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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..."
ID games will be releasing an Linux binary for Doom3; Unreal Tournament has been Linux compatabile for awhile now, as is NeverWinter Nights. 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.
/.-er can fill in the details?
Transgaming has also prevented at least one native port from making it to market, as I recall; I believe it was one of the Kohan series. Perhaps another
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!
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.