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."

Comments

WineX 95?

[Surak]

Oh no...I can see it now...the next version will be called 3.1, then 3.11 and finally WineX 95! It's happening again! Argh!

Re:WineX 95?

[flamingspinach]

Heh... well, at least they're ahead of the game... WineX 3.0 seems to emulate much newer programs than those of the Win3.0 days...

Re:WineX 95?

[Surak]

Ermmm..minor point: Wine Is NOT an Emulator. :)

Re:WineX 95?

[Setsuna]

Don't worry... The next version will be WineXP ;-)

Re:WineX 95?

[G-funk]

Yes it is. No matter what they call it, it's still an emulator. It's not a computer emulator, but it does emulate windows.

Re:WineX 95?

[Surak]

Not quite, no. It's a wrapper that turns Win32 calls into X calls. Basically, it is an implementation of the Win32 API. No emulation is actually done because none is necessary -- x86 applications running on an x86 -- the only thing Linux lacks is the API. Wine brings the API to Linux. By your logic, XFree86 is an X11 emulator.

Re:WineX 95?

[G-funk]

No, X11 is a standard. There is no X11 product. Windows, is a program. Wine implements / translates the win32 API, but it does this solely to emulate windows. xfree86 is not using X11 to run software on a platform for which it was not designed. Wine is, therein lies the difference.

Re:WineX 95?

[Bronster]

Not quite, no. It's a wrapper that turns Win32 calls into X calls. Basically, it is an implementation of the Win32 API. No emulation is actually done because none is necessary -- x86 applications running on an x86 -- the only thing Linux lacks is the API. Wine brings the API to Linux. By your logic, XFree86 is an X11 emulator.

Which leads to fun things like running Winamp under Wine (crossover office 2.0 to be exact. Work paid for my copy, and I like being able to read Office docs when I need to) - it was actually quite reasonable, though compiling KDE in the background made it skip occasionally.

On the other hand, my audio path can't exactly be called solid at the best of times - ALSA/aRts seems a little flaky in the 2.5.67-ac2 kernel I'm running on this box, either that or my configuration is shit.

Re:WineX 95?

[Surak]

The Win32 API is a standard, albeit not an open one, but it *is* a standard. The various Windows operating systems (including CE) are implementations of the API, and hence, implementations of the standard. Wine is an alternative implementation of the standard. The underlying OS in each of the Windows versions is very, very different. Windows 9x and Millenium are basically DOS with a 32-bit DOS extender underneath, while Windows NT, 2000, and XP are a ground-up design based on a design similar to VMS. CE is something else altogether. The Win32 API in each of those OSes runs on TOP of that particular OS. Even though all these operating systems are called Windows, each OS is actually a different OS. But because of the Win32 API, they can run common applications.

Wine is an implementation of the Win32 API that runs on top of Linux and X11. Microsoft actually has another implementation of the Win32 API that runs on HP-UX and Solaris and X11. Hence, the HP-UX and Solaris versions of Internet Exploiter and Lookout Express. There also exists an implementation of the Win32 API that runs on OS/2.

The Win32 API is not nearly 'integrated' into the the OS as Microsoft claims, otherwise, it wouldn't run on all these OSes, now would it?

Re:WineX 95?

[IpalindromeI]

Why the hell would you use Winamp on Wine instead of straight up XMMS? XMMS is much much better than Winamp. A specific example: XMMS's random function actually works. With Winamp, even if you have hundreds of songs in the playlist, with randomize you get the same 10 or so over and over.

Re:WineX 95?

[Bronster]

Dude, grow some fucking comprehension skills. I was doing it because I _could_. You don't really think I use it all the time do you?

Actually, I tend to use noatun as much as XMMS, since I'm currently following CVS HEAD of KDE, and want to test it.

*sigh*

Installers???

[tmark]

The games that didn't work had varying degrees of success, all just short of actually being able to play the game

Only a die-hard WineX advocate would count ONLY getting installer to run as some degree of success. Everyone else would count such cases as complete failures - one notch above utter and complete failures (when the installer won't run). Actually, if the game itself won't run I'd probably rather have the installer fail.

Re:Installers???

[Angry White Guy]

Sounds like the Iraqi Information Minister, doesn't it. We are Succesful! We have managed to get Halo installed on Linux! X-boxen are commiting suicide, hanging from our Kernel hooks!

Re:Installers???

[aoteoroa]

Sentance 1:The games that did run ran pretty flawlessly.
Sentance 2:The games that didn't work had varying degrees of success all just short of actually being able to play the game

Umm. The way I read that is that some games worked. Those were a success. Others looked like they installed but didn't work and were considered failures.

Incidentally this has been my experience installing games on Windows (not just on Wine). Many games are picky about which version of Direct X you have installed. I used to have multiple versions of Windows installed just to play my games. Some only worked in Win 98, others only worked in Win2000, and I had one that would only work in win95. It was really annoying and put me off gaming.

Re:Installers???

[zoward]

There are degrees of partial install than can be considered successful. I'm currently running Dungeon Siege under the WineX 3 pre-release. I had the opposite problem the reviewer did: I couldn't get the installer to work. So I installed the game on my wife's Windows box (I no longer have one), and copied the install into an appropriate subdirectory under my user's .transgaming directory.

It runs pretty much flawlessly, except for falling water, but I wouldn't expect that to work under my TNT2 card (it wants a 128 MB GeForce card. Me too :-)).

Given that I can launch and play the game under Linux, I consider this to be "running the game successfully". Granted you need a Windows install somewhere to get the game up and running, but that's also true of the the Neverwinter nights Linux client.

Re:Installers???

[rifter]

This kind of crap is exactly why I switched my gaming platform years ago. Really I don't know why people say they keep a Windows machine around "for games" playing games on windows sucks, big time. Speaking of which, just can't wait to get this particular little jewel

Re:Installers???

[Jedi Alec]

Which is why they put the compatibility thing in XP. Except for some really lousy games that actually check for Windows and DirectX versions, I can still play just about anything using XP and the DirectX that comes with it. So far the same applies for all the games I've tried under Longhorn...

Re:Installers???

[Breakfast Pants]

online play. there are only a very small number of ps2 games that play online. there is a large number of games for windows that have online play. there is a reason where you said you couldn't find one. try and dispute it.

Re:Installers???

[Nick_dm]

Really I don't know why people say they keep a Windows machine around "for games" Possibly because there are some genres which play pretty badly (or at least significantly diferently) on consoles? I need a PC (or mac) for the games I play; quake3, unreal tournament 2003, warcraft3 and such. I'm pretty picky about being able to customise things and atm there aren't even decent options for using mice on consoles so I can't see myself jumping ship any time soon.
I have a PSone my brother has a gamecube and I play on other consoles with friends, but they aren't an replacement for a pc yet, only an alternative.

Re:Installers???

[destiney]

Obviously you've never played Dark age of Camelot. It is a windows game and is more fun that any other game I've ever played.

Grouping all windows games into one "sucks" category is pretty dumb on your part, you couldn't possibly have tried them all.

My PS2 has been in the living room collecting dust since I discovered DAOC. Haven't seen anything good for PS2 since FFX. *Yawn*

BTW, I actually _have_ that particular little jewel and I'm sorry to tell you that it does suck pretty bad. A total let down to say the least. Save your money, invest it in a small server and just install Linux there.

Re:Installers???

[rifter]

It's not that the games "suck" it is that it "sucks" to have games crash/not work and peripherals not work on a regular basis, and to have to put in lots of work to play. The parent I replied to had to install three different versions of windows to play three different games because it just would not work any other way. That is part of the problem with PC Gaming.

So what I am saying is not that the games suck (there are indeed many nice PC games) but that the experience sucks, and I got tired of various controllers not working (besides the fact I have not found any on par with the PS2 controller) and games not working and crashing, etc etc. When I come home to play a game, I want to relax and play. I do not want to have to debug more crashes as I have been doing that all day. And my PS2's uptime rivals (and sometimes has exceeded) that of my Linux boxes for variable reasons.

Actually, I have been considering DAOC. Everquest works for multiplayer on PS2, but I understand they still have many of the same problems they had when I tried playing it the first time. DAOC seems to me to be the way a MMPORPG should be, but unfortunately it does not work with winex, the developers have apparently done naughty things that make it difficult/impossible to fix the problem, and transgaming does not seem interested in trying anyhow. Of course installing this would mean just the kind of work I said I did not like doing for the sake of play, but one would hope it would only have to happen once. As it is, if I change my mind about it I would have to install it under Windows, which breaks 3 rules in one for me.
(I have decided to honour software licenses, not to install windows, and the third being my problem with playing games on a platform where I have to monkey mightily to get anything to work at all, if it does at all.)

I am curious as to why you did not like your PS2 Linux kit. I thought it was a pretty fair price for the components, all of which can be used in other areas (the ethernet attachment works for multiplayer, the usb kb and mouse likewise, and the hard drive, well, it's a hard drive). I was mainly wanting it for curiousity. Of course if you do not like yours you could always sell it to someone who would ;).

WineX segfaults

[C_nemo]

I've had winex segfault on me every time i try to run anything with it. Maybe due to my nvidia drivers, it works fine on my friends machine(ati drivers). On that machine it works flawlesly, fine product but the segfault thing realy ruins my day...

Re:WineX segfaults

[Frohboy]

Some of the NVidia drivers seem to run into problems in conjunction with WineX and some version of glibc. When I switched to Gentoo, using the 4191 NVidia drivers, with glibc 2.3.1 (not positive of that, though), WineX would segfault on me something awful, whenever it would try to enable the DirectX. Running installers worked fine, but games would just crash. Reading the support pages, I read the suggestion to roll back to the 3123 NVidia drivers. Worked like a charm.

Of course, nowadays, I seem to be able to run WineX 3.0, with the same version of glibc, and the 4363 drivers. So, I imagine someone somewhere has worked out a bug or two.

Re:WineX segfaults

[FatherOfONe]

There are a couple of other ways to look at it.

1. You could buy a Playstation2 and never have to worry about all the DirectX crap, $400+ video card upgrades every year; and also play great games. I won't even go in to the security issues.

2. You could wait for WINE to get so good that you could blow away your Windows partition and use that space for the next game you buy.

3. Find a Linux port of the game. This is getting better, but still not great.

I am not saying that your option is wrong, it's just not the only options on the table. If you love games enough to put money in to Microsofts' pockets, then a Windows partition isn't a bad option.

I believe that you don't actually OWN Windows XP though, you just lease it. You will probably have to spend around $200.00 every three years to stay "current" with them. This may not be an issue with you, but some people would like to take that $200 and put it in to that new video card for Doom 4.

Re:WineX segfaults

[LordFauntleroy]

Then again, when you can get a copy of Windows XP Pro from the local university for $15, that's not a problem now is it...

Re:WineX segfaults

[FatherOfONe]

Ahh..... but you will graduate someday, or you can keep paying the university tons of money to be life long student....

So once you graduate or drop out, you WILL be back on Microsoft gravy train.

I like to think of it like drugs. They give it away to those people at a young age and then rape them when they are a little bit older.

Doesn't Inspire a Lot of Confidence

[goldspider]

"...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..."

I don't know about anyone else, but that wording didn't inspire a whole lot of confidence in the 'success' of this project.

Re:Doesn't Inspire a Lot of Confidence

[indros]

I would appear to me that line was in reference to WineX 2.1, from a year ago, not the current release, which is really the focus of this article.

Re:Doesn't Inspire a Lot of Confidence

[James Littiebrant]

Do you not see that he was talking about winex 2.1 and not 3.0. The WineX project is a GREAT success.

Re:Doesn't Inspire a Lot of Confidence

[pdbogen]

I don't know about you, but I think getting one game to work that was writting for another operating system without any sort of recompiling or hacking the actual binary, and without having to have anything from the intended platform, seems like quite a feat to me.

Re:Doesn't Inspire a Lot of Confidence

[MikeFM]

It's been my experience so far that WineX 3 runs fewer of my games than WineX 2 did. That coupled with the bad attitude I have felt from some of WineX's staff caused me to cancel my subscription yesterday. Until WineX can run at least older games as well as CrossOver Plugin runs Real Audio, Quicktime, etc then it's not worth my effort.

WineX isn't hopeless but IMO isn't ready for your average end-user. It seems like it'd be a good tool for developers trying to port their Windows games to Linux but it's to painful for the average Windows (or Linux) user to just play games with.

