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WineX 2.0
ZaMoose writes "Looks like Transgaming has released version 2.0 of WineX (with full support for Jedi Knight II and initial 3D sound support. Joy!) Prepackaged .debs and .rpms are available only to subscribers, but you can always just download and compile it yourself (you just won't get the nifty SafeDisk workarounds/InstallShield proprietary stuff)."
Hear, hear. Also, buy games for Linux from people who go out on a limb to develop them. I haven't heard of any of them threatening lawsuits under the DMCA, and you know they appreciate your business because we can all use something to eat from time to time.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Does anyone know if wineX will support CS 1.4/steam? I have tested the latested wineX cvs and latest wine cvs and can not get it to work.CS is the most popular online fps and it would suck if linux could no longer support it.
"The poet presents his thoughts festively, on the carriage of rhythm; usually because they could not walk" Nietzsche
if anyone is anything like me, then youre curious of benchmarks... more specifically, youre curious of benchmarks of the same game, on the same machine, between a native windows (2000, in my case) vs wineX comparison... one of the major things keeping me from putting linux on my main box is the game compatibility, and i want to know if the games that im already getting barely-playable FPSs on will improve, stay the same, or drop below playability... so, does anyone have any sort of comparison benchmarks of anything like this?...
Yes and no.
If you're making a fully 2d game.. (or a not so featureful 3d game)sure it's no problem. The big problem now days is the "new and extended" 3d support that comes with DirectX.
Sure OpenGL works, but it's extremely lacking in comparison to DirectX. ( I would much rather have it the other way around -- but that's just not the truth unfortunately.) What the gaming industry really needs is either an updated version of OpenGL, or perhaps a new 3d standard that all can abide by.
arcane for life
You forgot at least one thing...
OS X.
Apple users are now, for the most part, Unix users, too. And there are games that they may want to run that won't work under VirtualPC that just might work under WINE or WineX. Apple users don't have the luxury of being able to install a MS OS natively.
Of course it SHOULD be, but us [not-so-rich] programmers dont have the leverage/capital it requires to push developers to different platforms.
;)
The efforts put forth by projects like Wine show that these games have the ability to run and run VERY well on Linux/Unix/etc. It also shows that Linux is not just for business and servers anymore but for recreation and peoples' home offices. Maybe because of this new Wine release 20 people will notice that games can run on Linux with just a little bit of work and they'll notice that *nix is a bit more flexible than they thought. If 1 out of those 20 people give it a shot and like it, word of mouth could have 2 people with it, and it slows spreads in that manner (hopefully).
And hey, even if that doesnt work, you can always dual boot
Lost in this release is a far more important announcement. Transgaming is throwing support behind a fork of Wine: ReWind!
Seems, they take issue with the recent change of licenses for Wine. They are actively encouraging developers to contribute to there X11 fork. Understanding that a vote of the developers leaves there branch in the minority, they are touting cash incentives and the some of there 2.0 source as bait.
The war of the branches begins...
For all those who believe that hybrid proprietary and free software business models might be stable, please compare:
U C: www.transgaming.com/businessmodel.php+transgaming+ subscriber+aladdin&hl=en
http://216.239.35.100/search?q=cache:9MjQn79wp0
with
http://www.transgaming.com/businessmodel.php
Notice how all the talk about eventually returning the semi-proprietary code to the community has been unceremoniously removed...
It saddens me that they have apparently abandoned the idea of eventually freeing their customers and letting them share freely with their friends once they have a stable subscriber base sufficient to pay the expenses.
Loki went out of business, not enough demand.
Vmware runs most things, if it had DirectX support, team this up with a pre-empt/blah new fangled linux kernel, and you dont NEED to port games.
I bet 5 years from know you will be able to emulate any OS, just run it under linux. So far I have Mac OS 9, VMWare, Amiga, Atari, N64, PS, DreamCast, Mame, C64, etc...
What Transgaming is doing is pretty cool as an interim solution for gamers. On the other hand, I hope to see more Free Software community-developed games in the future. There certainly is an incentive to create free games: they're fun to write and fun to play! One of these days I trust there'll be a really killer Open Source multiplayer game that everyone will enjoy and at no cost. Various libraries like SDL and CrystalSpace are making headway. It's going to be exciting as they mature.
It's a question of motivation of game writers.
Scenario A.
Goal: I want to popularize the platform XYZ, because I think it's great. I want more people to use platform XYZ.
Action: Let's implement some game for XYZ.
Scenario B.
Goal: I have a great idea for new game. I want more people to play my game.
Action: Let's choose some platform that (a) allows to write games easily and (b) delivers games to broad audience.
Rhetorical questions:
- Which scenario delivers better games?
- What is the platform of choice in scenario B?
actually if you read the history things that came up when loki died, it was from multiple reasons 1) believing the market would constantly grow (and thus loki grew, while the market stayed around the same size), 2) internet bubble popped and VCs wanted to pull out. The ceo or leader or whatever became curropt (buying new house when not enough money to pay employes).
While Loki was in a screwed position from 1 and 2, its 3 that killed the moral and the compony entirely.
Only dead fish swim with the stream...
Out of curiosity last night, I attempted an install of M$ office under both winex2 and crossover (not crossover office--just the plugin version); the crossover version of wine aborted the install about a third of the way through copying files, which tells me there's some pretty important fixes in the crossover office that didn't make it into the plugin version of their quite excellent product. WineX, on the other hand, fully installed office, but there were a lot of problems with it; no pixmaps on the buttons for instance, fonts sucked a fat one (might not have been winex's fault, i didn't investigate my options there, although i do have plenty of good fonts installed that work fine with other apps on my system), and a few other assorted problems. i think outlook crapped out as well, and i really only tested Word.
all things considered however, i think both ventures are worth places to spend my money, if only to support open-source software.