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Transgaming Introduces Cedega 6.0

Tux Penguin writes "Today Transgaming introduced Cedega 6.0, which is the popular Linux game emulator based upon WINE. Among the new features in Cedega 6.0 is support for a number of new games, Shader Model 2.0 support, new FBO extensions support, and ALSA audio. Phoronix has provided a performance preview that has Doom 3 and Enemy Territory benchmarks from Windows XP, Windows Vista, Linux, WINE, and Cedega."

246 comments

  1. And... by Mayhem178 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...I'll bet that it still doesn't work right.

    Honestly, in the past I've had more success running games with just straight up WINE than Cedega. I had a 1 month subscription, and it was a complete waste, cheap as it was. Not a single game worked as advertised.

    As usual, I'm sure their benchmarks were acquired from a machine with a very specific setup requiring hours of tweaking to get right.

    Linux has its uses, and they are many. Gaming is not currently among them, and this hack (yeah, I went there; Cedega is a hack, nothing more) is not the solution to bring Linux gaming into the mainstream.

    --

    "You will pay for your lack of vision..." - Emperor Palpatine to Ray Charles

    1. Re:And... by cyphercell · · Score: 1

      It's obviously possible for game developers to target Cadega, the article itself doesn't discuss anything more than frame rate. Personally, I think wine and derivitives are a PITA. It's not a matter of if something works or not, it's a matter of "will this button work" or "will this room render properly" or "do I mind my character rendered as a sprite with a black background", it's all a big PITA. *IF* Wine's codebase was actually targeted by the developers (simple flag ie if (windows) do this elseif (!windows) do that) then things could really get rolling.

      --
      Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
    2. Re:And... by skoaldipper · · Score: 3, Funny

      As usual, I'm sure their benchmarks were acquired from a machine with a very specific setup requiring hours of tweaking to get right.
      FTA,

      we had used a modest setup to better represent the systems of more computer enthusiasts that may be using Cedega or WINE. The motherboard was an ASUS M2NPV-VM with GeForce 6150 (+ nForce 430) integrated graphics
      Modest setup? Representative? 800x600 for Doom3, 12 fps? By those standards, my kaleidoscope is the Cedega/Wine equivalent to dropping a real LSD wafer.
      --
      I hope, when they die, cartoon characters have to answer for their sins.
    3. Re:And... by Spikeles · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's obviously possible for game developers to target Cadega
      WRONG! It's thinking like this that makes developers/publishers lazy when it comes to Linux. You don't target the emulator. You target the PLATFORM. The GNU/Linux platform has many benefits going for it, just look at I.D Software and how they support Linux with binaries of all their popular games, Quake series comes to mind. If game publishers would just pull their heads out of their asses and realize there really is a games market for Linux, we might start to see some of the more popular games being ported. It's a piece of fricken cake to port a Windows application over to Linux if you just used standard libraries in the first place without resorting to Win32 calls, and those can be ported without too much bother either. IF i had Linux binaries of my games, you would never see me on Windows again.
      --
      I don't need to test my programs.. I have an error correcting modem.
    4. Re:And... by k1e0x · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Wine often works better.

      This is because where at one point they were the same code base.. Wine has been attempting to provide a full implementation of windows. Cedega on the other hand has just been hacking and older alpha version of Wine so that it works with certain popular games.

      If you follow this to the logical end.. eventually Wine will have a full implementation of windows on unix where new games (and anything else) will run.. and Cedega will have a bunch of hacks requiring constant tweaking for newer games.

      --
      Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
    5. Re:And... by philgross · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Er... No. "standard libraries... without resorting to Win32 calls"? It's not the Win32 part that's the issue, it's the DirectX part, a high-level, high-performance interface to 3D hardware. OpenGL is somewhat comparable, and in the mid-90s was the polished alternative to the weak hack that was DirectX. However, OpenGL evolves by committee, and has many conservative stakeholders such as CAD firms, while MS totally controls DirectX, and has been pushing hard for it to be used as widely as possible. Each iteration has made it much more powerful and better suited to games programming, as well as tracking the rapid advances in consumer 3D hardware. Further, if your PC game uses DirectX, it's much easier to port it to the Xbox360, and vice versa.

