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Cedega 5.0 Released

kormoc writes "Transgaming has released a large update to Cedega. This release (5.0) changes how the entire product works, merging the GUI with the actual program, as well as implementing features such as pixel shadier 1.4 support, in order to get games such as battlefield 2 working. The release notes list all the new improvements as well as the newly supported games. This seems to be the best release to date and expands the feature set to work with a large number of new games."

29 of 289 comments (clear)

  1. Pixel Shadier? by plover · · Score: 5, Funny
    features such as pixel shadier 1.4 support

    So exactly what is a shady pixel, and how does a pixel become shadier? Are there degrees of shadiness?

    Let's say you have two pixels: one pixel threatens people on the sidewalk for money, and the other pixel runs a numbers racket. Which one is shadier?

    --
    John
    1. Re:Pixel Shadier? by panth0r · · Score: 4, Funny

      Maybe one of the pixels graduated to becming a "gangsta"? While the rest are all just "thugs" tryin' to keep up da image, yo!

      --
      I like suggestions, but I don't like contributing towards them.
    2. Re:Pixel Shadier? by eno2001 · · Score: 4, Funny

      No. I think you are thinking of the rather out of fashion "Slim Shadier".

      --
      -"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
    3. Re:Pixel Shadier? by hunterx11 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Will the real Pixel Shady please stand up?

      --
      English is easier said than done.
  2. Re:Behind the scenes tech? by et764 · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's based on WineX, which was a Wine fork that had better DirectX support.

  3. As a gaming platform? by taskforce · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Having never used Cedega before, I was wondering what the noticeable drop in framerate would be as opposed to when the games were running natively in Windows XP? Hopefully some of what horsepower the computer is throwing at the game is refunded in that it doesn't have to run XP in the background, but I'd assume the net performance change is in the negative direction.

    Does anyone regularly use Cedega to play 3D FPS and if so are they playable with a non-cutting edge system? (thinking last generation card or whatever.)It would be nice to lose the XP install on my Hard Drive.

    --
    My 3D Texturing Skinning work (under construction)
    1. Re:As a gaming platform? by et764 · · Score: 5, Informative

      I use Cedega to play Half-Life 2 on an Athlon XP 2200+ and a Geforce 4 Ti 4200 128MB. It runs really smoothely. I've never played it on a comparable computer under Windows, so I can't say if there's a framerate drop, but the framerate is still high enough, and that's really what matters.

    2. Re:As a gaming platform? by l_bratch · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This seems to be the best release to date
      It would be pretty good if they hadn't ruined the command line support... You now have to jump through hoops to avoid having to load the GUI prior to loading any games.

      I agree though that from the Cedega engine point of view, it's a very impressive release.

    3. Re:As a gaming platform? by bumby · · Score: 3, Informative

      I play world of warcraft using cedega, and it works fine. Of course, I'm sure I would have gotten a higher fps in windows, but then again, an average of 27 fps in enough for me.

      And my system is about a year old.

      --
      Hey! That's my sig you're smoking there!
    4. Re:As a gaming platform? by The_Dougster · · Score: 3, Insightful
      I must say, unless you are a diehard Linux fan and absolutely cannot be seen running Windows, stick with Microsoft's OS. In my experience with it and gaming, it just works. Linux needed sh1tl0ads of configuration and tweaking to get it to work right.

      There is some wisdom here. I've been using Linux for over ten years, and you will be hard pressed to find somebody that likes it more than I do; however, the sad fact of life is that if you like playing modern games, you probably need to keep a windows partition around.

      I do, and always have dual (and triple) booted my systems. I currently keep FreeDOS, Linux, and Win2k bootable on my personal home system. I also have Hurd and L4/Hurd somewhat bootable for experimental fooling around.

      I use FreeDOS as basically a recovery system and have my GRUB bootloader's home on the FreeDOS drive. Other than that, I rarely boot it, but then again it only requires about 350MB so I keep it around just in case something really bad happens to my system.

      Linux is my main system, and I run Gentoo (I'm very experienced with Linux, remember). I have an excellent Linux gaming system going with Nvidia 5900, full power OpenGL, Wine, and lots of Loki games. I regularly download Linux beta versions of games from Sourceforge and install into either my home or /usr/local to play around with them. Linux is my home system and I have a massive development infrastructure installed there. I'm an engineer, and if I want to make a science program, I boot to Linux and fire up Python.

      I keep Windows 2000 as my bootable windows system. I use it mostly for games and CAD. If I can migrate a game to Linux in Wine, then I do so eventually, but if not I don't sweat it. It is a major hassle keeping my win2k system updated with virus protection and all that horseshit, but its necessary if you want to play games. I like win2k because its a no-nonsense windows version and I'm not looking forward to the time when I have to upgrade it.

