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WineX and the Future of Linux Gaming
SQLz asks: "I'm a Linux user and an avid gamer but unfortunately for me, I have a very limited selection of games to play without having to reboot into my 'Xbox partition' (a Win2k partition with only games). To supplement my aging collection of Loki titles, as well as UT2003 and a few Q3A mods, I use WineX to play titles like Battlefield 1942, SimCity 4, and Homeworld Cataclysm. Apparently this is bad, as many people in the community feel that Transgaming's WineX is discouraging developers from creating native Linux ports. Does anyone have any real proof of this happening? Do developers really point out WineX as a alternative to doing a native Linux port?"
If MS Word worked really well under wine, would that stop people from wanting a native Linux word processor?
;)
WineX is great, but nothing beats a native game, and developers using WineX as an excuse to be windows-only are just lazy.
Okay perhaps you are right - laziness is very common after all
What's your GCNSEQNO?
Up until a little while ago, you could grab the winex source from cvs. They do appear to be discouraging this now. I know they flipped out on the Gentoo guys for having an easy ebuild to install it from cvs. I know the cvs server is practically unusable. It took me 4 days with a slick cron job to get the source from cvs a few months back. For the time being I have a "Windendo" partition also. I think it's going to take a few years before companys start following the ID example in larger numbers. You think more game companys would realize the dedicated fan base they get from doing multiple OS releases. It's like instant geek points. Makes them look more technologically advanced. I wish Sierra released Linux games. I'd kill for some NOLF style fun under Linux.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
Profitability. Or lack thereof. Same reason why there aren't more Mac games. Do the potential gains justify the cost of porting it? Some games would be easier than others, but theres not a lot of money to be made in the Linux market.
The other thing is that most people that play these kinds of games dualboot windows/linux. I'd say dualbooting is much more prevalent than using winex for games.
I'm not saying anything negative about Linux. I use Linux. But how many gamers, or just regular casual gamers, use Linux and only Linux at home?
I think the problem here is that the video game industry is contrary to the linux community in nature. The gaming industry creates closed source software and sells it in the store for money with a license for 1 machine. Linux is free as in beer and as in speech, and the software for it is usually the same.
The problem is that the same people who like those closed source games (myself included) also like linux. I think that if linux wants to establish itself as a gaming platform it needs games exclusive to itself that are as good or better than games for windows. More people need to start open source games/game engines for linux. One for every genre would be good.
When I look for video game hardware, especially consoles, the number one question on my mind is "what must-play games are here that aren't anywhere else". That's why I own a GameCube, and that why I use Windows to play games. XBoX and PS2 have good games, but the cube just has more games that I absolutely must play that aren't available for the pc or in the arcade, or on any other platform.
Conclusion: Make new open source games for linux. Make them high quality. Make them so good that people running windows will install linux just to play these games. Remember a really good free game is more popular than a slightly better $50 game. Counter-Strike is free, and I believe it's still #1.
End Rant!
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An almost-perfect Wine/WineX 'emulation' of some parts of a game might just be a perfect way for companies to start selling Linux ports.
For some trivial things like menu interfaces, performance is not an issue. The real trouble lies usually in the fast heavy graphical stuff. As GL is becoming less of a barrier, an hybrid-port (regular stuff via WineX, CPU-intensive GL stuff recompiled for Linux) could be a good bet for game companies.
I can understand that spending 10,000USD or more for a Linux port might not be that bright right now for a game company, but if Wine/WineX can lower that cost, companies will have "nothing to lose".
And while that's not the perfect solution, don't expect companies to release stuff "free as in speech" for a couple of years anyway.
So why did the companies allow it? Why not? All it did was generate good publicity, no support costs, no development costs.
But there may be another reason why companies should look at linux/mac. Microsoft is a direct competitor to every game company. It has been producing games for a long time but since directx it also controls the enviroment in wich games play. It has been found guilty in the past of using hidden parts of windows api to give itself an advantage over competitors in the desktop market. Is it really beyong belief that MS is doing or doing to do the same thing with DirectX?
With them now also involved in hardware it may be to any games company advantage to be flexible on hardware. It is already perfectly normal for games to be crossplatform why not include two more and cover 100% off all computer owners?
A dream? Years ago I read an article on OSes in a gaming mag. Linux was mentioned as a geek plaything that could barely play solitaire. Now many Multiplayer games depend on it for reliable servers. Who knows what will happen in the next few years.
What I am still wondering about is why no game company has created the selfbooting game. No problem without to date drivers or thousand of background services causing crashes blamed on youre game. But then I suppose that would be like expecting hardware manufacturers to include software for a bootdisk with the bios files.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
So why did they bother
Some games are ported to Linux because they want Linux based game servers. Once you have the server the client-side game is a small step, but without the server there would be no client-side game. There's no money in it otherwise. Even id had stated in Game Developer magazine that a Linux port of Quake did not make business sense, they only did it because they thought it would be cool.
