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10 Points About Transgaming's Cedega/WineX
jvm writes "Attempting to raise the level of the discussion, Dan 'theoddone33' Olson has put together a list of ten critical observations that every potential Linux gamer should consider before buying Transgaming's WINE-based product Cedega (formerly WineX). Dan invites credible rebuttals to the points he's raised. The debate over the value of Cedega/WINE as a solution for the nascent Linux gaming community continues..."
The site seems to be down already (with 0 comments!)
clicky!
does anybody have a copy of this?
Zero posts and already slashdotted!
Could someone explain me why if nobody here RTFA, it is slashdoted already? Aah, I know, you all load the link but close the eyes. Evil people!
hi cyndi, i'm into office but also scat and role playing. let's hook up.
...and the site is already out!
/. stories should all be classified under "security" ...
Every time a program tries to access the CD-ROM Cedega crashes in KERNEL32.DLL.wine_get_unix_file_name. I would love to play Red Alert 2 using the official CDs I bought, but I'm forced to use a cracked version off FastTrack.
Have to say I was impressed... I can now play Counterstrike without rebooting, which is very nice. Doom 3 works too. It's cheap, it works, haven't seen any reason to complain.
It actually makes me think of Linux as a viable platform for games... not a viable platform in five years' time, but a viable platform now.
deleted
(well, not really, but I'm sure you get the point)
worst... troll... ever!
I'm sick of these halfwitts sledging a real contributer to the gaming industry in Linux.
/rant over
These guys have a good history, yeah its not squeeky clean but so bloody what?!?
They contributed to Loki's technology, Gavriel is on good Terms with Ryan (Icculus) and there are many other linux NATIVE technologies that owe their success in part to direct help from Transgaming.
FFS, if you don't like them then DON'T BLOODY use their product, stop stabbing the poor bastards in the back.
*mutter grumble* *kicks cat*
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
nice except sheap is really spelled sheep... so much for that office 97 spell checker huh? ;)
Kyle
http://www.unlogikal.net/
The debate over the value of Cedega/WINE as a solution for the nascent Linux gaming community continues..."
I think this debate is pointless. If you purchase a Windows game, you are a member of the Windows gaming community, period. It doesn't matter if you play it on native Wintel platform or on Macintosh emulating x86/Windows via Virtual PC - or Linux emulating Windows APIs. The next logical step is to quit all your Linux activity and reboot your computer to MS Windows, the same game will run even better then. The *only* way to build Linux gaming community is via native Linux ports, just as the relatively small Macintosh gaming community does. Mac users got used to waiting months or years for native ports to be released. They don't complain paying premium prices for games whose Windows ports are already in bargain bins. There will be no "Linux gaming community", not until Linux gamers accept similar solution.
I purposely built a linux box as a firewall between my other Windows machines and the internet. If I was running linux machines and wanted to play Windows games, I would have built a Windows machine for that purpose too.
Of course the best solution is a XBox, as it (hopefully) carries many Windows-also titles.
So if Cedega's fees are higher or close to a XBox or a Windows license, it won't be too attractive at all.
Uselessful technology (Air-Charged
The original article appears to be: http://timedoctor.org/~theoddone33/10points.html
It's getting slow, here's a Google cache.
http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:X7e-egvZJeoJ: curmudgeongamer.com/article.php%3Fstory%3D20040904 215153278+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Never learn by your mistakes, if you do you may never dare to try again
Actually, I agree with you.
I spent my 15 bucks...15 measly bucks...and installed it. It works great for me on the games I play with it...the same ones that I used to play when I had XP a year ago. Everquest runs faster for me than it did on XP...Warcraft 3 runs great, Steam/Half-Life/Counterstrike runs great also...there are some bumps with Steam as it updates itself...but they fix them.
I have no complaints with my whopping 15 bucks I spent on this. If I didn't like them, or they were not doing what I wanted it to do, then I wouldn't buy it anymore. Plain and simple.
And besides, most of the other games I play have a native Linux client on them anyway.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
Slashdotted, Google cache link
Who's still fighting Loki's old battles? Has anyone kissed Scott Draeker's ass recently?
Isn't Wine good enough instead of this non FOSS wine fork?
Don't you realize guys will say anything to get laid?? If a slashdot geek is agreeing with you that Open Source isn't all that and MicroSoft isn't really that evil then he must be trying to get into your pants :-) Just like when macho guys tell girls they'd rather go see a chick-flick with them than watch the game. Most men will sell their souls pretty quickly to get some action.
I don't see what goatse has to do with this story.
Ati on linux http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/03/ 1313221&tid=152&tid=106
And the orginal story isn't?!?!
WTF is wrong with you people.. get the facts the READ them.
Transgaming is not the enemy, WE are.
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
I decided to try out TransGaming's Cedega product shortly after it was released. In addition to their modified wineserver, they have come out with a game manager, Point2Play. This tool has made it _easy_ to install and configure games.
I think that the fact that TransGaming has been able to successfully negotiate with vendors providing copy-protection and other proprietary code for use with Cedega is a big step towards making Linux a more predominant gaming platform. (I was pleasantly surprised to find that some of my titles, such as Warcraft III, ran better with the Cedega emulation!)