      There's no shame in dual-booting. At least you are learning Linux and using it when appropriate. In maybe 10 or 20 years, Linux will be a real powerhouse, and I've used it since it was a baby, but until it comes into its prime, use it when it makes sense and don't be a zealot.

      Balance in all things grasshopper.

      --
      Clickety Click ...
  4. Would gaming companies target this platform? by Reality+Master+201 · · Score: 3, Funny

    From what I understand, IBM already tests the Notes client to ensure that it functions properly under Wine (or at least as well as it does under Windows). how long before game producers start to target these kinds of compatibility libraries? I understand that the linux gaming market is small compared to the whole, so direct support is unlikely.

    Any game programmers care to comment if/whether their company would deliberately code a product so that it would run well under something like this? Would you code with the compatability library in mind?

  5. Re:game pad support? by Fallingcow · · Score: 3, Informative

    You can find it on most of the major bittorrent search sites, if you just want to try it to make sure it'll work for your setup.

    Not legal, I'm sure, but then you'll know and can pay for it if it does work.

  6. Re:Cedega will never get my money. by vp0ng · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is exactly the kind of company that the Linux community needs to embrace to bring it more into the mainstream. Cutting them off because you have to pay for it only hurts Linux in the long run. Get in the mainstream. Get noticed. Gamers are a huge PC market, and more often than not, they build their own systems and are not afraid of computers or learning new systems. With the ability to play their games, more and more will flock to Linux. But it needs movements like this one. I will happily give Transgaming my money for a subscription.

    --
    (Futurama) Fry: "My folks were always on me to groom myself and wear underpants. What am I, the pope?"
  7. Interesting business model. by QuantumG · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I signed up for Transgaming earlier this year. Like many others I gave them my money so I could vote for my favourite games. Unfortunately, like in just about any democracy, my vote wasn't worth anything, so my favourite games never made it to the top of the TODO list. That said, I still think Cedega is a good product and if Transgaming focused more on building a developer community than paying developers they'd get a lot more games working.

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
  8. Re:Cedega will never get my money. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    only word that comes to mind is "tool".

    you figure it out.

    the word FREE as in "I want everything and don't want to pay for it" annoys the dog piss out of me... I prefer my FREE as in "I want everything. I want it to work. I want to be able to fix it myself if it in fact it does not work like I need/want it to. oh and if it meets these requirements.. i'm willing to pay."

    my objection to windows... is that is doesn't meet those requirements...

    Cedega is a hell of a program and has taken the Wine(x) to a whole different level when it comes to Game compatibility. it's worth the price of a subscription...

  9. Re:Why?! by alras · · Score: 3, Informative

    technically the core and gui are still seperated, its just not that obvious anymore. The binaries are now a little more hidden in the home directory of the user.

  10. Re:Cedega will never get my money. by vp0ng · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Windows comes preloaded on all major PC's now, but it's not free. It's built into the price. Believe it or not, you DID pay for that copy of windows on your college laptop.

    --
    (Futurama) Fry: "My folks were always on me to groom myself and wear underpants. What am I, the pope?"
  11. It still costs less... by Weaselmancer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...than buying a copy of Windows XP.

    --
    Weaselmancer
    rediculous.
  12. Good theory... by sterno · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Great idea but here's the problem. If you're a game development company and you can only afford to code for and support one platform, which would you choose:

    1) Windows with 90+% of the market
    2) Linux with 5-10% of the market, give or take

    Also, keep in mind that anybody who's a serious gamer has a Windows machine, or dual-boots.

    --
    This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
  13. Re:Cedega will never get my money. by wangmaster · · Score: 4, Informative

    The transgaming folks have contributed alot of their work into the core wine stuff back. They also said they'll open up everything they can assuming they reach their subscription goal, which I believe they haven't reached, although admittedly there's some contraversy around how to account for where they are toward their goal.

    Their DirectX work is largely something they keep to themselves, but honestly, it's their right to. They took a wine version at a specific point where the license allowed them to do it, and they forked it. They didn't abuse the license, the license specifically allowed it. Sure some people later on felt jipped and changed the license, but that doesn't really reflect on the fact that someone should have considered it when the original license was chosen, especially if they didn't want this to happen.

    Plus, they're putting alot of hard work into the DirectX stuff. I can't fault them for wanting to hang on to it for a while. It's a very niche market they're targetting and they could use the revenue.

    The other component that they get alot of criticism for is the copy protection portions of the code, and I believe this is actually the only part not in CVS and there's a reason for that, it's licensed intellectual property that they aren't at liberty to give out the source code for. Since the legality of no-cd cracks is still in a legal gray area, plus the stability of some cracks are questionable, it's nice that they're able to implement this so we can run pristine binaries of the games.

