Slashdot Mirror
Fragging on Linux and TransGaming
Kez writes "HEXUS.net has an article looking at the current state of Linux gaming and the broad number of supported games both natively and through emulation. Included in the article is a chat with the Product Manager of TransGaming - the creators of Cedega (formerly known as WineX.)" From the article: "Well, Linux certainly isn't most peoples' thought for a games-based PC. Especially one being taken to a big tournament LAN party. However, by design or trickery, none of the tournament games at the event were out-of-bounds to my Linux machine, and rousing games of Call of Duty, Quake 2 and Unreal Tournament 2004 were shared by the HEXUS.net collective and any other gamers who felt like joining in." We ran a story about a similar article back in February.
http://www.hexus.net/content/reviews/review_print. php?dXJsX3Jldmlld19JRD0xMDEx
Cube is worth checking out, runs nicely in Linux, and also on the PC so your linux-lorn friends can check it out to. Lots of fraggin' going on there.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
This one seems written by somebody who knows his way around the landscape.
Here is a link for games that run on linux. You can check out the high end and low end games listing.
fuvoo: watch something
I meant that it also runs on the Windows PC, not just the Linux one!
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I've actually found that the Linux version of UT2004 actually runs a bit better under Linux than under windows. I think it has something to do with the way windows allocates virtual memory; when I run under windows, the game eventually starts stuttering as windows valiantly tries to compensate for my woefully small amount of RAM; under Linux, it seems to keep chugging along just fine.
TransGaming is both insulting since it references transubstantiation (Catholic cultism) and transexualism (disgusting liberal plot). We, the righteous OSS community need to boycott these heretics.
It's because of apps like this no-one wants to adopt Linux as a gaming platform. The road will be long and hard but we must stop buying stuff like this and also stop buying Windows games, only when the companies realise there is a genuine market for Linux games will there be any progress. I can hold out, can you?
I've noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born - Ronald Reagan
I see the usual suspects again rear their heads: Quake 3, UT2004, etc, etc, etc. Love Linux on a server, as a games machine you've got to ask yourself why you're ponying up cash for a graphics card that is only going to be used by a handful of games. And if you're such a gamer that Cedega is a must for you, why are you even bothering to screw around with a kludge when you could just dual boot. I guess I'm just not hardcore enough to be that much of a purist that I'd jump through so many damned hoops just to be MS free. I enjoy having access to a huge library of games, and I really enjoy not having to deal with botched textures and subpar performance just to make sure it runs on my pet OS. I'm a gamer first and foremost, and in this day and age that means Microsoft.
I espically liked how the screenshot showed XFCE and not some ungodly goofy looking KDE or Red-hat stylized Gnome. Slapping Farcy and Steam up on the dock is straight up ill, props to Transgaming and Hexus for showing the haters at TomsHardware "how its done".
An important note is needed. I beleive more reasonably priced OpenGL 2.0 video cards need to come onto the market inorder to even out the ratio of OpenGL to the DirectX (shadder equiped) cards.
Why not do something like this? It might be 2d-only at first but it would satisfy the requirements of almost any game.
FTA:
Q: Which Linux distributions cause the most headaches for your support people? Which ones Just Work? And which one do you use yourself, given the choice?
A: Currently I would have to say Gentoo causes the most support requests. With bleeding edge packages and a million and one different configurations in how you can use it, Gentoo has the most support requests by far.
I wonder if this is true for other packages out there. (This comes from me being a gentoo user)
Transgaming does not support the Wind community like codeweavers does. By buying Transgaming's proprietory software, you are being dominated and are supporting non-free software. Instead donate money to the Wine Project, which is free software.
First Loki is mentioned in the article, in a way that seems to imply that they would be more successful today thanks to the larger installed base (which sounds plausable). That said, it made me think of something. What about Aspyr? They seem to specialize in porting Windows games to the Mac. If they are doing that (which would probably require moving the games to OpenGL and OpenAL if they don't use 'em already), then shouldn't it be a quick walk from there to Linux? Seems like as long as you are moving platforms, the little extra effort for the increased market share you can sell to seems like a good idea.
Second is Tux Racer. Why do these articles always mention Tux Racer. It was cute that it existed 5 years ago, but the last time I tried it (a year to so ago) it still seemed amaturish (not bad, just simple and not as polished as a "real" game). It just doesn't seem like it should be an example that is trotted out every time one of these articles comes out.
