BetterSpades
- Replicate of the great game Ace of Spades (classic voxlap)
- runs on very old systems back to OpenGL 1.1 (OpenGL ES support too)
- shares similar if not even better performance to voxlap
- can run on "embedded" systems like a Steam Link
Why should I use this instead of ...?
- free of any Jagex code, they can't shut it down
- open for future expansion
- easy to use
- no hidden bugs
Quick usage guide
As of right now, you can download the newest stable version from the releases page.
You can get nightly builds here.
You can either:
- use the client temporarily by extracting the downloaded zip into a new directory.
- extract all contents to your current Ace of Spades installation directory (normally found at
C:/Ace of Spades/), effectively replacing the old voxlap version
System requirements
| Type | min. requirement |
|---|---|
| OS | Windows 98 or Linux |
| CPU | 1 GHz single core processor |
| GPU | 64MB VRAM, Mobile Intel 945GM or equivalent |
| RAM | 256MB |
| Display | 800x600px |
| Others | Keyboard and mouse Dial up network connection |
Build requirements
This project uses the following libraries and files:
| Name | License | Usage | GitHub |
|---|---|---|---|
| GLFW3 | ZLib | OpenGL context | Link |
| OpenAL soft | LGPL-2.1 | 3D sound environment | Link |
| inih | BSD-3.Clause | .INI file parser | Link |
| stb_truetype | Public domain | TrueType font renderer | Link |
| dr_wav | Public domain | wav support | Link |
| http | Public domain | http client library | Link |
| LodePNG | MIT | png support | Link |
| libdeflate | MIT | decompression of maps | Link |
| enet | MIT | networking library | Link |
| parson | MIT | JSON parser | Link |
| log.c | MIT | logger | Link |
| GLEW | MIT | OpenGL extensions | Link |
| hashtable | MIT | hashtable | Link |
| libvxl | MIT | access VXL format | Link |
| microui | MIT | user interface | Link |
You will need to compile the following by yourself, or get hold of precompiled binaries:
- GLFW3
- GLEW
- OpenAL soft (only needed on Windows)
- libdeflate
- enet
Follow the instructions on their project page, then place produced static libraries in deps/.
All other requirements of the above list (like single file libs) will be downloaded by CMake automatically and don't need to be taken care of. Because state of copyright of 0.75 assets is unknown, CMake will also download additional assets from here which are not part of this repository.
Windows
This project uses CMake to generate all Makefiles automatically. It's best to use MinGW-w64 for GCC on Windows. You can generate the required files by opening cmd.exe in the build/ directory and typing:
cmake -G "MinGW Makefiles" ..
mingw32-make
If everything went well, the client should be in the build/BetterSpades/ subfolder.
When starting client.exe, you will be greeted by a server list. Select a server on it to start playing!
You can also start the client the same way as you did with the voxlap version by opening cmd and putting an aos:// link in as the first argument:
client.exe -aos://16777343:32887 //Connects to a local server
Linux
Compilation now works the same on Linux. Just change the build system to Unix Makefiles or leaving it as default will work too (cmake ..).
You can build each library yourself, or install them with your distro's package manager:
sudo apt install libgl1-mesa libgl1-mesa-dev libopenal1 libopenal-dev libglfw-dev libenet-dev libglew-dev
(this does not include libdeflate which is a requirement too, see Wiki/Building for more details)
Start the client e.g. with the following inside the build/bin/ directory:
./client
Or connect directly to localhost:
./client -aos://16777343:32887
macOS
The same instructions for Linux work on macOS aside from some minor differences. First, use Homebrew or MacPorts to grab dependencies:
brew install glfw enet
The development headers for OpenAL and OpenGL don't have to be installed since they come with macOS by default. libdeflate should be installed and placed manually in a way similar to Linux. See Wiki/Building for more details.
Gallery
 quite old |
 hiesville |
 |
|---|---|---|
 grenade fun |
 falling block animation |
 sniping on normandie |