      Both Parallels and VMWare are working on cloning the DirectX API so VM applications can have accelerated 3D, but it's a big task. The DirectX libraries are massive, and each version has major differences with the previous one. VMWare is working hard just to get DirectX 8.1 compatibility, i.e. two revisions ago.

      Some of the big graphics engine makers continue to support OpenGL, but even so, how do they financially justify spending the time and money to port their games to a platform with a tiny desktop market share, and where a significant percentage of the users expect everything on their machine to be free and open source?

      This is a passionate and well-argued plea for mainstream developers to develop for Linux, but I don't think he convinced too many game company CFOs.

      I would refer you to the sad post from John Carmack, regarding the disappointing sales of the Linux version of Quake III back in 2000. So far, not too many companies have wanted to risk seeing if things have changed.

    6. Re:And... by mandelbr0t · · Score: 1

      eventually Wine will have a full implementation of windows on unix where new games (and anything else) will run.. (emphasis mine)

      Not if the WINE devs won't get involved with platforms other than Linux. Look at this WINE dev's comments regarding WINE on FreeBSD (#18). Dammit! I want to play D2 on FreeBSD. It's been out for over 5 years. Why such a big deal? NVIDIA has drivers, too...

      WINE is for Linux and Macs. I don't think that's going to change, so the future is equally bleak for both projects, IMO. I'm still paying my $5/mo. though, in hopes that a full DirectX 9 implementation will be available for at least one of the named projects, if not portable across multiple i386 Unices. Of course, that would require Microsoft's cooperation or some other miracle.
      --
      "Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
    7. Re:And... by robbiethefett · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "Linux has its uses, and they are many. Gaming is not currently among them, and this hack (yeah, I went there; Cedega is a hack, nothing more) is not the solution to bring Linux gaming into the mainstream." i really disagree with that statement. i think Cedega is, in fact, a great step towards bringing linux gaming into the mainstream. let me extrapolate.. the reason cedega is significant is because there are users willing to pay money to a subscription service that is specifically geared towards gamers who's preferred OS is *nix. in other words, there is a number of people purchasing a product for the express purpose of playing video games under the *nix OS's. The reason i think that is significant is because in order for a subscription-based service like cedega to work, there has to be not only a user base, but a fairly dedicated user base. that is to say, people who keep their subscriptions to cedega are most likely not someone who plays games under *nix sporadically, but rather people who play often, and are interested in playing newer games. i say they are probably interested in playing newer games because if you just play counter-strike or whatever your game of choice is, then you would probably just configure wine to run that one game, rather than buy a subscription to a service that tries to keep up-to-date on the newer stuff. the bottom line? cedega proves there is a market for games under *nix. basically, if a market exists, companies will step in to make money off of that market. if Cedega subscriptions suddenly skyrocketed, i bet you would eventually see large game publishers releasing native linux ports of games. sure, progress is slow, and the market is tiny, but with with time is it really insane to think that this small market will become statistically significant to large companies?

      --
      "Luke, you've switched off your targeting computer, what's wrong?"
    8. Re:And... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree- I was very unimpressed with Cedega. Not a single game worked last I tried. (About 6 mo ago)

    9. Re:And... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except those who read the article would also notice that Windows XP actually performs slower than the Linux version and Cedega performs within 0.8% of the native Linux version. Similarly for the rest, the percentage performance drop noticed under Cedega is only several percent and much less than the drop of running under Vista.

    10. Re:And... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Linux has its uses, and they are many. Gaming is not currently among them, and this hack (yeah, I went there; Cedega is a hack, nothing more) is not the solution to bring Linux gaming into the mainstream.

      But it is a solution to play some games on Linux. I have my reasons to use Linux, the games I want to play are supported by Cedega. While I'm not willing to use proprietary software for some uses, gaming is not one of them, and so Cedaga is in deed a solution for my gaming needs.