Too bad we can't just get more people to use OpenGL and OpenAL/SDL/whatever in the first place so things no NEED full ports to be sellable on Linux/BSD/OS X/whatever. If MS were to somehow lose 20%+ market share quickly, the scramble to move these Windows only programs to other OSes would be fun to watch.
Last but not least... why do I have to pay so much? I moved from PC to Mac and would have to rebuy all my games. The data files are where most of your money is tied up. Write portable, and sell one box with one DVD that works on Win/Lin/Mac. Or just sell a Windows version and when the Linux/Mac version are ready make the files freely downloadable so anyone with a Windows copy run under Linux/Mac.
If (seemingly) every big console game can come out on all three consoles within a year (usually at the same time), then surely you can launch a computer game that runs on the big 3 OSes (Win, Lin, Mac) without 2+ year porting times. The difference between a Mac and a Linux box are MUCH MUCH SMALLER than between a Cube and a PS2.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
i work at a internet lan center and counter strike is THE BIG THING. can you play it on linux?
the top 5 games in order are:
1. Counter strke 1.6
2. diablo 2 lod
3. counter strike source
4. world of warcraft
5. warcraft 3
we gained alot of business when our competition got the cease and desist, because we are currently paying the valve tax.
how many of the games i just list can you play on linux/
Linux probably will never be a primary platform for commercial games. But as with most open source the availability of games is close to reaching a "good enough" state for most users. Honestly, no one needs 20.000 different first person shooters. There are rarely commericial games with new concepts. Only one for each group need sto be playable (native or via an emulation layer) to reach a "good enough" for the majority of users.
And since open source is a process the games will improve and improve. Freeciv, Wesnoth and Flightgear are good examples. They might not be as polished as the "originals", but they really finetune the engine basics (freeciv: multiplayer and configurability, Wesnoth: balance, Flightgear: faa certification)- eyecandy will come later. It worked with server software and it probably will work with game engines (and every open source game is also a open source engine by the very nature of the license):
Except for a white login screen, meaning you have to click around to find the password box and the login button. I'm surprised that something that isn't so ridiculously high profile (Doom 3, etc) works on WineX...
The article really should have mentioned Garage Games. Marble Blast and Gish are two of the funnest games I've ever played. If a good game to you is based on eye-candy, then this isn't the place for you. But if a good game is based on game-play, these were the best $20 I've ever spent.
"My girlfriend's got sodium laureth sulfate hair."
Anyone else find it ironic that on hexux.net, the word Linux links to www.microsoft.com's server 2003.
It's too bad linux doesn't have the game support it needs, but I have a feeling that isn't going to change any until more people actually start using linux. The issue there is that most people really don't know enough to benefit from using most linux distros. They don't get a kick from fiddling around with computers, they get annoyed and frustrated. Linux's main hope I see is in the business sector. If enough businesses start running linux, maybe people will start installing in at home as well. From there things like installing programs and hardware has to be improved. If those basic things are done, there might be a decent enough user base for game developers to port games. Or maybe it could go the other way. Game developers port, user base grows. Whatever happens I know plenty of people who are sick of getting viri in their computers, but would rather deals with those than the difficulty of linux right now. More companies should start supporting linux developement, and some of the linux guru's should start putting more effort effort into making linux usable for the average person. Not everyone wants to hear RTFM when they are confused with linux.
And just out of curiosity, how difficult is it really to port a game to linux? Does it take that much to start the game design with the idea that it will be a multi-platform game? Also, would game performance benefit if the developers offered binaries of the game engines so people could compile them for their computer settings?
Why does there not appear to be any work from TransGaming to support FFXI? Issues with SE itself, or just general lack of interest on the part of TransGaming? There seems to be enough interest in running FFXI on Cedega as indicated by the popularity rating on TransGaming's site, and I know I'd certainly buy a subscription if it meant I could play FFXI.
I'm a big fan of Wine.
I've actually found that the Linux version of UT2004 actually runs a bit better under Linux than under windows.
That is so true! For some reason, Linux version of UT2004 takes a huge performance hit in Windows.
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
It's because of apps like this no-one wants to adopt Linux as a gaming platform.
Not true. If that would be true, game developers would take care that the games runs in Wine/Cedega. They are not - the linux market is not important. If the market would matter, the game developers would use stuff that is easily portable (OpenGL, SDL), if they are not limited by the enviroment (for example the need to use a DirectDraw gfx engine).