While I prefer the idea of native Linux builds of games, there are also many (older) titles that simply will never be ported over. The best thing that we can do at this point is to vote with our wallets. For now, that means TransGaming will keep getting my subscription!
Perhaps a black hole of Linux gaming?
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Download the cracked version from BitTorrent, f**king b*st*rds, trying to make money from the scene.
That is very true, however its a truth about WINE, not necessarily about Cedega. WINE is also very useful for its debugger, which is an extremely good reverse engineering tool along the lines of SoftICE. As well as winelib, which is a library that you can use to assist you in porting Windows code to Unix. I've used both, and had great success with them. Cedega on the other hand is a toy strictly for playing games. And WINE isn't limited to 16 bit applications.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The article raises some good points, but is focusing on the wrong things - Lets face it, transgaming wine/x is a neat hack, and what it does is very cool.
I am a pretty regular gamer, and have wasted far too much time on 3D FPS titles like q3a, RtCW, ut2004 etc - and I have the doom3 linux version pre-ordered. I use linux, and really don't have any plans to set up a pc just for gaming, as the games I like are available natively on linux. I feel that the market should decide the success of transgaming - if you like it, feel free, but count me out, thanks!
The reason I'm not interested in in running windows games in linux via wine is that if we take that to its logical conclusion, there will be no market for native linux games - idsoft has it right, their games are written in a portable fashion, and have pretty much the same performance on linux/X11/DRI as on the simple pc GUI used by ms windows. Let's face it, once a gamer plays native linux games, he will be dissatisfied with the emulated variety, and it would be a real shame if that's all there was.
All in all, the wine solution is a nice hack, and useful as a temporary kludge, but we are sunk if that becomes the norm and all game development becomes ms windows centric, and we become the new OS/2, inhabiting a shrinking niche and dying a slow death. Fsck that! The native linux gaming market is the thing we need to support with our wallets, if we want to see it thrive.
Yo baby, anti-slash is hung like a motherfucking HORSE. Forget these lunix nerds...
do you do scat-eating, or just scat-smeering?
... to develop a "wrapper" (forgive my bad terminology if its wrong, I couldn't think of the name!) so that you could run two OS's at the same time and task switch between them like you do with windows programs?
I never got the whole "linux bit" windows is Mass market, linux will never be MASS MARKET! I'm sorry it just wont at least not for a long time. It may become mass market in emerging markets and developing countries but Consoles come first, then windows, then if you're lucky linux gets the scraps. Why anyone would want to run games on - non-native systems does not make very much sense to me, can't you just dual boot?? Is it really that difficult to wait reboot, and wait ~20-40 seconds for XP to load and run the game? If this is your leisure time you waste all of maybe 2 minutes, 1 going into windows, 1 rebooting and going back into linux.
Cedega is very nice if used correctly. Some people (like me), when buying Cedega just say "Wow! I'll buy this an I'll be able to play my collection of Windows games! Oh boy!". Sorry, Cedega doesn't work like that. You may be able to play 10% of your library. You need to plan. Like this. "Wow! Warcraft 3! I want it! Aww man, it's Windows only. Hmm, let me see if it works nice on Cedega. Wow it's a five, i'll shell out $15 for cedega and buy WarCraft." You don't want to do this: "Wow! No one lives forever! I can't wait to go home and play it... I'm pretty sure that it will work, I have cedega." Cedega is nice if you purchase games that are supported. Don't count on it to work on games, make sure they are 4/5 or 5/5
I don't see what goatse has to do with this story.
Please hand in your geek card on the way out.
Since the article is slashdotted, here's a list of games that I run successfully under WineX 3.2.1 (not even the current version):
- Age of Empires II
- Icewind Dale
- GTA 3
- GTA: Vice City
- Baldur's Gate II
- Diablo II
- Starcraft
- Warcraft II BNE
- Fallout II
- Max Payne
- Thief (Gold)
- Thief II
- Deus Ex
- Grim Fandango
Not all of these work perfectly; for example BGII network play is not available. However, for the most part these are totally playable and sometimes even run better than the same games running under Windows. I really wish Transgaming would put more effort into supporting older games, but I guess more gamers want to play Counter Strike 2, not Diablo I.Subject says it all.
Complain, complain, complain. A short rebuttal of some of the more ridiculous points:
#Performance:
Complaining that unsupported games don't always work is ridiculous. That is what 'unsupported' means.
#Pricing:
Boo hoo. Complaining that you have to buy the games is just STUPID. Did you expect to get your games for FREE? They cost millions to make, you know. And it isn't Transgaming who makes them.
Also, it seems to be a negative thing that they give things away for FREE.
#The rest
I'll stop here, since it does not get any better.
Transgaming is a company, and in the business of making money. If you don't like their product or policies, you are free not to buy from them.
Other people, who really like that a company works hard to give us something we really want, will certainly keep on subscribing. I am very happy that Transgaming exists. The other possibility would be that they did not exist, and I would not be able to play a lot of my games on Linux. I find it really hard to see how that scenario is better.
