QSP Jack-o-Nine-Tails [v2.3] [ImperatorAugustusTertius / qwertyu12359]

[sexiwof]

I took the old source for JONT and compiled the player for Linux and managed to fix a number of bugs. These bug-fixes were ported to the Windows build and features from the Windows build have been ported to the Linux version. The resulting build:

Due to backend not freeing file-handles, you may eventually encounter an rlimit situation. Just restart the game and resume. Requires *massive* rewrite to fix.
For newcomers to *nix using

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*barf*:

sudo apt install libqt5webkit5 libqt5multimediawidgets5 libqt5widgets5 libqt5multimedia5 libqt5gui5 libqt5network5 libqt5core5a

If you run a non-Gnome aka non-shit distro (yes, fuck Gnome 3 and if you think a random dude from the Interwebz has no clue, then you attempt to reverse Torvald and Stallman, even they hate it) such as Manjaro/EndeavourOS, you already know how to install libs (verify package names) and how not to use a

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.

Console/shell/terminal if you're on Ubuntu *barf* or an Ubuntu*barf*-like distro because Gnome *infinite barf* can't comprehend running some software outside of a console/shell/terminal:

./Jack-o-nine-tails

By the way, so long as the FastQsp engine isn't changed, this should work on more than just v2.2.

Guys, first of all, I want to say that I'm very glad to see that the thread for this game is not only alive but also actively being developed.
Secondly, I need help.

I'm trying to get the game to work on my Steam Deck, but running it through Wine doesn't give a productive result.

I tried to follow these instructions, but my knowledge of Linux (which doesn’t exist at all, all my life I’ve only used Windows and a little macOS when I was young and stupid) is not enough to understand what and how to do.

If someone could explain to me how to run Jack-o-Nine-Tails on Linux, specifically on Steam Deck, I would be extremely grateful.

 

[BupoTiling03-Retired]

Guys, first of all, I want to say that I'm very glad to see that the thread for this game is not only alive but also actively being developed.
Secondly, I need help.

I'm trying to get the game to work on my Steam Deck, but running it through Wine doesn't give a productive result.

I tried to follow these instructions, but my knowledge of Linux (which doesn’t exist at all, all my life I’ve only used Windows and a little macOS when I was young and stupid) is not enough to understand what and how to do.

If someone could explain to me how to run Jack-o-Nine-Tails on Linux, specifically on Steam Deck, I would be extremely grateful.

SteamDeck, wow, not a platform for it. The problem is mostly that this game was not wrote forward-thinking with alternative resolutions or DPI in mind. I own a SteamDeck and I can safely say there is only *two* ways to get it running on it, the first of which I would *not* recommend, it's a moronic idea. You'd need to disable the read/write protection on the system ROM, upgrade and install compilation tools, then re-compile it targeting the specific version of Qt if I recall. OR. You can stick to the Windows version and use Proton to run it.

Regarding the ROM - Steam decided to base their distribution of Linux on Arch, a bleeding-edge Linux distribution so that they could cherry-pick and curate the update process while also getting the latest fixes for things, a smart move. However, they disable writing to the root partition (think of it as everything under C:\ that belongs to Windows). It's to keep the system in a known usable state so that it can always receive updates. Typically advanced users will disable this protection and update the entire OS, but that can come with issues and if you're not a Linux user, DON'T do it. Every Steam Client update will undo all of your work, so this is something you write shell scripts to automate. You'd have to disable this protection, update the OS, install compilation tools and Qt6 headers (I can't recall which version of Qt (a software library used by Jack-o-nine-tails) runs on the Steam Deck at the moment). This is the worst possible way to do all of this just for this one game.