The only game I can think of that took care of wine compatibility and had no native linux version was Master Of Orion III. If your argument ("no one develops for linux because of wine") would be true, there would be far more games like that.
Another sector of the gaming market we seem to constantly ignore is kids' games. One of the things that might keep Joe Desktop from switching to Linux is that little Timmy's games won't work. Does Joe really want to have to run WineX or Cedega every time Timmy wants to play "Thomas the Tank Engine Goes to the Fair"? Probably not.
Hexus' site displays Microsoft ads when you hover over the words "Linux" or "open source".
Are there any adblocking tools for this kind of ads?
If you want to play games then dual boot, the GNU/Linux community was built around sharing, and if companys don't like that then they can keep out, I do not want to see our community of sharing and helpfulness become dominated by companys that call you a pirate if you share and try to punish you for it.
After reading this http://www.transgaming.com/gavstates.php I will never again promote transgaming! Wine will soon be able to run WoW but if you want to play proprietry games then use windows...being anti-microsoft just because they are rich or something is stupid! Any company that would declare you a criminal for sharing with your friends or anyone can please stay out of the GNU/Linux community, if transgaming are more concerned with making money than with improving society then they should go and make windows software.
Most people i know have tried cegega and aren't impressed. they claim it's both tough to install and even harder to configure correctly.
i haven't tried cedega myself, but a simple apt-get install wine has worked perfectly on most systems i use.
Keep the faith, share the code
To an old-timer like me "fragging" meant killing your squad leader (typically a lieutenant) in Vietnam usually either for getting someone busted for smoking pot (or similar), or insisting on going on dangerous patrols (which usually were pointless.)
But, hey, now KIA is a car brand but to me it still means "Killed In Action", not the most attractive name for a car.
...took code from wine but gave only very little back. Like most companies.
I played Max Payne 2 all the way through at 1280x1024 with almost all detail options on and it ran like a dream. Not a single crash, the FPS was great, and it felt native. In fact if I didn't know and saw someone playing it, I would have guessed it was native. I usually prefer native games but if WineX can deliever even a few top notch games that will never be ported to Linux (political/busines reasons), then I'd call it a success. I mean, if they can get 10 games to run like that on Linux, thats like a 100% increase in recent high quality games from the platform. (not counting old Loki stuff, its way to out of date)
I'm a gamer and I've used Linux exclusively for work since 1997 and have always booted into my Winetendo partition for games. Not having to do that to play a game as good as Max Payne 2 is great.
Those of you clamoring "native or nothing", good luck. There has been no significant rise in native ports for years. We get 1 or 2 big titles thats it. So, if WineX can deliver 1 or 2 more a year, thats fine with me.
Use dosbox for all the dos games and some of the older windows games out there. Works great!
I'm a Linux user; it powers 80% of my network.
I pay for every single software package I use, if payment is requested. (Now that I think of it, I haven't paid for mIRC yet. Whoops.)
Just because someone is a "Linux user", it does not automatically follow that they are either copyright infringers, cheapskates, broke, or use just vi, lilo, and httpd.
World of Warcraft is possibly being ported to Linux, if it is true then Linux gets alot more focus which is a good thing. Cedega works neat with wow, i even emulated an open source server found here: http://www.wddg-online.org/ i get excellent performance :)
neo2k
Most Gentoo users are clueless Linux newbies. It wouldn't surprise me if AOL users generate the most support calls for EBay. Why are we surprised by Gentoo users generating the most support calls for Cadega?
If there was a gaming console based on linux tech (openGL, SDL, Linux the OS, etc), then games could be easily cross-ported to the linux PC I would think, a bit like XBOX and Windows...
I think that a linux console would be the single best way to slap the world and jump-start linux native gaming. To most ordinary folk, the OS running under the hood wouldn't matter - as a console, it would be: load the dvd, turn on...
dahlek (will you squirm when you are pecked
luckily, linux users do have GAIM!
Your skill in reading has increased by one point!
other apps or non-gaming software.
I have not read the article, and my memory is hazy on this, but will Cedega/WineX help with the use of regular ms-windows-based apps? I want to run Lotus SmartSuite and others (yes, I know NeTraverse just released a new no-kernel-mod-required version of their software for under $100...), such as some CAD apps.