This is sad... people can play Doom 3 on their linux partition, but they can't run QuickBooks?! It makes me wonder of the linux community *really* wants the desktop business market.
I have my boss and all employees on Firefox/Thunderbird. I've removed the little E icon but pinned it to the start menu for dumb sites like Ingram Micro and - unbelievably - slashdot. If there were a bit of software similar to a multi-user GnuCash that could import quickbooks files, I cannot tell you how many businesses I could have switched by the Q4.
We have a small window of time before MS breaks all the wine/crossover compatibility with Longhorn. Don't miss it.
Civilization 3 doesn't work.
Laser Squad Nemesis is unplayable, while it works pretty well with the 'normal' wine.
I can afford to spend weekends in Windows, playing the latest and greatest 10-hour-gameplay FPS... but for the two above, which have a lot of replay value and are going to stay on my hard drive for years, i'm out of luck.
I apologize for the lack of a signature.
When I use a Linux native version, it sends the manufactures a message that Linux is a viable gaming platform. When I use Cedega, I don't send that message. ;0)
So your typical linux games are spyware, but Cedega acts like a firewall?
GENERAL PUBLIC SIGNATURE (GPS) Any replies (derivatives) of this post must also use the GPS
I'm a Windows fanatic, but I've got to question how useful a Windows emulator is to the, as the article put it, nascent Linux gaming community. Companies might see that Linux is starting to become more common and might be worth porting games over. But is it really worth porting games over if someone else is gonna do the hard work for them and Linux users will buy and play Windows versions with an emulator? If they're tapping into the Linux market anyways through someone else's work, why bother porting it, even if it would be more stable and better optimized? What do they care?
Well, I own 4 copies of NWN + all exps, all of which are played on Linux machines. But the only way I knew to do this was to buy the Windows boxed versions, and copy the data over per instructions on the bioware site. So I suspect all my purchases were recorded as windows purchases.
:-(
Now, it also sounds like NWN2 is not going to be ported to Linux
NFSU does has some issues - the installation needs a 'kick' to complete properly, and some of the graphic options will cause the game to crash if enabled, but overall, the game does run really well. If you're starving for a racing game that can be played under Linux, it's definately worth checking out.
I game, therefore I am...
> While I prefer the idea of native Linux builds of games, there are also many (older) titles that simply will never be ported over
Exactly. Even more, there are many *newer* games that will never be ported over. I want to play some of them, but I don't want to use Windows. For those titles, it's Cedega or bust.
Since a Linux port is simply not in the cards for the vast majority of games, it doesn't seem like a bad solution. I bought a subscription, and it's worked OK for the stuff I wanted to play.
Try to get close to FP next time and you will do better. Something like "you GNU hippies are only complaining because you actually have to PAY for something" usually works
These are probably chm files -- which might be readable with libchm, FYI.
Tired of free ipod spam sigs? Opt ou
On that note, I'll mention that I've had more luck with WINE then Cedega on some of my Japanese games.
Maybe it was due to an error on my part, but for the life of me, I couldn't get Cedega working with them. Even went so far as to swap the configs/symlinks so it was using the WINE's fake_windows' directory and registry settings. Managed to fail every time, when it would work properly with WINE.
I'm not sure if I should credit it to the Cedega being more concerned about English stuff, or the more general international influences around WINE in general, or if it's something in the CVS that hasn't trickled in since Cedega was forked. Either way, if you're trying to get non-English stuff going and are having no luck, give WINE a try.
"An infinite number of monkeys typing into GNU emacs would never make a good program."
Well, you might be having problems with it, but most people, myself included, can get it running without any serious problems. You need to update the game to the newest patch (1.29f I think) and you might need to get a no-cd patch for it as well, as the copy protection doesn't work consistantly for it yet. Also, I don't think the expansions work yet, so if you're trying to play Conquests or Play the World, you might want to try just the base game.
I game, therefore I am...
Minimum Estimates for Transgaming Revenue:
5$/month X 1000 subscribers = $5000/month
Outsource 5k/month to 100 Indian Programmers, and let them write some damn binaries. "F" this damn Windows emulation crap.
Icculus alone ports many game (binaries) to Linux. I think the article makes some valid points about Transgaming only encouraging more game deployment on Windoze only systems.
Al Sharpton for Prez 2008, biatches...
Ghu, there's a link that's about as tenuous as the link between Al Kaeada and Saddam.
No CD cracks exist for bad reasons, but also for good - such as being able to play a game you legally licensed, but on your chosen platform. In the US that act is illegal. In the rest of the world it is entirely legal. The rest of the world is winning. Evidence: the cracks 1) continue to be produced, 2) are still available to those who believe an unjust law deserves to be broken, and 3) are enabling a platform shift in the best spirit of free-market capitalism.