Best way (somewhat Linux-noob friendly as well) would be to use the Windows version of the game and run it through Proton (or a variant like it). Proton is Steam's version of Wine, 'Wine Is Not an Emulator', eg an API translation layer that provides a software bridge between Windows-based software and allows it to run on Linux, if you're lucky. Many softwares work, many don't. I'd try adding Jack-o-nine-tails as a non-Steam game, then force a compatibility tool and choose a version of Proton, fire away. No muss, would survive updates, etc. You might have GUI issues, I don't know. Jack-o-nine-tails does NOT have a response HTML/CSS GUI and parts of the UI might get cut off. I put it out there that Jack-o-nine-tails needs a complete ground-up rewrite with modern HTML/CSS and on an engine like Twine for flow and DPI, but no one that has supported the development is familiar with it (or has the time). Edit: You can install ProtonUp-Qt to help you manage versions of Proton for Steam. You will need to restart for Steam to see the versions of Proton (under Compatibility Tools).

 

[sexiwof]

SteamDeck, wow, not a platform for it.

Thank you for your quick response, I didn’t expect you to respond to your comment from three years ago at all.

I really like this game, and not so much because of the eroge- part, but because of the very well-developed management part. I even helped Old Huntsman with development in terms of interface design and testing back in a days. I'm not trying to brag or anything, just explaining why I'm willing to go to such trougle for one game.

Yes, I tried to launch Jack-o-nine-tails first using the tools provided by Steam directly (via adding the game - properties - compatibility), I also tried using third-party programs, in particular Lutris.

However, in both cases I encountered two bugs that were critical for me:

1. No sound. This applies to both SFX and music - the complete absence of any sound in the game. I've read this thread and saw that another user encountered such problem, but was able to fix it by moving the game from an external drive to an internal one. Unfortunately, this is not my case since I initially launch the game on the built-in SSD.
2. Jack-o-nine-tails critically loads the system. The CPU turns out to be loaded up to 75°C, and the GPU up to 70°C, which is why power consumption and noise of the cooling system increases critically.

Having carefully read your answer, I understand that there is actually no solution to solve this problem of not runnind the game on the Steam Deck, so I can calm down and rest now. Thank you.
And yes, of course I spent many days scouring Google and pro Linux forums looking for a solution before I came back to f95zone.

P.S. I understand that there is a third solution - to install Windows as a second operating system on Steam Deck, and I even went down this road before, but ran into other problems (my version of Steam Deck has a manufacturing defect, which I already discussed with Steam support and they agreed with me, but it doesn’t matter for this thread).

 

[BupoTiling03-Retired]

Thank you for your quick response, I didn’t expect you to respond to your comment from three years ago at all.

I really like this game, and not so much because of the eroge- part, but because of the very well-developed management part. I even helped Old Huntsman with development in terms of interface design and testing back in a days. I'm not trying to brag or anything, just explaining why I'm willing to go to such trougle for one game.

Yes, I tried to launch Jack-o-nine-tails first using the tools provided by Steam directly (via adding the game - properties - compatibility), I also tried using third-party programs, in particular Lutris.

However, in both cases I encountered two bugs that were critical for me:

1. No sound. This applies to both SFX and music - the complete absence of any sound in the game. I've read this thread and saw that another user encountered such problem, but was able to fix it by moving the game from an external drive to an internal one. Unfortunately, this is not my case since I initially launch the game on the built-in SSD.
2. Jack-o-nine-tails critically loads the system. The CPU turns out to be loaded up to 75°C, and the GPU up to 70°C, which is why power consumption and noise of the cooling system increases critically.

Having carefully read your answer, I understand that there is actually no solution to solve this problem of not runnind the game on the Steam Deck, so I can calm down and rest now. Thank you.
And yes, of course I spent many days scouring Google and pro Linux forums looking for a solution before I came back to f95zone.

P.S. I understand that there is a third solution - to install Windows as a second operating system on Steam Deck, and I even went down this road before, but ran into other problems (my version of Steam Deck has a manufacturing defect, which I already discussed with Steam support and they agreed with me, but it doesn’t matter for this thread).

Sound, that requires the Windows Media Foundation package to work. *Entirely* possible. Try looking at mf-install and run the script for it INSIDE the Wine prefix (Lutris in your case). You have to install it in the prefix, then it will work. The reason Jack-o-nine-tails consumes so much resources is due to it all being CPU-based. There is no hardware-based acceleration *at all.* It needs a ground-up rewrite but no one has time to do that. The CPU on the SteamDeck contributes to quite a bit of GPU heat as well, so it is sort of a false lead to think the GPU is heating like that. CPU-based drawing of *everything*. I can't find my Linux src of the Linux compile for Jack-o-nine-tails or I'd take a look at cross-platform saves again and try to rig the backend to use a different audio API if possible so people wouldn't need to do that.

