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Direct3D Applications And Wine
Vesuri writes "TransGaming Technologies has released a patch for Wine which makes it possible to run Direct3D applications under Wine. I ran 3DMark2000 and I was impressed - it really DOES work like they promised. It's not perfect but it's a really good start!"
Are you kidding? The solitaires available on Gnome at least are vastly better than the ones on Windows. The low quality of the graphics on Windows card games is always a bit of a shock to me on the rare occasions when I reboot into Windows. Plus Aisleriot has about a zillion solitaire variations beyond what's available in Windows solitaire. Built in games are one of the few areas where the common Linux desktops have a clear advantage that even diehard Windows users are willing to admit.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
We have to decide which battle to fight. It's no good having the perfect platform with perfect apps if no one uses it. The masses won't use it until a critical mass of applications is available, and those apps won't be available until the masses can shell out the $$. The thing that Wine does is gets more people running Linux by providing those Windows apps that don't exist as Linux apps yet.
Exactly. We have to stop focussing on the current battle (Windows versus Linux) and focus on the war (Microsoft versus Open Source). Look, when the press reports on gaming sales, they're going to say:
Windows 75 percent
Mac 5 percent
Linux 10 percent
Other 10 percent
And that Linux portion may be half Wine and half native Linux.
I know we would all prefer native code, but we have to get mindshare first. Or else noone will develop for Linux, or consider doing so.
Because, face it, we all want to play The Sims - and I'd rather buy the Linux-compatible version than the Windows version, if you get my drift.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
This is not the fault of TransGaming Technologies, but their voting page has some strange games on it. Since you can suggest games, and then vote on suggested games the community as a whole gets to choose what they like. Still, I find myself wondering just who is voting?
Half-Life and its derivatives are high on the list. I agree 100%. But so are:
Unreal Tournament (ported by Loki, free download)
Quake 3 Arena Quake 3 Team Arena (The team addon will upgrade the Linux version)
Starcraft (has run under wine for some time)
I just can't see why Linux users would vote for these (I guess that they do not know that they work under Linux?)
If you like Linux and you like gaming, you should check out Linuxgames now and again. You will be surprised at what you find.
(Now someone is going to argue a point on those games, but I see it as a waste of time to fix something that is not broken. Unreal Tournament for Linux will run faster on Linux than Unreal Tournament for Windows through Wine on Linux any day.)
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
tried IE
Didn't you read the license for IE when you installed it?
This is another way IE is tied to the OS.Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Funny, that sounds like *exactly* the same philosophy that Microsoft has with regards to Java: being compatible with the rest of the world is a threat to commercial success. Best to be incompatible so people will be stuck with you.
I sure hope Linux doesn't succumb to the "you become what you hate" syndrome. I don't want people "stuck" with Linux, I want them to *like* Linux. Users and game developers alike.
Anything -- I repeat, *anything* -- that makes it easier for people to use Linux either as their first OS or as a migration target is a good thing.
Cheers
-b
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
But... but... NetHack already works. Who needs anything else?
Seriously, though, Linux does have a number of games:
That being said, I do agree that Direct3D support in Wine is A Good Thing (except for the possibility that it decreases the likelyhood of true Linux ports). But don't sell Linux short.
(Random "It probably won't work, but..." thought: Running a WinCE Dreamcast game under WINE running on Linux on a Dreamcast. That'd be cool. Useless and probably impossible, but cool none-the-less.)
When these people make their jump complete, they will buy Linux software for the platform, as a matter of course. Hence Loki will benefit.
Its a bit like the PSXII benefiting from having full PSX emulation. People will migrate because of WINE, but when they get there they will buy ported programs as a preference.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
1. Windows is free with PCs.
:D
:)
You have Windows.
I built mine from parts. I don't have Windows.
2. Windows has a GUI that is easy to use because it has been developed in conjunction with literally millions of beta testers and focus groups.
I'll grant this one. Though I'm partial to CLI's myself. Except for games
3. Windows runs these games faster, and necessarily always will - emulation has to be slower, because there's two layers.
WINE Is Not an Emulator. It is an alternate implementation of Win32. There is not an extra layer, and if it were written well, it could be faster (not likely, though).
4. Windows runs the games easier than WINE - you don't have to compile Windows for your PC like you do with Wine (you can get pre-built builds, but they don't work as well).
Granted.