The only terrorism felt is the germinal terror at Microsoft HQ.
winex is reallly totallly freakasss i say. as it is, perhaps i could discusss the theories behind winex with my friend andrew. thank you for reading me talk about winex . i say that with no hesitations..they often so are total crap with my groans, the world's wickednesss and the human body. i know this is rather totallly freakasss to you readers , or at least i think so. what are your opinions of the world's problems?. read my lips!! my grandmother is becoming a problem. so! sometimes, winex are very totallly freakasss. what are your opinions of your commments on my blog?. my english skillls and winex are not reallly related. lately i beeen speaking to yosef about winex. winex is what i want to talk about here. today i am studying the world's wickednesss, the world's problems and my illl health and i also want to learn more about the smelll of my farting!!!! and they are freaky scary crapppy with my my groans tooo. what do you despise to say?! and u bettter agreee!!!now, my yelps of pleasure sometimes bafffles me and i despise it!!what's up with that?. my inane screaming is becoming a problem , or at least it seeems to me. it is best to ignore best friend. my friend, juan, says he despise winex as welll!
just as a test i bring up office, and he says the *exact* *same* *things* the first guy said!
Or it could be that those were valid points that cause very real problems which tech geeks are stuck dealing with or can see holding progress back. Hence why they were all aware of them.
Sorry to hear that these guys didn't agree with everything you said and worship the ground you walk on. 'fraid some guys just aren't pussy-whipped, kid.
Come on, psychology 101, when you want to sway the opinions of the masses, use bullets, 'top 10' lists, etc. It allows you to make statements without supporting facts or information about how you came to the conclusion.
You should also know the author of the 'list' has other motives, he was a Loki employee and still gets paid to port games.
I have subscribed to WineX for a couple of years now. I just have five bucks a month charged to my credit card via Pay Pal.
For some time now I have been considering dropping my support of this product for some of the reasons listed in the article. Another reason is the way in which WineX or Cedega is distributed. You download their Point2Play program and then from that program you install Cedega. Although Cedega is offered as a separate download I have never been able to successfully install Cedega/WineX unless I use the Point2Play program to get the copy off of their website. What this means is if I ever drop my subscription I won't be able to reinstall the software. Probably the whole point in making it that way.
I have recently upgraded my PC to a 3.2 Ghz Pentium 4 and am testing out Suse. I installed Point2Play and Cedega. I wanted to see if the extra computing power would make gaming through WineX more bearable but I can't seem to get it to work with Suse. It simply won't install anything anymore. Yet another reason to drop this product.
As Linux works its way into the mainstream desktop market, we'll see more and more games being written for Linux. I always considered Wine/WineX just a temporary bandaid to help Windows users make the transition.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
They're hindering progress by running a separate branch and charging for it when they could be working with the wine developers in creating a FREE solid application that would otherwise make people seriously think about switching to Linux.
Hello captain misinformed. Have you checked out thier CVS server? Its all there except for the copy protection code and other proprietary code they licensed. Check it out, ./configure; make; make install.
Not to mention, many of the biggest Linux software companies around have seperate commerical branches based off an open source codebase ot procuct....duel licensing. The same as Transgaming. The copyright holder can license under the GPL/LGPL/BSD/QT/etc then turn around and license the exact same work under a difference license to someone. Do you think money magically appears in their bank accounts?
>>Buy Cedega and I will give you the win32 API
>> -Sata^H^H^H^HGavriel
It is written, all applications will be ported to Linux!
Sincerily,
The Alpha Troll
You're so right! God forbid a business that pays developers and pays for office space, advertising, etc., should have the audacity to try to -gasp- make money!
Check it out.
I think it's fair to say that if there IS a Linux port, people will buy that, and not the Windows version, as it will run better.
If there isn't a Linux version to buy, you're still not sending that message.
My version. BTW, unlike some people(the author of the original list), I'm not paid to port Linux games to Windows.
# Performance
Many users also find that their games work great in Cedega. If none of their games do work, the most they are out is $15. Chances are, most gamers own 2 or 3 level 4 to level 5 titles that will run perfectly with Cedega. Its true, and obvious to anyone with 1/2 a brain, out of the thousands of titles that exist in the world, Cedega supports only a very small fraction.
# Pricing
Lets get real....$5/month for 3 months. Your complaining over a $15 mininum investment? How many of us have bought a $50 dud a best buy? "PC Gamer- best game ever", IGN - "It will rock your world". I know I have at least 10 of those babies under my belt, thats $500.00. With 10 minutes of research you will pretty much know if Cedega is going to help you or not,and if it doesn't, $15 is not breaking anyone's bank.
# Progress
The five star rating means the game is supported by Transgaming. It means they worked either with the developers or directly with the game to attempt to ensure there are no problems. The reason there are only five is because a lot of problems still crop up with those and because they are 'supported' games, those problems are first on the list to be fixed. Its the same system that CodeWeavers uses. The differences that Codeweavers will usually let you download a new release even if your support contract has died, assuming there were none released during the time of your contract.
# Potential
The potential of Cedega differs from user to user. It depends on how many games you have that are supported and how much time you want to put into fucking with them to get them to work. Its true that because Transgaming is trying to reverse engineer DirectX, they will always be playing catch up. Luckily, noone is forcing you to use Cedega so, if there happens to be someone standing behind you twisting your arm to subscribe, tell him fuck off.