Edit: Not sure if you're aware, but *edit: Linux uses case-sensitive filesystems*and Jack-o-nine-tails should really be ran on a FAT32 volume OR use the Linux binary, because I added a work-around for that with a bit of magic there, it has 'case-insensitivity' manually coded in. I really wish I had a copy of my old src. I added sound engine fixes, sound-resume fixes, etc.

Edit: I do know the Linux binary is on this thread somewhere, so that can be tested. If it works, good. If not, we'd need src to recompile targeting the version of Qt on SteamDeck. I *think* the old src used Qt4 or Qt5. I'm running Manjaro and can target Qt5, so...maybe? Depends in SteamDeck has Qt?Multimedia installed and a few other packages. Frankly, this is why I suggested swapping engines to something like Twine. It's HTML/CSS/JS-based, cross-platform, future-proof backend.

Edit: Has it really been three years? ...*geezer back creaks*...

 

[ImperatorAugustusTertius]

1. Jack-o-nine-tails critically loads the system. The CPU turns out to be loaded up to 75°C, and the GPU up to 70°C, which is why power consumption and noise of the cooling system increases critically.

This problem might be caused by this behavior, which I haven't tracked down fully but believe is something inside of the Qt library we are using. It doesn't happen with version 1.2.1, which is on an older version of Qt.

 

[sexiwof]

Sound, that requires the Windows Media Foundation package to work.

Unfortunately, everything indicates that the problem of no sound is not related to Windows Media Foundation. I installed the latest version of the script you named,

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, and it did not work - the game still lacks SFX and music.
I double-checked each step, including the original distribute of the game - on my Windows-PC there are no problems with sound, but when I transfer the same distribute to Steam Deck and even after installing mf-install, the sound does not appear.

However, I noticed that after installation of mf-install the performance problem disappeared - now the game does not load the system by more than 55°C in total. I have no idea how this is connected and on what principle these sequences work.
I wanted to attach screenshots to confirm my words, but unfortunately Steam Deck does not support the function of taking screenshots with Gamescope, and I consider it personal disrespect to take photos of screen with a phone.

This problem might be caused by this behavior

I can neither confirm nor deny this idea because, in my understanding, for this you need to delve further into the game itself, which I have not done yet, since I previously encountered a performance problem already while reading tutorial lectures.
But in any case, I thank you for the advice and the tip to the potential root of the problem.

 

[RayForward]

This problem might be caused by this behavior, which I haven't tracked down fully but believe is something inside of the Qt library we are using. It doesn't happen with version 1.2.1, which is on an older version of Qt.

Happy to know you still care about thatXD

 

[BupoTiling03-Retired]

Unfortunately, everything indicates that the problem of no sound is not related to Windows Media Foundation. I installed the latest version of the script you named,

You must be registered to see the links

, and it did not work - the game still lacks SFX and music.
I double-checked each step, including the original distribute of the game - on my Windows-PC there are no problems with sound, but when I transfer the same distribute to Steam Deck and even after installing mf-install, the sound does not appear.

However, I noticed that after installation of mf-install the performance problem disappeared - now the game does not load the system by more than 55°C in total. I have no idea how this is connected and on what principle these sequences work.
I wanted to attach screenshots to confirm my words, but unfortunately Steam Deck does not support the function of taking screenshots with Gamescope, and I consider it personal disrespect to take photos of screen with a phone.




I can neither confirm nor deny this idea because, in my understanding, for this you need to delve further into the game itself, which I have not done yet, since I previously encountered a performance problem already while reading tutorial lectures.
But in any case, I thank you for the advice and the tip to the potential root of the problem.

