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Half-Life 2 Under Linux Review
as writes "TransGaming Technologies, a developer of software portability products that allow game developers and publishers to develop games for one system and deploy them across multiple platforms, has released version 4.2 of their Wine fork Cedega on 7 December 2004. The new version of Cedega 4.2 offers support for Valve's bleeding edge action shooter Half-Life 2. linuX-gamers.net has tested Half-Life 2 with Cedega 4.2 and has written a short review of the game under Linux."
Brand new video drivers have to be downloaded.
There are loading issues.
The graphics are not loaded correctly.
Gameplay and frame rate drop for an unknown reason.
Turning down the graphics settings do little to fix the frame rate.
Attempts to modify the video settings results in HL2 locking up.
Different drivers do not work.
Textures and lightmaps do not always work.
Sound does not work properly.
Loading screens are very long despite high system specs.
I don't know about you, but it sounds like there are some serious problems with the Linux version.
One likely cause of some of his graphics problems (framerate) is the use of an nVidia 5xxx card. I've played with a 5600, and it seems to be emulating dx9 in software, but saying the card is dx8. Generally it's just very slow.
I tried setting the mat_dxlevel command line arg to 80 for reasonable performance, and later to 70 for a nice high framerate. This does cancel out a lot of the pretty shaders, but to be honest I really didn't notice them all that much before turning them off, and haven't missed them since.
1) Steam is bad, yes, but the shiny Half-life 2 box was so pretty I overcame my compunction.
2) I'd already installed Cedega 4.2 from CVS, so I don't know how new users would do it. Good luck.
3) Half-life 2 didn't load the first time.
4) The game loaded the second time, but I don't know how long because I took a nap.
5) I changed the resolution and the game locked up.
6) I couldn't see the cut scenes, so I skipped them.
7) Graphics were rough, framerate was low, sound skipped. It was a fine experience.
8) Hacking my video card settings hung my machine.
9) I'm a little bit disappointed.
That's about it. Have fun.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
How does using the game with Cedega register as a Linux sale??? The games publishers aren't going to get any feedback that it was a Linux sale at all... they'll just see it as an ms-windows sale and thus won't have any incentive to port it to Linux. Using Cedega to run new games isn't doing Linux gaming any good. You should be boycotting the game and telling the publishers exactly why you are doing this.
When an exciting game is announced by a publisher, take the trouble to go to the website and check if it will be available for Linux. If not, let them know you're not happy by using the feedback provided. If they don't know they're losing customers, they'll think everybody is happy.
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
I always thought it was supposed to refer to "things so new they don't work properly." Which, given the bug reports (stuttering, crashing) for HL2 and the hoop-jumping required and general lukewarm success in running it on linux make the phrase seem like a better fit.
This would seem to confirm that definition, but wikipedia isn't exactly the most authoritative source in the universe.
Actually, patching does happen on consoles. It happens quite a bit on the Xbox, so I hear, and it happens a bit on the PS2. FFXI has a patching system, but it's an MMORPG (also on the PC), so that's kinda expected. SOCOM II, however, has had two patches and I also believe that StarWars: Battlefront has had two patches as well.
Can something be bleeding edge when it goes through as many delays as HL2 did?
I know that I was bleeding on the edge of my chair waiting for it for so long that I practically amputated both legs. Good thing I don't need legs to play it.
Yes you hook up your PS2 and play some HL2... oh wait.
This article is aimed at people who want to play a specific Windows game on a different OS.
We all know that consoles play games made for them just fine. We all know that its easier to put a PS2 disk in and turn it on then it is to install a computer game - even a Windows one!
Inspite of how much it may suck, there is a small niche for people who want to run some games on Linux versus running a dual boot setup, having a windows box OR playing console games. This article and the Cedega product is aimed at that niche.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
I've tried winex about half a dozen times over the last three or so years, and every time my conclusion has been that it's more trouble than it's worth.
Games generally push the limits of affordable technology. If a cutting-edge game is designed solely for windows, it usually pushes the limits of memory, CPU, and graphics to such an extreme that it's barely playable on a typical gaming PC. HL2 is no exception. If you take that barely playable game and then run it through an additional layer of overhead (winex) then it's going to be less than "barely playable." How could it not be?
Doom3 is cutting edge, yet it works great in Linux. The powers that be at Id were nice enough to devote sufficient resources to insuring that a native Linux version existed. Maybe it was done out of respect for the community that makes the high-availability servers possible that host the multiplayer doom (and quake, and RTCW) games. Whatever the reason, Id deserves the Linux gaming community's support.
The makers of HL2 seem to have shown very little desire to support Linux. They don't want the Linux gaming community's business. I can accept that, and move on. If the game is so friggin great, I'll suck it up, buy Windows XP home for $100 or so, install it on a 10G partition, and play the damn game. It probably won't take any longer to get going, or cost much less (if any) in the long run.
It doesn't explain HOW much this happens. This is also an issue in the Windows version (it still happens to me even with the latest patches).
Regardless of those issues this game has one major drawback: 'Loading..'
Once again, these issues are also present in Windows. It takes ages to load, sometimes up to 2 minutes...
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