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."

Comments

Cedega and "Out of the box" in the same sentence!?

[cybereal]

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.

Re:That's What They Said in the First Place

[AKAImBatman]

Robertson didn't know what he was talking about. He'd seen WINE in action, and assumed that it was close to being a complete replacement for Windows. He then went on to include it with Lindows and promised the world that he'd be Windows compatible. Somewhere along the line he learned the horrible truth (Win32 is an ugly, broken, and complex moving target) and backed off his claims.

Unfortunately, this left Lindows in a bit of a lurch because it was less secure than most Linux distributions, and only had its application repository to carry it. My guess is that the Microsoft vs. Lindows lawsuit was what kept them on the map. Without all the press, it's posslble they would have languished into obscurity. Since then, the renamed Linspire has been slowly building back up to Windows compatibility.

Re:Cedega and "Out of the box" in the same sentenc

[MikeBabcock]

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.

Re:Windows just isn't that expensive

[mrchaotica]

1. I build all my own desktops, and my laptop is a Mac. Hence, I don't already have a copy of Windows.
2. Windows is not cheap; it's ~$200 retail.
3. Even if I wanted to spend the money, I sure as hell don't want to sell my soul to the Windows Activation scheme!
4. Why should I have to reboot my desktop -- which has an uptime of several months -- just to play a game?
5. Actually, some games run faster under Wine than they do natively. Besides, as long as it's "fast enough" I don't really care if it could be a little faster on Windows.
6. The way to combat the illegal bundling isn't to bend over and take it, but to refuse to submit.

Re:B.F.D.

[tomstdenis]

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

Wait before buying...

[loose_cannon_gamer]

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.

Re:Portability

[pyser]

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.

Re:Wow, I wonder why nobody thought of that

[bensode]

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.