# Priorities
The vast majority of companies who produce a Linux product or contribute to development of FOSS products have many many many other interests besides Linux. Transgaming is just one of them, so is our beloved friend IBM, Redhat, Epic, SGI, HP, Comp Assoc, AOL, Cisco, so on so fourth. Just because a company has a Linux product doesn't mean they have to drop everything else and drape themselves in the open source movement.
# Promises
The code that cannot be released is ILLEGAL to release due to DMCA, as well as the contract. It would even be illegal for the writers of the said code to release the code at this point!!! They had two options, license copy protection code and support a ton of new games, or not license it and hit a brick wall. The CVS version functions without this code.
Packaging
I'm sure we've all heard of and talked about Transgaming asking Gentoo to pull the CVS WineX ebuild. Yada Yada Yada. Various reasons were cited, one of them being that Gentoo, being the gamers distro of choice, was hammering the CVS server. Another one was that people downloading the CVS(development version) were seeking support resources from Transgaming, another was that the CVS version is missing the copy protection code so for people using CVS, it seemed Transgaming was making false claims because they thought it was the same thing. Say what you want, no 'threats' were made, it was a nuetral request. Even the folks at Gentoo said people were blowing it way out of proportion.
# Portability
I have no personal knowledge of what Transgaming is cooking up. I don't have access to their internal systems, nor have I seen any code or demonstrations of code that prove thier claims true of false. Obviously the author of the original list has insider knowledge,mabye access to the code. Although, considering we went from the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk to the moon in like two generations, emulating some shit on a PS2 pales in comparison
First off i've only been using linux about 6 months. The realization that win98 wasn't going to cut it anymore, combined with a growing hatred for MS drove me there. now i won't buy anything from them, not even if bill himself swore to resurrect my beloved dog smokey from the grave.
Before i made the switch, i did a lot of reading about linux. my real question was "Can it run or replace the software i use most?" Yes it can, for the most part. in the end my biggest concern (foolish, but probably true for more potential linux users than one might think) was gaming. to make a long story short, transgaming gave me the comfort to switch over because (based on their database) i knew i could run my games with them IF i couldn't find another solution.
i used linux 3-4 months and actually played all the games i wanted (read: CounterStrike, and please don't flame me for that) on openGL-enabled installs of regular old WINE. about 3 months ago, i decided to subscribe to wineX because 1) $5/month was worth the time it took me to compile WINE as often as i did. rpm=easy 2) wineX works better than reg. old wine for games. 3) "Wow, this is $15 dollars towards supporting Linux!" so imagine my surprise a few days ago when i started reading this anti-winex stuff. Transgaming was part of the reason i even tried out Linux, and now i find that i could be hurting linux gaming by supporting it?
Obviously, native ports of games are the best option. I don't even like UT but it's on my buy list now only because it runs natively. One solution i have to the 'if you buy it at walmart, it counts as a windows sale' argument is this: when you buy your copy, e-mail ID/Atari/whoever and tell them that you use this game on linux, you appreciate their efforts, and that Ryan Gordon should be king.
others have addressed most of the 10 "P" arguments against Cedega. I find that the strongest and hardest to answer is Prevention. e-mails to ID/Atari are great, but I won't lie, $ makes the strongest argument for the developer.
when i first started with linux, I e-mailed Valve a few times about porting their games. No surprise that they didn't respond, but elsewhere they've stated they have no plans for that. Knowing this, i was very surprised to see this from valve on this forum yesterday. (forums are open to public)
Well I guess Valve knows about Transgaming. I doubt that they would consider a linux port even if WineX didn't exist, so no "prevention" is probably occuring, but it is interesting. Mostly because Valve is looking more and more like microsoft to me these days. why? 1) steam 2) said refusal to port 3)Gabe Newell used to work there. I don't know what his relationship with MS is these days, but he's an intelligent man and he has been using Outlook for his e-mail (look at info on the source code theft for HL2) so that doesn't bode well. one wonders if i should support them at all anymore...
On the flip side, we can look at LucasArts. Surely they know that you can run many of their games (i've personally run JK2 even on regular WINE) but apparently they are at least considering porting to linux. We'll see about that... either way their path here could be indicative of the truth or slander behind the 'prevention' argument.
IMHO, the best way to find out if 'prevention' is a real threat is to find Ryan "Icculus" Gordo
Let's get this right, a lot of people here are performing the following steps...
a) Install Linux
b) Find most PC games aren't available
c) As evident from some posts here, download and install cracked version of Cedega
d) Bitch about favourite game still not working
I suggest a slight modification, that may help...
a) Install Linux
b) Find most PC games aren't available
c) Download and dual-boot install cracked version of Windows
d) Play every game you want!
Any news on WinCedega? I'm itching to run "quiz", "banner", "boggle" and "rain" on my new XP box.
>>I am a Transgaming developer, and our
>>subscribers are known as Legion.
The master sayeth, "In the name of Linus Torvalds, come out of him!" And the spirit that laid hold of thee possessed Transgaming subscriber was loosed and thereafter cast into a herd of swine (not to be confused with a HURD or hurd of GNU). Afterwhich, the herd of swine stamped hard over a cliff.