Re:Doesn't Inspire a Lot of Confidence

[Joe MacDonald]

I'd be more interested to know what your take on the article over at Tom's Hardware Guide Windows Gaming In Linux With WineX 2.0 is and how WineX 2.1 and 3.0 compared with the results Mr. Reese reported. I'd been seriously considering subscribing to WineX so I could play a few of the games I miss, but after reading this article I've decided to hold onto my $5 (USD, meaning something like $83,000 CDN) a month until I hear of someone having comparable Linux/Windows performance.

Re:Doesn't Inspire a Lot of Confidence

[MikeFM]

If you are a serious Linux geek and gamer it might be worth your effort and money but otherwise I really can't suggest it. Some games will run well but almost always you have to do lil things like find no-cd cracks and a lot of tweaking. Even games that claimed to be fully supported often wouldn't work well (or at all) - and Transgaming was no help in making them work. You also have to already have your video card working properly under Linux - if your 3D isn't config'd right obviously WineX won't run well.

You'd probably be happier dual booting for now.

Ok, WineX Lovers

[jvmatthe]

Please answer me this one question:
Suppose WineX becomes perfect. Suppose Linux gamers by thousands load up their games and enjoy the latest Windows games. Suppose as a result Windows game developers see incrementally better sales (less than 5%, probably closer to 1-2%). Now, why in the world would they suddenly throw away all the code, tools, and experience they have on their current platform to grab some tiny extra percentage by learning, developing for, and testing on a new platform?

After all they can happily tell those Linux people "You're unsupported. But try WineX!" When it fails, they simply say "You're unsupported!" They already have your money, after all, and it's your own fault for trying it on an unsupported platform.

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.

Look at Bleemcast (PSX emulator for Sega Dreamcast). It emulated the original games on a different platform, even with graphical enhancements, but it didn't convince anyone who already had a PSX to jump on the Dreamcast...it just made already-committed Dreamcast owners happier.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[RdsArts]

Actually, that's not a good example.

Bleemcast! never came out. The company producing it was sued out of existance by Sony before the first version even hit shelves.

I actually work with someone who had a press preview of one of the disks, one that worked for MetalGear Solid, and it supposedly worked quite well.

Now, Bleem! for the PC didn't make anyone mass-exodus from the PS2, but then, that's really apples and oranges.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[addaon]

Not everyone who uses free software has an agenda. The beauty of Linux, and all free software that's at least moderately popular, is that once it exists it never ceases to exist. I have no vested interest in Linux being continually developed until I die, I simply like using it. If WineX reduces developer spending on Linux... so what? Why do I care?

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[Anonymous Coward]

"Suppose WineX becomes perfect. Suppose Linux gamers by thousands load up their games and enjoy the latest Windows games."

If this will happen, then Linux marketshare would be at least 10-15% after a couple years. This marketshare will be big enough to make native ports.

Without WineX Linux will be never popular in the desktop market and without popularity there won't be many native ports worthwhile.

If you don't believe me, just look at Windows 95. After all it was backwards compatible with MS-DOS games, why would anyone make native Windows 95 games?

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[TClevenger]

On the other hand, if WineX is rather successful, the game manufacturers, who wouldn't dare throw away all their existing codebase to develop for Linux, might provide a bit of tweaking to get the game to run under WineX, since such code probably wouldn't hurt the game under the Windows platform. If enough people are using WineX, and can say so to those game manufacturers, they might just start making WineX one of the environments they test under, just to ship those few extra units.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[Devil's Avocado]

"""
Look at Bleemcast (PSX emulator for Sega Dreamcast). It emulated the original games on a different platform, even with graphical enhancements, but it didn't convince anyone who already had a PSX to jump on the Dreamcast...it just made already-committed Dreamcast owners happier.
"""

I don't think WineX is intended to convince windows users to convert to Linux. It's intended to make already-committed Linux users happier, making a little money for its authors in the process.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[IamTheRealMike]

Suppose WineX becomes perfect

It never will, because there will always be a lag between new APIs being introduced and Wine implementing them. But OK. Let's suppose the impossible happens.

Now, why in the world would they suddenly throw away all the code, tools, and experience they have on their current platform to grab some tiny extra percentage by learning, developing for, and testing on a new platform?

Good question. A few possible answers:

• They want better integration. There are limits to how well Wine can integrate with Linux. It does a hell of a lot better than, well, any other emulation I've seen, but it's constricted by the limits of the Win32 API. For instance, we can do integration with the window managers kill facility, which pops up an "this app has frozen" message like on Windows, but we can't do startup notification. There's no way to extract that info from Win32 apps.

• Better reliability. Win32 is huge, complex and mostly the product of too much acid usage. The number of things that can go wrong is large, the native APIs are normally easier to work with, and more complete.

• No dependancy on Wine. For many people, that's good enough.

After all they can happily tell those Linux people "You're unsupported. But try WineX!" When it fails, they simply say "You're unsupported!" They already have your money, after all, and it's your own fault for trying it on an unsupported platform.

If you're unsupported, you're unsupported and you presumably know that when you buy the game. It has nothing to do with the jump table offsets or data structures in use. Smart companies will cater to their customers even when they're using emulation, stupid companies will make up excuses to get out of their obligations.

et's be honest: Isn't WineX just a bandage for all those Linux users (former Windows users) that can't give up Windows games?

What has the fact that they are Windows games got anything to do with it? If Linux users want to play games, let them. Far more important to code in general is how free it is, rather than what APIs it uses. Look at Bleemcast (PSX emulator for Sega Dreamcast). It emulated the original games on a different platform, even with graphical enhancements, but it didn't convince anyone who already had a PSX to jump on the Dreamcast...it just made already-committed Dreamcast owners happier

This is the same old OS/2 argument. The dreamcast died for LOTS of reasons, having emulation wasn't the major factor, if it was a factor at all.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[DonkeyJimmy]

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.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[maxpublic]

And why should I care? I don't have an agenda, nor am I interested in pushing one.

I use Linux for just about everything. But I have a Win98 partition for the sole purpose of playing games. Really, I don't give a damn if this upsets some OS advocate and I don't plan on using Wine at all so long as it's easier to play the games on my partition.

Which it currently is.

Max

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[4of12]

might provide a bit of tweaking to get the game to run under WineX

With only about 5% of the market, (Apple, anyone?), the developers will devote about that much concern to whether their games will run under WineX.

But if WineX comptability is even on the radar, that's a good thing.

And if some company in Taiwan releases a very inexpensive PC-like box for gaming via WineX, a box that sells millions of units, then the future of WineX compatibility is assured.

It's a long way off, but a great milepost metric for real success of WineX would be if game developers started to badger both MS and WineX developers to get together to advance the APIs; maybe even MS would lower itself to devoting manpower working on the WineX codebase. Not that I expect all that anytime soon....

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[the_2nd_coming]

for a while they dd not but then developers saw that they could make better games with the win32 API. so they did.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[JWhitlock]

Yes, a perfect WineX will not convince developers to start developing for Linux. But, it if is cheaply or freely availible, they may be convinced to load up a workstation with WineX, and make sure Linux+WineX can run the game through development. Game developers are programmers, and programmers in general like the free software movement - if you can ensure your program runs on Linux with little effort on your part, why not?

So, WineX might become the standard for cross-platfrom gaming. Not that developers will make games specifically for WineX, but they may adopt the rule of thumb: if WineX supports it, then it's a good feature, and if WineX doesn't support it, then maybe there's something wrong with it. Since WineX should be able to support any well-documented feature of the Windows or DirectX API, WineX might be a good standard to determine if a feature is well-documented and straight-forward - if it isn't, there may be some hidden features that Microsoft isn't talking about, which may go away with future versions.

Here's an example - there are some games that I have that play decently under Windows 95, but appear broken under Windows XP. Others work as well under XP as they do under 95. My guess is that the "broken" games used some advanced feature that Microsoft abandoned with later versions of Windows/DirectX. A emulation suite like WineX may have indicated that these features weren't fully fleshed out, and steered the programmers away from them.

So, if a subset of the API becomes "easy" to simulate, programmers may be encouraged to only use that subset. Hell, they may even get addicted to the WineX environment, which may give them some debugging capabilities they didn't already have. When Microsoft offers new features, programmers may refuse to use them until they've passed the WineX test - they are well-documented and stable enough to be reliably emulated.

Would they ever make the leap to native Linux games? Probably not. But by restricting themselves to a subset of the API that is easy to emulate, the WineX API becomes a de facto cross-platform standard. Eventually, it may be possible to optimize away many of the inefficencies of an emulator, and the Win-native games may run just as fast on Linux.

This little scenario may be nice, but it's not realistic. The best we can hope for is getting 90% there, and hoping the industry meets us halfway. My best computer runs Windows, because I need the horsepower for games. Until I can play those games on Linux, I'm booting XP on the main box and Linux on the older boxen. A perfect WineX may allow users like me to finally see what Linux can do with modern hardware.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[Mr. McGibby]

It never will, because there will always be a lag between new APIs being introduced and Wine implementing them.

There's also going to be a lag between new APIs being introduced and windows users actually upgrading. Game companies have to keep in mind that most users are still using Windows 98.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[PD]

Write once Run everywhere is a good thing, right? I hope we can all agree on that, after the world's mostly positive experience with Java and a virtual machine providing portability.

We might not get all the way to perfect portability with compatibility libraries, but we can get most of the way there. And the trouble is worth it because the compatibility library can run at full speed on every platform.

We've got to get over the thinking that any particular Windows API must only be run on Windows. Are we just as opposed to running a POSIX program on a Windows machine? Of course not.

When APIs are available on more than one machine, it provides portability and inproves freedom of choice. As a principle, we all think that freedom to choose is an important one, and anything that increases that freedom is a good thing. That's why I see running a Windows binary on a Linux OS as a good thing.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[Fizzol]

> Yes, a perfect WineX will not convince developers to start developing for Linux. But, it if is cheaply or freely availible, they may be convinced to load up a workstation with WineX, and make sure Linux+WineX can run the game through development.

Many ages ago when 8/16 bit computers ruled the earth Macintosh developers would test thier programs on Atari STs running one of the available Mac emulators as a compatability test.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[Ed Avis]

If WineX users become a significant part of the market, then game developers will make sure games run well under WineX. Just as they currently test under different versions of Windows, with different graphics cards, and so on.

There might come a time when WineX users outnumber Windows 95 users, for example.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[joshsisk]

Using free software *is* an agenda.

Wrong.

I use linux on my servers because it is more stable and easy to manage via a ssh shell.

I use OpenOffice because it's free and Office is not.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[Ed Avis]

And if some company in Taiwan releases a very inexpensive PC-like box for gaming via WineX, a box that sells millions of units, then the future of WineX compatibility is assured.

What about the Xbox? Does WineX run on that? Has anyone yet dared to install the necessary software on Xboxes and market them as cheap Windows-game-playing machines?

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[Fratz]

Now, why in the world would they suddenly throw away all the code, tools, and experience they have on their current platform to grab some tiny extra percentage by learning, developing for, and testing on a new platform?

They wouldn't need to. That's the point. Read up on Transgaming. Their goal is ultimately to get wine working so well that it becomes a perfect Windows environment for all applications, not just games.

But let's back up a bit. If you're not Microsoft, and you develop software for Windows, and you hear of a product that emulates 80% of the things Windows does, mightn't you want to try to code your application to hit that 80% functionality to gain an additional N million potential customers? After all, if you can make it work in what's basically a subset of Windows, shouldn't it work in Windows?

Yes, I would prefer Linux-native software over non-native software, but I can't fathom how it could be bad to have a 100%-compatible Windows environment.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[DonFinch]

Hi I'm from the law firm of Rakin & Ponzer. We would like to extend our name to anyone interested in attempting this. The fireworks will be fun, as well as rosting marshmellows over the flames from your Microsoft Funded funeral pyre.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[HanzoSan]

People ignore the fact that bigger userbase=better sales.

As Linux userbase grows, new Linux gaming companies will form, to make native Linux games to sell to the new Linux userbase.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[tmark]

After all they can happily tell those Linux people "You're unsupported. But try WineX!" When it fails, they simply say "You're unsupported!"

Let me guess ... you were a former Win-OS/2 user, and you thought OS/2's great support for Win 3.1 apps was a *good* thing, didn't you ? I think we met at an OS/2 support group once.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[AlternateSyndicate]

When WinX becomes reliable at running most popular games...

