Script to replace compiz with metacity during gaming.

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I have problems running full screen games with compiz (games will be randomly minimized and I lose control) so I wrote this script. It's pretty basic but I still thought it might be useful for someone else. All it does is runs "metacity --replace," executes the commands given to it and then runs "compiz --replace."

Installation:

Open a terminal and enter:
gksu gedit /usr/games/playgame
I put mine in /usr/games but it can be anywhere in your path, eg /usr/bin or ~/bin

Enter:

#!/bin/bash

if [ $# -lt 1 ]; then
echo "Usage: playgame game_name game_options" 1>&2
exit
fi

# Replace compiz with metacity to prevent issues
metacity --replace &

# Run game
$@

# Replace metacity with compiz
compiz --replace


Save that and close gedit then in the terminal enter:
sudo chmod +x /usr/games/playgame

Now run alacarte or right click on your menu and select edit menus. Find the launchers for any games you want to use this with and right click and select properties. Where it says "Command:," keep the same command but just put "playgame " in front (without the quotes and with a space after). Eg to play alien arena, the command is "alienarena" which I changed to "playgame alienarena"

Now compiz will be replaced with metacity while you play these games.

Known Issues:
Metacity and compiz handle workspaces differently so if you have a lot of applications spread out on different workspaces and run this they will end up all on the first workspace.

Note:
Don't run "playgame game_name" in a terminal as when you close the terminal this will cause compiz to exit and you will lose your window borders and window management.

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Also, if you decide to switch back to metacity you can just comment out these two lines as shown so that the games run normally without switching to compiz afterwards. Then you can uncomment them later if you enable compiz again.


#metacity --replace &
#compiz --replace

[Lod]

Will try it out soon. Does it work with games played with Wine (Crossover games)?

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Will try it out soon. Does it work with games played with Wine (Crossover games)?

Yes, I've used this with Counter Strike Source and it improved the quality a lot on my computer.

[Lod]

nice, haven't got time the next few days unfortunately. Another question though :) I'm using emerald, will it close down and restart automatically or do I have to alter the script?

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I'm using emerald too and yes it closes emerald and then reloads it when compiz loads. In compizconfig-settings-manager I set the "Command" in the Window decoration plugin to "emerald --replace" but I'm not sure if that's needed or not.

[Codename]

Nice, this should work pretty well.

[airtonix]

i just use the compiz-icon to switch between openbox/metacity & compiz/emerald.

Its less config in the end...

[washeddang]

Since I use AWN and screenlets, I like to use metacity with compositing. I put together a similar script that checks if compiz is running and switches to metacity with compositing and vice versa:

#!/bin/sh
SERVICE=0`pidof compiz.real`

if [ 0`pidof compiz.real` -gt 0 ];
then
gconftool-2 -s '/apps/metacity/general/compositing_manager' --type bool true
kill -9 $SERVICE
sleep 1
metacity --replace &
else
gconftool-2 -s '/apps/metacity/general/compositing_manager' --type bool false
sleep 1
compiz --replace --ignore-desktop-hints &
fi
exit 0

I copied the script to the ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts folder so that I can run it from the Scripts menu when I right-click in Nautilus.

[nisaky]

It's all problem in screen saver, not compiz. If you switch screen saver off, all games will work in full-screen and with no problems. Even wine games.

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Since I use AWN and screenlets, I like to use metacity with compositing. I put together a similar script that checks if compiz is running and switches to metacity with compositing and vice versa:

I copied the script to the ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts folder so that I can run it from the Scripts menu when I right-click in Nautilus.

Ah ok cool. Yeah I don't think my script works if metacity compositing is enabled as compiz won't replace it. Something like this would need to be used.