I tried to run the new Tomb Raider demo.
But it did not work on my laptop, saying
that the direct3d wasn't good enough.
There was a lot that I did which reminded
me why I stopped using Windows many
years ago, endless hours of trying to
update and configure without success, having
to go to the Windows update website and have
it continuously refuse to update (and
then the next day it did it automatically,
imagine that).

And so the next step was to try the demo
on wine.

I already had wine installed on my X64 AMD
box (running fc9).
The only issue was the openGL driver which
is needed for the emulation.  Again, a lot
of configuration issues, etc.  I had to
uninstall, reinstall various nvidia drivers
(details not provided as it will most
likely be different for you)

finally I was able, through wine and new
drivers and a lot of trying, to make the
tr demo run.  But there are so many errors
on stderr from the GL rendering system that say
thing like 'fixme' that
the demo does not run.

All of this was very disapointing and so
I decided just as an exercise I would
install the older version, TR aniversary.
That installed and ran fine.  ONly problem
was the game controller view axis didn't work.
This makes some of the moves harder to do
with Laura.

I was very much looking forward
to the new game coming out next week.
But if it won't run on my notebook 
then I don't really want to run it on my desktop in wine as I like to have that
running all the time to allow for the 
the fact that I work at home.

In any case I could reintall the 
XP that came with this HP box, however
I have like 5 harddrives with Linux
partitions on all of them.  I would need
to physically unplug things and replug
them back in.  I do have the disks to 
do the reinstall (they cost 16 bucks from 
HP two years ago).

OH, ya it is all coming back to me,
this stupid thing was billed as 
a 'media' PC.  It had a tuner card, and
NTSC tuner card, absolutly useless for
future television.  Useless also in
that I think that possibly UDEV rules 
got muckied up from stuff on the flash
of this tuner card.  I pulled it out.  That solved
a vexing boot issue (like the thing had
a virus).

So it is trash in a drawer (a brick as
they call it on slash-dot).

It is never going back in.

Plus I had to get a new case as the old
case didn't have room for all of my
harddrives. (I have a very lot of stuff,
maps, photos, music, audio files, video).

Let me just say that I have a heck of a 
lot more content than just what you find here
on these pages.

On the off chance that some googling fool
hacker trying to debug the openGL wine
issues will find this page if I put in the
error codes.  But there is just so much so only a sample?

well my save file was over 500,000 lines
long so obviously I am not putting that
here.  here is a snippit (really just a 
very small piece) and most of it was the 
same:

fixme:d3d_shader:shader_glsl_select >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> GL_INVALID_OPERATION (0x502) from glUseProgramObjectARB @ glsl_shader.c / 3455
fixme:d3d:state_fog >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> GL_INVALID_OPERATION (0x502) from glDisable GL_FOG @ state.c / 915
fixme:d3d_shader:shader_glsl_select >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> GL_INVALID_OPERATION (0x502) from glUseProgramObjectARB @ glsl_shader.c / 3455
fixme:d3d:state_fog >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> GL_INVALID_OPERATION (0x502) from glDisable GL_FOG @ state.c / 915
fixme:d3d_shader:shader_glsl_select >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> GL_INVALID_OPERATION (0x502) from glUseProgramObjectARB @ glsl_shader.c / 3455

Now if I get bored I can find out
how to help fix these issues and
get the new laura working on my
computer.

OR  I can reinstall windows on an IDE
harddrive and go that route

Or I can get a PS2 or PS3

Or a new desktop or notebook that would
run the new game.

OR screw it all the way and not get the
new tombraider which is probably
what will happen.
If it doesn't work on my three year old
notebook computer then
how will I be able to play it without
dropping like 500 dollars (which
is far too much) and htat doesn't include
the cost of the game.

sorry EIDOS, probably no sale

I got the new power supply.  I installed
it this evening.  Then I tried running
Underworld with wine.
That did not work.  It almost worked.
It almost worked and that is a pity
because windoze is so pathetic
and I hate having to run it.

However, the game is wonderful with the
new graphics card.  The game responds well
and plays very well.

This is a pretty fun game.  I only
wish that there was not the aspect of
having to kill foes and scenes of 
blood and gore.

That can be boring.