You seem convinced that this will happen. Perhaps you shouldn't be.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[batkiwi]

The facts in your bleemcast argument isn't correct in any way, form, or manner.

-Bleemcast in it's original form (emulate all/100/50 psx games) NEVER CAME OUT
-a total of 3 bleemcasts came out, each doing A SINGLE GAME. That means to play the game, you had to pay 15$ for the bleemcast, plus 25-50$ for the game (depending on which one)
-EVERY bleemcast disc that was released sold out almost instantly. They couldn't keep them in the stores!
-By the time bleemcast came out, PS2 was already out. PSX people had already bought a PS2, and possibly skipped the dreamcast altogether. The GT2 bleemcast was out only a month before GT3 for the PS2!!!!
-bleemcast died due to sony's lawsuits in the end

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[Archie Steel]

"I don't plan on using Wine at all so long as it's easier to play the games on my partition."

Actually - depending on the game you want to play, of course - it is easier to play the (supported) games with WineX 3 than dual-booting. Easy as in "click on the menu item." How easier can it get?

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[Christianfreak]

You need the medium to use the app.

No, we need people who will switch and wait awhile for their games to come out. If enough people switch then there is a demand for the product. We need people who would actually stand up to the game companies even if they use windows, and boycott them until they provide games for other platforms. There are perfectly good acceptable open APIs for making the games to where they will compile for multiple systems, we just need to create the demand for it. We also need (more) innovative game companies that will stand up to MS and say their games won't use DirectX and that they will compile for more than one system (are you listening EA?)

Not that either of those this will happen soon but even one person can make a difference. Which is why I don't buy new games. EA won't get my money until they offer me the product I want.

And just a nitpick: Operating systems are not a medium, computers are, you'd think that manufacturers would want to have their software work on as many computers as possible. I guess that isn't easy when one company has a monopoly on the desktop software.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[maxpublic]

"depending on the game you want to play, of course"

And therein lies the rub.

Max

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[GlassHeart]

With only about 5% of the market, (Apple, anyone?), the developers will devote about that much concern to whether their games will run under WineX.

It's not the percentage size of the market that matters. Adobe and Microsoft both sell flagship products on MacOS, for example.

The equation will have to do with how many units you expect to sell and how much it will cost to port (tangible costs like developer time, as well as intangible ones like introducing potential bugs into the source due to the port). If it's really cheap to port to WineX, they'll probably do it, even if they don't sell all that many units.

Also, note that the Linux/WineX game market is a very different one than the Windows market, precisely because many games don't work on WineX. Less competition can mean that your game gets a bigger share of the 5% than in the 95%.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[Archie Steel]

On the other hand, with each new iteration WineX supports an increasing number of games, simply because they improve compatibility with the API. One could also make the case that the PC is a poor platform for gaming, because there are a lot more quality games available for consoles than for PCs...I don't necessarily agree with this, but it is basically the same argument.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[twisty7867]

"I hate x-box"

This is a ridiculous statement.

You don't hate XBox - you have penis envy toward Microsoft. Deep in your mind, just like any good socialist, you are jealous of wealthy people and that fuels your ideology. The very fact that you plan to buy an XBox because it has a game that you want means that you like it in the only that really matters: with your wallet.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[platypus]

Pretty clever reasoning with that wineX-as-code-quality-checker argument. And it seems even today that games which "feel" better seem to be supported better under wineX.
Another thing is that the makers of game _engines_ could have a big influence here, when they test their engine on wineX, it will do a lot for game compability, because all games based on that engine should be very easily portable. Though it's nicer when game engines are cross OS from the start.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[the_2nd_coming]

Red Alert was awsome and It was even better in Win32.

Q2 was awsome and even better in win32.

etc.

it is true becasue dos gameing was limited and games were getting more and more complicated and intricate.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[RoLi]

Suppose WineX becomes perfect. Suppose Linux gamers by thousands load up their games and enjoy the latest Windows games. Suppose as a result Windows game developers see incrementally better sales (less than 5%, probably closer to 1-2%). Now, why in the world would they suddenly throw away all the code, tools, and experience they have on their current platform to grab some tiny extra percentage by learning, developing for, and testing on a new platform?

Why should they do it without WineX? I don't see any negative effect of WineX here. Quite to the contrary, Wine or WineX will help Linux building a gaming community which will lead to Linux support from vendors (and I don't give a shit if it's supported via Wine or via a(nother) cross-platform toolset, it just doesn't matter. If the vendor supports it via Wine and tests accordingly, it will work as well and as stable as via some other toolset.)

After all they can happily tell those Linux people "You're unsupported. But try WineX!" When it fails, they simply say "You're unsupported!" They already have your money, after all, and it's your own fault for trying it on an unsupported platform.

Cut down the bs. Either it's supported (then they will say "try WineX" and will help you with installation problems) or it's not supported (status quo). The only way to get support is a gaming community and WineX is the only way to get one in the near future.

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.

Well, no. If WineX is really good enough and runs almost all games (like any Windows install), a lot of people will switch - why not? Win32-compatibility is the only thing that is missing in Linux.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[RoLi]

And they can make better games native on Linux (most 3D games get higher framerates on Linux).

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[glwtta]

maybe even MS would lower itself to devoting manpower working on the WineX codebase

Um yeah, and after that they can send some of their sales people to pitch in at Apple stores? Not bashing MS here, it's generally rare for a company to work on their competitor's products.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[damiam]

Please answer me this one question:
Suppose Windows 95's DOS/Win3.1 emulaton is perfect. Suppose Win32 gamers by thousands load up their games and enjoy the latest Win16 games. Suppose as a result Win16 game developers see incrementally better sales (less than 5%, probably closer to 1-2%). Now, why in the world would they suddenly throw away all the code, tools, and experience they have on their current platform to grab some tiny extra percentage by learning, developing for, and testing on a new platform?

After all they can happily tell those Windows 95 people "You're unsupported. But run it with the compatibility layer!" When it fails, they simply say "You're unsupported!" They already have your money, after all, and it's your own fault for trying it on an unsupported platform.

Let's be honest: Isn't the win16 compatibility layer just a bandage for all those Windows 95 users (former Windows 3.1 users) that can't give up Win16 games? It isn't bloody likely to convince anyone to leave Windows 3.1, the platform for which those games were made in the first place.

Look at Bleemcast (PSX emulator for Sega Dreamcast). It emulated the original games on a different platform, even with graphical enhancements, but it didn't convince anyone who already had a PSX to jump on the Dreamcast...it just made already-committed Dreamcast owners happier.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[TClevenger]

Precisely. Apples are a completely different animal, whereas WineX compatibility is just a matter of identifying a problem in either the library WineX provides, or the "nonstandard" way the game chooses to use that library. Chances are if the problem is due to the way the game handles a library that otherwise meets published specs, maybe a tweak in the way that game accesses that library will make it _more_ stable under genuine Windows environments as well.

So find a game manufacturer that has a Linux "insider" in the coding team, ask him to devote a little bit of time to stabilizing the code under WineX, then GO BUY THE GAME when it comes out and let your insider know. He then has some numbers that he can bring to the bosses. "I spend this many minutes working out some bugs running under WineX, and as a result this many Linux users bought our game that otherwise wouldn't have. Oh, and chances are the time spent also made it stable under some non-standard Windows configurations."

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[alienw]

It never will, because there will always be a lag between new APIs being introduced and Wine implementing them. But OK. Let's suppose the impossible happens.

Wrong. Microsoft doesn't change the APIs very often, and neither do the game developers. It's about as difficult for a game programmer to start using a new API as it is for the Winex people to implement it. Neither is exactly easy.

Microsoft APIs are actually quite stable, and it is not a difficult task to keep up with them once all the major subsystems are fully implemented. Furthermore, there is about a one-year delay between the publication of an API spec and the publication of the first games that use it.

Your other points are quite valid, however.

I don't know what idiot contrived the bleemcast argument. The first version of Bleemcast emulated only one or two games. It was released at a time when nobody really cared about either the Dreamcast or the PS1 and the PS2 was just months away from hitting the stores. Is it any surprise that nobody bought it or the Dreamcast?

Finally, I don't see how support for Win32 APIs is a bad thing. They are good APIs, much better than many Linux equivalents. People bitch that wine is buggy and slow and will never improve. Does anyone remember how shitty Mozilla was two years ago, right around M10? It was barely usable, worse than wine is right now. Does anyone want to take bets as to how much it will improve in the next year or two? If Wine becomes as fast as the Linux APIs (quite possible, BTW), will it matter what APIs a given program uses?

Supporting them through Wine would also be a nice backwards compatibility step, both for experienced win32 programmers and for users with tons of win32 software.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[IamTheRealMike]

Microsoft APIs are actually quite stable, and it is not a difficult task to keep up with them once all the major subsystems are fully implemented. Furthermore, there is about a one-year delay between the publication of an API spec and the publication of the first games that use it.

You're ignoring the fact that Microsoft have far more resources than we do. MSI was implemented years ago, but nobody has even started a Wine implementation.

Finally, I don't see how support for Win32 APIs is a bad thing. They are good APIs, much better than many Linux equivalents.

Blargh! Like what? Win32 is a nightmare. Win32 controls may have more features than their GTK equivalents, but GTK doesn't have a brain damaged design.

But yeah, we need them for compatability unfortunately.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[the_2nd_coming]

there is a big diffrence. going from dos to win32 was an evolution of a system so it was safe to program for both since you knew as a developer that MS would push everyone onto the new platform...but there were still a lot of dos users at that point so that is why most games came out in both DOS and Win32.

if you release a linux game, not only is it a pain in the ass to get it set up and working flawlessly but you have 10 diffrent setups to worry about.

mabye what Linux needs to do is set up the system to have locations that games and the game libs will be located so that the game developers will be confident that their games will work on all systems.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[alienw]

Firstly, MSI is not implemented because nobody cares enough about it to implement it. If someone needs it, they will implement it. Sure, Microsoft has tons of resources, but they can't push APIs on developers faster than the latter can learn them.

Also, GTK doesn't have a brain damaged design? Where did you get that one from? Personally, I find any GUI toolkit that's not written in an object-oriented language brain damaged. Also, I know several programmers, and most of them find Win32 quite well-designed.

Furthermore, the tools that are available for open-source development with GTK are scant. When someone makes something that's as good as Visual Studio, then we'll talk. Developing with just a text editor is very 1980s.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[IamTheRealMike]

Firstly, MSI is not implemented because nobody cares enough about it to implement it. If someone needs it, they will implement it. Sure, Microsoft has tons of resources, but they can't push APIs on developers faster than the latter can learn them.

Sure, APIs we can install into Wine (like MSI) are OK for the sort term, but require you to have a Windows license. That was only one example. DCOM perhaps is a better one. Sure sure, you can write off everything with a 'thats not implemented because nobody cares' attitude, but to a large extent that isn't true. We want a full DCOM implementation, but don't have the resources.

Also, GTK doesn't have a brain damaged design? Where did you get that one from?

Uh, consistant APIs, containment based layout, signals/slots based callbacks, easy bound to other languages, clean graphics abstraction, plugin image loaders.... GTK has *loads* of good features and smart design. You've fallen into the trap of 'oh, its in C, it must be stupid', which is IMHO stupid itself. Object Orientation is a function of design, not the language. There are valid reasons for using C, namely that it makes it easier to reuse from other languages.

Win32, I'd note, is also written in C, but is not OOP, and is a PITA to bind to other langauges. Which is more stupid? By your own logic, Win32 is brain damaged beyond repair. At least GTK is OOP, and if you use gtkmm, you never need touch raw C if you don't want to.

Also, I know several programmers, and most of them find Win32 quite well-designed.

How many of them have used other toolkits extensively though? Why do virtually all Windows programmers use wrappers (vcl, mfc, visual basic, .net) if Win32 itself is so well designed?

Win32 has bad design leaking out of its ears, not to mention massive amounts of inconsistancy.

Furthermore, the tools that are available for open-source development with GTK are scant. When someone makes something that's as good as Visual Studio, then we'll talk. Developing with just a text editor is very 1980s.