  14. Re:Cedega will never get my money. by Mad+Merlin · · Score: 3, Informative

    Not quite. You won't get the same sort of CD copy protection compatibility, as they can't legally release the source. Even vanilla Wine has DX9 support now. The CVS version of Cedega would be pretty much useless if it didn't have DirectX support.

  15. Try Gentoo, NWN and Doom3 is already in portage by linuxkrn · · Score: 3, Informative

    Try Gentoo Portage http://www.gentoo.org

    http://www.gentoo-portage.com/s?search=nwn

    See NWN with data and server right there.

    http://www.gentoo-portage.com/s?search=doom3 for doom3

    And Portage put games into catagories.

    Like: games-fps, games-rpg, games-puzzle. etc.

    AND the best part, to install. emerge nwn
    It will download any and all deps for you!

  16. Review at Linux-gamers by pshuke · · Score: 4, Informative

    Linux-gamers have put up a review, if anyone are interested.
    Doesn't seem too shabby.

  17. The Ultimate Accomplishment by eno2001 · · Score: 4, Funny

    The Microsoft dominated computer industry won't go away until Wine is merged into the Linux kernel so that it gets optimal performance and actually out-Windows Windows itself. Just imagine if the entire whole of Cedega was merged into the Linux kernel to be a completely self contained OS that runs all Windows applications including virii, wormii and and server applications. Just imagine what a combo like Linux + Cedega + IIS would wrought on the world!? It would be awesome. Microsoft would drop dead in it's tracks and no one would ever use Windows again. And not only that, you could run IIS at the same time that you have Unreal 2008 running at 20,000 frames per second with total perspective vortex shading. This would go a long way to improving the work conditions of many IT grunts because the production servers would now be useful for more important things than serving out the corporate web site. :)

    --
    -"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
  18. 5.0 is a double edged sword. by ahpx · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm a Transgamer subscriber. Having downloaded and installed 5.0, and used it abit. I'd say 5.0 is a double edged sword. The positives on it is that it fixes alot of problems with older versions and fixes support for the Steam patch that recently broke it before. However the negitives to it is that it completely kills the use of Point2Play which I enjoyed using. Now you have to import all your old settings into Cedega's new GUI which at first might not seem like something bad until you relize that all your old custom made launchers and syslinks and now useless. All in all it's not a bad release, they could have just left some features alone. Now I and many other users have to change syslinks, and rework the old launcher programs we had before.

  19. Re:Software Installation by Mad+Merlin · · Score: 3, Informative
    Most Open Source/Free Software/Linux folks seem to think that the last option is _clearly_ the best choice. I'm not so sure. Last I checked, NWN or Doom3 or Heretic II were not included in any RPM/DPKG repository, at least not any configured by default on any of the mainstream distributions.

    It is the best choice. If you prefer to mindlessly click "Next" 5-10 times every time you want to install something and then again if you ever want to update it, when you could simply issue a single command or tick a single box and select install, and then have *all* updates handled for you, then I sincerely hope you have nothing to do with any important software development.

    From portage:

    * games-rpg/nwn
    Latest version available: 1.66
    Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ]
    Size of downloaded files: 2,420,283 kB
    Homepage: http://nwn.bioware.com/downloads/linuxclient.html
    Description: Neverwinter Nights
    License: NWN-EULA

    * games-fps/doom3
    Latest version available: 1.3.1302
    Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ]
    Size of downloaded files: 16,802 kB
    Homepage: http://www.doom3.com/
    Description: Doom III - 3rd installment of the classic id 3D first-person shooter
    License: DOOM3

    Or maybe you'd prefer the web listings.

    Any other questions?

  20. But will it play Civ 4? by Darby · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm wondering if Civilization 4 will be playable with it.
    It sure as hell isn't playable under Windows for a metric assload of people.
    It's not MSs fault, just poor programming released too early, but maybe the memory leaks won't kill performance after only a couple turns.

    I'll have to try it when I get home.. Well, if I get home....stupid PERC cards.

  21. Nice Advert, but... by 3vi1 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I was thinking about re-subscribing to check it out, then stumbled accross this poll. For some reason, 3/4ths (at this time) of the people responding have negative feelings about the update. That's not a very good sign.

  22. Re:So is wine ahead or behind with dx9? by oliverthered · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That's not quite true, vertex buffer object and other performance patches aren't in wine cvs yet, I'm finishing off stabilizing Directx (including allowing DirectX 8 to use the improvements) over the next month or so, including Pixel Shaders 1.4.

    After that I'm going to commit the performance patches that should bring wine to a comparable level to Cedega (some of the patches give a huge performance increase over Cedega).

    There are still a lot of no DirectX related issues that need fixing in Wine so that games are playable.

    IMO. Cedega aren't putting much effort into DirectX in Cedega, my patch from 2005-06-13 has many of the features Cedega are touting as new in their 5.0 release.

    --
    thank God the internet isn't a human right.