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Transgaming and Transitive E3 Announcement
An Anonymous Coward writes: "Breaking news today on the Transgaming website. Today they announced an alliance with the company Transitive. Here's their headline: 'Los Angeles, Ca. TransGaming Technologies, in partnership with Transitive Technologies, unveil their game-porting technology that can allow Windows-based x86 games to be simultaneously released onto multiple platforms. These include the Sony PlayStation 2, Apple Mac OS, set-top boxes, PDAs and wireless devices.'"
There's more info on the Transgaming Site. Since Transgaming has ported The Sims already, it's a lot easier to believe that this isn't just vapor.
Now I can play Ultima Underworld on my cellphone!
I'm almost certain I'm not cranky at you...
How's he anonymous if you post his email address?
Desperation is a stinky cologne
it works on existing hardware and a MIPS/ARM cpu has the same power saving or better than the crusoe...
so the question is why do custom hardware ?
I've spoken to them and they seem like a nice manchester company (-;
regards
john jones
At first glance I thought the topic said Transgaming and Transvestites. Thats one untouched genre I hope stays untouched.
I'm not sure that Cool toilets would look good on the Sharp Zaurus =]
... I can get that pretty blue screen on my PS2 that I've been hearing such good things about from my Windows-using friends.
::dreamy sigh::
"PC Load Letter? What the $@#% does that mean?!"
is this going to be an emulator of sorts that translates the machine instructions to each of the devices? or is this a much simpler thing?
erichj
How are they supposed to do 3D stuff on a PDA? Will it feel like Q3A on a P200MMX with a Voodoo2, or better/worse?
For one, I'd prefer see them continue on their WineX development. But I can understand, if they need the money, that they'd join such a venture.
Here's why: Suppose they have everything in their kit that they need to support all Windows games written for Windows versions from 95-XP. Great, right? That means that with just a little bit of effort, a vendor can release a Linux version of a game, giving us more games to play with. However, here's the downside: If by writing for Windows you can target both Windows and Linux (and whichever other platforms they support), then why would anyone write any native Linux programs? Then, in XP+1, Microsoft introduces major breakage into their API, such that it's a long time to get it working correctly with Trans{gaming,itive}'s kit. That means that potentially, there won't be any new Linux releases until they can get it fixed. And if they can't... Well, consider OS/2.
Any thoughts?
--
Runnin' around, robbin' banks all whacked on the Scooby Snacks...
I'd just like to be able to buy The Sims for Linux for less than $70US. Mandrake (exclusively) sells it bundled with their Linux distribution, but has no standalone version.
Considering that folks can get it (on Win32) for $50US, there's little incentive to buy it except "for the good of the company". After I found out what Loki did with my money, I'm still a bit jaded about paying a premium for Linux games...
Looks like someone got caught up in press release hype.
Of course The Sims was easy to port - it's 2D.
From reading the company website, their technology is indeed slightly novel: they've reimplemented the win32 API functions for other platforms. On top of that, they've reimplemented the DirectX API as well.
But for 3d games, I don't think this will be at all trivial for porting... the PS2's architecture is extremely different to that of a PC, and just blindly interpreting Direct3d Immediate Mode calls ("draw this triangle here") will surely not take advantage of the PS/2 architecture at all.
Transitive's angle is that companies can just write their game for the win32 platform, talking to all the native APIs, and Transitive's APIs will take care of porting to other platforms.
It's not that simple. It's far more important that game developers write their game for portability from the ground up, with an abstraction layer, for OS-specific stuff like win32 API calls, at the lowest levels.
But 3d engines are not going to port well just by having Direct3d calls translated, especially for platforms that are as odd as the PS2. In that case, it's going to take a non-trivial adaptation of the graphics engine for that platform.
For example, I enjoyed Baldur's Gate II on Windows 98SE. I don't know that I'd enjoy it on a PDA without some heavy alterations that a crossplatform toolkit won't be able to handle -- changing the resolution, shrinking the binary footprint, or matching the color depth appropriately come to mind. Can a game designed for a PDA interest people on a Playstation 2?
It's a cool idea, and maybe where it will really shine is in developing things like MMORPG clients, but I guess my point is that programming for compatibility means that you (probably) won't get the most out of any platform you're designing for... and games are the one thing we expect to push our hardware to its limit these days.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Okay, this is totally off topic, but I just read over at Gamasutra that Max Payne, one of the flagship games for WineX 2.0, was sold to Take-Two Interactive for $34-million dollars.
