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Transgaming's WineX 2.1 - Supports WarCraft 3
friedmud writes "WineX 2.1 is out on the street, get it at transgaming.com. It boasts, among other things, full support for Warcraft III. Other games now included are: Grand Theft Auto 3, Civilization III, and Black and White. Check the press release for further info. And, if you haven't already, go here to get an account... It is definitely worth it." I've been rebooting my laptop to
WC3, so maybe I'll give this a shot. I bought a subscription originally
in part due to their misleading Sims compatibility claims, but this looks like
it finally is truly emulating top windows games.
I had been mucking with the main wine tree after reading in the Wine Weeky News that people were getting WarCraft III working under wine, but I have only been able to install and start the menu screen, which comes up MINIMIZED. Damn!
But now WineX supports my 2 favourite games: Black & White and Warcraft III I can uninstall Windows 2k!
I already have MS Word & Excel installed into a no-windows wine installation which works very well.
Man, wine is starting to get really freaking good! I just wish the Wine developers and Codeweavers could get along & share code more freely with Transgaming, but they have some differing ideas about licensing. Oh well. I'm gonna save up and get that WineX. BABY!
Linux has less than a 2% desktop share. Unless Linux gamers are willing to pay $500 for a native game, it's a money losing opportunity.
The only companies who will release Linux games are those that really really rely on geek support (like Id)
But on the bright side, just about everyone has come around to the conclusion that releasing Linux servers for their games is a good idea.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
TransGaming has done some wonderful things. Their technology is truly helping Linux to be useful in more situations by allowing Windows games to run.
It's really too bad that TransGaming is not a good citizen of the open source community. Their decision to keep their ActiveX libraries proprietary while happily making use of other people's work (the base Wine code) perfectly exhibits the "what's yours is mine, and what's mine is mine" abuse that BSD-like licenses can allow. And TransGaming's decision to fork the Wine code when it went LGPL is another example of this company's lack of respect for the cooperation that makes open source projects work.
I'll support CodeWeavers but I won't support TransGaming. When you take from Wine, you give back to Wine, dammit. A balkanized Wine might provide short-term profit to TransGaming, but it delays that day in the future when all Windows software runs seamlessly on Linux.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
OTOH, Transgaming and WineHQ have been trying to figure out ways so that TG can give kickbacks to WineHQ in terms of code.
Karma whorin' since 1999
I'm at a loss here. WarCraft III? After the bnetd business? Hmm. Blizzard must be like Sony: we only boycott them between product releases.
It's a bit sad. I guess this in some way shows how we will never win against corporations. The average person here seems to hold on to his principles until shown a new toy.
I have little faith in humanity; so it's not like I am disapointed, but I can't help but being mad at those who can't seem to stick to their own principles for more than a few minutes...
In my opinion, Scientology is a cult you should avoid.
What's this "us"? Blizzard hasn't screwed me. Maybe they screwed you. But don't speak for me.
I just wish the same level of effort went in to providing compatibility for Windows apps that are desperately needed on the Linux desktop -- like Quicken.
Games are important, but Linux is still seriously lacking in the finance department. Getting Quicken to work it would do more for long term usability of the OS.
Yes, but windows license excludes that option. You can't connect to a remote Windows machine without owning another license of that system.
But I don't know how is with the clause that only MS poduct is allowed to connect to remote windows desktop, as I know it's already included in th license
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
...emulating top windows games...
#Wine Is Not an Emulator.
s/emulating/supporting
#If Wine gets good enough, we won't even have
#to call them windows games anymore.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
... And we all saw what happened to OS/2, which ran many MS Windows 3.1 applications better than Windows 3.1 did.
But Linux is not about gaming; gamers end up selling their souls one way or another, so why worry?
Counter-Strike still doesn't work. Winex 2.1 just came out and to my surprise... Hrm still no support for Valve's anti-cheat... It's been now 8 weeks since winex has been broken (not to mention voice comm still doesn't work) and from what I hear 1.6 is coming down the pipes too.