Yet strangely I'm just as productive with GTK/Emacs as I am with Delphi. Developing without an IDE on Windows isn't an option, because Win32 is so piss poor. Without advanced wrappers and code generators, you're basically shafted. In contrast, it's actually possible and easy to program things directly with GTK/Linux (or Qt). Don't be misled by the text editor description of emacs, it has code completion, interactive help and of course blows any standard Windows text editor out of the water. Everybody uses Glade with xml these days anyway, so you don't need the GUI editor integrated with the code editor in order to get generated code etc.

Re:Ok, WineX Lovers

[death to hanzosan]

Yes, people consistently ignore this. Take Microsoft. They believe that their larger userbase isn't what makes their sales larger, rather they believe their large sales figures are tied to minesweeper.

Idiot.

Question

[AnimeFreak]

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?

Re:Question

[Mitchell Mebane]

They are working on it, the project is called Qemu, but it seems the site is down right now.

Re:Question

[Mitchell Mebane]

Hmm... seems my ISP is just being flaky.

http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/

Re:Question

[DarkOx]

Bochs sets up a emulated virtual computer. The processor core compoents could perhaps be used as you say but you then have to map the other functions onto the host machine such as memory. This would be much more complex then just emulating memory as well. At least this is my guess, I am not a systems level programer. The part I think I can fairly comment on is passing infromation form the VM to the host machine running wine's libs. Binaries expect entry points in libs that have to be correct, or they don't work, try running a program that was built with gcc 2.x against update libs built on gcc 3.x, its a no go most of the time. The code to map the hooks over to the wine libs built for some other platform which may have different byte order and alignment would be as complex and CPU intensive as running all the libs in the emulated machine, if your gonna do that you may as well do that and run wine on x86 *nix simple display your app on your real Xserver. Performance would be about the same and the software to do that later already exists with some maturity.

Re:Question

[molarmass192]

Now that's some crazy sh*t! A windows emulator running on an x86 emulator. Just the overhead from swapping the endianess must be impressive. Anways, the idea is cool. Isn't this a little like how Transmeta (?and the Intel Itanium too?) do things?

Re:Question

[AlgUSF]

Because

Wine
Is
Not (an)
Emulator

Re:Question

[perimorph]

in the same way that LAME Ain't an Mp3 Encoder? ;)

(i know, it's an api-layer translator thingy of some sort, not an emulator.. but i just couldn't pass on the joke.)

Re:Question

[AnimeFreak]

I never stated Wine is an emulator. However, you could add x86 emulation into Wine to allow usage of Win32 applications on platforms other than IA-32.

Re:Question

[BlueGecko]

Just the overhead from swapping the endianess must be impressive

Actually, the engineers at IBM were a genious when it comes to handling endian issues on the PowerPC. Although the PPC by default is big-endian, the PowerPC 603 and later added the ability to natively work either way. That's a large part of the reason why Virtual PC can operate as fast as it does, and similarly, might make this Bochs-WINE hybrid feasible for non-CPU-intensive apps like Office, etc.

Re:Question

[SnuSnu]

Run WineX under Bochs. Inelegant and slow, but practical.

Nice but still useless

[Alcoyotl]

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.

Re:Nice but still useless

[Anonymous Coward]

WineX isn't just for games, Bubba. Why do these Wine critics harp on the fact that the games won't run like they do on Windows or a game console? It is an emulator people! Nobody is proposing that the world will now want to run all games on Linux because of this.

Get some perspective.

Re:Nice but still useless

[drxenos]

Consoles? Are you kidding? I would never give up gaming on my PC because loading games on a console is (arguably) slightly easier. Most console games do not have the depth and feel of PC equivalents. Besides, playing FPS without a mouse is PAINFUL at best. Consoles maybe dumbed down, but that does not translate to better.

Re:Nice but still useless

[Fizzol]

> Playing a game should not require the user to spend time installing and configuring it,

Yes, isn't it great how those non-WineX games are just automagically playable without installing and configuring them?

Re:Nice but still useless

[FroMan]

This is why game consoles should remain the only serious way to play.

My wife and I play a lot of games. On our playstation 2, and computers, both linux and windows games.

As my evaluation goes, we play the console games when we want to just kick back and have a little fun. Serious games are done on the computer. Maybe my idea of serious is more along the lines of "I need to think to win" or "I want to be challenged by other humans" as serious gaming.

Also, I usually think of a serious gamer as someone who will tweak their video card to get an extra 2fps. If I have to play with some things to get a game working it doesn't really bother me too much.

For instance last weekend I downloaded the rtcw-enemy-territory for linux and spent an hour or so trying to figure things out and setting up servers. It was kind of fun.

My point is its not the serious gamer that uses consoles, its someone who wants a quick gaming fix. That doesn't make consoles lesser or greater, just a different style of gaming.

Re:Nice but still useless

[vandan]

So buy a console.
And buy one for all the children.
But don't tell others what they can and can't develop for Linux. It's not really up to you.

Does WineX let you enable sound enhancements?

[antdude]

I am unable to read the link to see if the sound support was improved.

I tried v2.0 and wasn't impressed. I tried to enable EAX and 3D Sound in Diablo 2 and other games. The audio sounded plain and boring in my favorite games. I was forced to go back to Windows to enjoy my audio with my old Sound Blaster Live! card. Does v3.x let you do this now?

Re:Does WineX let you enable sound enhancements?

[Doom Ihl' Varia]

No. This isn't a fault of WineX. It is a fault of the Linux sound drivers. The OSS and ALSA guys have a thing against implementing propertiary 3d sound engines.

Re:Does WineX let you enable sound enhancements?

[rifter]

Yet another example of what happens when politics gets in the way of innovation. Why can't developers understand that what is important is making things work?

Good news ?

[mirko]

Will it finally play OGG... ;-)
Oups, sick joke, I meant : will it finally run Fruity Loops or even Cubase ???

Re:Good news ?

[IamTheRealMike]

Fruity Loops sort of works in WineHQ, I was debugging it a while ago (well, the first window :p) but not good enough for real usage. Cubase won't ever work in Wine as it requires the Windows equivalent of kernel modules, which Wine cannot do.

WineX 3.0 Release notes

[diatonic]

You can read them here.

The review appears to be slashdotted.

.:diatonic:.

Gaming

[rf0]

Under Windows

Insert CD
Autoruns
Type in ID number
Wait..
Click Icon
play Game

Under Linux

Insert CD
Start Wine
Load Binary
Crashes
Load Again
Goes a bit further
Move you mouse X11 Locks up
Download lastest CVS version
Rebuild
Try Again
Crashes
Give up and do something else

Now I really like Linux. Honestly I do, but this is one of those times Windows just wins

Rus

Re:Gaming

[Lumpy]

Funny, i recently bought UT2003 from Toys-r-us and on my linux box typed setup.run and it installed just fine..

in fact I'm playing faster than the copy I have on the Windows 2K box that is indentical in every way (well except the W2K box has hardware raid0 on it so it SHOULD be faster with those 2 drives)

Linux gaming is really easy, and only a silly fool that doesnt know anything about linux gaming would say otherwise...

now trying to get a windows game to run in a non-emulator like wine? that is for the person that want's to have that pain... otherwise buy the linux native games and be content that you have more games available than the Mac people.

Re:Gaming

[OMEGA Power]

More Acurate: Under Windows: Insert CD Autorun Installer Crashes Run setup.exe Type in ID number Wait... Installer Frezzes up Run setup.exe Type in ID number Click through 37 page EULA that could say they promise to give Bill Gates your first born child for all you know Wait... Click Icon Get Error Message Download and Install new drivers for video and sound card Reboot Click Icon Download and Install new version of DirectX Reboot Click Icon Blue Screen of Death Reboot Click Icon Wait... Play until game crashes again Under Linux: Insert CD Start Wine Load Binary Crashes Load Again Get untellagible error message Give up on trying to run Windows games on Linux and find something better to do.

Why not in games.slashdot.org?

[kirkb]

Since this article is games-oriented, why isn't it in the new, garish-colored games.slashdot.org?

But Wait...

[blinder]

Strange, maybe I'm just reading too much into this and I should just shut up... but in looking at the WineX Sourceforge page and well, they haven't released any files, and well... the project's status is "Alpha."

So... was this a case of them just not updating their sourceforge page (like that NEVER happens) or is this a premature announcement?

Re:But Wait...

[standsolid]

well, if you were to look further on the sourceforge page you'd notice that they do frequent cvs updates. they don't realase files because the binaries are only available to subscribers. there is much activity and it is very fair to call any for of wine alpha because wine is a long ways away from nearing beta of final

"+5 Funny?"

[Overly Critical Guy]

You're right. Version number jokes never get old. They are repeated and repeated, year after year, but they are still just as clever and inventive as they were five years ago.

Let's make another 3.11 joke, shall we? The trigger-happy crackheads will be falling over themselves trying to mod it up fast enough.

Re:"+5 Funny?"

[sharkey]

Let's make another 3.11 joke, shall we?

All joking aside, I just can't wait to get the "Leaves" background in WineX 3.11 for Winegroups.

Re:"+5 Funny?"

[Thurn und Taxis]

Let's make another 3.11 joke, shall we?

Okay, if you insist. But I can't decide whether to say that Transistor was their last good album, or whether to start rapping "3.11 is a joke in your town!"
--

Re:"+5 Funny?"

[blancolioni]

Let's make another 3.11 joke, shall we?

Man, it's still too soon to be making jokes about that. We lost a lot of good people, and ...

Oh, sorry, I thought you said 9.11

Re:"+5 Funny?"

[Speare]

As the guy who created LEAVES.BMP (and a few others from Win3.1), I'm still amazed at how popular that image was. There's no explaining what people will like or dislike the most. It appeared on almost every other computer magazine ad for a couple years.

It was such a hack little graphic, too.

Reasons for using Windows

[billstewart]

Look, there aren't many reasons for using Windows out there. MSOffice can be somewhat emulated with OpenOffice and such, most tools for network-related activities are much easier to build and support on Unix, email clients and web servers are much better on Unix, most tools for computation are easier to build and support on Unix, GUIs can be done anywhere depending on what toolkits you like, and video production is still usually a Macintosh thing.

Games are the reason for buying that new 7GHz machine with the gigabyte video card in it, and games are the hard-to-port reason for buying Windows, just as they're the reason for buying Gamez hardware platforms, because they're unique products (unlike Office, where a similar product running on a different OS is just fine.) So if good portability tools let game writers hang onto Windows a bit longer, fine, that still means that more of the important industry-driving products (:-) run on Linux as well.

Dreamweaver with WineX (my experience).

[rxed]

I had success installing Dreamweaver 4.01 with version 2.x of WineX. Dreamweaver was very slow, and some of the tools like layers didn't work (crashing WineX).

It would be interesting to see if WineX 3.x can runner Dreamweaver in a productive way. Any takers?

Re:Dreamweaver with WineX (my experience).

[fuckeverything]

i dont think winex would be the right choice for that kind of application. you would do better with crossover office at www.codeweavers.com. its basically a wine optimized for office apps. i have flash mx working with it flawlessly. just a thought.

WineX3 has been good to me

[Gyorg_Lavode]

I subscribe and wineX3 has been supprisingly good. It's running the games I am really interested in. I'm back to playing Everquest (maybe not a good thing), Warcraft3, Jedi Knight 2, and Baulder's Gate 2. I'm also using EQIM with it. All of these work basically transparently. There's of course the overhead and minor things, (names over character heads are not very legible in everquest though I hear cvs fixes this), but really it doesn't bother me one bit and I don't have to boot out to windows to play these games.

Point2Play basically acts kind of like a registry for windows games. Not exactly what it does but a reasonable analogy. I wish you could add directories/executables directly to it rather than having to do an install, but other than that it's working well as a launch point for my windows games.

Over all I am pleased with wineX3. I thought the wineX3 preview was lacking but this version seams acceptable.

Re:WineX3 has been good to me

[Papineau]

You can manually add games to Point2Play. Read the Release notes, where they say how to convert an existing WineX installation to P2P. Of course, if you only copy it from a Windows installation, the registry entries might not be setup correctly and the game might be upset, the same way that copying it from a Windows box to another (without installing on the second one) would make it upset. Not much you can do about that part...

Re:WineX3 has been good to me

[Gyorg_Lavode]

I'll have to do that. I just wanted to add EQIM since I run that some. Wasn't a big deal though since I have an icon for it on my desktop already.

Re:WineX3 has been good to me

[eniu!uine]

I really wish you hadn't brought up Everquest. I just want... just a little loot... and maybe some XP..... aaaarrrgh!