...trannies.
I thought TransGaming's focus was on making games portable over different operating systems, yet with this announcement, they say nothing of this new portability layer functioning on Linux at all. They specify "PC"/Mac/PS2...now whether PC includes *nix is up to interpretation...
But as usual, all press releases are sketchy on details, made to sound good by making things generalized.
At least not with respect to the PS2. The architecture of that machine is quite simply nowhere near what a Win32 programmer expects.
Input and Sound are handled on the IPU, which is essentially an embedded PS1.
The machine has an insanely low amount of ram for textures that the only way to actually use many is to either compress the hell out of them or use the insanely high memory bandwitdth to contunually load new textures into memory.
The EE / GS (Emotion Engine and Graphics Synth), and the VU0 and VU1 units handle data much differently then a standard 'Wintel' box.
And all of that is just considering the differences between the PS2 and a PC!
Using a well written library, it may be possible to get something to compile. However, all of the games art content (Model geometry and textures) would have to be re-worked signifigantly. Getting a game to run on multiple consoles is a bit more involved then simply switching compilers.
Further complicating this is that for this to work, you will have to write your game with the proposed game engine in mind. This means that if you want to have a simultaneous release, you will have to stick to the lowest common denominator among the selected machines. For some simpler titles, this will be fine, but no game that wants to push a machine to its limits can really get much use from this sort of technology.
END COMMUNICATION
When TransGaming came to us (MandrakeSoft), they said they could port The Sims in less than two months. I must admit I was skeptical at first, but they delivered the merchandise, and we made the Mandrake Gaming Edition, which had great reviews.
;-)
When they said they would port Max Payne in the same amount of time, they delivered the merchandise.
Now, when they say they can port to other platforms, I would bet my last dollar they will deliver the merchandise again.
Great to see some fellow Canadians have success!
basically transitives can emulate x86 on MIPS/ARM/(custom hardware) they then run linux (x86) which has wine installed(transgaming wineX to be exact) which runs the sims
so to get the sims running they did sweet FA
transitives had to doo all the work of makeing an x86(screwed) run on a MIPS (nice)
regards
john jones
Makes a difference what the license is. Why not code some linux games. Windows programs are full of surprises because of the way they are coded and a lot of the code is crap. If you want to use this code just realize it is not GPL and make sure you separate it from you GPL code but I see big trouble with this mixing GPL and Non GPL code. A couple of links http://www.gnu.org and http://www.stallman.org.
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they emulate a whole system so they dont care
see my post above
sheesh
read the release
Obviously, we will need to handle games using this technology with care. :)
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
congrats
regards
john jones
Java presents a Virtual machine which is NOT hardware
.net
they emulate the whole PC
while java is just a common runtime like
regards
john jones
Are you guys going to release The Sims for Linux as a standalone? Right now at $70US, the only way to get it (Mandrake Gaming Edition) is priced $20 more than the Win32 version.
I'm sure this is awfully discouraging to would-be purchasers. (like me)
If you purchase the Mandrake 8.1 Gaming Edition with The Sims (which I, unfortunately, did do, and it was rather a waste of $80), and you install it, you will receive a copy of TransGaming's WineX in addition. Once you have done the installation, you can start looking around at the setup.
The data is put in /usr/lib/the_sims (by default), which has, in addition to the UserData directories, .the_sims/, simsdir/, and winex_sims/ /usr/lib/the_sims/simsdir/ includes simsinstall.exe (a Windows executable), two .dlls for running, and the default game data. /usr/lib/winex_sims/ includes the normal bin/ and lib/ -- lib/ has all the normal wine libraries (plus, it looks like, some winex-specific and maybe Sims-specific libraries), and bin/ has the normal wine/winex launchers.
The shell script which launches the game (/usr/bin/the_sims) is a bash shell script which sets up the environment to reference that specific winex install, sets a few bits related to it, and runs wine /usr/lib/the_sims/.the_sims/c_drive/simsdir/S ims.exe
From public statements (sorry, no reference handy), it appears that Transgaming had the Windows source -- but rebuilt the binaries to work around some Wine/WineX-specific issues. But they're still Windows binaries and Windows libraries.
