Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

 

Here you will find answers for most of your questions.

General

- When is Boson finished ?
- How can I submit a bug report ?
- Are there other supported languages than english ?
- Boson crashed my computer, what can I do ?

Game

- Where is the menubar ?
- Why is Boson so slow ?

Rendering

- Are there options to improve 3D rendering ?



General

- When is Boson finished ?

>> When boson is up and running with a level already loaded in the moment you think about starting boson - then we can release 1.0 ;-) <<


- How can I submit a bug report ?

You can submit a bugreport through bugs.kde.org.
Or simply start Boson, you will find the "Report Bug..." entry in the "Help" menu.
If you don't get a menu on startup than hit the right mouse button and select "Show Menubar".
Please include a backtrace if you have one. Also, if self compiled, configuring with "--enable-debug=full" helps us.
If you have speed problems, please klick here.


- Are there other supported languages than english ?

No, Boson is a game in development, text changes very often. It is hard to maintain different languages yet.


- Boson crashed my computer, what can I do ?

It looks like some people have a problem with a Boson/KDE/OpenGL/malloc/driver combination.
If you have total crashes or kernel memory errors please start Boson under an other window manager like fvwm2 or failsave.
The system crashes should go away but please contact us because we need more people with the same problem.
A possible fix might be a kernel update to 2.4.20+.


Game

- Where is the menubar ?

To enable the application menubar press the right mouse button on the welcome screen and click on "Show Menubar".


- Why is boson so slow ?

There may be many reasons, some things that can help:
- Check your hardware: here
- Try resizing the window and/or make it smaller
- Increase the update interval in the Boson settings
- Turn off light and materials
- Change the color depth of your XServer to 16bit
- Check the speed of other OpenGL games like tuxkart and tuxracer, maybe they also run slow
- Start the program called "boinfo" and check if the values under this tabs are correct:

* If you are using this driver

If all that doesn't help you can send a bugreport to the mailing list. Please don't send other bugs to the mailinglist, see here.
To find speed problems we need more information:
- Save the information from "boinfo". You can save them under "Files".
- Some seconds after startup of a game you will get a message that you can make profiling snapshots with Ctrl+P.
  Send both files with a description of your speed problem to our mailinglist.


Rendering

- Are there options to improve 3D rendering ?

Note, this things will make Boson slower!
NVIDIA:
__GL_FSAA_MODE=X
__GL_DEFAULT_LOG_ANISO=X
Export this as variables on your console before starting Boson.
You will have to look at your NVIDIA driver documentation for the correct values since the are different from card to card.
Other:
If you have informations about other cards/drivers please drop us a note.