Sincerily,
The Alpha Troll
I am King and I am in search of the unholy man Scott Draeker. Where be he or may I and my fellow knights of the round table gain admittance to your castle to incline on the presence of your lord and master?
Sincerily,
The Alpha Troll
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Since my gaming system was "upgraded" to Windows XP from 2000, Starcraft decided that certain doors inside of buildings would cause a crash-to-desktop when opened. Seeing as how you must open some to get through the game, this was a bad thing.
I tried various tricks (disable sound/change drivers/reinstall/different media/3 different systems) and even contact tech support.
The *only* way I was able to get past these points was to run them in Cedega on my laptop.
Thus, in some situations, Cedega is more compatible with Windows games than Windows itself.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
Well, there are Loki-based installers to install NWN now. No Win32 :)
involved in any part of the process
As for recording your purchases as Linux products:
Go to the Bioware forums, register each key with a username,
and select to be displayed as a Linux user. I did.
well... It might not be all that obvious but the solution for Linux gaming community is not Transgaming or WineX but rather the likes of OpenOffice, Gnome, Kde or Knoppix...
Linux gaming community needs brute numbers of Linux installs because that will convince the game houses to create native Linux clients, after all most of the effort in a game development goes in making the story and the artifacts to support it (sprites, mashes, sounds, movies, etc.) The game engine is most of the time borrowed form the big boys like ID and, as mentioned, they are already cross-platform.
When Marketing sees a market they will stimulate Development. Hiring one or 2 more developers to take care of the bits necessary for the cross-platform thing is negligible if they can bring 5% more income from Linux community but first they need to see that 5 more percents, they need to see a solid Linux install base, they need to see Numbers, big numbers. So... what makes more Linux installs? Better Office integration, nicer more usable interfaces. If Linux gets that, it will get native games very very soon.
- Age of Wonders
- Age of Wonders II
- Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic
- Rainbow Six: Raven Shield (+ Athena Sword)
These don't run at all. Then there is Morrowind which is advertised as working, but it didn't work for me (it was a full set, Morrowind + Tribunal + Bloodmoon) - well, the game starts, and you can even play... but it's horribly slow, and crashes in 1-2 minutes. Then there's Counter-Strile: Condition Zero, which sorta works, but again pretty slow, and for some reason reaction to mouse movement lags quite a bit, up to a point where it's nearly impossible to aim. In general, before you decide to buy the thing, I would highly recommend to find someone who has it, and see if your favorite games work properly. Too bad Transgaming doesn't provide a trial version - well, you can get one from their CVS, but it's non-trivial, and might not work properly anyway due to some code missing from there.All in all, $50 for a copy of Windows 98 on a separate partition to run all those games sounds like a better investment to me.
1. Fuck Valve (or any no-Linux client but Linux server whores - boycott)
2. Crossweavers will go to Heaven, Cedega Purgatory, Valve bums to Hell
3. Buy a Linux Game (My UT should arrive today)
4. Checkout and download this most brilliant FREE GAME! (can't believe servers are empty such a brill game)
Loki did the original port before they went out of business. As I understand it, they never returned the code changes back to the original publishers, and the publishers were left in a lurch. Now you can get all three Kohan games from Transgaming. They are more native than running the windows versions, but less than the Loki version, in that they have been recompiled againes the winelibs, but are still linux native binaries. And, they are now updated. The only game I know of that the port was halted on as a result of Winex was Deus EX, but that was because Loki hadn't finished their port yet when the publisher learned that it could be run out of the box with Winex. The port was canceled because the publisher didn't see a need to spend money to port it. Neverwinter Nights, Doom3, Unreal Tournament series, etc, are different in that the porting is being done almost at the same time in the development, but for different reasons. John Carmack, who has supported Linux for a long time, even said that the only reason they port their games is because they can, not because of sales. I've been using linux almost exclusively for 8 years now (I have to use windows at work), and it's come a long way on the desktop. Loki was a company that was ahead of their time, and could be doing well today if they had made some better financial and marketing decisions. The Linux gaming market is coming up fast, but it will be a few more years before it really takes off (think Longhorn timeframe - hint hint). Tobin
I am really wondering...did you manage to solve the font issue for Starcraft in BattleNet?
well, for some reason people (like me) have some difficutlies running one or more of your listed games...
why arent you giving out your specs (hw and sw) and give us some hints how you installed them? Point to Play? config-files of WineX?
thanks a lot... scheuri
And even if the game is supported, your hardware might not be. Two machines off the same build, one is an Epia-M and the other an Athlon. Epia works quite nicely with linux games and GL acceleration. Will *not* run windows games at all. Some works very nicely for menus etc but anything rendered does not show up.
Athlon with the NVidia card, everything works fine for some games that just don't work on the Epia.
I used an image from the Epia to setup the Athlon, so except for the kernel modules and XF86Config for the different video cards all is virtually the same. I could expect games to behave like crap, but the difference in running at all seems suspect with Cedega.