5. For WINE to work usably, you are required to have Windows on your PC (true: all those shots of Word running on Linux only happen because Linux is using the dlls and vxds)
I'm not as sure about that. I installed and ran Starcraft under WINE about a year ago, and it was playable. IIRC, I didn't have Windows on the machine at all.
It is a good start. If I could play games without having to buy a copy of Windows or waste hard drive space and my precious sanity on it, I would be quite happy. If that is what you want, cool, but I want it.
Two is not equal to three, not even for very large values of two.
All my machines were intended to be Linux machines right from the very first - so every PC I've ever bought (with the exception of the laptop that must run some specific software to make the racecar work) was specified "no Windows".
Why pay for what I don't want and will never use?
And lately, the cost of Windows has been a signifigant portion of the cost of the PC. Hardware keeps getting cheaper. Windows is the same price as it ever was. Specifying "no windows" has changed from a political statement to a real cost savings.
And as Wine approaches actual usability, soon I'll be able to have both my OS of choice _and_ still get access to the software I need. Win win win.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
--
assert(expired(knowledge));
... is to make viruses and VB scripts run on Linux through WINE. Once that is done, the migration of the desktop user base to Linux can begin in earnest.
Ñ'
Do not operate Heavy Gear under the influence of Wine!
Uh, yeah, that was prolly a troll, but in the event that you WERE serious, a solution to your problem is simple: DON'T USE SAID SOFTWARE.
If someone wants to develop it, all power to them, but one of the the beauties of Linux is that you don't need to install the GUI to manage your webserver.
1. Windows is free with PCS.
Can't find my copy. All I see is a bunch of RedHat 6.2 CDs with my Dell.
You have windows
No really, I can't find it... All I see is RedHat stuff.
2. Windows has a GUI that is easy to use because it has been developed in conjunction with literally millions of beta testers and focus groups.
I find it odd that not one user in these focus groups got annoyed with the fact that they couldn't move or iconize or move a window if the application owning the window was busy. Are you really SURE they did that, I just don't see it.
3. Windows runs these games faster, and necessarily always will - emulation has to be slower, because there's two layers
WINE is a recursive algorithm for "Wine Is Not an Emulator." It's NOT an emulator. It's an implementation of Win32 libs on x86 Linux boxes. Wine can even use Windows DLLs, so it is running the same stuff.
4. Windows runs the games easier than WINE - you don't have to compile Windows for your PC like you do with Wine (you can get pre-built builds, but they don't work as well).
Uh, Wine 1.0 isn't out yet. I've only used pre-built versions, and have had good results.
5. For WINE to work usably, you are required to have Windows on your PC (true: all those shots of Word running on Linux only happen because Linux is using the dlls and vxds)
All my experiments with Wine have not involved Windows DLLs. It ran quite a number of applications and installers with no problems, and this was more than six months ago.
As for Word though, keep in mind what atrocities Word does to a system... Word reinstalls hundreds of DLLs on a Windows machine. It breaks Microsoft's own "regulations" for software installation. How is this therefore a valid example of why I shouldn't try to run Windows games on my Linux box?
---
________
I've been following WINE's development for years now, and every time a WINE article gets published here, the bone-heads come out of the woodwork to to express their feeling that WINE is somehow bad for Linux.
Three years ago, when WINE allowed me to run Remedy Action User client (it's the front-end to our trouble-ticket system) so I didn't have to boot into windows at work at all, that was somehow a bad thing? When WINE allows me to run Excel so I can hand in my expense reports using the spreadsheet the corporate Microserfs designed, that's a bad thing?
The ridiculous arguments aside about WINE keeping linux ports from happening, what about a game released a few months ago. There will never be linux ports of games released more than a few months ago unless the company GPL's it. (Not very likely in most cases.)
So, the naysayers don't want to play any older games (or other apps) they've invested in, in hopes that by not having that ability (let alone the ability to play new games) that companies will do native ports? Absurd.
Here's my favorite bit: WINE has two parts to it. The first bit (which everyone thinks is the only thing to WINE) is the program loader. This allows you to run MS binaries. The real heart of WINE is winelib. winelib is a port of the windows API's to linux. Programs compiled against this are Linux programs, period! They could be packaged as RPMS, debs, or tarballs. WINE is as much (or more) a tool for porting applications to linux as it is an emulator!