No, the audio backend on Linux running through Wine needs Windows Media Foundation, there are no ifs/ands/buts about that, not going to argue with the API behind me on that. I don't use Lutris, so I'm wondering if your problem is somehow in there. Windows always had the minimal amount of libraries for WMF to work since Vista, so of course it'll have sound (talking about Windows, not Wine). WMF will not affect performance (though the whole Qt4 vs Qt5 that the binaries were compiled on may be the difference, Qt5 definitely *needs* WMF, I can't recall what Qt4 used), the API either works or doesn't, so something else has happened in your setup. SteamDeck does support screenshots in Gamescope. Hold the Steam button long enough for the 'controls' to pop up. Steam+R1.

Edit: The mf-install I used came from

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(no longer exists), but it's the same as what you have.

I'll probably have some time later today to figure out how to get it running on SteamDeck, yesterday I was far too busy. Will post back.

Edit: The Linux version uploaded to this thread is Qt5 and it expects Qt5 libraries. I don't have my original Linux source to build it for Qt6 native. I'm not sure if the SteamDeck even has all of the libraries needed, some distros only install certain ones. I'll look at the Windows version for now.

Edit: No performance issue seen on my SteamDeck with either version. 18.5% average CPU, GPU usage is nearly non-existent.

Edit: After installing WMF on my SteamDeck, the *Qt* backend spams 'play' but the WMF mf-install is incomplete (need the cab version, I think), so it doesn't like the WAV output and won't play, but Qt keeps expecting it to play. Does result in a elevation of CPU usage but not like what you reported. (I wrote a simple shell script that gets executed as a 'Linux' game for steam and it automatically sets up the mf-install and then runs a version of Proton that should exist on all SteamDecks for the game. That part is working (auto-mf-install, launch game), but the mf-install isn't the cab version. Trying to find the cab version, got a lot going on.

Edit: Now dealing with x86 vs x64 issues.
Edit: Making progress, taking forever to download an archived version of KB976932 to use.
Edit: Roadblock with Proton's stdin/out redirection. Wondering how to get around copyright issues of distributing files manually extracted from cab. (Side note, Jack-o-nine-tails version cannot ever be ported to Qt6 without a ground-up rewrite because of entire API changes to WebKit (gone, WebEngine is the new and it's radically different). So there will never be a native Linux version for Qt6/SteamDeck unless it's rewritten.

Edit: Got it working, but the audio crackling and phasing is entirely impossible. I'm just going to take a peek at how much work it'd be to try to rewrite the UI and bridge using same Qsp lib and Onigurama (static compile, copy over kind of thing).

Edit: If you still want to try running with Qt5, you can remount SteamDeck as read/write and sudo pacman -S ...the various packages (they use different names on Arch-based distros) to get it working natively. You can always restore the SteamDeck using a raw-write, but...this is NOT recommended for newcomers at *ALL*, you might not be capable of restoring it. I'd probably say setup a version of Windows on a thumb drive that's capable of handling the read/write speeds and boot from that, then run Jack-o-nine-tails.

Edit: Eh, this would take too long to rewrite *while keeping compatibility*. Stream Play it (should be easy) or run Windows via a nano/pico drive or something, for now.

 

[sexiwof]

Stream Play it (should be easy) or run Windows via a nano/pico drive or something, for now.

Thank you for your time and work, it’s a shame that it didn’t work out in the end.
I think I will listen to this advice of yours and do just that.

 

[Mirarara]

Invited too, will post info there soon

Do you still need more people? I would gladly like to help too.

 

[BupoTiling03-Retired]

Effort should really be spent porting the game to a completely different engine.

 

[qwertyu12359]

Effort should really be spent porting the game to a completely different engine.

Good news is that user okuru1 is trying

I thought about modding but current engine is a mess. I will try to port it to the Godot engine (and already started it). If anyone is ready to participate feel free to contact me.

Interesting features that I will add to the game:
1. Translation support
2. Clear and understandable code base (I'll try at least)
3. Much more moddable and expandable game structure

Also would be great to update combat system and racing system.

 

[kiloter]

I was recently playing a bit with the code of the game just for my own sake, adding some new buyers or descriptions, improving sense of progression, etc. and thought that maybe instead of just doing it offline I would share it with you, maybe you will like smth that I write How should I do it best? I never worked on git, but being able to comment changes for me and others to see clearly would be useful, I think.