      Besides gaming and entertainment is the last frontier for Linux and any help it gets there should be welcome. Lack of games is the main reason why I cannot recommend Linux for my relatives and family. I know there are many good games available on Linux, but really the amount of games my relatives and friends would wish to play available on Linux doesn't even aproach the the number of such Windows games, so it's kind of a hard to sell. I'm sad to say it but it's true. Luckily so far I'm mostly able to satisfy my gaming needs on Linux.

    11. Re:And... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So what.
      My 3 years old Athlon 2400+/1.8Ghz, 1gb ddr ram with lowest end radeon 9250 gets 20fps in doom3 on linux.
      What the fuck are they doing on that machine such that they only get 12fps on average? This "benchmark" is totally bogus because the bottleneck on each of the platforms is the same - the graphics card. Vista only does so poorly because the gfx drivers are shit. Each of the other plaforms show insignificant performance differences.

    12. Re:And... by notamisfit · · Score: 1

      The only game I use wine for is WoW, and that one seems to work fine on FreeBSD (although I didn't install it there, just copied it from a Fedora partition).

      --
      Jesus is coming -- look busy!
    13. Re:And... by flayzernax · · Score: 1

      and that did not stop carmak /id software from releasing quake 4, doom3 binaries for linux... nore did they consider it "stupid" of themselves to have ever done it.

      Neither did that stop them from releasing q3 source... or the enemy territory source...

      FYI also the benchmarks used here are simply specific games... a newer game like WoW or ... maybe something new as HL2 is not going to perform the same way... or some cheep hack by EA or some software sweatshop is going to behave radically different then ET, and Doom3.

      Not to mention - yeah conservative CAD companies push openGL but it is truly a more "serious" library then directX considering there is a market for video/accelerator cards that support it were the cards themselves cost 1000$'s of dollars.

      Is directX a great way to get to the desktop/everyday joe who works at a department store and doesnt want to hack to get his games to work and wants to shell out 50$ for a shiny new xbox360 title yeah... its perfect

      but why hate the geeks and their cedega/wine/wine cvs/source? its something good. one day it may even surpass directx... like for example fixing a directx bug before directx even patches itself ( i think it already has for some older DX releases...), IF and when it can catch up... plus its not vmware cedega translates dx directly into opengl your not running windows to run directx to run your game... your running an api for an api... like a generic database driver that is supposed to provide common access to a specific database driver. its not as bad overhead as you think and is very well implemented in wine/cedega.

      Me i own a xbox360 ive shelled out 50$ for a shiny new sweatshop title or two... but i also have run EQ, starcraft, WoW, and a few other games under cedega/wine ... did it take a few hrs of work, some compiling... i had to compile cvs source code to get world of warcraft running =P... but it did run pretty darn well even under linux. Ran quake3, doom3, and UT under linux natively of course the novelty... (that also took some working, to install the version of ut i had... and get mesaGl libs removed with proper nVidia libs in place... and stuff linked all correctly back when doom3 was new and young...)

    14. Re:And... by AliasTheRoot · · Score: 1

      I agree, i'll go as far as saying Wine is better for gaming than Cedega.

      I tried to run 3 games under Cedega and Wine, all ones listed as supported titles in Cedega.

      World of Warcraft. Crashed at character load under Cedega, flawless under Wine.

      Guild Wars. Wouldn't load under Cedega, playable but slow under Wine.

      Half Life 2. Wouldn't load under Cedega, some issues with Steam under Wine but playable.

    15. Re:And... by mcvos · · Score: 1

      Not a single game worked as advertised.

      I haven't had that problem. Cedega has clear and easy to find lists of which games are supported and to what extend. I use it to play Morrowind, and apart from a few glitches, it works fine. Most of the time.

      Okay, so it's not perfect, but neither is Windows. Due to Cedega, I really don't miss Windows anymore.

    16. Re:And... by mcvos · · Score: 1

      It's obviously possible for game developers to target Cadega
      WRONG!

      Not at all. It may not be what you want, but it's most definitely possible for game developers too target Cedega. And to be honest, I'd rather see windows game developers take the limitations of Cedega or Wine into account than ignore linux completely.

