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Transgaming releases "WineX" 4.0 "Cedega"
visy writes "Transgaming has opened a new site at today and are announcing WineX 4.0, now dubbed Cedega after a unique variety of grape. Transgaming claims Cedega allows "Windows ® games to seamlessly and transparently run under Linux, out-of-the-box, with outstanding performance and equivalent game-play". Will we see a new era of game compatibilty?"
does that mean that wine is now an emulator? ;-O
arrrrr
Or a new era of litigation
A psychopath can't tell the difference between right and wrong. A sociopath knows the difference - he just doesn't care.
It's really a shame I won't ever get to use this, since Transgaming forced Gentoo to pull the packages for WineX from their distro.
Will Transgaming ever learn to work with the open source community instead of mearly tolerating its existance as an annoying necessity to business?
"The issue of contributing back to the community always shadows every open-source project. Transgaming does contribute back, but there are restrictions. You can see them in the statement from Transgaming's webpage:
"The source code to TransGaming WineX (minus copy protection related code, for now) is available through VA Linux's SourceForge website. You can examine and modify it to your heart's content, you can watch the changes we make as we go, and you can participate in detailed development discussions on our mailing list. The only thing you can't do is redistribute WineX code for any commercial purpose. The WineX code is licensed under the Aladdin Free Public License, which prohibits commercial use of our work. If you wish to use WineX commercially, please contact our sales team to arrange for alternative licensing arrangements.
Once we have reached our subscription goals, we plan to release all of the WineX source code under the Wine license, which will allow it to be directly integrated with the core Wine project code hosted at www.winehq.com. Until then, we will periodically submit selected portions of our code for integration with the Wine project.""
Will we see a new era of game compatibilty?
Yes, as soon as games are compatible with platforms other than Windows, not before.
You've probably noticed that people's noses get bigger as they get older. That's because old people are huge liars.
Yeah, they've been saying that they were going to release everything from the beginning. Remember the beginning? As soon as they got enough money, they were going to distribute it for free for everyone. Well, after many bought into that, the promise changed. They liked making a profit. Nothing wrong with that, but people don't like being deceived, even when the initial promises are so ill conceived.
Just about any game I've run using winex starts fullscreen, and
the games usually allows one to set the resolution.
I'm still torn as to whether or not to pay for winex. I tried using the free/cvs version and it kind of worked. Of course, I didn't actually get any games to work correctly, not even simple ones, so it didn't work at all. First off, if I pay for winex and I get version 4.0 can I just never pay again and keep using 4 forever? I mean, as long as there aren't any games that come out for windows that I want (very very few lately) it shouldn't be a problem right? Also, is there a computer limit on winex? If I pay for version 4 once can I install it on 3 linux boxes without paying 3 times?
All I really want to do is to play Steam and all of the mods and stuff that go along with it, in linux. If I can do it for a really low one time fee and never pay again, then I think this is a good deal.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Currently, there's only one wineserver process launched to serve all Wine threads for a given user. What happens though, is that there are at least two context switches for each request to the wineserver. A shared memory wineserver architecture allow a Wine thread to access some data without any context switch, by only reading part of the shared memory of the wineserver. Thus the speed increase.
At the last Wineconf in January, Gavriel State (of Transgaming) showed a short demo of American McGee's Alice with a partial shared memory wineserver, and the increase in the fps was about two fold (yes, double of what it was with the current design).
Ironic, really, since WineX makes Ports less likely...
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
Even if TransGaming is not software libre, those who would use it have already made the choice to give up some of their freedom of use in exchange for enjoyment--very few games that would require WineX are themselves libre. However, one may wish to support the developer of a game without supporting an evil organization that they are associated with.
An analogous situation might be, for example, going to a live performance of a band rather than buying their CD in a store, as, presumably, the live performance gives a minimal amount, if anything, to the RIAA, while giving plenty to the band.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So we're porting to wine instead of whining for ports?
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Btw, if you want to get cvswinex up and running, follow the instructions at linuX-gamers.net
Are you saying that the CVS is incomplete? The only code that is 'removed' from the CVS is the CD-Copy-Protection code that is licensed and they are not allowed to distribute in a 'free source code' manner...
