BetterSpades

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<br />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 cmake glew

OpenAL and OpenGL headers come bundled with macOS and do not require separate installation. You’ll need to build libdeflate manually and place it in a local deps/ directory:

DEPS_DIR="$(pwd)/deps"
LIBDEFLATE_A="$DEPS_DIR/libdeflate.a"

mkdir -p "$DEPS_DIR"

# Build or reuse libdeflate
if [ ! -f "$LIBDEFLATE_A" ]; then
    echo "Building libdeflate..."
    TEMP_DIR=$(mktemp -d)
    git -C "$TEMP_DIR" clone https://github.com/ebiggers/libdeflate.git
    cmake -S "$TEMP_DIR/libdeflate" -B "$TEMP_DIR/libdeflate/build" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
    cmake --build "$TEMP_DIR/libdeflate/build"
    cp "$TEMP_DIR"/libdeflate/build/{lib,}libdeflate.a "$DEPS_DIR/" 2>/dev/null || true
    rm -rf "$TEMP_DIR"
    echo "libdeflate built and copied to deps/"
else
    echo "libdeflate already present in deps/"
fi

Then, you need to copy the GLEW static library from Homebrew to your deps/ directory:

DEPS_DIR="$(pwd)/deps"
GLEW_A="$DEPS_DIR/libGLEW.a"

# Copy or reuse GLEW static library
if [ ! -f "$GLEW_A" ]; then
    echo "Copying GLEW static library from Homebrew..."
    HOMEBREW_PREFIX=$(brew --prefix)
    cp "$HOMEBREW_PREFIX/lib/libGLEW.a" "$DEPS_DIR/"
    echo "GLEW copied to deps/"
else
    echo "GLEW already present in deps/"
fi

Build the project using CMake:

# Configure and build
BUILD_DIR="$(pwd)/build"
mkdir -p "$BUILD_DIR"
cd "$BUILD_DIR"

echo "Configuring CMake..."
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_POLICY_VERSION_MINIMUM=3.5

echo "Building BetterSpades..."
make -j"$(sysctl -n hw.ncpu)"

Start the client e.g. with the following inside the build/BetterSpades/ directory:

./client

Compilated binary should use Metal API on Apple Silicon.

Gallery

<img src="/docs/pic01.png" width="250px"><br />quite old	<img src="/docs/pic02.png" width="250px"><br />hiesville	<img src="/docs/pic03.png" width="250px">
<img src="/docs/pic04.png" width="250px"><br />grenade fun	<img src="/docs/pic05.png" width="250px"><br />falling block animation	<img src="/docs/pic06.png" width="250px"><br />sniping on normandie