Ok, I just forked the /game-base repository and left it public. Is it ok to edit the jack.txt directly or should I only edit the .qsrc files in locations?

 

[BupoTiling03-Retired]

Good news is that user okuru1 is trying

Good, because even though I ported the *GUI* to Qt6 (rewrote entirely), it was taking forever to rewrite the Qsp engine and fix the stupid in it along with ensuring cross-platform compilation. Godot would be a good alternative. (It ran and all, but it was a mix of Qt5 and Qt6, blegh). I also got rid of the Onigurama dependency, since Qt has RegEx built-in Qt5+.

 

[qwertyu12359]

I was recently playing a bit with the code of the game just for my own sake, adding some new buyers or descriptions, improving sense of progression, etc. and thought that maybe instead of just doing it offline I would share it with you, maybe you will like smth that I write How should I do it best? I never worked on git, but being able to comment changes for me and others to see clearly would be useful, I think.

Ok, I just forked the /game-base repository and left it public. Is it ok to edit the jack.txt directly or should I only edit the .qsrc files in locations?

If you want people to play with it immediately, doing a mod would be a good idea. Just a downloadable archive with whatever you modified, in your case probably just jack.qsp and maybe some other stuff.

In a more collaborative way, gitgud would be nice. ImperatorAugustus tends to deal with it, but I'll try to take a look there. (actually I did, and couldn't find your branch, can you share a link?)

Ultimately, some mods end up in the stable version of the game, depending on how well they integrate with what's already there.

 

[Celerarity]

I can also throw my hat in to help sort through images. I have only a small amount of AI art generation experience but it sounds like that doesn't matter.

 

[PDP19]

Just wanted to ask: is spider mating deliberately made difficult? Even with a 4 devotion slave wiht 5 arousal I still cant get the training done successfully. She's not refusing to do it, but unlike the other xenophily animals she keeps failing at it.

In what scenario does this training need to actually succeed in it?

 

[qwertyu12359]

Just wanted to ask: is spider mating deliberately made difficult? Even with a 4 devotion slave wiht 5 arousal I still cant get the training done successfully. She's not refusing to do it, but unlike the other xenophily animals she keeps failing at it.

In what scenario does this training need to actually succeed in it?

It should not require more obedience than coprophagia, unless she is arachnophobic.

Devotion participates to obedience, but is not a sufficient condition. There is taming for example.

In your case, a little lack of mood might play a role, as she accepts to do it but doesn't seem too motivated.

 

[PDP19]

It should not require more obedience than coprophagia, unless she is arachnophobic.

Devotion participates to obedience, but is not a sufficient condition. There is taming for example.

In your case, a little lack of mood might play a role, as she accepts to do it but doesn't seem too motivated.

Still getting a fail state for spider mating even with maxed out mood. It seems like this is coded to deliberately happen no matter her obedience status.



If we follow what imperatoraugustus said in this quote, it almost seem like youre supposed to just keep trying and failing. But each fail state comes with a guilty marker, which I think is a bit unfair since no other mechanic works the same way as this one. She'll take on an eldritch horror, eat shit and drink piss. But letting a spider fuck her is somehow another spectrum entirely.

 

[ImperatorAugustusTertius]

If we follow what imperatoraugustus said in this quote, it almost seem like youre supposed to just keep trying and failing. But each fail state comes with a guilty marker, which I think is a bit unfair since no other mechanic works the same way as this one. She'll take on an eldritch horror, eat shit and drink piss. But letting a spider fuck her is somehow another spectrum entirely.

It's not actually a failure unless she refuses. Progress occurs. Repeat several times and she'll rank up. And yes, considering how the lesson texts are written (and I agree), spider mating is on another level. Go search for images of ovipositors and giant spiders. Then picture yourself in a room with one trying to stick one of those into you.

Moreover, fear of spiders (even if not to the extent of an explicit "arachnophobia" trait) is common because since the origin of the species, hominids who didn't have an aversion to venomous insects were more likely to die before having children.