Re:RedHat 9

[IamTheRealMike]

Last thing I heard the NPTL support code wasn't yet in CVS, you have to buy it from them. It will get there eventually, but it's tied up with their copy protection proprietary stuff.

Re:Substitute for Codeweavers???

[Guspaz]

WineX is only designed for gaming, not running business applications, browser plugins, etc.

Re:Buzz off

[phoebusQ]

Hey, maybe you should do a little INVESTIGATION before you start posting:) WineX IS free. The source is free for download. If you want precompiled binaries and official support, that is what you pay for (and boy, is it CHEAP). Please don't tell me you can't handle ./configure; make && make install. It's also a hell of a lot cheaper than buying a copy of windows to play. If I had the money, I might not complain so rudely, but come on people! Yeah, c'mon people! Why would you think that releasing your source is enough? Shouldn't you freely support and hand-hold every shlub that uses your product? Just download the source and compile, and sate yourself with a little hard-earned fun, instead of complaining about nonexistant problems.

Re:RedHat 9

[Squarewav]

well to get wine to work with redhat 9 i have to

export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5

strangly enough this will also couse realplayer 8 to work properly under redhat9 , i just addded it to my .bashrc file. If anyone knows what bad side efects this will couse let me know

Re:Buzz off

[BryanForbes]

Let's see... last time I checked, you can download the source for free. The membership is 5 bucks a month ($60 a year) for a pre-packaged wine (rpm, deb, and tgz) with all the correct dll's in the right place AND a voice in what area WineX will be developed in next, plus support. Now they have an installer available (and IIRC, it's source is freely available) that is prepackaged for members. They keep adding benefits to WineX membership, but the price stays the same. Sorry, but that seems pretty reasonable to me.

Re:RedHat 9

[BHearsum]

I'm willing to bet Winex 3.0 cvs doesn't have a fix for the glibc 2.3.2 bug (that makes everything not work). I know for a fact that it's fixed in 3.0 retail though. So your options are to switch to RH8 (or anothen non-glibc 2.3.2 distro) or buy it. Fun.

Yo, here's the article

[Anonymous Coward]

Here we go, love mike the karma whore :p WineX 3.0 with Point2Play Review: No More Wine From the Command Line?

Published by LinuxOrbit.com April 28, 2003
by John Gowin, Linux Orbit Editor-in-chief

It seems just like yesterday I was cleaning up my office and realized I had a bunch of games I could no longer play because of my complete Linux conversion. Although I don't buy a lot of games, the ones I had represented a decent cash investment, and I didn't want them to completely go to waste. This led me to Transgaming's WineX. 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). All of this we detailed in our review of WineX 2.1 last August.

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.

The software

If you're not familiar with the Transgaming WineX sales model, you have 3 choices. You can subscribe for $5 US per month, with a three month minimum subscription. You can also choose a longer subscription term, such as one year for $50 US (essentially 2 months for free). Transgaming also gives access to the CVS releases of WineX to subscribers and non-subscribers, but the copyright protection code needed to run most games is missing. They also offer no support to those who build WineX from source. Once you've subscribed, you'll find pre-built packages available for download in RPM, DEB and TGZ formats. If you're familiar with your Linux distribution, installing the package for your system should be a breeze. This time around, you'll need to install 2 packages however, one for WineX and one for the new GUI tool Point2Play. The instructions for installing both are on the downloads page at the Transgaming website (once you've created an account and logged in).

The hardware

Here is a quick overview of the hardware which we used to test WineX 3.0:

• 
  
• Generic 1.33 GHz AMD Athlon T-bird
• 512 MB RAM
• GeForce 2 MX graphics card with 32 MB RAM
• XFree86 4.2
• Latest NVidia driver

In our tests, we ran WineX 3.0 under Red Hat Linux 7.3, but according to the Transgaming web site, the latest Linux distributions should be fine, provided they support the following:

• 
  
• Linux Kernel 2.4 or higher. Stock Kernels recommended over RedHat 7.x/8.x kernels.
• XFree86 4.0 or higher (4.1 and above recommended)
• glibc 2.2 or higher
• Working hardware accelerated OpenGL video card

(In our previous review, we also tested WineX on a Gateway PII 400 with a Riva 128 video card. That system is currently occupied with a Debian dist-upgrade to Sid over a dialup line, but that is a different article altogether.)

Once we installed the necessary RPMS for Winex and Point2Play:

Point2Play-1.0-0.i386.rpm
winex3-3.0-1.i386.rpm

we were ready to start testing.

Editors Note: In our previous review of Transgaming's WineX, we covered a few technical notes for configuring XFree86 on your GNU/Linux system. I

I LOVE WineX

[James Littiebrant]

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.

Re:where is the insight?

[rf0]

I was actually trying for funny though it ain;t that funny I will admit

Rus

Re:Requirements - Bloat?

[Squarewav]

winex converts DirectX to opengl on the fly to do that at any reasonable speed you need a fast cpu, in reality 500 MHz isn't fast enough to run most modern games under winex

WineX on OSX?

[WatertonMan]

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?

Re:WineX on OSX?

[andfarm]

Never gonna happen. All that WineX does is emulate Win32 API calls -- it doesn't touch the x86 assembly. If you want to run Windows games on your Mac, use VirtualPC (Bochs is painfully slow).

Re:WineX on OSX?

[a.ameri]

Wine only runs on x86. As WineX is also based on Wine, I guess the same applies to it.However, you have the option of wrting a mail to apple, and request a x86 port of OS X. Just make it clear that you want this, because you want to compile WineX on OS X, and then, you might have a chance, who knows..
And Oh one more thing, if you manage to persuade them to release OS X under GNU GPL, then I will personally do the porting for you ;-)

Re:WineX on OSX?

[TheRealRamone]

read about the "x86 port of OS X" here. (well, the "OS" portion of "OS X" anyways - BSD licensing ok?)

--TRR

Re:WineX on OSX?

[WatertonMan]

You miss my point. Wine *emulates* Windows calls. In effect it is most of Windows emulated. Now this emulation is presumably kept in source code. Could that source code be recompiled for PPC with the actual program code of the program or game being interpreted (or compiled with a JIT compiler)? In this way the time that the code spends in WindowsAPI calls is not emulated and runs full speed.

In theory this is faster that VPC or related emulators since a large number of calls are native. If you are familiar with it, this is similar to what happened with the 68k -> PPC transition. A lot of older 68k programs called MacOS APIs and most of those APIs were native PPC.

Umm yeah...

[NanoGator]

...so why's it so hard to just dual boot with Windows?

I mean seriously, every time I see these WineX threads I'm reminded of why I went from DOS to Win95 in the first place. I got sick of having to set everything up, then troubleshooting the inevitable problems that would arise. That's gone in recent years. Now installing a game on XP or 2k is "setup.exe, ok, ok, ok, play." Now you guys are talking about adding steps to that if the game doesn't work straight away.

Seriously dudes, if you really want to play games that badly, just dual boot into Windows. Save yourselves the fuss.

Re:Umm yeah...

[IamTheRealMike]

I think perhaps you don't understand. Wine doesn't need Windows. You can buy 3 good, modern games for the price of Windows alone.

Re:Umm yeah...

[NanoGator]

'I think perhaps you don't understand. Wine doesn't need Windows. You can buy 3 good, modern games for the price of Windows alone."

Fair point, except that if you buy a game that Wine doesn't support, you're out $50. It's guaranteed to work with Windows since it was developed for it.

Think of it as like you're buying a game console. Windows is about the same price as an XBOX or PS2.

Re:Umm yeah...

[Karn]

We may save some fuss, but we are also telling game developers that we don't want native ports, which is not true.

Obviously, playing games under Linux is more important to us than saving a bit of fuss right now.

... so why's it so hard for you to accept this?

Re:Umm yeah...

[KiahZero]

It's guaranteed to work with Windows since it was developed for it.

You'd think so, but no, not really. I was having a problem with Starcraft after I upgraded to W2K from 98. Apparently my sound card support went from 'working' to 'not' between kernels.

As for testing, you could always 'borrow the game from a friend' and then buy a legit copy once you know it works.

Don't forget the added HDD space you'll need to install Windows. XP and 2K are both rather large installations.

Re:Umm yeah...

[standsolid]

for one thing you can check the AppDB at wine first to see if it runs (or transgaming)... then you can go out an buy it. and who wants a game console that you can only set up on one tv and if you change tvs you have to tell the console makers for permission

. sounds like a blast! where can i get my "game console" so i can begin raping my computer ;p

Re:Umm yeah...

[CoreWalker]

Buy Windows?
I'm not talking about businesses here. I'm talking about for personal use: Does anyone actually pay money for Windows anymore? (Unless, of course, it came bundled with the computer you bought.) I can't think of anyone I know who has walked into a store and plunked down money for a retail Microsoft OS.

Re:Umm yeah...

[NanoGator]

"Why buy a game that isn't supported? "

That might be an interesting point of games said on the box "WineX supported". But they don't. So you're stuck having to find out on the net if it is supported. Even if it is, sometimes hardware can make a difference here. It might run okay on one person's machine, that doesn't mean your different machine will. As stated before, Windows is a much better platform for this as that's what it was developed and tested on.

You might think it's no big deal to look it up, but that requires that the game actually be released and that somebody has actually tested it. That sucks if your plan is to pre-purchase a highly-anticipated game.

Frankly, I wouldn't deal with all that mess. Then again, I don't use Linux so it really doesn't matter for me. I can play all my games. The thought of having shakey confidence about buying a game makes me shudder.

Re:Umm yeah...

[NanoGator]

" I was having a problem with Starcraft after I upgraded to W2K from 98. Apparently my sound card support went from 'working' to 'not' between kernels."

That's a 'fix it once' type of problem just like you'd have if it broke in Linux. That's not a "this particular game didn't like it because we didn't quite support it right" type of problem that you'd run a risk of getting in Winex.

"As for testing, you could always 'borrow the game from a friend' and then buy a legit copy once you know it works."

There are some people that'd work for. Unfortunately, that's not always a possibilty. However, I'll concede that demo availability would help suss that out.

"Don't forget the added HDD space you'll need to install Windows. XP and 2K are both rather large installations."

Yes, you're right. You'd also have to have enough partition space for your games. However, disk space is cheap. I have 40 gigs in my laptop and over 200 on my desktop. I can't imagine most people are terribly worried about dedicating a few gigs to a game partition. Secondly, why muck up your Linux configuration over it? Why find out that your video drivers are obselete for a particular game and go through the hassle of updating them? This, if gone wrong, could really mess up your productivity in Linux. The same risk exists in Windows, but it's not a big deal if that boot is only used for games. Windows is pretty graceful with it's default VGA driver, so getting it fixed isn't a big deal. To be honest, in the last 3 years of using 2k on a variety of machines, I haven't had any serious issues here.

There are other added benfitis too. Ya'll complain about spotty Windows media or Quicktime support. If something (like the Animatrix Movies) came along and you just couldn't get it to work in Linux, it'd be a piece of cake to have it running in Windows.

In any case, I know this suggestion's not going to be very popular here. Just remember this is experience talking. I'm a Windows guy. I have Linux installed on another partition because it's got Film Gimp and a few other things I'd like to play with. There are Windows versions available, but they are inferior as most of the attention goes to Linux. It's not like I'm totally insensitive to your situation here. I'd like to switch to Linux some day, but I wouldn't get rid of Windows in the process. I like playing my games. I wouldn't shoot myself in the foot like that.

Re:Umm yeah...

[NanoGator]

"Because I seriously dont wont windows on my computer anymore. I dont like the direction MS is going, and I dont want to be a part of it. MS wants to eliminate us having local files..."

So.. you're worried about what MS might do down the road so you won't use it to play games today? I might understand that except WineX would be of no more use to you in that case either.

If you don't want to buy it because you want to flip-off MS that's fine, I respect that. I just don't think your rationale's all that logical.

"Upon reboot Mozilla had been uninstalled! Thanks MS!"

I found this comment interesting for a few reasons:

1.) I've never heard of it before. That might not be a big deal except Slashdot would jump all over it.

2.) I can't find any reference to this problem on the web.

3.) I'm not sure that you'd know the difference between Mozilla being uninstalled and Mozilla just not being the default handler to .HTML files.

4.) Uninstalls don't just magically happen without you knowing in Windows.

Enlighten me?

Re:Umm yeah...

