W:A- Portable? [Archive] - Team17 Forum

PDA

View Full Version : W:A- Portable?

!MNc99
29 Jan 2007, 18:56
Is there any way to get Worms: Armageddon to run portably, without a CD?
By portable, I mean off of a USB drive. I purchased WA a long time ago from Sold-Out software and love the game, but it'd be cool if I could just flick out my USB stick and play a quick game.
Cheers
MN

evilworm2
29 Jan 2007, 19:24
Is there any way to get Worms: Armageddon to run portably, without a CD?
By portable, I mean off of a USB drive. I purchased WA a long time ago from Sold-Out software and love the game, but it'd be cool if I could just flick out my USB stick and play a quick game.
Cheers
MN
1. Make an own linux distribution which boots from the stick.
2. Make an iso out of your Worms cd.
3. Use wine to run W:A
4. Don't take this serious, but it should give you some ideas.

Muzer
29 Jan 2007, 19:47
www.nanacide.com/wahelp

Squirminator2k
29 Jan 2007, 21:15
3. Use wine to run W:A
You're forgetting the all important step, "Switch to an operating system that doesn't allow you to run most of the games you undoubtedly already own." Nothing against Linux - I had to use a variation of it where I used to work - but it is not an OS for people who want to play games.
I heartily endorse the ISO option, however.

evilworm2
29 Jan 2007, 21:35
You're forgetting the all important step, "Switch to an operating system that doesn't allow you to run most of the games you undoubtedly already own." Nothing against Linux - I had to use a variation of it where I used to work - but it is not an OS for people who want to play games.
I heartily endorse the ISO option, however.
W:A runs on Linux...

Squirminator2k
29 Jan 2007, 21:38
W:A runs on Linux...
Not natively, it doesn't. Not without Wine. There aren't many games that run natively within Linux, that said - Quake, Serious Sam, Doom, Unreal Tournament... mainly FPS games. So! Linux is the ideal OS if you're either a programmer, or you like a small selection of FPS games.
For gaming in general, it's not the better option. For other things, yes - I will always support an Open Source platform like Linux over a closed one like Windows - but as a Gamer I can't abide Linux, and I can't actively choose to use an OS that 99% of commercial developers choose not to release games for.

CyberShadow
29 Jan 2007, 21:41
Switch? The idea was to boot from the USB drive.
Anyway, even if this were easily possible, I'm not sure of the legal implications of this. It would be a bit too easy to copy the game around in this case...

Squirminator2k
29 Jan 2007, 22:00
Ah yes. I hadn't read Step 1 and jumpeds striahgt into steps 2-4, which on their own are rather objectionable but when you take STep 1 into account then, yeah, it's not an entirely unreasonable suggestion if it's just getting the game to boot from a USB stick.
My apologies for derailing the thread :)

Koen-ftw
29 Jan 2007, 22:03
I'm going to look into this. I have managed to get my W:A working without a CD once, but haven't tried to make W:A run without installing. Could be interesting to try and find it out, though!

evilworm2
29 Jan 2007, 22:08
I hadn't read Step 1 and jumpeds striahgt into steps 2-4...
Lol? How did that happen? ;)

yakuza
29 Jan 2007, 22:11
Just make an .iso from the original CD and save it on a pen, then save alcohol120 or daemon tools or whatever in that same pen. Tada, you have a fully functional WA pen.

evilworm2
29 Jan 2007, 22:18
Just make an .iso from the original CD and save it on a pen, then save alcohol120 or daemon tools or whatever in that same pen. Tada, you have a fully functional WA pen.
How would you start W:A on a "naked" computer then? Without an operating system able to read the "pen"?

yakuza
29 Jan 2007, 22:20
well duh, is that the case? Unless portably means without an operating system then I don't see where the OT suggest he doesn't have windows.

evilworm2
29 Jan 2007, 22:23
well duh, is that the case? Unless portably means without an operating system then I don't see where the OT suggest he doesn't have windows.
The idea is to plug in the USB drive into any computer and play.

yakuza
29 Jan 2007, 22:25
Well, the OT doesn't imply that at all.
He just wants to plug in his USB pen drive and play a game, that's what you understand from reading his post, he doesn't specify if it's on his own PC or all around the world.
Taking into account that most computers where someone would play Worms are PCs with windows then yeah, duh.

