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(heroes.info)Invoking heroes
`heroes' options
================
Heroes call be launched with various options.
`-v'
`--version'
Display Heroes version number and copyright informations.
`-h'
`--help'
Print a help message about these run-time options.
`-q'
`--quiet'
Disable warning messages. This can be useful on platform such as
Windows were such messages will pop up a text window.
`-Q'
`--really-quiet'
Same as `-q', but disable error messages too.
`-vOPTIONS'
`--verbose=CHANNELS'
Enable debugging output. `CHANNELS' can take the same values as
`HEROES_DEBUG' (Note: Environment).
`-lWORD'
`--list=WORD'
Show various internal information. `WORD' can be `debug',
`levels', `preferences', `resources', `sound-drivers', or
`sound-tracks'.
`--list=debug' will list the available debugging channel, to be
used with `--verbose' or `HEROES_DEBUG' (Note: Environment).
`--list=levels' displays the list of installed levels (only the
game levels, not the extra levels).
`--list=sound-drivers' is used to print LibMikMod's drivers list.
The expected output is something like this:
% heroes --list=sound-drivers
LibMikMod version 3.1.7
Available drivers:
1 Enlightened sound daemon (EsounD) driver v0.2.12
2 Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) driver v0.3.2
3 Open Sound System driver v1.5
4 Raw disk writer (music.raw) v1.1
5 Wav disk writer (music.wav) v1.2
6 Piped Output driver v0.1
7 Standard output driver v1.1
8 Nosound Driver v3.0
`--list=resources' will dump the list of file resources. File
resources are kinds of aliases used internally to name files and
directories. They can be overwritten in you configuration file
using the `setrsc:' command. This command will also list the
original (default) value of the resource if it has been
overwritten.
`--list=sound-tracks' will print the list of sound-tracks used in
the game in a format compatible with the `soundconf:' command
(Note: heroesrc).
`--list=preferences' will print the preferences and their values,
as they would be saved in `~/.heroes/preferences'.
`-d N[,OPTIONS]'
`--driver=N[,OPTIONS]'
With LibMikMod, specify the driver to use. `N' is the number of the
driver taken from the output of `heroes --list=sound-drivers'. Use
`0' for auto-detection. Additional options can be given to the
driver, see LibMikMod's `README' file.
With SDL_mixer, override some audio parameters. `freq' and
`buffers' are the two recognized parameters. Example
heroes -d freq=11050:buffers=512
`-S'
`--no-sound'
Disable sound output completely (both sound tracks and sound
effects).
`-X'
`--no-sfx'
Disable sound effects only.
`-m'
`--mono'
Output sound in one single channel. This has no effect if the
game is compiled without sound support, of course.
`-8'
`--8bits'
Output sound in 8bits, rather than 16. You will need this option
if you have an old sound card that can't play 16bits samples.
`-i'
`--high-quality'
When compiled with MikMod, use the high quality software mixer.
This mixer is somewhat more expensive, but you can expect a better
sound quality. When compiled with SDL_mixer, output sound in
44kHz instead of 22kHz.
`-G OPTIONS'
`--gfx-options=OPTIONS'
Give additional options to the display driver.
With GGI applications, the usual way to force the selection of a
driver is to define the `GGI_DISPLAY' environment variable. The
usage and possible values of this variable are documented in the
file `target.txt' which comes with LibGGI. If Heroes has been
compiled with GGI, the option `-G' will bypass the setting of
`GGI_DISPLAY', as if the variable was overwritten. For instance
% heroes -G 'tile:0,0,160,200,(x):160,0,160,200,(x)'
is equivalant to
% export GGI_DISPLAY='tile:0,0,160,200,(x):160,0,160,200,(x)'
% heroes
except that the former does not modify `GGI_DISPLAY'. (BTW, the
above setting uses GGI's tile driver to display Heroes in two
half-windows... this maybe quite fun to try in two player mode.)
It is also possible to prevent Heroes' GGI driver to request a 8
bit mode with `-G not8'. This is necessary on some uncommon X
setup to workaround a bug in GGI (Note: Troubleshooting). Other
legitimate GGI settings maybe supplied after a colon, as in `-G
not8:x'.
As SDL applications are concerned, selection of the video driver is
achieved through the `SDL_VIDEODRIVER' environment variable. At
the time of writting this is not documented in SDL, so you will
have to either RTFS or guess the possible values. If Heroes has
been compiled with SDL, the option `-G' with override the setting
of `SDL_VIDEODRIVER'. For instance you could force SDL to use the
X11 driver with
% heroes -G x11
or
% export SDL_VIDEODRIVER=x11
% heroes
`-F'
`--full-screen'
If Heroes is compiled with SDL, this option will turn on full
screen mode.
Otherwise, if Heroes is compiled with GGI, this option will allow
Heroes to use a video mode with any size; i.e., the video surface
is not constrained to 320x200 and Heroes will just center its
320x200 output. The rational is that GGI's DGA driver doesn't
switch video modes. So unless your X server run in 320x200 it
would be hard to use the DGA driver otherwise. Here is the
typical settings for "full-screen" DGA output:
% heroes -G dga -F
Admittedly the name of `--full-screen' is quite misleading here
since this option can provide you with a 320x200 stamp centered on
your 1600x1200 display...
`-2'
`--double'
Stretch the game twofold before blitting to screen. This is slow.
`-3'
`--triple'
Stretch the game threefold before blitting to screen. This is
even slower.
`-4'
`--quadruple'
Stretch the game fourfold before blitting to screen. This has been
requested by people which can run `heroes -3' smoothly.
`-e'
`--even-lines'
Display only even lines, leaving blank scan lines as on real
arcade monitors. This will contribute to make options `-2', `-3'
and `-4' faster.
`--cpu-off'
Disable computer opponents driving. The opponents are still there
(there will always be four players) but they are no more driven:
they turn when they hit wall. You won't want to use this options,
it is here for historical reason: when the game was started in
1996 this used to suppress some overhead on slow machines.
`--default-scores'
`--default-options'
`--default-saves'
Don't read the corresponding file, but use default value instead.
The files will be saved at the end of the game anyway, so you can
use these options to revert the default value of the given file.
Another way to do this is simply to delete the file, it will be
created the next time Heroes run.
`-s'
`--swap-sides'
Swap sides when playing in two player mode. The default is to have
player one on the right and player two on the left, because the
default key bindings use the arrows for player one and left
letters keys for player two.
`--no-double-fx'
Disable superposition of rotozoom and waves. This is also a
prehistoric option. These two visual effects lead to a small
overhead that one may not want to combine on a slow host.
`-g'
`--go'
Skip the game introduction, start right on the main menu.
`-J'
`--no-joystick'
Disable joystick handling. Most of the time you will use this
because you don't have a joystick and are annoyed by the warning
message output when heroes start.
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