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WineX 3.0 Examined
GonzoJohn writes "When I first subscribed to Transgaming's WineX 2.1 product last year, I was pleasantly surprised that nearly half of the games I had were supported to a degree. The games that did run ran pretty flawlessly. The games that didn't work had varying degrees of success, all just short of actually being able to play the game (the installers seemed to work). With the release of WineX 3.0 from Transgaming on April 17th this year, it looked like it was time to revisit the wonderful world of Wine. This time around, Transgaming WineX 3.0 has some new tools as well as improvements in the number of games supported and gaming speeds. In this article, we're going to take a look at the new features of WineX 3.0, with a focus on their new GUI installer called Point2Play."
I don't know about anyone else, but that wording didn't inspire a whole lot of confidence in the 'success' of this project.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Even though the licence that Bochs uses and the licence that Wine uses are different, why can't the Wine developers write a portion that allows usage of x86 emulation enabling the usage of Windows programmes under different processor architecures?
Playing a game should not require the user to spend time installing and configuring it, and pull his hair whenever the game or computer crash.
This is why game consoles should remain the only serious way to play.
Ok people, we all have great PCs with lots of computing and video power, and we know how to use them, but really, the focus should be on average users, guys who want to play right now, children.
While this is a step in the right direction, Linux is nowhere near being the platform of choice for gamers and will remain the realm of computer savvy users for a pretty long time. Anyone saying otherwise should try to emulate the ease of use of your average playstation.
Let's be honest: Isn't WineX just a bandage for all those Linux users (former Windows users) that can't give up Windows games? It isn't bloody likely to convince anyone to leave Windows, the platform for which those games were made in the first place.
Of course it will! The only reason I (and many like me) hang around on Windows is because we want to run things-- and the main thing that isn't replicated just fine (or 10 times better) in some open source format on Linux is games. When WinX becomes reliable at running most popular games, I will make the switch over and never look back. I already have a Linux box, but it's for coding/serving, Windows is for using things (it has to be the better machine because games require the good hardware).
Just because you don't respect Windows, doesn't mean that all the high budget (and is most cases, best) games aren't made for it and only it. And those of us who do play games need a system that can run them. I hate x-box, but when Perfect Dark Zero comes out for it, I will buy it. You need the medium to use the app.
"Probably the toughest time in anyone's life is when you have to murder a loved one because they're the devil." -Philips
There are alot of posts trashing WineX because it supports only about half of all games, this is just as good if not better than Win2K or WinXP because it supports almost all of my favorite DOS games and alot of the recient games for the windows platform. WineX was made to remove the uneasyness of going to the Linux platform by allowing newcomers to have all of their games on Linux, it also allows people who only single boot with Linux to be happier with their Linux machine.
Big question, how hard would it be to recompile WineX for OSX? Yes I know you'd have to combine it with Bosche or more preferrably a JIT x86 -> PPC compiler. I'm just curious if WineX itself is written in C or if there is x86 assembly in there. Are there "big endian" issues?