TransGaming Releases Cedega 4.1

gavriels writes "Today, TransGaming released Cedega 4.1, a new update to our software that lets Windows games run on Linux systems. The new update adds support for Far Cry and Anarchy Online, and implements a completely new 3D pipeline which executes the traditional Direct3D Fixed Function rendering path using dynamically generated OpenGL vertex programs, providing great performance improvements on cards with sufficient vertex program capabilities. We also added MMX accelerated sound mixing, fixed copy protection issues in several games, and improved Pixel Shader support, among other things."

Comments

Interesting to see how Far Cry runs

[Red Moose]

Interesting to see how Far Cry runs seeing as it is a resource hog on XP (I run it with a GB of RAM to get it smooth - it's not a gfx issue even on my 9700 Pro). The Doom 3 comparison isn't really a realistic comparison as legit executables are made with both linux and win32 in mind.

So Far Cry is a good game to test - it chews RAM but is prob comparable on video cards. If only I could remember how to run lilo with initrd thing I could reboot into linux and check.....ah happy days....

Halo PC

[Anonymous Coward]

I am wondering how well the DX9 code is, and more specifically, for running Halo PC/CE. I know that the Mac port uses OpenGL (I doubt that Westlake/Macsoft would try and use Quickdraw 3D). However, Gearbox uses a lot of DX9 and PX2.0 exclusive stuff in the win32 version.

Althought getting the client to run would be awesome, the real question is when it will be able to run the Dedicated server for it, as a daemon. (halod wrapper anyone?)

Cedega questions

[Tyrdium]

Since at least one person representative of Transgaming appears to be reading this thread, I'd like to ask a few questions. First, what of the plan to open-source WineX/Cedega? Is it safe to assume this is still in the works? If so, when is it estimated to happen?

Now, for a support question... Is addition of support for FF XI currently in progress? Will it ever be in the near future? As it is, that's probably the only thing keeping me from switching to Linux (and buying a Cedega subscription, of course). Also, does the Steam version of Half-Life and its various mods (e.g., The Specialists) work under Cedega currently?

Anywho, 4.1 looks great. Performance boosts are always a good thing. ;)

Also, are there any benchmarks comparing between Cedega 4.0, Cedega 4.1, and native Windows performance? I'd like to see if Cedega causes a sizable framerate hit (i.e., 20% or more).

Re:Cedega questions

[gavriels]

Cedega is not Open Source software. We make no bones about this. Some of the code is available under the AFPL, and we release other portions under the X11 and LGPL licenses to share with the ReWind and Wine community occasionally, but our core technology will not be released. You can read more about some of the related issues in my column here.

As far as Final Fantasy XI goes, we have not done any work on it, and I have no idea whether or not it works. We do our work based on our users' votes, so if you're interested, subscribe and vote for it!

Steam and Half Life both work. Half Life 2 has been consistently voted #1 on our lists for several months, but as it's not released yet, we can't really talk about support for it at this time.

Finally, benchmarks can vary significantly depending on the application and the system. Some titles run as fast as they do in Windows, others are slower (some significantly so), and we sometimes get reports of a title running faster under Linux for some users. You can check out our forums for more info on what works well.

Take care,

-Gav

Re:Star Wars Battlefront ?

[Sheetrock]

If the emulator is holding a lock on the drive despite the installer requesting a disc change, perhaps TransGaming could put in a 'override' keycombo that would request the software to close anything that's currently open on the drive.

Handling unmount/mount with a keycombo would be useful too, such as in a fullscreen CD-swap environment. I haven't used it though so maybe this kind of stuff is in there in some form already...

Re:Star Wars Battlefront ?

[gavriels]

Battlefront does not currently work, as it uses some DirectX 9.0c features that are not yet implemented. We're looking at this game, and several others that are high on our voting list for inclusion in our next release.

That said, the eject system that was added to Cedega 4.0 should work for almost all titles. The only ones that it may have trouble with are ones where the installer requires the first CD back in the drive after the second one is done. I don't recall whether Jedi Academy is among these titles, but I didn't think it was.

Please drop a note to our support team (support@transgaming.com) with more info on what didn't work for you. There are several things you can accidently do with the command line Cedega that will cause a problem for the eject management code - ie: launch the installer from a shell that is sitting in the cdrom mount point. Using Point2Play can eliminate some of these potential issues.

Take care,
-Gav

Re:More the reason to go Linux

[PianoComp81]

Until linux supports windows games natively (doubtful), my desktop (gaming) box is staying windows and my servers, laptop, and media center is staying linux.

Doom 3 is now on Linux natively. Other games will start coming around, and eventually all games will run on Linux (as well as Windows still, I have a feeling).
It'll be a slow process, but in 5-10 years I think we'll see this actually happen. You also don't have to buy Cedega. You can download the source/binary stuff and finish the compile job. It takes a little to get it working, but it does. Of course, you can support Cedega and pay for the binaries.

Ideal solution for OS/Cedega

[RedLaggedTeut]

The ideal solution for you then would be to ship the OS/cedega with the game, so you would simply boot Linux off a CD that came with the game.

That has some drawbacks with upgrades and different hardware, but well, if you don't want to pay for an OS that runs games yourself ..