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Linspire To Run Windows Games
Ken writes "Aviran's Place reports that Linspire and TransGaming released Cedega for the Linspire desktop Linux operating system, allowing Linspire users to play hundreds of popular Windows-format games right out of the box."
You know, Windows just isn't that expensive. Chances are, due to the (I would think illegal, but no one seems to care what I think) per-processor bundling of Windows, you probably already have a copy for your box. So just boot into Windows to play your game, and then return to Linux afterwards. It's likely to run faster this way anyway.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Kevin Carmony, president and CEO of Linspire, Inc. ..."Point2Play with Cedega is so easy and affordable, you'll be able to play Windows games on Linspire for less than it would cost to purchase a Windows system."
Cedega = $44.95
Game X = $40-50
Total = $80-95
Windows Home = $100~
Windows Pro = $130~
Windows Longhorn = Unknown
Makes sense to me.
-Teiresias
Actually, Lindows was supposed to run ALL Windows programs before they scaled back their early claims. Looks like it just got put on the back burner.
"Is this Winkhorst a nova criminal?" "No just a technical sergeant wanted for interrogation."
Oh come now. Just try to install Warcraft III with Cedega.
I'm serious, that's the only game I was really hoping to play with Cedega when I tried it out. It flopped hard core, yet, WC3 is on their list of supported games with a flag indicating that it is playable.
Lies.
I read the script, and I think it would help my character's motivation if he was on fire. -Bender
Wow, you keep twelve applications up while you're playing a game?
Aside from the obvious flambebaitness of your comment, you're right.
Making most games work with Cedega is dead simple if you use Point2Play (recommended by Transgaming unless you "know what you're doing").
Most every game I've tried on the supported list has worked the first time.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
I use the fglrx ATI drivers in ubuntu and never had a problem running doom3, ut2004 and most importantly tuxracer.
"Religion is the most malevolent of all mind viruses." - Arthur C. Clarke.
Having tried Transgaming's software and gui front end, and only getting 1 game out of the 15 I have to work. It definately isn't worth the $5.00 usd that they want you to pay per month to use their services. Hours of frustrated tweaking, redownloading, reinstalling, reeverything... and still end up with a useless gui that takes up much needed anime room. Save the dough until they actually put some effort into game support. Transgaming forums are full of help requests and zilch for feedback from transgaming. Mr M.
Easy as PIE - even WINE runs WC3 Your video card/linux setup support is your problem.
Don't make your problems my problems!
The failing point is often the hardware though. It will install fine if you have an NVidia card or possibly an ATI... but with others it can be pretty hit-and-miss.
Cedega has never liked my Epia's Unichrome cards (even for games that seem usable - though not spectacular - in windows)... and I'd bet that it sucks equally on Intel/etc cards.
Have you looked at the average game? Basically Q3A engine with a few new graphics and a title like "medal of honour!".
Same shit different day.
Not to say they're not partially fun. Just not worth being in windows for.
I'd rather [and do] do without then install windows.
I do play UT2K4 once in a while because they made a Linux port that works well.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Exactly. I've tried Cedega/WineX on-and-off for about 3 years or so. Sometimes it'll play the games I want to play, but most of the time not. And even when it is working, its sporadic, and like you mention, only a selected subset of games actually work.
For this reason only, I keep a PC with WinXP for games.
The solution here is not to run Windows games, but to find more ways to convince major game developers that they should release ports to linux directly.
Ironically, one way to convince the major game developers to have native Linux port is to have transgaming succeed.
When Loki Games existed, I enjoyed playing Heroes III, Kohan and Myth 2 on my Linux box. Too bad Loki could not last.
The ports by Loki were decent, especially for games where performance isn't critical. For e.g., playing Kohan was fine, but then try speeding up the playback to 8x (800%), and I notice it was playing maybe just at 3x the speed... on Windows, it really could playback at 8x.
I think the market for Linux gaming has to grow a lot more before game companies can justify the engineering cost of native Linux port. Some way to grow Linux desktop is through improvements on KDE/GNOME, OpenOffice, FireFox, Thunderbird, etc., but efforts like transgaming also help grow the Linux desktop share.
I'm not a fully crazed gamer, but I do enjoy playing games a lot, and my hardware isn't that bad. That said, I split my time between development work and gaming, and dual boot (windows being purely for games and finance management).
For a while I tried to be windows free, pure linux, and I even got a cedega subscription. I was disappointed, in that I could only get about 1 title in 10 to actually work, and none without serious UI gotchas, visual artifacts, crashes, etc. This was 6 months ago, and it is possible that things have changed.
So while this is a fine idea, I highly recommend proving it out. I know I am not going to be an early adopter, as I felt like the claims made by cedega were, in my experience, wholly unsubstantiated back then. The idea is great, but the last time I tried it, the technology and stability just weren't there.
In Soviet Russia, us are belong to all your base.
If there is no need to write native games for Linux, then why bother?
This is one of the things that killed the mass-marketability of OS/2. Since it would run Windows 3.1 apps, there was little need to provide a higher-performance OS/2-native version. Most apps written for OS/2 were excellent performers (e.g. DeScribe), but the market was too small to be viable.
Yes, I do the same. Actually, I get better game performance running under cedega than Windows. I can use the virtual desktop switching to play WoW on one desktop fullscreen, then one hotkey away from any of the other apps I'm running ... such as Evolution, Firefox and my remote desktop sessions, pron, etc. In windows, I'm stuck with screen focus or a "windowed" mode, with crippled system performance to everything else. I usually can't run anything in the background while playing and games.
On the downside, though, for the MMORPGs through Cedega, whenever there is a major patch I often have to wait a few days for the Cedega team to fix what was "broken". Very rare, but it happene a lot on EQ and has started to happen from time to time with WoW. For the other games that aren't patched routinely, I have no problems at all.
"Keep at least 3-6 full bottles of hard alcohol on hand, a 2 week resignation notice,..." - Poetmatt
funny, WC3 base and frozen throne work beautifully on my system (Cedega on Gentoo) and did right out of the box. So does WoW, Diablo II, and every other blizzard title I've tried. The only thing that I've not been able to get working is Halo.
About $120-$130, if it didn't come included with a PC. So limited support for ~$100 or full support (including graphics & sound card drivers) for 20% more? Not a tough choice.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
I use Cedega on Ubuntu and Debian, so far only to play World of Warcraft. I get 20 FPS with a fairly anemic NVidia card (GeForce 2 MX 400) at 1024x768. Installation was dead simple (they provide .debs). There's usually a minor bug or two when a new release of WoW comes out (Blizzard, understandably, doesn't test on Cedega before releasing patches), but they have consistently been fixed within 24 hours. I have maybe 200 hours in the game, and am completely satisfied with Cedega. I haven't tried Point2Play, but I hear it makes it easier if you're not comfortable with dpkg -i from the command line.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
So... spend $5 a month to use my $400 gfx card at half speed? 50% of my machine cost is my video card. Why would I want to emulate the software it's supposed to accelerate? I don't think so. I'll continue to run Windows as a main OS and VMWare my Linux installation(s). Linux, because it is better (smller at least), runs quite well in VMWare whereas CS:Source would probably scream under emulation.
Ever done a `man` on `top` ?
Go ahead, mod me troll if you must, that doesn't mean the reasons listed at the above link are wrong.
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