How do I prevent Extreme Tux Racer from changing my desktop resolution?

Question

I installed the Extreme Tux Racer game in Ubuntu 11.10 from the Software Center but my screen expands abnormally after I start a game.

Before starting the game:

After closing the game

Answer 1

Extreme Tux Racer starts by default with a resolution width of 800 pixels. Exiting the game should restore your original resolution, but unfortunately it seems the game is crashing when you close, before it can re-resize your display

There is a workaround. You can set a custom game resolution by editing lines in ~/.etracer/options:

set x_resolution X
set y_resolution Y

where X and Y are your desired game width and height. If you set them to your normal resolution dimensions, the game should never "enlarge" your screen to begin with.

References

• Extreme Tux Racer Forums: 'Widescreen resolutions unsupported'

Answer 2

You can wrap the game executable in simple script:

#!/bin/sh

# get current resolution
PREV_RES=$(xrandr -q | grep '^ *[0-9]*x[0-9]*' | awk '/\*/{print $1}')

# start the game
/path/to/my/game    # <---- CHANGE THIS !!!!

# restore previous resolution
xranrd -s $PREV_RES

Then use this script to start the game. I didn't test it on multi-monitor configuration. There might be better way to get current resolution than parsing xrandr.