Slashdot Mirror
Windows Games On Linux
Warrior-GS writes "Transgaming is working on a process that allows Linux users to play Windows games. According to their CEO, Gavriel State: "Essentially, TransGaming's work allows gamers to take off-the-shelf Windows games and run them directly under Linux. It won't run every game out there at first, but 100% compatibility is our long-term goal. To accomplish this, we have been working on a new Linux implementation of the DirectX multimedia APIs. Our work is closely tied with the Wine project -- an Open Source effort to implement the Microsoft Windows APIs on Linux -- in essence, a Windows compatibility layer. Wine is not an emulator in the traditional sense -- it doesn't emulate a CPU or any other hardware -- it loads and executes Windows programs directly on your Linux hardware without the need for any Microsoft code to be installed at all."
The whole interview can be found at GameSpy."
This is insane. DirectX games currently run by the hair of their chinny-chin-chin, can you imagine the horror when yet *another* abstraction layer is added? And can you imagine the dark clouds over the game companies' tech support when they read "Yeah I'm running under Win 98.. i mean.. well, Linux, really..."
Actually -- In case you haven't noticed, that apraisal of DirectX hasn't applied since DirectX 5, maybe even as far back as DirectX 3.
Most recently, games for DirectX really make one wonder why everything else about Windows is so bad.
DirectX is probably the single best thing about Windows, and it's actually one damned good game developement API.
Actually, crappy, complicated installation is one of the reasons I don't buy so many PC games anymore. I just don't have time to futz with video drivers, patches, etc. People used to rag DOS games for being incompatible with hardware... have you checked out the README for a Windows game lately?
Yes. And I can't remember the last time I had something that wouldn't run on my fairly typical system (GeForce 2 GTS, Sound Blaster Live, Pentium III 800).
I realize some people have "Less than Optimal" systems for gaming, and some hardware has some pretty bad support for DirectX, but any decent hardware is going to have good DirectX support, and if someone says they constantly have trouble in DirectX games I'd have to question their hardware purchasing decisions more-so than the quality of the API or the games they are buying.
Having a DirectX implimentation for Linux could generally be a GOOD THING. There are many people who only keep Windows around for games.
I'm wondering if Microsoft will try to put a stop to this before it gets too far. But they've yet to (as far as I know) take action against Wine, so maybe they know fighting the beast head on will only make it stronger.
Here's to hope.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
You have a valid point. However, as a
There are three other points that I'd like to bring up that support my belief that running Windows apps in a Linux environment is overall a good thing.
1) From the users' point of view, the benefit of backward-compatibility (yes, windows is backward.
2) From the developer's point of view, this means that they can herald their Windows software as being able to run perfectly fine in Windows as well as Linux. This provides a really good stepping stone for Windows software houses to easily switch over to Linux if they decide they're ready.
One particular thing that makes it even easier is the development of winelib. winelib lets developers simply recompile their existing Win32 code (perhaps with a few minor modifications) so that it can run *natively* on Linux. If ever they decide to toss out Win32 support completely, it would take some major rewriting of the program, but with winelib, this step isn't really neccessary. By the time they get around to their next major software product, it might be programmed to run in *NIX environments from the ground up.
3) What do you think would be the result if the core of the Linux community decided to lock themselves into only running native applications as you suggest? I think at least one of the results would be that the Linux community as a whole would eventually have the stereotype of being a closed group of zealous stalwarts. (Think of the current Mac user stereotype, or those who still use OS/2, or who haven't yet replaced their Amigas.) I mean, we have those already (as your post proves) but the thing that makes Linux, nay, the entire Unix philosophy so powerful is its flexibility. Once in awhile, curious people ask me what Linux can do [as opposed to Windows] and I always answer them, telling them nothing less than what I firmly believe: "Anything you want it to."
Without that flexibility, Linux would simply be replaced by something else and be written into the history books as some Fin's college project that happened to have a small cult following.
So you see, non-native application support is not about always trying to keep up with Microsoft so that we can run the latest Windows apps too, it's much more for the benefit of the software developers and users; to provide them with a very realistic stepping stone while they make the transition from Windows to Linux, should they want to do so.
By the way, I'm curious whether or not you have an opinion on the Linux binary compatability feature in FreeBSD.
They already have a patch to wine that I tried quite some time ago. The American McGee Alice demo works just as well under Linux as Windows. (Unfortunately on both systems it crashes.) I haven't tried any other games, but they already have a bit of work done, so I wouldn't call it vaporware.
There are millions of apps written for Win32. Microsoft's market exists primarily because of backwards compatibility. MS is never going to do anything that would make their really big customers angry either. There are a lot of custom apps that big companies have written that work fine for them and don't need to be updated. When the Win64 api comes out there will be extremely few people using it, and it will support Win32. Thus anything that will be released in the next few years for the mass market will use Win32.
Look at games until about 5 years ago they still were mostly written for DOS. It will take years before the game companies switch to anything which isn't compatible with Windows 98 and we can be compatible with it rather easily.
Actually, TransGaming has already integrated their DirectDraw patches back into the Wine cvs tree. With the latest release of Wine and the TransGaming patches, I can run Starcraft, Halflife, Diablo II (cracked to remove incompatible copy protection), and Alice. That's hardly vaporware. They've made huge progress in only a few months.
That pinball game that comes with Win2K is kind of cool, though.
Slashdot: Open Source, Closed Minds.
One way to handle this would be to pull a Microsoft on Microsoft. Emulate (embrace) DirectX and then extend its functionality in a way that appeals to game developers. Perhaps some easy to use calls that tie more directly into Linux, for improved speed. Developers still get to code to only one API, but they also have an opportunity to use one or two "special" calls to improve performance under Linux.
Over the course of time, as more and more of these special functions are added, developers will find that they are doing more and more stuff that is specific to Linux. Not because they have to, but because it improves performance and gives them a higher framerate in the Linux benchmarks.
In the fullness of time, they might find themselves stepping entirely away from DirectX on Linux and moving to the GNU DirectLinux API. Purely for performance reasons, of course, and because they've already got enough Linux-specific code that this is just one more small step.
From there it's only a short step to coding a port entirely for Linux.
Companies are notoriously short sighted. Appealing to them to make a radical change because it will benefit them in the long term is a pointless endeavor. Instead, give them 50 small changes, each with definite short term benefits, that when taken together arrive at the same place as the one radical change.