Actually in retro-spect it'd be cheaper to grab a Windows 98 OEM CD off of Ebay for $50 bucks and install it on a seperate partition. Windows 98 is no where near as stable as NT but it's just as buggy as running winex + CS. Plus you don't need to worry about VALVE's anti-cheat or low frame rates. Whenever Winex gamer trolls keep posting phoney FPS I chuckle. YOU AREN"T FUCKING RUNNING COUNTER STRIKE IN NATIVE MODE>>> IE WHATEVER THE FUCKING FPS YOU GET WITH WINEX + CS WILL BE HALF OF WHAT YOU GET IN WINDOWS>. You are using Windows API stupid... It saddens me when home linux kiddie users don't comprehend this.
The hero system really rewards micromanagement
In my opinion, RTS's that support micromanagment are RTS's that are "twitchy". Strategy shouldn't be who can use the mouse fastest and knows all the hotkeys and can kill you in 10 minutes cause they know the build order. It should be about careful planning, not "twitch tactics".
I've been rebooting my laptop to WC3, so maybe I'll give this a shot. I bought a subscription originally in part due to their misleading Sims compatibility claims, but this looks like it finally is truly emulating top windows games.
Uh, no, it is not emulating any Windows games. It is providing a compatibility layer so that the Windows games can run under Linux.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
I should lighten up. I know it. And I know you're not saying Linux has more games developed for it than the Macintosh...but I so don't find the comment above funny for two reasons.
1. We Mac users have been on the short end of the gaming stick since the mid-90s and although things have improved tremendously and will likely improve even more, we will almost certainly never have complete pairity with the Windows world...and that truth still stings occasionally.
2. I've grown tired of Linux users acting like the latest distro is taking over the world, challenging Redmond for the desktop, gaining marketshare hand over fist, is way more relevant and popular than the Macintosh...so much so that Macintosh influence, relevance and desktop presence is openly ridiculed...when the real story is that while Linux is a phenomenon like no other, it has virtually no desktop presence at all and the development of commercial applications for it is virtually nil. Marketshare in the "NAT box in my coat closet", absolutely. Marketshare for "Web server for my mid-sized company," sure. "Render farm for a movie FX house," yes indeed. CL-based, opensource, free sysadmin widgets developed for it? Tons. But top-shelf games developed for it? Please.
Note: All flames must include 3 URLs of commercial, million-copy-selling games available for Linux and not for the Macintosh. Emulation doesn't count for either camp.
And by the way I've been playing WC3 since the day it came out right on the OS of my choice without rebooting anything. So there.
*whew*
Going to try to relax now.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
You have an interesting point. About the only thing that tempts me to use Windows 2000 anymore is the beauty of MOH:AA (That game is just too great). Linux support for it is pretty sucky under Wine.
We all knoew that the OpenGL implementations in Linux are excellent. What is holding developers back from spending a little extra time to release unsupported Linux binaries? It is kinda disappointing. A week or two of coding can produce more game sales. What is the problem here?
I like the concepts of Wine and will probably subscribe to Transgaming for WineX, but what does this leave use with? It is just a temporary alternative to proper Linux binaries that run correctly. I don't want Wine to become an excuse for the developers lack of interest in multi-platform software.
Wine is nice, but it will never be as good as the real thing, unless we have more acess to the native Windows code. Microsoft knows this, and it is what makes it really difficult to develop proper libraries for running Windows software.
What I would really like to see is a RTS (and shouldn't these games be called Real Time Tactics, the scale is a bit small to really be called "strategy" in the military sense) of WWII's Pacific theater...
The difference between strategy and tactics has little to do with scale. They are very different concepts.
Strategy is a game plan. It's how you intend to accomplish some goal. (i.e. I plan to use airstrikes to cripple my opponent's tanks before sending in the ground troops) Strategy doesn't necessarily imply that it is military either. Business has strategy. Sports have strategy. Strategy is just an approach to a problem.
Tactics on the other hand are the actual methods used to carry out a strategy. (i.e. The F-15's fly X route through the mountains dropping their bombs in Y location) Tactics are the details. The precise method by which you carry out each part of the overall strategy.
Strategy and Tactics go hand in hand but scale really isn't what defines them. They are separate parts of a solution process. Calling the games RTS games is fine and correct, even though every game has strategy to some degree. Even kill-everything games like Quake have strategy, just not especially deep ones most of the time.
