Heroes of Might and Magic II (fheroes2)

Status

Our fheroes2 1.1.17+dfsg-1+ps3.N (packages/fheroes2): Debian’s contrib source built for ppc64 unchanged (debian-ports builds nothing from contrib). Built on 2026-10-29. The engine reads the player’s Heroes II data from ~/.local/share/fheroes2 or /usr/share/games/fheroes2 (its DATA/ and MAPS/ folders: HEROES2.AGG and the maps from the original game, GOG’s install or the demo).

Smoke runs on 2026-10-29 (kernel .874, Mesa ps3.924, the VRAM swap on; the dev build installed by dpkg -i) with the player’s own Heroes of Might and Magic II Gold: DATA/ and MAPS/ (76 MB; HEROES2.AGG sha256 7a11c86d...04315d, HEROES2X.AGG 1f3edad1...f4d41) in ~/.local/share/fheroes2. The recipe (benchmark/recipe.sh) writes a configuration with fullscreen 1920x1080, the first-run dialogs and the intro off, then clicks by XTEST: New Game, Standard Game, Okay on the first map (“4 Dimensions”). The main menu (the 4:3 picture in the middle, the sides in the game’s own brown), the scenario dialog and the adventure map at the full 1920x1080 (the map, the radar, the heroes and castles panel, the day, the scenario’s story) are drawn right, colours included (ps3-bench-20261029T022739Z-smoke-heroes-of-might-and-magic-2-base, xwd; webcam). 88 MB peak RSS, sound running with 9 audible dropouts. The Gallium HUD’s few fps mean little: the game presents only when something changes. Not checked: a turn, a battle, the pad.

On an empty configuration (variant fresh) it opens a 640x480 window with the language dialog first: a console default for our package (fullscreen at the screen’s size, the first-run questions answered).

Also known as: fheroes2 (the engine).

Our package

fheroes2 1.1.17+dfsg-1+ps3.N, 0001: a fresh configuration started in a 640x480 window and asked for a game resolution (the tester’s fresh run, 2026-10-29); now fullscreen is the default and the first run picks the resolution as fheroes2 does on handheld devices (the widest at the original’s height, scaled to the screen) without the dialog; the greeting and the language list (English preselected) stay. On the PC (amd64 build, Xvfb 1920x1080, the player’s data): fullscreen 1920x1080 with the game’s 4:3 picture in the middle, the language list up. On the PS3 (2026-10-29, ps3-bench-20261029T050424Z-smoke-heroes-of-might-and-magic-2-fresh, no config): fullscreen 1920x1080, the 4:3 picture scaled up in the middle, English preselected, no resolution question.

Research

What the surveys and plans said about it, newest first; each line names its source, the section and the date.

• 2026-10-26, docs/backlog/games.md, “Games to smoke next, and Wesnoth’s music”: on the “try now” list (HoMM2 demo data); not started.
• 2026-10-20, pc-classics.md, “Shortlist / Strategy”: shortlist #8 (never on a console): complete, very active, SDL2, free demo data, effort M; 3.5k stars, the only active one.
• 2026-10-19, game-reeval.md, “fheroes2 (Heroes 2 engine)”: no hard no: SDL2 + software compositing of an 8-bit palette surface (src/engine/screen.cpp has SDL_BIG_ENDIAN branches). Debian contrib fheroes2 1.1.17+dfsg-1, no ppc64 binary; tiny Build-Depends (sdl2, sdl2-mixer, libsmacker, zlib): S. Big-endian: explicit getLE16/getBE16 helpers; no BE issue found; BE cost S. RAM estimate 100-250 MB (the world-map sprite cache and 32-bit 1080p output are the consumers; run 640x480 or scale). Data: the HoMM II demo is supported (README, extract_homm2_resources); full data from GOG. Effort S. Verdict: TRY NOW, the second best of part A.