[humpTdance]

Again ... using Wine to play a game preclues you from having anything from Microsoft (granted you're not talking about an MS game, which you weren't) on your computer ... RTFA

Re:Umm yeah...

[Karn]

Let me clarify my statement:
" We may save some fuss, but we are also telling game developers that we don't want native ports, which is not true."

To give a few examples why WineX applies to native games:

If a company notices a slight surge in sales due to a WineX release, the company may see this, assuming a significant number of people bought the game at that point in time, and make note of a potential audience. Some argue that this can hurt native ports, but I think the pros outweigh cons.

Dual-booting discourages Linux gaming. Why wait to buy Neverwinter Nights from Tuxgames when you can buy it now and play it in Windows? (Hint: Supporting Tuxgames is good, buying the game when it finally runs in Linux says "Linux port worthwhile", and not having access to a game gives Linux gamers plenty of incentive to register in forums and say "Where is that Linux port?")

Re:Umm yeah...

[Fizzol]

>You might think it's no big deal to look it up, but that requires that the game actually be released and that somebody has actually tested it. That sucks if your plan is to pre-purchase a highly-anticipated game.

It's not only no big deal it's total common sense to look it up before buying. In fact the imagination boggles at the idea that you wouldn't. You're seriously going to pre-purchase some brand new game having *no* idea whatsoever if you'll be able to run it under WineX?

Re:Umm yeah...

[westyvw]

My point was simply that some people wont want to dual boot just to play games, and I am out of context beacause this really is a discussion about WineX and I was writing more about the general windows vs Linux dual boot issue. And in the end, if I use WineX for now to run old games, perhaps when the developers realize I only have linux (hopefully many os us) they will native port. For example UT2003 under Linux runs great! The Mozilla issue WAS one of the strangest things I have seen on a windows maching. I assure you I DO know the difference betweeen installed VS default handler changes. Mozilla and all its files simply did not exist. The complete installation and directories dissapeared. The registry had no entries for it. This has only happened once. This was Win2000 update to Service Pack 3 (something by the way I dont do anymore). Wether this is repeatable I dont know, but we both know that the EULA DOES allow for this. Microsoft explicitly says that they can enter your machine and make changes, supposdly for security. It IS conceivable that MS would consider using a different browser a compromise in security, although I find that laughable.

Re:Umm yeah...

[NanoGator]

"My point was simply that some people wont want to dual boot just to play games..."

If you're talking about running only a handful of games you particularly like, then yes you are absolutely right, WineX is a better choice. If you're a gamer though... (no point in running around the track again.. ;))

" And in the end, if I use WineX for now to run old games, perhaps when the developers realize I only have linux (hopefully many os us) they will native port."

I'm sorry, I just don't see that happening. What they'll see is a handful of people have Linux, and a fraction of them might want to play their game. Multiply the number of Linux users/gamers by 10, and you'll start seeing Linux games. I remember reading that Q3 for Linux sold 10,000 copies. (it might have been 40k now that I think about it...) That's peanuts. A decent selling game on Win/PC is 100,000, and Q3 sold several million. See my point? It's not about people being willing to jump through hoops, it's about how many copies they can sell.

" Mozilla and all its files simply did not exist. The complete installation and directories dissapeared. The registry had no entries for it. This has only happened once."

Okay. I believe ya, but I cannot explain to you what might have happened as I've never seen it. Sounds rather unusual for me, but if it happened to me I'd feel exactly as you do.

"Wether this is repeatable I dont know, but we both know that the EULA DOES allow for this. Microsoft explicitly says that they can enter your machine and make changes, supposdly for security."

That's sort of true. The reason they have that in the EULA is so they can provide the Windows update service by default, instead of having it enabled if the user so chooses. The reason they're doing that is to make IE fixes happen a lot faster and with more proliferation. If MS didn't have that in the EULA, they'd risk being sued by having Windows call home by default.

Unfortunately, Slashdot didn't bother to actually investigate this possiblity before they ran off on a "MS wants to see everything you're doing" tangent.

Re:Umm yeah...

[arkane1234]

This requires me to take down a machine that serves a database, webserver, and as a fileserver.
Yes, I play games on a machine like that. Why? because I'm not rich... and it's not buggy :P Thank god for 32-bit operating systems that don't crash when an application does.

It would also require me to purchase future releases of Windows. I don't want to do that, considering my house will be Windows free in another year or two. It's a slow weaning process because I have a wife who uses windows applications and I need to teach her how to use OpenOffice, etc. Rebooting a perfectly good system just to play a game is like repainting your car when all you needed to do was put wax on it.

Re:Umm yeah...

[ocelotbob]

Because Windows fucking sucks in my opinion. Why should I have to boot into an operating environment that I don't like just so I can play a few games? I'd much rather stay into linux. For one thing, I don't have a windows partition on my main machine, and for another, all the games I want to play already work fine under Wine/WineX. Those games that don't work, I'll just wait around until they do before I buy them. I'd much rather deal with a few workarounds in getting some games to work than bump my head against the clunkiness that is Windows at every twist and turn when I'm trying to do real work.

Re:Umm yeah...

[NanoGator]

"We may save some fuss, but we are also telling game developers that we don't want native ports, which is not true."

No you're not. They have 0 clue that you didn't buy a game because you don't use Windows.

Nobody's going to make gamnes for Linux until the market is big enough to be successful. There is no Linux game market, that's why you're getting a trickle of cheap-to-produce ports.

If you want to send them the message you want Linux ports, using WineX is doing absolutely nothing to help you. It gives them an excuse to say "We don't need to do a Linux port then." If you really really want them to make games for Linux, then don't buy the Windows games period. If you feel that's unreasonable, then you're going to have to play by their rules.

I'm in the same boat. I want GTA Vice City. It's only on PS2 right now. I will not buy a PS2. I'm personally boycotting Sony because I was a salesman for their PSOnes when they originally came out. 1 in 4 of those things were defective and Sony absolutely refused to treat their customers (mostly kids) with respect over it. It's a long story, the important part is that I'm boycotting them for reasons similar to why a lot of people here won't buy MS software.

I could probably pick up a used PS2 for a reasonable price. Since it's used, Sony wouldn't see a dime of that. Cool, eh? No. I want Rockstar to prioritize PC development. I'm sending them the message that they have to develop for PC or they won't get money from me. (Essentially what I'm advising to you.)

The bad news is that I don't get to play Vice City, but the good news is that Rockstar's gone ahead and ported it to PC. I'll have it in my hot little hands in 2 weeks. It's been a loooong week. Sadly, there are other games on PS2 I'd like to play that I never will because I just cannot support Sony.

So I hope my point sort of makes sense. If you're really devoted to avoiding MS so you can get games made for Linux, then turning around and playing the games anyway isn't helping. If I had given in and bought the used PS2, I'd be sending the message "its okay to only support PS2, I'll bend over backwards to follow you."

Re:Umm yeah...

[TheRealRamone]

generally, it's not (provided you installed the other OS after installing your Windoze).

however some folks might not wish to.

perhaps they don't have the windows os handy. eg perhaps they built their own box; or the hard drive it came with went kaputt & and the assh*le oem didn't provide an install cd.

or maybe they just want to be ms-free (for any of the usual reasons)....

--TRR

Re:Umm yeah...

[Karn]

If you want to send them the message you want Linux ports, using WineX is doing absolutely nothing to help you. It gives them an excuse to say "We don't need to do a Linux port then." If you really really want them to make games for Linux, then don't buy the Windows games period. If you feel that's unreasonable, then you're going to have to play by their rules.


This is an opinion, and I disagree with it.

The most important thing for Linux gaming is a market.. WineX helps create this market, because it allows people to stay and game under Linux when they otherwise wouldn't be able to. It allows people who are stuck on Everquest to be a Linux gamer. It allows people who are stuck on Counter-strike to be a Linux gamer. And these gamers who use WineX DO have an impact on native oprts, because when a native port for Linux does come out, the company is compensated for their efforts, and it validates Linux as a gaming platform.

I switched to Linux gaming when Half-life ran under Linux. Since I have switched, I have bought all native titles for Linux. If it weren't for the fact that a game of the year title ran under Linux, I may not have made the switch, and the Linux market wouldn't have increased by 1. I'm sure there are many other new Linux gamers who switched because their one addiction ran under Linux, for example, Everquest.

Re:Umm yeah...

[NanoGator]

"This is an opinion, and I disagree with it."

I appreciate that, but I disagree with you as well, please read on.

" WineX helps create this market, because it allows people to stay and game under Linux when they otherwise wouldn't be able to."

I just don't see this happening. What I do see happening is the game company in question digging their heels into Windows. "Well, if I make this for Windows, it'll probably run on WineX. Cool. If I make it for Linux, there is no LineX for Windows to play the game. I lose a huge chunk of my market. Hmm. No Linux port here."

Sorry. It just won't work. The best chance that Linux has at creating a game market is to create a game distro. That's right, create a distro that is not only conducive to gaming, but it also comes with a bunch of free games. Give it away at places like EB, or get a deal to have magazines to insert the CD into their next publication. Then, a good gaming SDK needs to be made that works with both Windows and Linux. It needs to be like DirectX, but platform independent. It needs to cover 2D, 3D, Audio, and input such as Joysticks. It needs to be royalty free so that a game company can just use it without having to worry about signing anything. Heck, if the community is willing to really work on it, make it so that it's easy to travel across processors as well. Make it a recompile to have it work on PS2.

Anyway, that's a bit of a tangent. I don't think there's a lot you can do there, unless you can program in the Linux environment. My point stands. WineX makes it easier to play games on Linux, but it also solidifies the choice to develop games for Windows.

Re:Umm yeah...

[westyvw]

I know the original story is long gone, and we have different opinions about this matter. But I do know you might check your page for a response, and I want to give a quick one.

As I mentioned, UT2003 runs well under linux and was sold with the windows package, so either way, if anyone bought it they got a choice. I like that, and hope to see others work towards that goal.

About MS: I am in the camp that MS wants to know a little more then is good for them (or maybe me), but your opinion is sound as well.

Finally, I wanted to thank you for an open honest discussion without bashing or name calling. Its refreshing these days. If I had karma to give....

Re:Umm yeah...

[Karn]

I don't feel like re-explaining why I think your way of thinking of WineX is wrong, so I'll post a link to another post I made explaining things:
See here

WineX is a niche, and I say this as a Transgaming subscriber. Many games that do run under it run at a performance hit, and this will not be acceptable for companies that value their Linux market. Why do you think Bioware didn't use WineX to port? After all, they started porting to Linux AFTER the game was running in Windows, so if what you say is true, why didn't they cash in on that? Why isn't Id using WineX? The fact is, the only company that has ever relased an actual Linux game that uses WineX was Transgaming themselves.

I don't think WineX is the answer to our problems, but it is definately going to help, in a real way, right now. Your talk about a new distro is fine and all that, but it's just talk and all you seem to be doing is saying that Linux gaming will never happen, which doesn't surprise me as it is comeing from someone who doesn't game under Linux.

Re:Requirements - Bloat?

[EllisDees]

I don't think that's just for Wine. I think its the minimum you'd like to try any games at. I play GTA3 on a Duron 950 and it is a little slow, but playable.

Re:Substitute for Codeweavers???

[ArmorFiend]

I wish someone would post a comparison of all the different Wine-oids, including what the license terms are. I looked into wine for starcraft and warcraft-III some time ago, and despite several anecdotes about how "it works", I never could really get tractable instructions.

Game company support?

[sinequonon]

Has there been any interest in having the gaming companies support Wine during their test cycle, as well as printing Wine requirements on their shipped game packages? I'd be more tempted to purchase a game for use on Linux if I knew it was supported on Wine by the vendor. Having the information printed in the requirements box could be a big help in selling Linux as a gaming environment. Thanks.

Re:Requirements - Bloat?

[Mr.Phil]

winex converts DirectX to opengl on the fly to do that at any reasonable speed you need a fast cpu, in reality 500 MHz isn't fast enough to run most modern games under winex

A 500Mhz processor is fast enough to run most modern games under WINDOWS either.

Pity

[genzil]

Just a pity that you have to pay, there isn't even a cut back 'taster' version like some developers have done.

Re:Pity

[jonfelder]

You don't have to pay, anyone can download the cvs. You only have to pay if you want the compiled binaries.

Re:Pity

[Karn]

The binaries include copy-protection code which is licensened from other companies. From what I understand, they are legally bound to keep the source secret.