I do still have a TG subscription for the main machine, but I really with I could get my portable to run the windows stuff as well (I am not dual-booting it)
I installed Cedaga via dpkg (Debian) without problems. Using "Cedega /path/to/some.exe" works just fine, getting all my apps/games to work doesn't of course but actually running Cedega hasn't been a problem.
Check ~/.transgaming/config or something similar. Email me if you need help, but right now I haven't yet installed wineX again (probably by tomorrow)
Well, I don't have M$Win, so I copied the data from friend's laptop (In order to play multiplayer, we had to generate a CD key by some warez program). Well, I suppose, legally it is OK as far as I have bought my own copy.
However, what an innovative marketing model: purchased app doesn't work, only pirated copy does.
Btw, NWN works great under linux. And there are so many modpacks (= games using NWN engine) on the net that I don't need any other RPG game.
I use Cedega for some games, like CoH and SW:Galaxies en BF:Vietnam. Hmm, for the price of WinXP ( Non-OEM ) I would pay around 150-200 euro's, Cedega costs me about 50 euro's a year, so I can use it for 3 years before it starts to cost more. It isn't perfect, not all games run and sometimes it takes some work to get a game up and running. But it's good enough so I don't need a dual boot system for it. I can now join in for a "quick" game of BF:Vietnam without closing my browser, my editor, my 4 SSH terminals, my Kopete IM, my E-mail. I want games, I don't want windows, and I do REGISTER my games and add to it that I'm playing it UNDER LINUX, and would like to see a native port. I get to play most games, Cedega get's some money, and the game companies ( hopfully ) get more and more registrations stating there running on Linux. And I hope that one day someone says, hey, 10% of the registrations states they want a native Linux version, maybe we should look into it? Sure a lot of companies might say, nah, it runs fine through that Cedega thing, but my bet is that a lot will also say, those people aren't getting the 100% game experience, that gives us a bad name, let's make sure it runs 100% for those 10% userbase. Another great point is that I now am able to get my Dad on Linux, because he wanted to keep windows for EQ only. And I know a lot of people that just want to play that one racer, that one flightsim. Sure they won't be able to play the latest version right away, but mostly, give it a month or 2.
If you are having problems with Winex, could it be you have an ATI card?... I have never had a problem with any of the games on their official list, but again, Nvidia is the card they "officially" support, (although that may have changed... now I think they may support ATI, but that doesn't fix the fact that issues still pop up).
:O) )... I bought the games Loki made, but few others did and now the're gone.
:O) .
Anyways, seems many problems can be attributed to that, even ones that seem non-video related...
I've had quite a few friends that use Winex, and all of us use Nvidia cards and have little trouble (except me, But only due to cd mounting issues... I use Xandros, so I have to manually mount stuff all the time to get the copy protection to work).
I supported Loki when most folks diddn't, and Loki died, for a sum of reasons I'm sure, but mostly to bad management and poor sales....
Transgaming, If you look at it is the only active Linux 'porting' house around that regularly spits out product. Sure there's LGP and Hyperion is sort of still in the game, but their games are small titles and they've been a bit slow as of late. For the most part, either the companies make the port themselves, or it doesn't get ported.
It's not the method I prefer, but I highly doubt it kills Linux game ports... The fact is it was tried and failed... nobody wants to risk it again, and as a result, few games are ported except by good ol' Icculus for free, or next to it (what a saint
The way I look at it, Transgaming's just another Linux company, So I support them, and in return, I get support for "Wineing" the games no one will port, keeping me from dual-booting.
Maybe one could argue the origional wine killed the oppertunity for a Half-Life1 client (and I think this is where all the concern comes about), but that was one game and Valve's a bunch of ex MS staff anyways, so I doubt they wanted to do anything but Windows in the first place.
Wine doesn't kill Linux ports, Linux people do (with the whining and moaning and it doesnt work with my Turtle Beach soundcard on Peanut Linux, and The 'I only play the free games... I might buy the next Quake, but that's about it' etc).
Linux gaming folks seem to be of two kinds... The ones who will spend every dime for Linux games, and the ones who gripe about the cost, or 'I'll wait till its 5 bucks on closeout after the company bankrupts'.
Ironically I believe (and this observation is by no means scientifically backed) that its those in the second group that are angered the most about Winex...
This would probably be because if you are a die hard gamer, you buy alot of games and don't care how you get them, and if you're a casual gamer you don't, and have time to gripe about the games you'd like to play.
Another thing that got Transgaming some bad PR was the lack of contributing code back to the wine tree... This is what initiated the fork, and that, combined with the retraction of earlier statements about releasing code once they had 20,000 subscribers irked a few people as well. The retraction was, however a result of the wine project's forking of the code, so to some extent it's not their fault. I'ts also unlikely they have over 5000 subscribers at any time, so it probably doesn't matter anyways. Maybe if there were 20k subscribers, they'd have a change of heart
As for the membership part, It makes sense over selling a product, because it emphasises the need for continuous funding of the 'project' and I believe it is in this light that they work...
Transgaming, although a commercial company, still is a Project, and it requires money to feed the programmers that do the coding, so they need a 'contribution', which in turn makes you a 'member' of the board and you get to vote on where Transgaming should put their effort.
