Running Windows Games with WineX

GonzoJohn writes "Linux Orbit takes a look at TransGaming Technologies' WineX and puts it through its paces with eight different Windows games. In addition to reviewing: Diablo 2, Starcraft, LinksLS 1998 (Golf Simulation), Dungeon Keeper 2, Populous the Beginning, Black and White, Fallout 2 and Might and Magic 6 under WineX 2.1, we also give you some helpful tips to make your WineX gaming experience as pleasant as possible."

Comments

The key sentence in the whole article

[ObviousGuy]

Of the 8 games that I installed and tried to use with WineX 2.1, only half actually worked.

So, use WineX and take your chances that the game will work (50/50), or dual boot the Windows that came with your computer.

Also, the overhead of WineX must have been pretty serious. I was running Diablo2 and Starcraft on a PII 233 without a hitch.

WineX - Not ready yet

Re:The key sentence in the whole article

[iamplasma]

I'd rather disagree with you there about the installer. Yes, there are some known problems with the installer sometimes hanging at the end (but with the program installed), but I've actually once been forced to use Wine to install (and even run) a program that just wouldn't work under windows. My trusty old Kodak DC50 digital camera refused to install under my windows 98se, though I should admit it was a fairly crusty install at the time. So I installed it using wine, and everything worked fine. Indeed, if I remember correctly, even the program itself wasn't willing to work, and I believe I ended up even extracting the photos off the camera using wine as well.

In any case, while the exact details are hazy, I can assure you that I have encountered circumstances where wine has even run the installer when windows has not, and I've not encountered any problems with installers under wine (though again, I should admit I've only attempted installing a few games). So don't be so quick to insult it, especially for a free program for a free OS to run games that normally require a $200 POS OS to run.

Kind of off topic

[HimalayanRoadblock]

I just dont want to see anybody dissing on Wine for not supporting more games. If Microsoft loosened up their grip on the DirectX code it would make matters better. How can they possibly call it "Trustworthy Computing" if you or I cannot even look at the source. Do they mean that I should be Trusting Them worthy of writing my code? Just my 2 cents.

From the point of view of a WINE developer

[isolation]

First off, I work on WINE everyday and Transgaming has done one thing to hurt WINE and OpenSource Windows Development. They have taken the fun out of WINE DirectX development. One of the two people the wrote the initial WINE directx support put it best when he told Gav, "It used to be fun".

I work on the Mingw port to Microsoft Windows so as to adapt WINE to ReactOS so I understand why OSS developers do it. Alot of it has to do with the M$ monopoly but for the most part people write code because they enjoy it and they want to share the fun. "Hey look I can now play StarCraft with WINE under linux. They were cheap bastards and wouldnt do a linux port so hah". Now its all about the money.

Thanks Transgaming you've taken the fun out of it. I guess you idea IS working.

True Linux Gaming

[RailGunner]

WineX is a very well done piece of technology, but I have to agree with an earlier post that said that if WineX really takes off, that there won't be any reason to port / develop games for Linux. For the short term, it's great. For long term, it's not enough. Companies want to sell as many copies of their games as possible, and the best way to do that is to target the vast majority of users, who unfortunately at this point are running a flavor of Windows.

The way I see it, one or both of the following scenarios needs to happen before we see a lot of Linux games - and we'll see more Linux games as the installed base gets larger.

Scenario 1: AOL/Linux. Seriously. As soon as the millions of AOL sheep get a new version of AOL that uses Linux, many of them will switch. There's countless numbers of people who buy the latest "whiz-bang" PC and all they use it for is Web / Email, and maybe an occasional game. The Operating System to them is irrelevant, they just want to email their friends and family. Many of them already think that they're just running AOL, and that AOL = internet. The game market for this crowd isn't as large as it could be, but it still changes the "numbers" of the installed base.

Scenario 2: The next killer game is Linux only. What would happen if say... Doom 3, or something similar, was Linux only? And what would happen if in the box with the game, was a Linux distribution? Given that I have an installation of Windows 98SE to play games on at home, how many people would be willing to install Linux in order to play Doom 3? I'd suggest there would be a lot. Or, what about a Linux Distro that just booted from CD, effectively treating your PC like a high powered console when you want to play a game?

Once one or both of these happens, then the installed user base gets larger and companies are going to be willing to eat the up front development costs to produce a game. And there will be a cost, as not every Windows developer has ever run g++ to build something, but in the long run it becomes much cheaper to develop on Linux then it does paying the MS tax over and over again. Even if Linux can get 40% of home users, then companies will be willing to develop native games. And then, WineX will be around to support old games, while the new stuff will run natively.

Redhat problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I am no longer a subscriber to transgaming, thus cannot give you the exact links to the forums. I I too have a redhat system and running blizzard games proved to be choppy. Trolling the forums in transgaming, I found some interesting posts of how the developers tried to work with redhat, Alan Cox, and discovered that redhat's kernel has some patch in it that causes the choppiness, where as other distros work much better. The solution, in quite a few cases as indicated by others posting and the developers, was to roll your own kernel. Apparently, the same is true for redhat 7.3