/libTAS

GNU/Linux software to (hopefully) give TAS tools to games

Primary LanguageC++GNU General Public License v3.0GPL-3.0

libTAS

GNU/Linux software to give TAS tools to games. Code orginates from SuperMeatBoyTaser. It requires a GNU/Linux system with a recent kernel (at least 3.17 for the memfd_create syscall). Supported archs are x86_64 and x86 (not much tested). To run OpenGL games, you will need a card supporting at least OpenGL 3.0.

Supported Games

Most work has been done to support games using the SDL library (which is the case of many indie games), and there is initial development to support other game engines (some Unity games should work). Also, running Steam games require to enable the dummy Steam client, which is only partially implemented. If possible, use a drm-free version of the game. For more details, check the Game Compatibility page.

Install

You can download the latest version of the software in the Releases page. The current dependancies are:

  • libc6, libgcc1, libstdc++6
  • libqt5core5a, libqt5gui5, libqt5widgets5 with Qt version at least 5.6
  • libx11-6, libxcb1, libxcb-keysyms1, libxcb-xkb1, libxcb-cursor0
  • ffmpeg
  • libswresample2, libasound2
  • libfontconfig1, libfreetype6

Installing with the debian package will install all the required packages as well.

There is also an automated build available for the last interim version, 64-bit only.

If you don't have a Linux system beforehand, an easy way is to use a virtual machine to run the system. Grab a virtualization software (e.g. VirtualBox) and a Linux distribution (e.g. Ubuntu). If you have a 64-bit computer, install a 64-bit Linux distribution, which will allow you to run both 32-bit and 64-bit games (using the corresponding version of libTAS). Note for Ubuntu users that you need a recent version (17.10 minimum).

Building

An PKGBUILD is available for Arch Linux on the AUR.

Dependencies

You will need to download and install the following to build libTAS:

  • Deb: apt-get install build-essential automake pkg-config libx11-dev qtbase5-dev qt5-default libsdl2-dev libxcb1-dev libxcb-keysyms1-dev libxcb-xkb-dev libxcb-cursor-dev libudev-dev libasound2-dev libswresample-dev ffmpeg
  • Arch: pacman -S base-devel automake pkgconf qt5-base xcb-util-cursor alsa-lib ffmpeg

To enable HUD on the game screen, you will also need:

  • Deb: apt-get install libfreetype6-dev libfontconfig1-dev
  • Arch: pacman -S fontconfig freetype2

Cloning

git clone https://github.com/clementgallet/libTAS.git
cd libTAS

Building

./build.sh

autoconf will detect the presence of these libraries and disable the corresponding features if necessary. If you want to manually enable/disable a feature, you must add at the end of the build.sh command:

  • --disable-hud: enable/disable displaying informations on the game screen

Be careful that you must compile your code in the same arch as the game. If you have an amd64 system and you only have access to a i386 game, you can cross-compile the code to i386 (see below).

Install

sudo make install

Dual-arch

If you have an amd64 system and you want to run both i386 or amd64 games, you can install libTAS 32-bit library together with the amd64 build. To do that, after installing the amd64 build, start another build using ./build.sh --enable-i386, which will produce a libtas32.so library. It will not build the libTAS GUI, so you need the 32-bit version of the required dependancies, except for all Qt and xcb packages. Then install it as shown above. When running a game, libTAS will choose automatically the right libtas.so library based on the game arch.

Run

To run this program, you can use the program shortcut in your system menu, or open a terminal and enter:

libTAS [game_executable_path [game_cmdline_arguments]]

You can type libTAS -h to have a description of the program options.

The program prompts a graphical user interface where you can start the game or change several options. Details of the different options are available here

There are a few things to take care before being able to run a game. You might want to look at the software usage.

Here are the default controls when the game has started:

  • frame advancing, using the V key
  • pause/play, using the pause key
  • fast forward, using the tab key

Note: the game starts up paused.

License

libTAS is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v3.

Copyright (C) 2016-2018 clementgallet
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>