If a person is just buying one 3 month subscription, that doesn't do them jack. They need constant cas
I use Linux as my only OS. I like to play games on my computer. Winex allows me to play games in Linux on my computer. Mr Nobody that has some rant site about stuff he is morally opposed to should basically go fuck himself.
I dunno. I tried Transgaming for a few months, and when I did finally get Yuri's Revenge to run, the performance was unacceptable. I asked others on the forum how it was that they had gotten it to run so well, but never got any answers. Finally ditched the subscription. It seemed like Transgaming was just slowly sucking up my $5/month and making grand claims.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Why would /. post trolling crap like this as an article?
We are really hitting all-time lows here lately. We need to change the site logo to "Bad opinions for nerds."
Isn't "Linux Gaming" an oxymoron, sort of like "Windows Security"?
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
You might want to check yours. The code WAS returned to the original developers or publishers pretty much in it's entirety- at least that's what I've heard from ex-Loki developers and other parties that would know the exact details. The problem was that Loki's deals muddied the waters. There was some legal issues with regards to at least some of the ports that were done or were in progress at the time Loki shuttered it's doors. In the case of Kohan, Timegate was checking into the matter and considering going with LGP for the next set of versions, etc.- but while they wanted to do a Linux version, they didn't want to wait for the legal issues to settle on the Loki developed port. Enter Transgaming and the Winelib versions. As for DeusEx, they weren't spending ANY money on that- if you believe that, you don't know much about how porting goes. Loki spent all the money on the port up to that point and it was in Beta at the time Loki expired.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I remember reading all the hype about iTunes working now in Crossover to the point where I was about to buy it. That's when I noticed this page. Something about "Known to not work" concerns me when I'm buying one product specifically to use another product.
So does it work, or not?
Never confuse volume with power.
Like many of the posters in this thread, I have also tried WineX/Cedega a number of times in the past few years. While it does work for a few games, it's nowhere near the level needed for true gaming on the Linux platform.
My wife was using Cedega to play Zoo Tycoon last night in fact, I needed Linux to be up for some other work I was doing. Unfortunately, about 1 hr into the game it crashed for some unknown reason. Also, it didn't help that the text boxes were unledgable and all the dollar amounts were in a comma delimited format.
Emulators don't win platforms -- software wins platforms. When OS/2 tried to win users with a Windows emulator, the viability of a native OS/2 wordprocessor was obviated by the mere presence of this emulation tier.
Honestly - someone should take something like SDL and start building a suite of commercial games for all the major platforms.
Eric Sarjeant
eric[@]sarjeant.com
I'm not sure if you're being genuine or not, so I'll take the time to reply.
Virtual machines are typically required to run multiple operating systems at the same time, unless you have multiple systems on which you can run your operating systems and then just switch between the two with a kvm switch. The problem with virtual machines is that they need a place to run, which means they still need a host operating sytem. The ones I've seen that either use Linux or Windows just don't implement the child operating system fast enough for it to be viable with newer games.
Why not dual boot? I don't own a copy of windows. I'm not going to pay ~$200 for a copy of XP Pro (and I'm not going to break the law and pirate a copy.) Why? Because I don't want to have to take the extra time to secure the system, keep it up to date with patches that introduce more problems than they solve, and then still have random problems due to either my own lack of understanding of the internals of the OS or the inability of the OS to just do what I need it to.
Now that all those typical religious reasons out of the way, I never use my system *just* to play a game. I'm always doing other things at the same time. Even with fullscreen games I still run a messenger in the background, have a browser open for e-mail and a few forums, and some xterms where I'm idly modifying code or making notes as ideas occur to me. Not to mention downloads that might be running. I play more games, more often, when I'm waiting for something to download. Rebooting means I have to close everything I'm doing to restart. And it sure as hell doesn't take as few as 20-40 seconds to boot XP. If I wanted to download something reliably in windows I have to install cygwin (for wget) or use some third party app, otherwise when my downloads randomly die (as they often did when I was still using windows) I'd have to start all over again.
And what do you mean Linux will never be mass market? It already is. Just not as much in the end-user space. More game companies are slowly starting to produce Linux version of their applications and it's only a matter of time before the rest of the industry follows suit. Yeah, it's a pain in the ass to maintain multiple versions of software, but it's typically easier to develop under Linux (wider availability of tools, better tech/forum support). Wouldn't it be funny if industries started dropping support for windows and windows games due to the hassles of maintenance?
On second thought, mod the parent down. His/her post is no more insightful or interesting than my own reiteration of reasons that others have also used in the past.
duel licensing
How appropriate for what the software enables you to run....
I reckon your success with Cedega will depend on your game selection. So far, I've had wonderful luck. I just finished Jedi Academy in Cedega. I have the original Rollercoaster Tycoon (gotta love the bargain bin) running fine after following the directions in the game FAQ. I'm playing through Knights of the Old Republic now. I even have GTA: Vice City playing in Cedega, though I am not happy with the sound.
--- Biffster.org
"Bite my shiny metal ass."