Only the binaries that they distribute under their subscription includes this code. Is it so bad that
A) they are trying to make ends meet (pay the bills)
and
B) keeping themselves from getting sued out of exisitance?
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
I was lucky enough to grab the new version before the /.'ing, TG says that this version adds support for some DirectX 9 features, like Pixel Shaders.
I've tried a couple of new DirectX 9 games, and so far I'm quite happy with the results, first game is Far Cry, it used to work with the previous version, but now the performance is much better, with less artifacts and more effects.
The other game is PainKiller, it runs quite well too, I had all kinds of problems trying to get this game running with the previous version.
I know I'm going to be flamed for this post, but I wiped my Windows partition a while ago, and WineX (Cedega whatever) is doing a very good job giving me my gaming needs, it's still much better than having a Windows gaming partition.
The IT section color scheme sucks.
At the last Wineconf in January, Gavriel State (of Transgaming) showed a short demo of American McGee's Alice with a partial shared memory wineserver, and the increase in the fps was about two fold (yes, double of what it was with the current design).
Just thought I'd mention that this game is one of the corner cases that is drastically affected by reducing the number of context switches. A shared memory wineserver would not automatically give this sort of performance boost to any game/application. Not that you were implying it would, but just so people know.
---
Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves. -- AE
They have to release all of their changes to the WINE tree (under the LGPL - they use the current tree), and they do. They also hire developers to work on WINE, and this can get merged back into the public tree (depending on whether it's accepted into CVS).
I run (and pay) for both of these, and they do work well together. Transgaming wine's binary is 'winex3', soon to be winex4 more than likey, and Codeweavers Crossover's binary is just plain 'wine'.
.deb and Crossover with ther install sh/rpm package.
I am using Debian unstable, and installed winex with their provided
Both wonderful projects and make my GNU/Linux use almost seamless with windows progs.
Why is it necessary for Linux to play Windows games? Linux games will come out when people are good and ready for them. In the meantime, frustrated linux users can use one of the many fine gaming consoles (PS2, XBOX, GameCube, even PSOne to some degree).
I already have thousands of dollars' worth of Windows games. I can't play them on any of the "many fine gaming consoles" you enumerate, and I don't know why I'd want to buy another machine when I already have a perfectly good PC, anyway. Are you suggesting I just throw them all away now I've switched to Linux, or will you concede that I might have a legitimate reason to be interested in something like WineX?
If computer gaming is something you can't do without, use Windows. Why not devote a small partition to Windows/games, and use the rest for linux?
Because I might only want to play for ten minutes in my coffee break, and constantly rebooting is really rather a drag?
If you don't want to play Windows games in Linux, good for you - don't use WineX then. For the rest of us, this is one more step towards making a permanent migration possible. That's a Good Thing, in case you didn't realise.
SO WHAT
So they promised to release it under the Wine License and then didn't. (incidentally, I'm a subscriber..)
Go to Wine website, download the full change log, and grep for @transagaming.com, then come back here and post an apology.
TransGaming's flagship Linux product, Cedega, supports hundreds of the hottest and most popular games on Linux, out-of-the-box, including hit titles such as Max Payne 2(TM), Battlefield 1942(TM), Battlefield Vietnam(TM), Medal of Honor(TM), Diablo II ®, EverQuest(TM), Star Wars Galaxies(TM), City of Heroes ® and many more. TransGaming has also ported such blockbuster titles as TRON 2.0 ®, James Bond 007(TM): Nightfire(TM), Law & Order(TM), Indiana Jones ® and The Emperor's Tomb(TM), just to name a few.
I was a subscriber for many months, and quit my subscription. I cited that the only game I was interested in was SW Galaxies, and that until it was supported, I would no longer subscribe. I contributed a chunk of change, and now I'll have to put my money where my mouth is and re-subscribce to run the game I want.
Religion is the opium of the people. Evolution is the opium of scientists.
While the license says that, consider what happened when Debian wanted to package it and include it in non-free. Transgaming asked Debian not to, with a threat to change the license to stop Debian distributing any future versions. Quoteth Gavriel State, Transgaming's CEO: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2002/05/msg0
Gentoo removed WineX for similar reasons.