But, aside from NeTraverse and some kernel maintainters/developers weaving NeTraverse code into a distro-neutral kernel (and somehow still maintaining a profit stream for NeTraverse so they don't get run into the ground by shareholder fear that a "bunch of scruffy/lazy/cheapo Linux advocates will demand the thing for free...".
Even if the apps is cheap, maintainance and upgrades will cost somewhere, so "free" as in beer in (GNU)Linux/Open Source software will HAVE to for some cases defer to profit model so people get paid.
But, back to my main question: Will Cedega and companies similar to it that offer gaming environments/compatibility seamlesssly or with minor effort permit (disk) local or on-the-net support for non-games. If Lotus SmartSuite runs under that emulation or support, then it would TRULY make OpenOffice (and, particularly, SUN) wake up and speed up the feature sets that are still lacking in OO.o/SO. I think they've been too long been staring at ms office and not spending enough time looking at (or negotiating with IMB about features in) Lotus SmartSuite.
Speaking of that, does anyone know if any of IBM's patents being held but granted Open Source use/development include SmartSuite features? I know there is in Japan a company called SourceNext. I don't know if they develop or just publish, or both, but they release a product called "SuperOffice", and it is based on Lotus SmartSuite, for the Japanese market, and it's only about Y3500. If I had Japanese fonts, I could get it to install in Win98 (running in Win4Lin in my Mandrake-based laptop), so that I could see if things I do in SmartSuite in english would port easily to Japanese users. At first glancee, though, it horrendously converts dialogs, text widgets, forms, and more. So, trying to sell anything to the Japanese market probably is or would be a ludicrous attempt on my part.
David Syes
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
CoLinux gives decent Linux performance, but your primary desktop has to be Windows.
I didn't see Enemy Territory listed. I just downloaded 1.1GB (2 CD's) of map files. Sure you can only get (a maximum) of 64 online players at a time (per server), but it's still a whole lotta bang bang shoot-em-up FPS action. Hmmm, enought /. Gotta Go!
Since Cedega isn't released under the LGPL but Wine is and they're originally from the same codebase and both try to re-implement/emulate (or not)/replicate Windows - have there been any issues regarding "code theft"? That is, I know that Transgaming does make some contributions to Wine and gets some goodwill in return (I guess) but they also keep a lot of their source to themselves (due to copy protection issues or for commercial reasons) so has there ever been any suspicion that Transgaming has taken LGPL Wine source into their product without releasing their changes? I'm very grateful for the work you do (running IE with wine to test web applications on localhost is great) but have been wondering whether there are - or are likely to be - such issues in the Wine-Transgaming relationship.
http://slashdot.org/features/98/11/13/1019256_F.sh tml
:-/
This stuff tells ya about uber gaming devs on linux!
It's an opinion based on facts - you can agree or disagree but it's not flamebait.
As a windows user, would you find it acceptable for your games to close all your open windows when started and take 5 minutes to load? No? Then I'm sure you can see why dual booting is a pretty poor solution, even compared to emulators like WINE.
PS: Botched textures? Huh? Oh, you must be an Radeon owner..
No, I did not read the f***ing article!
I hate to admit this, but gaming is the sole reason myself and alot of people I know haven't switched completely to linux. While their are alot of games that are "playable" under Linux/Wine, the bottom line is that performace wise, they don't match up to a Windows system. I don't blame the Open Source community for this, in fact I don't really blame anyone. But as long as people, read geeks, don't get equal or superior game performance in linux, they are always going to have a Windows system laying around.
My sig of choice is Marlboro
I'm fortunate that the games I like are all running on native Linux - things like Doom3, Unreal Tourney, Enemy Territory (actually, it's ET I play the most, I enjoy the team-based online games). It's doubly fortunate since I don't have Windows.
ET also has a great mod - True Combat Elite - which is a complete mod of the game in the vein of Counterstrike. TCE is a bit more 'serious' than ET is - it's less cartooney and much more strategic (and a good set of headphones is helpful because sound is more important than ever). Both ET and the TCE mod are free. You can get them from http://www.truecombat.com/
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
World of Warcraft runs fine under Wine. There were a few bugs that just got ironed out in the latest version. I've seen it with my own eyes, a friend has it running great under Gentoo.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
While it's always good to see some games from genres other than FPS come up when Linux gaming is discussed there is still a huge gap there.