PLEASE stop perpetuating the myth that TransGaming is doing "native ports". They are customizing the executable to work better in their existing emulation[*] environment, and the environment to mesh better with the Windows executable.
If TransGaming were truly doing native ports, they would not need a second company to emulate the x86 processor for their technology to work on non-x86 platforms!
(I'll point out that most Windows games are memory and processor hogs, and many of the platforms they mention, such as PDAs, set top boxes (devices on which I develop), PDAs, and wireless devices are very memory and CPU limited. Not to mention that the UIs usually need redesigning, and the binaries heavy optimization just to fit into the tiny memory and screen footprints these devices have.)
[*] I did not say that WINE is an emulator, I said that the environment (in toto) emulates the Windows environment from the perspective of the Windows executable being run.
But for 3d games, I don't think this will be at all trivial for porting... the PS2's architecture is extremely different to that of a PC, and just blindly interpreting Direct3d Immediate Mode calls ("draw this triangle here") will surely not take advantage of the PS/2 architecture at all.
I thought that too, but after looking around the Playstation2 section at CompUSA I noticed that there are a LOT of PC games (Half-life, No One Lives Forever, Baldurs Gate to name a few) that have been ported to the PS2. That makes me think that perhaps the hardware, or at least the PS2 API, is that different from a PC.
Granted, I've never DONE a porting to the PS2 but it seems like a lot of companies have.
"For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
Has anyone tried the darn thing yet? How is the performance? Will we see counter-strike on Linux soon? What about DirectX issue...I'm sure Microsoft isn't going to be too pleased to see DirectX on Linux.
-----
One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
I took a quick look at the Transitive site, and it seems like they have some interesting technology. Essentially what they do is transcode binary executables from one CPU architecture to another. So you take an x86 binary, run it through their "Dynamite" product and out pops a PowerPC binary.
This is all well and good, but I would have thought this is only a tiny step for most games. Many games make extensive use of platform-specific libraries to provide graphics, sound and IO support. I would imagine that running (for example) the DirectX libraries through Transitive Dynamite would be a technically interesting but legally difficult exercise. Are Microsoft really going to allow Transgaming to port their libraries to PS2?
And this doesn't even touch on the hardware specification problems. How would a game that expects at least an SVGA screen really cope with trying to run on a Palm? Isn't the PS2 architecture sufficiently different from the PC architecture to cause major problems?
These issues can be addressed (presumably that's whay the Transgaming press release says it reduces porting time from "2 years" down to "2 months") but it seems that binary porting is actually only a small aprt of the problem. You would have to heavily rebuild the source code anyway, so why not just cross-compile it straight to the target platform?
Perhaps I am missing something. Can anyone enlighten me?
Sailing over the event horizon
According to:? query =port
http://foldoc.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi
2. To translate software to run on a different system or the results of doing so. See portability.
I think Transgaming fits that definition.
They did port the DirectX layer, then tweaked the source so it would run fine on Linux.
OK, it's not "native", but I haven't seen the word "native" in the article, on in timothy's comment.
While that approach will certantly enable one to easily port from an older piece of hardware to a newer piece, it does not work both ways. Especially if, for example, a game that uses 32 megs of texture memory is ported to a machine / platform that can only provide 8 megs of texture memory.
Compression technologies aside, its not that easy to get 8 megs RAM to emulate 32 megs of RAM.
END COMMUNICATION
This is already possible if the developers use SDL/OpenGL or CrystalSpace. I don't think either will support PS2 (unless you use the linux kit) and handheld support is probably shaky. But they're open source and cross-platform!
"a quote" -me
This guy seems to think that TransGaming is lying:
t heoddone33
http://icculus.org/cgi-bin/finger/finger.pl?user=
http://www.transgaming.com/gamepage.php?gameid=167 x
4 09
There is a native port of this game and yet they still have this up. This is why transgaming won't see a dime from me.
Native port available here.
ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/wolf/linu
http://www.transgaming.com/gamepage.php?gameid=
What is this game doing here. This game was ported natively
Native port here:http://www.lokigames.com/products/tribes2/
I didn't go through the whole list but I'm sure there are a few more they have listed there that have been ported and work natively. I just get tired reading that someone tries running quake3 with wine or winex when id has been releasing linux binaries for a long time.