... developers using WineX as an excuse to be windows-only are just lazy
No they are profit oriented. The Linux "game market" is not as large as most people think. It is not the number of people willing to buy a Linux port of a game. It is only those individuals who would never buy the Win32 version of the game. Most Linux gamers dual boot or use WineX, they are already customers. A Linux port does not generate a new sale, it merely replaces a Win32 sale with a Linux sale, there is no new profit, no economic justification for the port.
But M$ shipped better SDK with better documentation for DirectX with their compiler (MSVC), and lame programers code with what is already there (Windows + DirectX). The problem is, those who write good games are basically in the same company as those who white bad games but outnumbered, and given the mentality as such ("we use DirectX by default"), virtually all games are in DirectX now. And when it turns out it's difficult to port, easiest solution is not to port it at all. This is kinda natural, except that M$ planned it this way from the very begining. Just another example how M$ use their "open" standard to grab market share.
While a 100% Native port would be cool I know lots of the Loki games and a fair few of the other ports from windows Use winelib.
From a Developers poing a view it's perfect. For as much as possible use winelib but if there are problems then port those area's. This means that with minimal effort you get a high quality game in Linux.
Instead of porting 100% just for the sake of it you can port 10% and get the same results. You get more games on linux that run better. As wine gets the games will run better with less porting. The less porting that is required the more likely a game will be ported. As more games get ported more engines will become cross platform to make it easyier for companies to port thier games to other platforms.
The engines are more impotant than the games. Look at http://www.garagegames.com/ about half the games run on linux because the engine supports it. Halflife is another good example. Lots of the mods start as windows only but as they gain in popularity the include linux Support.
The main thing to notice is that Wine is good for Linux as it gets more games on linux which means more engines will support linux (So they don't have the overhead of wine) which means you'll get more games on linux.
...it'd be so weird.
It's so easy to say: "Make new open source games for linux. Make them high quality". Do you think people strive to make low quality games?
As far as I can see, there are 2 primary differences between games and most other software:
1) Product cycle. Unlike other software, most games are one-time products. This is true for any game with a story of any sort - most single-player games. Developing games like other open-source software, by releasing mostly-completed (read half-completed) software and then evolving will not work for games. People play games, and then they're done with them. If it's really good, it'll last a few months. Multi-player versions prolong it's life, but not indefintely, given rapidly evolving hardware. Take Mozilla as an example. Or the linux kernel. That kind of development cycle will *not* work for most games.
2) Artwork. Ask most open source game developers, or look at the websites. Everybody needs good artwork. And that doesn't come for free. I'm not going to speculate upon reasons for this, since I don't know any game artists. Anyone care to shed some light?
So the bottom line is that the entire development process for open source games needs to be reviewed carefully. Also, it would be useful to have some sort of website or community for artists who are willing to do artwork for projects they consider interesting. Or is there already something like this?
If a native port is not available, then wine is the only (free) option available for Linux.
The crux of the matter is that you should let the developers know that you are running it on Wine. Without this feedback you are just another windows statistic - to be regurgitated by MS at a later date as a reason not to port the software.
If they are aware of the linux demand, we stand a better chance of getting compatible/native releases.
If developers are informed that they are almost cross platform already, they will be much more open to the possibility of rewriting the portions that would help make it a better/faster/more stable linux game.
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Really now, it's mostly irrelevant, as Wine/WineX still doesn't run practically ANYTHING without crashing your machine. I did an install of Wine last night, to see if i could get Stair Dismount or Truck Dismount to run, because i wanted my girlfriend (who's a major geek) to check them out..
Both of them instantly crashed my linux box. Brought it down, crying to it's knees, and then decapitated it. Instant crashola. Total lockup.
Bet you don't see that much.. but it does happen.. I see it all the time. Every time I try to use WINE to do something.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
>What I am still wondering about is why no game company has created the selfbooting game.
A self-booting game would have to include all possible video and sound (and network, if netplaying) drivers that the player's system _might_ have, and autodetect them flawlessly. While I've had great luck with Mandrake doing this, it's still not perfect.
At least with a PC under Linux or Windows, the user has already gone through configuration hell getting things to work, and non-self-booting games can assume all systems okay and just use the API (DirectX or OpenGL).
That's also the advantage of consoles, actually-- you can self-boot because the hardware is exactly known.
A.
It is a CDROM live file system distribution with an amazing hardware detection and driver base. Basing a bootable game on it would make it run on pretty much every PC currently available.
Kiwaiti
Member of the Legion Of Microsoft Haters