could be causing the problem.

  2. Tried to remove all unecessare running processes. Again, I have tried very hard to do this, but there may be something obvious that I am missing that might be causing the problem.

  3. Switched from an ISA to a PCI sound card. This improved the sound by a thousand percent and eliminated the problem she was originally having with the sound lagging. It still lags a bit, especially in those two games.

  4. Added 64MB of ram. She originally had 128MB. This seemed to make absolutely no difference.

  5. I tried three different versions of Java, the Debian jamvm package, Blackdown and Sun, and I installed the Sun Java at least two different ways, I eventually settled on the Sun Java that I compiled as a Debian package. I did try a different browser, Opera, but I don’t think I had Java configured properly for that browser so the games simply didn’t work at all.

I guess what is bothering me is that I would think I should be able to get the games working at least as well on Linux as they did on Windows 98SE, especially considering the browser and the version of Java are the same, and now the computer has a better sound card and more memory. Any suggestions that anyone would have would be gratefully received.

#2

Hardware wise you’re likely limited by that ancient graphics card, thats what - 4 or 5 generations behind now? Something like a GF 5200 can be picked up for penuts now (~£20/£30) and would be a decent improvement. That might be more tricky if it’s a pci slot rather than AGP though…

#3

It is an agp card, but why would it work just fine on Win 98SE and then have this problem with Linux? Not that it really worked just fine on Win 98SE, there were plenty of lock ups and crashes, but it didn’t have this particular problem. And frankly, the video card is already several generations ahead of the rest of the system, so why would improving the video card help? We already spent some money on more ram, and this didn’t appear to help at all, I don’t want to suggest that she spend some more money, only to have it produce no result. And then of course there is a very good chance that such a new video card will demand more power than the power supply can handle. I expect the power supply is probably around a 250W power supply. My feeling is that upgrading her hardware would probably work, but it would involve getting a new box, and probably the only thing that doesn’t really need to be upgraded is the video card…