So my wuestion is about Avalon.
...
In 05/06 Window$ will release a new OS with a brand nre API - Avalon - based on a completely new file system/table... WinFS (or whatever its called)
I've no doubt they will make this the most convoluted file system ever seen with no chance of proper reverse engineering or even emulating.
So, shouldnt we be pushing for new and smarer ways to develop more sophisticated OpenGL render engines faster and better so Linux can compete eith Window$ in gaming rather than living off M$ scraps?
Alright
wget http://source.winehq.org/source/ChangeLog
I count 14826 changelog entries
$ grep @ ChangeLog | wc -l
14826
226 of which are from a transgaming employee
$ grep -i @transgaming.com ChangeLog | wc -l
226
And 1701 for codeweavers
$ grep -i @codeweavers.com ChangeLog | wc -l
1701
So Transgaming gave back a little after all. But not that much. I browsed the top transgaming changelog entries and they concerned relatively minor stuff, like fixes for alsa audio support.
Sorry but I'm still convinced that Transgaming has been a bad wine citizen (the fact that the licence permitted it doesn't change my opinion), and that they were deceiving the community when they said they'd give back everything to wine after they reach a certain number of subscribers. I guess they have reached that number since they have not yet filed for bankruptcy.
!
^_^
They said they would realease the code when they reached 20,000 subscribers not once they had enough money. Last I heard they had 3,000 or 4,000 subscribers. Also the Wine license has changed since they made that promise.
Sorry but I'm still convinced that Transgaming has been a bad wine citizen (the fact that the licence permitted it doesn't change my opinion),
Transgaming is a commerical venture. They need to secure a line of income. They do this by restricting access to precompiled binaries, amoungst other things. To get it easily you have to pay a nominal subscription: $60 a year. Now that's not alot. Without this subscription they wouldn't have a profit model and would probably desinagrate.
Would you rather have them not do this venture at all? Or do you have another profit model that would alleviate what you criticize? For me the community benefits from their work: I can run Windows games under Linux. The OSS'ers may complain that they don't have full/libre access to the code, but if they had that, there wouldn't be a transgaming anyway. What do you want them to do?
and that they were deceiving the community when they said they'd give back everything to wine after they reach a certain number of subscribers. I guess they have reached that number since they have not yet filed for bankruptcy.
So just because they haven't yet, they're not going to? And they lied about it? Face it a pure software company just doesn't have a OSS profit model. Name one. Red Hat? Services, not software. Mozilla? Not a commerical entity, but backed by them. Come on, what would you have them do?
Why, o why must the sky fall when I've learned to fly?
"The two games that are really holding me from running Linux on my desktop full-time are Unreal Tournament 2004 and C&C Generals Zero Hour."
I guess you didn't pay for UT2K4 or you might have seen that it supports linux on the box. The Linux install binary sits right next to the windows binary in the root directory. It plays better on my Linux partition than it does on my Windows. C&C I don't know about and don't play, but ut2004 has NATIVE linux support, which beats playing a game under wienx any day
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
Indeed, Cedega is not software libre. We've never claimed that it was. It's a commercial product that includes components dereived from Wine and ReWind.
Despite that fact, and despite the fact that we have not yet reached the 20,000 subscriber number in our original plans, we have contributed and we continue to contribute to the Wine project in a number of substantial ways. These include major contributions or rearchitectures of: 2D DirectDraw, DirectSound, DirectInput, DCOM, RPC, the WIDL IDL compiler, and wininet code, including SSL support. Additionally, we continue to maintain the X11 licensed ReWind tree, we've contributed code for a DIB renderer, and the Shared Memory WineServer.
Overall, we've contributed tens of thousands of lines of code under Open Source license term.
In particular, our DCOM, RPC, and WIDL work - required for use of InstallShield based installer - is extremely substantial work, and we are actively continuing to contribute that work to Wine and ReWind. We have probably spent as much engineering efforts on this as we have on our closed source Direct3D support.
If you want to see some of what we've contributed, just browse the wine-devel and wine-patches mailing lists.
-Gav
Gavriel State, Co-CEO & CTO
TransGaming Technologies Inc