Koen-ftw
29 Jan 2007, 22:56
He just wants to plug in his USB pen drive and play a game, that's what you understand from reading his post, he doesn't specify if it's on his own PC or all around the world.
About the meaning of 'portable' can be argued. By 'portable' applications I mean applications that can be run on any PC without installing anything - as long as it's ran on the OS the portable application was made for. I think the topic starter wants to make W:A able to run on any Windows PC without installing it.

yakuza
29 Jan 2007, 23:03
By portable, I mean off of a USB drive
The meaning of portable is irrelevant.

Koen-ftw
29 Jan 2007, 23:10
The meaning of portable is irrelevant.
I think the meaning of portable IS relevant, because using an ISO would also cause you to install for instance Alcohol 120% AND the game itself. That'd collide with the following, I think:
flick out my USB stick and play a quick game
However, about the meaning of 'quick' can also be argued.

Deadcode
30 Jan 2007, 01:35
Am I the only one who thinks this is ironic — in a thread about the "portability" of W:A, there is talk of running it under Linux? ;)
(portability can also mean "able to have its source code compiled to run on different platforms")

karseet
30 Jan 2007, 01:51
Am I the only one who thinks this is ironic — in a thread about the "portability" of W:A, there is talk of running it under Linux? ;)
(portability can also mean "able to have its source code compiled to run on different platforms")
that's true mr. code.
Aaanyways, is there a way to run W:A portably? I'd be interested in this too. I gave a portable starcraft thats like 60 megs and it runs on any computer at any time. It's just a stripped version ( no campaign, no sound, etc...)
Stripped everything (except the single player/multiplayer function) would be awesomeeeeeeeee.

bonz
30 Jan 2007, 08:20
Well, if you have an USB flash drive with 1GB capacity you can easily put a CD image and Daemon tools on it. Playing wouldn't be on the fly though.
Other than that, only the help of certain illegal things could do the trick.

Seita
30 Jan 2007, 09:43
Deamon tools requires a reboot to complete installation.

SilPho
30 Jan 2007, 16:06
I'm not so sure I'd like the idea of my friends sticking their usb sticks into my laptop so they can play "quick" games on my computer including installation of games I'll never play again myself.
I'm not applying this to Worms since I have that installed here anyway but the point I'm trying to make is that if you have to install the game, then it's not exactly portable.
Now, I seriously do not encourage this behaviour, but a friend of mine did download a version of worms that unzipped and ran straight from the hard drive. Therefore running the game without installation is possible if you get a hold of that version. However it's not patchable, I'm guessing in v3 or the new beta there has been some additional coding added to the game which prompts it to check for the CD. (Which makes sense). No patch means no online play.
I'm not going to disclose the whereabouts of the file he downloaded because you may as well buy the real thing, although I know that's not really an option if you want to run the game from a pen drive.
I assume "pen drive gaming" is possible, but considering the methods involved I don't think it's legal.

Muzer
30 Jan 2007, 18:55
You cannot do exactly as you request, but here are similar possibilities
Method 1 requires installation but no CD.
Method 2 requires a CD but no installation.
1) Run it on a pendrive with a mounting software installation files and a CD iso, plus the contents of C:\Team17\worms Armageddon. Install the software, mount the ISO, then double click the ISO.
2) Just have the contents of C:\Team17\worms Armageddon. Carry the CD round, put the CD and the pendrive in. No installation is nessecary. Just insert the WA cd and the pendrive and double-click WA.exe

bonz
30 Jan 2007, 21:32
1) Run it on a pendrive with a mounting software installation files and a CD iso, plus the contents of C:\Team17\worms Armageddon. Install the software, mount the ISO, then double click the ISO.
2) Just have the contents of C:\Team17\worms Armageddon. Carry the CD round, put the CD and the pendrive in. No installation is nessecary. Just insert the WA cd and the pendrive and double-click WA.exe
Flaws:
1) As Seita mentioned, I think all virtual drive tools need to reboot after installation to create a virtual drive in Windows.
2) Who says that on the target computer the drive letters are the same like you installed from/to?

evilworm2
30 Jan 2007, 21:42
I say you'd need an indenpendent operating system on the USB drive.
Maybe BartPE (http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/) is the key to success.