See http://www.transgaming.com/gamefaq.php?gameid=9
not sure if you have to be a member to access that page
I don't know if that means it's using a wine executable to run a windows binary, or if they used libwine to compile a native linux binary, I don't own a Linux version of the Sims.
You should also note that the Windows version of The Sims does not run under winex at this point.
Furthermore, I'd like to point out to all the naysayers that Transgaming has come through with EVERYTHING they said they would just as quickly as they said they would, and they have also contributed a great deal of code back to the original wine project, and their code(minus safedisc) is available from sourceforge.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Loki was porting Deus Ex although it was never released. It was held up waiting on some tools, and eventually died along with Loki. perhaps Ion Storm will finish it, but probably not.
Every other message on the RtCF Transgaming Forum expresses a similar opinion. See my post about why I use wineX instead of the Linux binaries.
Basically wineX works for me, the binaries don't. wineX has support and is continually impoving, the binaries don't and aren't.
Saying that you won't pay $5 a month for Transgaming membership because too many users vote for a game you don't think should be officially supported is silly. Any work Transgaming would do to improve RtCW would certainly improve wineX performance for other games as well.
For christsakes, RtCW isn't even offically supported (and probably never will be because it will never pass the monthly vote). That doesn't matter to me though because it already works fine with wineX 2.0
XJS*C4JDBQADN1.NSBN3*2IDNEN*GTUBE-STANDARD-ANTI-U
Jedi Knight 2, Max Payne, Soldier of Fortune 2 Full Version, Half Life, HL Counter Strike, Sacrifice, Quake 2.
Quake 2 had linux binaries available, but they were intended for a 3dfx chipset. Documentation on getting Q2 to run on OpenGL (Nvidia) hardware is SO hard to come by, that I just said screw it and installed under WineX. Works as well as under windows natively. SoF2 was released YESTERDAY, a cutting edge title that runs under linux thanks to winex (issues to install, see transgaming forum's for details).
I love WineX. I believe the the big money payoff for this announcement is the Mac folks comsumer base. They wait a looong time for a meager trickle of PC games, this could work to making main stream games available to them upon initial release. Linux is not mentioned in the press release, but I'm assuming that by x86 PC, Linux is the main target, as windows needs no help to run native apps. The optimistic result of this (if the tech pans out) is that developer's are so happy to have a multi-platform release that they adopt open design standards (sound and graphics) as opposed to DirectX API, to keep their titles available for all platform's via the WineX environment. That's a step closer to open standard games which require no WineX. As has been posted, there are open standards (SDL, etc) that could be used now to accomplish this, but what we need are baby steps that result in sales $$$ to publisher's as a result of the broad cross platform market.
The list should continue to list which games work with WineX, even if they've been ported.
For example, you list Tribes2, but LokiGames has gone under and cannot support the game anymore (and my copy breaks pretty frequently). There's a bit of worry expressed on the GarageGames.com forum about a new patch to be released this summer by Sierra for the Windows version that it may break the existing Linux binaries that try to use patched servers if Sierra decides not to update the Linux client as well (which seems pretty likely).
This is a dangerous idea. If what TransGaming achieves is true portability of Windows game source code to Linux and console platforms, and if game developers take to it, it makes Windows the reference platform for game development. Is this where we want to be? Specifically, is this where we want to be in another couple of years when Microsoft suddenly starts adding patented "features" to DirectX that can't be brought into the TransGaming WINE environment?
Write your games using truly open standards like OpenGL, and then port to Windows.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
A game is a game is a game. If you bought a license to play, say, "Tribes" back when the game was first released for Windows, back when all you ran was Windows; why should you have to pay yet again to run the Linux version? You already own a license to use the data and with WineX, you can exercise your right to run the game under your existing Windows license. That's what Transgaming enables as far as I'm concerned. WineX enables users who wouldn't switch to Linux, for fear of having to repurchase their software, to run that software under Linux without repurchasing. Users are always amenable to conserving limitted cash resources.
The evidence is in the Transgaming forums. I read of an ever-growing number of WineX users who are attempting to run older games, which is why you read references to games already ported to Linux. People own them already as Windows binary, and want to play them. They try them, and they report back the results. This in no way harms the market for native ports. Native ports are for new purchasers!