Of the 10 games I have installed on my Win32 machine right now only 2 of them fall into the FPS genre. That leaves 80% of the games that I normally would expect to play out of what most people would think of in terms of Linux gaming.
I'll grant that some of the the games could be run in WINE and even one of them, good ol NWN, is directly supported. However if gaming on Linux is to become the reality I think that it should not be so one sided as to expect that people will switch just because of FPS games.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
What do you think WinXP is doing? It is runnnig a displayserver. However, the system is not optimised for that, so it runs slower.
...allmost didn't exist before DirectX... Games were running in DOS. There are complains here that X is lousy for games... there are no need for games to run under X, they could have their own graphic environment running from the non-graphic ui this could give us the nessesary performance. :-)
On the other hand... it would be cool if we could run games from X... no need for having 20 pc's for a gameparty... just one 4-cpu box and some X-terminals...
I occasionally use X on MS Windows as well - and a decently written X server works quickly there too even on slow hardware. The wrong video driver options can stuff you up anywhere, not just on X, so that can slow things down.
Maybe if Bungie ported Halo 2 to Linux, then most slashdotters could see that it was just a game like any other and we wouldn't see so many Halo 2 intro/retro/plectro spectives in the games section.
May the Maths Be with you!
Just use the real Wine or, if you want to pay money, CrossOver.
Hey, does anyone know of a good Linux or Windows emulator that can run those DOS4GW games from the 1990's well? I miss playing a lot of those classics like X-COM, Syndicate, Populous, Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders, Magic Carpet, Dark Sun: Shattered Lands, Powermonger, Monkey Island, Duke Nukem 3D... :D
It's nice to see the progress of wine; The need for the windows operating system is indeed on the decline. I'm going to live forever as are those who worship me.
DOSEMU stands for DOS Emulation, and allows you to run DOS and many DOS programs, including many DPMI applications such as DOOM and Windows 3.1, under Linux.
DOSBox is a DOS-emulator that uses the SDL-library which makes DOSBox very easy to port to different platforms. DOSBox has already been ported to many different platforms, such as Windows, BeOS, Linux, MacOS X...
Why bother porting directx to linux?
Gaming is for children anyway. If you are still playing computer games, you are mentally still a child...
Magic Carpet is an excellent game. I got it working great in DOSBox. Pay close attention to their FAQ to get it working.
Understanding is a three-edged sword. -- Kosh Naranek
...if M$ have some "arrangement" with the game industry... "You will not be able to make games for Xbox if you port your games to Linux"...
Well, I've subscribed to Cedega. You know why? Because I want to run my games under linux. I'm absolutely fed up of the idiots who say "Dont buy it! It's because of this nobody ports games to linux!!". Well newsflash: Max Payne under cedega looks and plays better than windows. Dont ask me why, it just is. Would a native port be better? Dunno! You'd think so. But then, who cares?!? If it runs under cedega then who really gives a toss? Unless it's a political issue? You want the name on the box? Surely people don't care, they just want to play the game... If people can play their windows games on linux, people will be more likely to jump to linux (If that's the only thing holding them back). What happens? The number of people using Linux go up, the market gets bigger, companies start seeing it as a viable market not neccessarily filled with free-loading hippies and actually start THINKING about porting to it. If you don't support cedega then less people move over to linux and it ends up with a small gaming base. Which company would bother with that size of market? I would call that an own goal. I could go on, so forgive me, but I'm off to play the republic commando demo....yes under cedega.
The biggest issues I've had with Cedega are in dealing with various hardware and/or older games. For graphics NVidia cards should generally work fine, but I've had other cards that work fine on games in Windoze, and do have accelerated linux drivers that Wine simply doesn't like.
I get a hardon just thinking about playing xcom again. Dosemu didn't work for it when I tried it, but perhaps it'll work now.
Argh. I'm glad I can tweak the card. Don't get me wrong. I just hate that POS app.
First of all, you have to somehow call the app every time you log-in, instead of it just being automatic. That mostly works, but not always.
Then there's the "forgetting the settings" part. In theory, you don't need to bring up the GUI once you've configured it right, but every time I play a SDL game (TuxRacer, Stepmania) and then return to X, all the settings are lost. The only way to recover them that I've found is to reopen the nvidia-settings GUI and twiddle the numbers. Somehow that will trigger the thing to reapply those settings.
Is there some reason you can't set these params from xorg.conf? Sure, it is nice to be able to override them on a per-user basis, but they sure don't make it easy.