CyberShadow
30 Jan 2007, 21:47
W:A detects the drive letter automatically. Infact, AFAIK, W:A doesn't actually require any registry settings to run.

Vader
31 Jan 2007, 09:01
That is correct.
MadEwokHerd's auto-installer avoids registry entries all together.
This idea interests me. I'm going to try some things and (depending on the legal implications of said things) I'll let you all know how I get on. ;)

franpa
31 Jan 2007, 12:36
install alcohol120% - reboot - uninstall it - reinstall it - no reboot required !

Koen-ftw
31 Jan 2007, 14:47
By the way, there are partitionable USB keys of sorts, which will act as if there was a CD player installed and fully functional with autorun etcetera. If you could get your hands on one of those, you could hack it to make it think there was a W:A drive on one partition, and install on the other. That way you'd have a fully portable W:A install, I guess.

bonz
31 Jan 2007, 21:50
install alcohol120% - reboot - uninstall it - reinstall it - no reboot required !
Ehrm, that post is contradictory.

Koen-ftw
31 Jan 2007, 22:13
Here's some more info on the two-partition USB sticks:
http://www.hak5.org/wiki/Universal_U3_LaunchPad_Hacker
You're going to need an U3 enabled USB-stick, and an ISO of Worms. You can modify the ISO as much as you want (Exclude the ingame music, for instance. That takes up somewhere around 250mb of the ISO!) so it can more easily fit on the USB stick. Then install W:A to the freely editable partition of the USB-key, run patches, include all the maps/graves/game data that you want, and you're ready to go. I'd say a 512mb stick could easily hold all the data you need. This should be a method that works. As a matter of fact, I'm thinking of going out to a store and buy one of these keys tomorrow.

h2oz7v
31 Jan 2007, 22:47
Yeah, I would use MadEwokHerd's auto-installer to give a registry free and nice an compact install (its about 60MB), but then most of the files needed are read from the CD. So I suppose you could extract your WA disk, make it slimmer and repack it as an iso. At a stretch it should go on a 512MB stick.
Or you could do it the opposite way and install the game normally, run the patches etc. to end up with a complete install folder, that will work fine with naughty things to bypass the CD check in a purely hypothetical sense of course...:rolleyes:

MadEwokHerd
1 Feb 2007, 01:30
Nice and compact? It should be the same as if you had installed it normally, except for the lack of registry keys or uninstaller, which should take up very little space.

franpa
1 Feb 2007, 02:34
Ehrm, that post is contradictory.
didn't you realize that i like making contradicting posts?

h2oz7v
1 Feb 2007, 13:35
Nice and compact? It should be the same as if you had installed it normally, except for the lack of registry keys or uninstaller, which should take up very little space.
Yeah, I just noticed that. I'm sure the first time I installed WA, it had extra things like clokspl and some Direct X files.

Koen-ftw
1 Feb 2007, 15:18
I'm going to give compressing my ISO a shot today, experimenting what I could leave off and what I could leave on, I'm sure a 256mb full install (ISO + program files) is possible.

Dando
2 Feb 2007, 05:18
will ther ever be a port to mac, now or in the future or is this a complete no go?:p

MadEwokHerd
2 Feb 2007, 06:29
will ther ever be a port to mac, now or in the future or is this a complete no go?:p
I don't know, but there are plans to make 4.0 more portable. It'll be more likely to happen if you donate a mac running OSX to one of the developers, though I cannot make promises on their behalf.

vBulletin® v3.8.6, Copyright ©2000-2013, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.