There will be none. Blizzard declared on numerous occasions that they won't allow any third party to port it and they don't plan to port it themselves "at this time" - which is an euphemism for "ever".
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
And linux is not an operating system, it's a kernel. So what? Do we have to be that pedantic?
It is suspected (but not known) that this authorization is somehow conditional upon using tools licensed by DVDCCA. But DVDCCA also apparently have severe technical restrictions they impose upon their licensees, such as obeying region restrictions, macrovision-encoding video output, and not haveing firewire outputs. So you really think that using a DVD player application in an alien environment (a Windows emulator) is going to be within those restrictions? If so, then your faith is strong indeed!
There is little reason to believe that using PowerDVD is more legal than using applications that use libcss.
The only thing that makes it legal or not, is whether or not you have their permission. In the end, their agreements with third parties such a DVDCCA or the company who made a computer application or an electronic appliance for watching DVDs, are irrelevant. What matters is what agreement that have with you. And you don't have a single scrap of evidence to support any claim that you have permission to watch any DVD that you own. The most obvious evidence -- that they sold you the DVD and therefore you obviously have implicit permission -- has already been shot down by Kaplan.
Effort expended on playing DVDs "legally", is a waste of time. As long as DMCA remains law and DVDs do not come with EULAs that give people permission to watch or explain conditions under which they have permission to watch, it will never be provably legal for anyone to watch a CSS-protected DVD. It doesn't matter if you use xine, PowerDVD, or a Sony DVD player.
If you are "constantly trying to piss off the various copyright holder coorporations" then you have to give up DVDs altogether. Because if they really do get pissed off at you, they can nail you on this technicality. And the 2600 case proves they are willing.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
It's been just over three months since the last major release. Coincidence?
If there were a grand conspiracy, you could thwart them by paying $20 and subscribing for 4 months, after which you could then bellow a menacing laugh.
Has anyone that supports WINE actually given a thought to what happens if this is the way things go? Let me once again state the blindingly obvious timeline that WINE leads us to
1) WINE improves its windows emulation, more games work under Linux than ever before.
2) Development of native Linux games is pretty much destroyed by WINE emulation because the few porting companies struggling to survive at this early stage cannot hope to keep up with dozens of well funded windows development companies.
3) Emulated games become the norm. By definition they are slower than native, less reliable, but we can sacrifice reliability because we can play games NOW!
4) As Linux games are all now emulated, sales figures for Linux games are all showing up as Windows sales. Linux sales figures effectively become zero, giving no incentive for any software company to produce native ports.
5) Microsoft, who though evil are damned clever with their lawyers, finds a nice little legal way to kill WINE, through a patent issue, or some DMCA clone or who knows. WINE development stops.
6) New games stop running on Linux because WINE cant support DirectX 12 or whatever the latest version is. Nobody thinks to worry about it in the game development companies because Linux sales figures are zero (see 4).
7) Linux gets less games that will work. The companies that busted their balls trying to make native Linux gaming viable, companies like Tux Games, Loki and LGP have all long since gone.
8) With nobody left to support Linux gaming, Linux gaming dies.
9) With no new games, Linux desktop becomes less attractive and people happily move back to windows so they can play the latest games NOW (see 3)
10) Bill Gates sends thankyou letter to Transgaming and other WINE supporters.
Any questions?
Sure I am a biased party. That is because by founding Tux Games, I have put my money where my mouth is and bet the whole house on native Linux because unlike Transgaming, I BELIEVE THAT LINUX DOES NOT NEED TO USE WINDOWS AS A CRUTCH AND THAT LINUX IS A DAMNED FINE OS IN ITS OWN RIGHT..
Note: Tux Games has been offered time and again, the opportunity to carry Transgaming games. We are well aware that if we did so, we would make more money, but we STRONGLY believe in the above timeline threat, and so we put our morals where our mouth is and stand by Linux native. Want to do the same? Then dont inflate Windows sales figures, support those that are working all hours to bring YOU new products.
Tux Games. Your complete source for native Linux games.