Another aspect of this are the vast number of educational games used in public schools. Public schools generally don't have the cash to purchase the latest version of this or that, or to purchase a Linux version of an educational game; if such existed! However, if Transgaming put emphasis on enabling these games under WineX, then public schools would have an added incentive to switch away from Windows, thereby denying Microsoft license fees that fund development of Windows. Eventually this could equalize the OS market. I doubt, however, that this is an aim Transgaming will undertake, sadly so.
Finally, WineX represents the first step in the three-E strategy. Transgaming is embracing the Windows API. If enough games can work under Linux that Linux becomes a viable and then dominant gaming platform for home and education; then Transgaming can work to extend the DirectX API. The results would be just as predictable as when Microsoft extends the API. Developers to an API follow the dominant platform and the most advanced API. The trick is to become the coequal or dominant platform first. Simple as that.
Embrace. Extend. Extinguish. I say, the sooner the better.
Can we replace the Developers title caption with:
Developers, developers, developers, developers...
http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
Dude's apparently a locomotive, no wonder he can't spell.
From transgamings press-release:
About TransGaming Technologies:
TransGaming Technologies is the dominant provider of software portability solutions for game developers and publishers. TransGaming's unique technology allows games designed for one system to be deployed on multiple platforms - faster, cheaper, and better than anyone else. TransGaming Technologies has recently developed strategic relationships with Electronic Arts, the world's premier game developer and publisher; MandrakeSoft the world's largest retail Linux distributor; and MacroVision, the world's most-used PC copy protection provider. TransGaming has a license to the world's top selling game, Electronic Art's "The Sims" and shipped an optimized Linux version just eight weeks after receiving source code.
My emphasis.
So, transgaming will do their very best to work with "copy protection providers", which interfere with what people want to do with their hardware. yay! Good that I've not given in to the urge of donating money to transgaming. Now I know that I never will neither.
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
Playstation 2?!? HAHAHAA!!! Oh the irony! Now all those people who pimp the PS2, and talk about how lame the xbox is because "its just a pc...", when PS2 is the one that will be able to play windows games!
Or is this April Fool's day..
Don't believe everything you read..
I believe nostrodamus ha predicted the
end of the world and before then a little
bit of a bad acid trip and stupidity like
this.. Now that I think about it,
wasn't most of Stephen King's movies
inspired by acid trips?
Hey you can probably port games to any machine
the problem is, do you need a time warp?
has worked on linux for at least the past year. Read up a little. Even the vanilla implementation of Wine will do it (albeit with a few sound lag issues). Download the transgaming source and compile (or pay for binaries) and give it a spin.
Works fine for me.
As the source of Quake2 has been released, there is now a proper GLX version of Quake2: http://www.icculus.org/quake2/
so just to know the facts, the list of supported games is about 80's impressives games like JK2, MOHAA, Max Payne and so on. Commercial version also include a working installer, don't be fool, this software is just great, and maybe one of the greatest projects that can bring games to our Free OS.
First Java, then
That is not correct, the only things missing from the current CVS is safedisk support and some install-shield code(both because of licensing and with safedisk probably the DMCA as well).
You can see for yourself, download the cvs tree and compile it, use a nocd crack for max payne or aoe and you'll see that they run. (my friend does this)
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
you also have to realize that many companies don't do ports to other platforms because of the fact that they (or the publisher) would be responsible for providing support for that extra platform. This is one reason why you don't see too many linux, or mac games around.
Old news.
Just imagine what a huge amout of damage this can do.
Goodbye native ports...
Goodbye sdl...
Goodbye OpenGL...
Goodbye alternative-gaming-platforms...
Hello directx.
That is pretty sad. .ogg and Linux itself.
You sound almost like Stallman and even more liike a communist. Dont get me wrong, capitalism is also wrong, but you sound luike a philosophy student who tries to make the real world fit his models.
instead of translating the real world into models.
Copyright protection is not bad in and of itselfd.
Linux and Gnu should rather try prove that that it can innovate,. I have been using Linux for a couple of years now, and have hardly seen any massively inovative ideas. Nobody (Normal people) cares whose is better. Just whose is good and first. Just look at
Time to inovate and stop sounding like non-conoformists/rebels.
Nobody likes rebels.
Time to play rugby, shag the hot chick and beat up on the losers.
Live within life, not outside it
PDA? What does that mean? PocketPC or PalmOS? Speak IENglish!
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