So when the complaints come out about WINE hindering linux ports, I almost can't help but cry. The WINE hackers are busting their proverbial hump making Linux ports of windows software possible, and easy, and slashdot users are flaming them for trying!
*whew*
Too bad VMWare uses its' own display driver, and cannot access display hardware like 3d chips, Mpeg decoders, etc. Gaming is not very doable.
The problem with Photoshop is VMWare's lack of support for ICC profiles, so you can end up modifying an image with the colors that look fine in VMWare mode, but crappy in Windows-native mode.
Hopefully, WINE will be the answer. I know there are serious advantages to running VMWare over WINE, but they're not advantages *TO ME*.
The funny thing is, I almost always end up playing MAME or Quake when I'm in Windows. So I guess I really don't need to play Win games in Linux after all... except maybe GTA2.....
click on the K or Foot menus and they are right there under games. Much eaiser to find than by going to Start-Programs-Accessories-Games
It's easier to click on the K or Foot rather than Start? And /.ers
wonder why they say Linux isn't ready for the desktop...
--
"200 Quatloos on the newcomer!" "300 Quatloos against!"
We have to decide which battle to fight. It's no good having the perfect platform with perfect apps if no one uses it. The masses won't use it until a critical mass of applications is available, and those apps won't be available until the masses can shell out the $$. The thing that Wine does is gets more people running Linux by providing those Windows apps that don't exist as Linux apps yet. Once they're on Linux, if our OS is really as good as we think it is, they should learn really quickly that native Linux apps are better than emulated ones, and want to switch over. But first we need that critical mass of audience, not of native apps. IMHO.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
I think the plan is to release all of the source code under their own license. Then once they make a certain amount of cash on subscriptions they'll begin to merge the code into the main wine tree under the Wine License. But all of the code will be freely available to users
treke
Well.. that's not entirely accurate. Wine aims to be an second implementation of the Win32 API. This means that the overhead over using microsofts implementation only depends on the quality of the wine code (if the wine people write tighter code than the ms guys, wine wins). However, wine can use native win32 dll files, as a fallback for running unsupported api calls (that of course, isnt the only thing it needs dll support for). That's probably what you're talking about.
But the big thing about wine isn't it's binary compability with Win32, it's source compability. Soon all win32 apps will run nativly on linux, only depending on X and the wine libs after a simple recompile and a few tweaks (hopefully).
-henrik
I'm a rather avid gamer, and I'm quite fond of Linux -- but I can't fathom a single, rational reason to run Direct3D games under Wine on Linux.
Now, irrational reasons may exist. For example, a virualent hatred of all things Microsoft might lead someone to run already-unstable games (every DirectX game has hardware and driver compatability problems) through emulators...
Is any serious gaming enthuiast going to give up their Wintel box to run an emulator under Linux? I doubt it.
So what is the point of this technological exercise -- other that to prove that you can run DirectX under Wine?
--
Scott Robert Ladd
Master of Complexity
Destroyer of Order and Chaos
All about me
A significant part of the wine development is on winelib, which allows windows applications to be compiled on linux, bsd or pretty much any unix for i386. There is also work on porting winelib to sparc systems.
RTFM people WineLib Users Guide
I fail to see how this capability would take any support away from porting applications.
This is a step in the right direction because no matter what people say games are often killer applications that help people choose their computing platform.
no sig.
As a long time Linux user, I strenuously object to this direction for my preferred OS. My Linux box is not a toy, and it shouldn't be used as such!
Linux has succeeded so well because of (until recently) the complete lack of frivolous chrome that bogged down other once-noble systems like DOS. I grudgingly accepted a simple window manager as an occassionally useful tool, but knew full well that some people would get totally carried away with it and force these resource-hog abominations on us like KDE, Gnome and TWM. Serious computing is done with the command line, OK?
It's only gone downhill since that first X server started working with Linux. I've never liked the idea of Wine to begin with. I mean, who the hell wants to run some windoze app on something like Linux? What the hell is the point in that? You know why people do it? Because they're too stupid to learn Emacs or Vi and they need they're precious Word!
Look, people, Linux is a serious tool for people doing serious work. If you can't figure out how to use it then stay the hell away from it and stop trying to corrupt it with your damn eye candy!
I can't believe people have polluted Linux with some Microso~ game API. The Linux we have all come to know and love is dying, and I think it is an absolute shame.