Good points

[Andy Dodd]

There's one reason I keep my WineX subscription, and it's not the packages:

It's having a say in the monthly polls. Nothing else.

Simcity 4

[jonfelder]

I tried WineX 3.0 with Simcity 4 and the results were pretty dismal. It says on their homepage that it is an officially supported game. Has anyone had any luck with getting it to work well? The game installs, and runs for a bit, but goes downhill if I try to create a new city. The graphics become messed up whenever you scroll if hardware rendering is used. When I switch it to software rendering the game displays nothing (I know it's running though because all the sounds work.)

Re:winex makes me angry

[praedor]

"Once all the game developers have already stopped porting to linux they wont come back"? WHAT game developers are porting games to linux? C'mon! Virtually none. Id software produces linux binaries of all their games as a matter of tradition. Perhaps one or two other vendors may consider porting, but usually they are coaxed into allowing someone else to port.

Wine isn't hurting anything because there is nothing to hurt. All you need is for linux on the desktop to become more widespread and you will see linux ports from the actual game source rather than a bunch of hackers doing a port a year or two after the game has been out and played already by the rest of the world. In any case, it isn't as if game developers/companies are building FOR wine - most game do NOT work on winex or winehq or codeweaver's wine. It is practically an accident when a game does work. Thus, if companies were actually building for wine rather than for windoze proper (or linux), then you MIGHT have an argument, but even then it would be pretty weak. Why NOT build for a standard (wine) library so that you know your one game will run on windoze and linux out of the box? You don't HAVE to work to produce multiple versions unless you are also writing for Macs, then it would be two versions instead of 3 (best case): Mac, Windoze, and linux.

Re:Requirements - Bloat?

[westyvw]

Afully Pricey?
What that system above?

Are you trapped in time like 4 years ago?
I think you said it yourself, cant expect a modern game to run on much less then the above.

And as for price, late last year we bought a Athlon 650 plus motherboard, 256 megs ram, case and powersupply, and a TNT 2 32 meg card for our file server. Total cost = under $100. Yes adding the hard drives did cost us more, but they were raided scsi 10,000 rpm , but you dont need that for gaming.

So the specs above are very old, and one should be able to grab a computer like that for not too much. My year old laptop next to me is a p3 1Ghz with 512Megs, and the computer I am typing on now, I upgradded from a 750 athlon to a 1.4 for the whopping sum of $35.

Jason

WineX CVS source

[m4g02]

You are wrong, some of their code is copyright so (as you could read in their site like everyone else) when you download WineX from the CVS portions of the code are missing and bad patched, from my experience sound wont work at all with CVS sources.

From Transgaming site:
Pre-built packages of WineX contain components licensed from third parties, and may not be redistributed in whole for any reason.

But is not like im bitching about it, Im a TransGaming suscriber, is not expensive and at least i know im helping to keep the project running, i mean, i play Counter Strike without any problem, worth the $5 per month.

- - - - - - - - - -
Sigs are for morons... Wait a minute...

Re:Buzz off

[DarkKnightRadick]

I'm through compiling shit from source. There is no point in it. Why do I say that? Because say I compile gaim from source, but all the plug-ins are pre-compiled binaries (no source available). Then I'm screwed as the binaries won't see that GAIM is installed.

Re:Buzz off

[m4g02]

You are wrong, some of their code is copyright so (as you could read in their site like everyone else) when you download WineX from the CVS portions of the code are missing and bad patched, from my experience sound wont work at all with CVS sources.

From Transgaming site:
Pre-built packages of WineX contain components licensed from third parties, and may not be redistributed in whole for any reason.

But is not like im bitching about it, Im a TransGaming suscriber, is not expensive and at least i know im helping to keep the project running, i mean, i play Counter Strike without any problem, worth the $5 per month.

- - - - - - - - -
Sigs are for morons... Wait a minute...

What happens when

[HanzoSan]

Linux users eventually begin to match or even outnumber windows users worldwide?

China, India, Africa. They can make games too.

Re:Boycott WineX

[Fizzol]

If by "interesting" you mean filled with untruths, innaccuracies and distortions used as justification for a boycott, then yes it's interesting.

"* TransGaming writes incredibly enthusiastic pieces of propaganda which are mostly discussing software they did not write. The LGPL wine (the original codebase) has been developed for 9+ years, but TransGaming forked their version very recently, and does not contribute code back."

Not true

"# TransGaming has consistently claimed that their approach is superior to native porting in every manner."

I've *never* seen that claim made.

"# TransGaming once promised to give back code to what was Wine,"

TG has given code back.

"# TransGaming encourages the misconception that their product is not an emulator, despite the fact that the founder of the Wine project refers to it as such. In order to replace the term "emulation", they refer to WineX as a "portability technology", stretching definitions of both "portability" and "technology". If TransGaming really wishes to avoid the term "emulation", they should replace it with a phrase that actually reflects what WineX does, such as "compatibility layer".

WINE is not an emulator, and besides that, how is what term TG uses to describe WineX a reason for boycotting?!

"# TransGaming has willingly stripped out all methods of debugging the Wine source base in their packaged releases, greatly slowing down the process of fixing bugs."

Not true.

"# Support for games varies wildly between releases, and even their vaunted "DirectX 8.0 support" is already one rev behind and about to be a second rev behind. It still doesn't provide access to all the nice features that the cards, DirectX, and the games support."

Of course it varies between release, mostly better. And again how is this any reason for a boycott?

"# TransGaming promises much, yet delivers little.. . Still, there are many problems with the Half-Life emulation. The most notable of these problems is that the menus do not work, causing a significant drop in user-friendliness."

TG mostly delivers exactly what they promise. The menus in Half-Life don't render exactly correctly but they work just fine.

"# These same Counter-Strike players couldn't play online for some time. Valve had implemented new anti-cheating software which detected Wine users as cheaters."

And TG quickly worked with Valve to have WineX gamers recognized as legitimate clients. Problem solved and bravo for TG, how is this an arguement for a boycott?

Point2Play a win32 app

[hey]

I wonder if Point2Play a win32 app :-)

Exactly

[HanzoSan]

Finally someone figures it out. With a bigger marketshare you can make your own games, we wont need Windows gaming companies to port their games, with millions of Linux gamers, Linux gaming companies would make Linux only games.

Sorta like how Dreamcast had its exclusive games, and PSX has its exclusive games.

OS X wine?

[Thaidog]

Obviously off topic... but does anybody here know of a project?

Re:OS X wine?

[andfarm]

Impossible. Wine doesn't emulate the x86 instruction set.

Windows Gaming Under Linux At Half The Speed??

[niko9]

I'm surprised nobody mentioned this Tom's Hardware article regarding Windows gaming performance under Linux. Most interesting is the Quake III benchmarks of the native Linux and Windows clients.

Re:Windows Gaming Under Linux At Half The Speed??

[niko9]

woops, heres the link.

Re:Windows Gaming Under Linux At Half The Speed??

[Fizzol]

Everquest plays flawlessly on my system, no errors, no problems, no glitches, no hiccups, no crashes. Do I care that it's running at 50 fps instead of 75 or 80? Nope.

success

[ceswiedler]

WineX will be successful if game developers make the simple choice to write Windows code which will run on WineX. For example, as of last time I looked, out-of-process COM objects weren't supported in Wine. It's certainly possible to design almost any Windows app to use in-process COM objects. If software houses begin to look at Wine's capabilities and say "hey, if I design within those (reasonable) limitations, then my app will run pretty easily on Linux."

Linux is a custom kernel which provides a source-compatible copy of the Unix APIs. The same thing will happen to Windows. I predict that in five to ten years, some version of the Windows 98 API will become a practically open standard with at least one full implementation, and any operating system will be able to run any app which will run on Windows 98.

Re:Buzz off

[Fizzol]

> No, it doesn't seem reasonable to me. Sorry. I can't even afford $.10 a month ($1.20/year).

Then you can't afford to buy games to play or even blank CDs to pirate them with.

Re:Buzz off

[DarkKnightRadick]

That's why I have friends. Because I have a broadband connection (live with parents), I had a friend send me a spindle of cd's so I could burn him stuff on occasion.

Re:a tip

[DarkKnightRadick]

Of course it's too much for the binary package creators to install it to the place where the source compile installs it too.

Source Downloads

[OMEGA Power]

Has anyone been able to download the source for WineX (using CVS). Every time I try I get a error (usualy "connection reset by peer")

Re:Source Downloads

[ocelotbob]

Repository could very well be /.ed at the moment. I downloaded the source about a week ago, even tested it by running the Furcadia client (I've got a few buddies I RP with over there) and it seems to work just fine. Admittedly, needs aren't as great as others', but I can say that with the tiny bit of testing I did, this version is faster than prior versions.

regular windows apps?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wondering, does WineX have the same win32 compatibility as CrossOver's product does?

For instance, if I purchased WineX, could I then run Office 2000 without issues?

I realize WineX is a fork more directly targeted for game compatibility, but it seems to me it should be more-or-less equivalent to the version that CrossOver uses...

Re:Boycott WineX

[Karn]

"# These same Counter-Strike players couldn't play online for some time. Valve had implemented new anti-cheating software which detected Wine users as cheaters."


Actually, that is true. It took weeks before CS players could play the game under Linux successfully.

Still, I agree that this is not a reason to boycott it. If anything, it says that native ports are superior to a game under WineX, which contradicts the anti-wine people's FUD about WineX getting so good that game developers won't develop native ports.

Money

[sgtsanity]

It's all a question of where the money goes to. Right now, WineX users pay some money so that their games can run on Linux. If a game developer ports their game to linux, they can get a taste of that money.

And with the Dreamcast comparison, Bleemcast was very poor and only supported a few games. On the other hand, PS2's backwards compatibility DID convince several users of the PSX to upgrade, knowing that they could do so and still enjoy their old games

all software is free

[rkz]

let me recommend a solution: WAREZ
If you are not using WAREZ soft at work then you'll be fine dont worry about the BSA asking to audit you and your one worthless PC.

grammar nazi post (sorry)

[hndrcks]

"pretty flawlessly", besides being bad English, is akin to 'sort of pregnant'. Either you are flawless, or you aren't.

Sorry for the interruption.

Re:RedHat 9

[jensend]

I think getting the latest glibc from up2date ought to fix this.

Play your strengths, cover your weaknesses...

[Kjella]

WineX isn't supposed to be a strength of Linux - no matter how good it gets, it will always be inferior to running it natively on Windows.

It's there for those people who'd use Linux where it has its strengths, and as a "bonus" they can run some games too. Which might make Linux a viable solution for more people - not hardcore gamers mind you, but those that play a game from time to time.

Linux ports to squeeze out the last copies isn't so important to games, that instead can sell an expansion/sequel. More traditional products will be a lot more interested in porting their product to Linux than games, as they struggle to gain market share, not bringing out "new" products all the time.

Kjella

Re:Play your strengths, cover your weaknesses...

[Archie Steel]

I consider myself a pretty hardcore Counter-Strike player...not very good, perhaps, but hardcore nonetheless. I play it on Windows at work (during lunchbreak) and on Linux at home - where as a bonus I can check my mail and whatnot without disconnecting from my game...

Re:Play your strengths, cover your weaknesses...

[ShortSpecialBus]

how do you do that without screwing up the keyboard/mouse input for winex?

I can never get it to go back correctly if I alt-tab out.

Re:Play your strengths, cover your weaknesses...

[Archie Steel]

I play in windowed mode, disable DXGrab - it stays grabbed during the game anyway - and then pause the game in order to get the cursor back. I can then click my way to the mail program and back, then click on "resume" to start playing again. I haven't tried Alt-Tabbing in a while, but I do recall there were some problems there.

Re:Buzz off

[DarkKnightRadick]

Well, considering how I'm a total frickin' idiot, I really don't have a choice on what I use.

Re:Requirements - Bloat?

[Guilly]

As pointed out by others, in which year do you live? 500MHz CPU's haven't been sold to gamers for what .. 5 years now? You can't game on WinXP unless you have 256 or even 512 megs of RAM nowadays. 1-2 GB is the default install size for most games.

As for the video card, do you think XP will automagically convert your S3 4 meg video card to a gaming video card on the fly?

The machine mentionned is far from awful pricey... you should get out of your basement some time and see what's changed :-)

PCs Should Not Have Games

[Vagary]

Not only is Linux not the platform of choice for gamers, it should remain as such! The Linux community should not waste their time trying to get games to run an operating system which is inherintly unsuited for such a task. Not only is the OS unsuited, but PC hardware is unsuited.

I dream of someday being able to ignore the video card upgrade cycle. I dream of playing CounterStrike 2without hassles. My dream includes a mouse, keyboard, and monitor and it does not include monthly fees!

I can't see why portable code is so fscking hard

[Guilly]

Ok, I'm no professionnal game developer, but I've written SDL/OpenGL apps in the past (even recently) and by making sure everything does compile and work under both linux and windows as I add code, I end up with fully portable code. I mean, how hard is it to use portable libraries and code from the beginning? Why do companies choose to use DirectX instead of OpenGL? Even if you use DirectX, how hard is it to make that choice irrelevant to the rest of the implementation, and the switch to OpenGL transparent?

NVidia is doing a pretty good job at Linux graphics, as is Carmack. It must be possible for eevry company to build portable games and engines when they build them from scratch, shouldn't it?

Very displeased with WineX 3.0.

[Jerk City Troll]

WineX 3.0 no longer plays the games that 2.1 did. GTA3 and StarCraft no longer run and WC3 seems to be much worse. So, I don't really see much improvement. Anyone have any suggestions as to why GTA3 doesn't work (that's my favorite ;)?

Re:Very displeased with WineX 3.0.

[Fizzol]

You can keep both version on your system if you like. Installing Winex3 doesn't overwrite Winex 2.2.1.

Re:Very displeased with WineX 3.0.

[Jerk City Troll]

True, but I was hoping for some kind of performance benefit or fewer bugs...

A slight correction

[Archie Steel]

Under Linux Buy WineX subscription Download binaries Install them Insert CD of supported game type "winex3 [path to installer]" Game installs, icons are created in K menu Click on icon, play game Get in fight w/ girlfriend for playing eight hours straight on your favorite supported game OR Install the new point'n'click thingy from Transgaming Point and click on pretty widgets Play game Cut yourself off from the rest of the world until you pass out from lack of food Enough with the FUD already!

talk about contradicting yourself...

[grimani]

"those that worked, worked perfectly"
"those that didn't work, worked to varying degrees"

uhh...okay.

keep working on your literary skills. you know what they say - practice makes perfect, to varying degrees.

Don't support Transgaming!

[korny69]

Support people who are writing natively supported (ports) of the games. Buying a subscription to Transgaming will get you the game you currently are wanting to play, yes, but later when another game comes out, you will probably not be so lucky. OTC, I have had very little problems with my non-supported Loki produced games.

The only way to further alternative platform gaming (including MAC and *NIX) is to support the native code writers (icculus.org), the shops that sell the alternative OS games (tuxgames.com), and especially the companies that port (or pay to port) the games (Epic, Bioware, IDSoftware, etc).

Transgaming is wash! They "support" many games, but that support is strickly community-based and it may be a while before you get an answer. Their so-called "support" includes telling the customer they will need to use a CD-CRACK to get some games working (probably a really bad idea). And, not to mention, you pay for a service for a game that you already "own". Example: I pay $50 for a game I want to play and then I pay $15 (minimal subscription fee for Transgmaing) just to get it running (maybe?!) in Linux. I would much rather pay $50 (one time and maybe more $) for a game that is ported and I know that 75% of time it is going to run out of the box.

The new GUI, Point2Play is a good example. It looks as though they planned, developed, and released this thing in a matter of days. Geez, I understand they want to make money, but I think there may be better ways to do it.

Re:Don't support Transgaming!

[Fizzol]

>I would much rather pay $50 (one time and maybe more $) for a game that is ported and I know that 75% of time it is going to run out of the box.

Geez, if it's a native port it damn well better work better than 75% out of the box. That aside, show me the native Linux ports of Everquest, Diablo II and Half-Life (The games that *I* want to play) and I'll be happy to play them under Linux.

If you think Transgaming is such a bad deal then by all means don't subscribe. But if you think $15 to open up a whole library of games for Linux is a rotten deal then I have to question your judgement.

Re:RedHat 9

[Hitokage_Nishino]

A better solution for realplayer is to replace the /usr/X11R6/bin/realplay symlink (assuming rpm install) with this script:

#!/bin/sh
export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.4.1
/usr/lib/RealPlayer8/realplay "$1"

That way every other program can have NTPL fun and Realplayer works fine.

Re:Buzz off

[DarkKnightRadick]

why bother?

Re:Buzz off

[DarkKnightRadick]

Actually, I used to have a job. Not a damn fucking thing was better.

Why bother?
1) Install Apache from RPM
2) Install modules from RPM (php module (even with PHP4 installed) still doesn't fucking work)
3) ??
4) Profit (or at the very least have fun)!

3 words I have grown to HATE

[rutledjw]

in

Soviet

Russia

Re:I can't see why portable code is so fscking har

[Joe Tie.]

I mean, how hard is it to use portable libraries and code from the beginning?

Seriously. It never ceases to amaze me when I see programs meant from the beginning to run on multiple platforms, yet written in DirectX. Neverwinter Nights being the prime example of this. It just seems like a bad decision to maintain two separate codebases like this. I only muck around writing 2D, and fairly simple 3D, but I consider it not compiling on any supported platform, with no changes needed, to be an error which should be fixed immediately. It took me a little time to get WxWindows down, but I've saved that many times over in not having to do what amounts to writing two programs to do the same function.

Re:Buzz off

[DarkKnightRadick]

That's total fucking bullshit.

I used Debian Woody 3.0r0. Same fucking problems (some worse).

Re:Buzz off

[DarkKnightRadick]

Let me amend the above.

This does NOT in any way solve any problems.

YEA

[danoaks15]

I just downloaded it and I got backyard baseball to work. That is the the greatest.

To put it into context

[BeCre8iv]

From the article:
"Needless to say, Black and White installed just fine under WineX 2.2, and 3.0 is no exception. Once the installation is complete, the Point2Play interface..."

This beats the shit out of buying a copy of win2K or (retches) XP when you find that it wont work on win98.

According to this; under the old version under certain circumstances had better compatability than an official win32 API.

Re:Buzz off

[DarkKnightRadick]

well, consider I'm never using Debian again, it's moot.

Only use it as a stop gap...

[StarTux]

I use Linux because of its advantages in speed, stability and configurability by the end user. I use Winex as a stop gap so I can play EverQuest with my wife. One of many things I have noticed with Winex is its resource hogging and lack of real stability, even between versions.

Ever notice that between versions some games that worked now no longer do so?

Finally, when Transgaming first started they stated that they would not compete with native ports, well that turned out to be a lie.

Winex is a strange beast, on one hand I see its value, on the other I can see its potential at destroying good solid ports. And native ports run faster, with a lot more stability than winex enabled games; finally, they help improve and mature other tools like OpenGL and things like SDL rather than just directx. Oh and before people say 90% of the desktops are Windows, well sales fell around 3% last year with regards to PC Games, I saw two whole isles at Fry's be given over to Country music. So in essence, if you make games for Mac and Linux you would have gained back those lost Windows sales and a little more and you would have entered a new market, rather than been where everyone else has been.

StarTux

Sentance???

[t0ny]

Many games are picky about which version of Direct X you have installed. I used to have multiple versions of Windows installed just to play my games. Some only worked in Win 98, others only worked in Win2000, and I had one that would only work in win95. It was really annoying and put me off gaming.

I generally just install the latest and greatest version of direct x: seems to work fine for me. Ive been recently reliving past gaming glories (system shock 2, Red Alert, etc), and havent had a single problem. Of course, I stopped using Win9x about two years ago, so that could account for a lot of problems as well.

Other than getting DOS stuff working, its fine, and some of it will actually even run (with some PIF changes).

BTW, you spelled "sentence" wrong

Re:Comical Ali

[Anonymous Coward]

Contrary to unconfirmed reports of his suicide, former Iraqi information minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf has resurfaced as a Microsoft spokesman.

At least that's what the cheeky chaps behind TheInformationMinister.com would have us believe.

Fans of Comical Ali's inventive line of invective will be pleased to note he's handled the move from Baghdad to Redmond with aplomb.

Even though al-Sahaf was an apologist for a murderous regime, his star-quality shines through.

"Windows has no bugs. None! None I tell you! We will be shipping product soon," Comical Ali pronounces in the well-executed Flash animation.

"Linux is a lie. It is used by no one! It has no market penetration! None I tell you now," he continues in the mock-up Redmond via Baghdad broadcast.

"We are secure now. We have always been secure! Praise Allah!"

Microsoft and DirectX

[Latent Heat]

Microsoft, bless their black little hearts, made a concerted effort to woo game developers away from DOS-mode and on to Windows by adding all kinds of features, and even then as you point out, it took Microsoft several iterations to get right.

look, its TRUE

[DarkSarin]

I personally am looking at WineX for the very reason: I can't get my WindozeXP machine to install a lot of my favorite games, especially Diablo II. Does this bother me? Oh yeah! I want to play certain games, and if it means using emulation to do it, then FINE, I will.

As for the old debate about emulation vs. native, well let me say this. Native is great when done right, but most linux programs are harder to install than they should be. The best of the best are the new Nvidia drivers, UT2K3, and OpenOffice. These all use shell scripts in a wonderful way, and I love it.

It _'_ s

[TKinias]

scripsit t0ny:

Other than getting DOS stuff working, its fine, and some of it will actually even run (with some PIF changes).

BTW, you spelled "sentence" wrong

BTW, you spelled it's wrong.

Re:It _'_ s

[t0ny]

No, it's spelled correcty. The punctuation is just incorrect, due to informal writing. I also sometime don't capitalize things, but my spelling is generally correct.

Perhaps Slashdot should impliment a spell-checker. Oh ya, and a grammar checker as well.

Re:It _'_ s

[TKinias]

scripsit t0ny:

No, it's spelled correcty.

Just put down the shovel; the hole's not getting any shallower.

Re:Buzz off

[LinuxGeek]

I have recently switched to Gentoo and like it quite a bit. I started with Linux in '94 with slackware and redhat. Been the mandrake route the last couple of years. Seriously considered FreeBSD because of rpm nightmares from upgrading from cooker packages to get needed updates. Gentoo is all compiled from source and easy to upgrade. Installing is the hardest part, installing new stuff is quite easy if you can edit text files. The gentoo forums are calmer than usenet too if you need help.

Re:Buzz off

[DarkKnightRadick]

A friend of mine uses Gentoo. I'm kinda comfortable with installing from source.

As for editing text files, pico and nano are my best friends. I do all my html by hand, I've edited (but not created) batch files and other scripts.

Re:I can't see why portable code is so fscking har

[Dr. Sp0ng]

I mean, how hard is it to use portable libraries and code from the beginning?

It's not hard, obviously. But just as 90% of people are morons, 90% of game developers are morons.

Why do companies choose to use DirectX instead of OpenGL?

Because it's better. DirectX 9 is simply a better graphics API than OpenGL at this point, which is just an unfortunate fact of life. If you're developing for Windows, using DirectX will get cut down your workload tremendously, simply because so much more is already done for you.

Even if you use DirectX, how hard is it to make that choice irrelevant to the rest of the implementation, and the switch to OpenGL transparent?

That's the correct solution, and it's what I do (I am a game developer). It does take some real thinking to come up with a good abstraction which will take advantage of the power of each API while dealing with its limitations as well, but it's not impossible.

It must be possible for eevry company to build portable games and engines when they build them from scratch, shouldn't it?

Most companies are just trying to get the damn game finished and shipped.

Re:Requirements - Bloat?

[Mr.Phil]

*sigh*

That should read "...is NOT fast enough..." Honestly, there needs to be an "edit" option.

Re:Substitute for Codeweavers???

[Guspaz]

If you're just trying to play games, WineX is your best bet. According to their site:

StarCraft: Demo and full game both work perfectly in single player mode. There are visual issues with Battle.net. Multiplayer over UPD (tcp/ip) lan works perfectly. Requires v1.09. WarCraft 3: No description, but has the same "working" rating as StarCraft

Re:Substitute for Codeweavers???

[ArmorFiend]

Riiight, And WineX is not Free-as-in-speech?

Re:Substitute for Codeweavers???

[Guspaz]

WineX's source is available under the AFPL and GLPL (certain source files are under one licence, certain under the other)