    17. Re:And... by jZnat · · Score: 1

      Some of the big graphics engine makers continue to support OpenGL, but even so, how do they financially justify spending the time and money to port their games to a platform with a tiny desktop market share, and where a significant percentage of the users expect everything on their machine to be free and open source? Maybe because use of OpenGL and friends will make porting your game to other game consoles (which have a severely higher market share than Windows does for games) so much easier, and the more potential customers the better? Also, game development is easier when you target OpenGL/OpenAL/SDL in my experience, and there are a lot of superb open source libraries of which you can use in your game. Also, hardly any game developers are doing raw graphics stuff anymore; they licence a third-party game engine (e.g., id's Quake/Doom engines, Unreal, Havok) to do all the dirty work for them. These engines commonly have several graphical and library implementations included (e.g., DirectX 10, 9, 8, and OpenGL/SDL), so the developers don't have to worry so much about implementation and can focus on the game itself.

      Also, a huge amount of the market share for Windows is with corporate desktops, and I don't know about the companies you've worked for, but you usually can't install and play games on corporate PCs. Just letting you know that you might be violating some employee code of conduct or something if you do install and play games at work.
      --
      'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
    18. Re:And... by Spikeles · · Score: 1

      I'd rather see windows game developers take the limitations of Cedega or Wine into account than ignore linux completely
      That is where i have to disagree. By asking developers to take into the account the limitations for Cedega you are encouraging them to develop an inferior product. I want a full Linux port not some half-assed hack designed to work with an equally dodgy emulater hack. Remember folks.. Wine is not an emulator... and neither is Cedega..
      --
      I don't need to test my programs.. I have an error correcting modem.
    19. Re:And... by mcvos · · Score: 1


      By asking developers to take into the account the limitations for Cedega you are encouraging them to develop an inferior product. I want a full Linux port not some half-assed hack designed to work with an equally dodgy emulater hack.


      And I want a mountain of gold. But in the mean time, I'm happy with games that work on linux.


      Wine is not an emulator... and neither is Cedega..


      And how is that a bad thing? They're implementations on the windows API, and as such, they're a lot faster than emulators would be. They're not full implementations unfortunately, and they'll probably always be lagging behind, but they certainly help to get windows games working on linux, which is quite a lot better than nothing.

  2. Linux is better for games than vista by cyphercell · · Score: 2, Informative
    --
    Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
    1. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's funny how your priorities change with life. Once I shunned Linux becuase I couldn't play games
      on it. Now I actually enjoy the fact that my Linux system wont play games. I call it a grown ups computer system.
      Since I dumped Windows so many years ago productivity went up by a factor of ten. Many times I was tempted
      to install Wine and some games, but then thought better of it.
      It's very revealing that Windows is seen primarily as a gamers platform. I'm at that age where I treat
      a computer as a serious tool and all my peers and family also want "grown up" computers so they don't use
      MS Windows. Most people who seem to use it are teenagers. If it wasn't for games would there be any argument
      for Windows at all?

    2. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by cyphercell · · Score: 1

      If it wasn't for games would there be any argument for Windows at all?

      Yep, it's called "vendor lock-in".

      --
      Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
    3. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by Dr.+Manhattan · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Linux is better for games than vista.

      So far, for me, Vista sucks for games. I'm entirely unsurprised. My system is almost identical to the one Phoronix used in these tests.

      --
      PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
    4. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by penp · · Score: 1

      By that same link, XP is also better for games than Vista, and better than Linux at the highest and lowest resolutions tested.

      Do we really need any more validation that Vista is a steaming pile of crap?

      I also found it a bit ironic that Cedega, which originally branched from Wine, actually performs a little worse (marginally) than Wine in the tests from this article. All this article really told me was what I already know - why pay for something when you can get something better for free?

    5. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      MS Office and other programs won't work outside of windows and, while there are open source programs for nearly everything else, it's rarely user friendly. However, for the computer literate, no, there wouldn't be.

    6. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by OverlordQ · · Score: 1

      Not to be rude, but no shit. Trying to game on a Sempron 1.8 with only a gig of ram and integrated graphics is stupid.

      --
      Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
    7. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by 0x20 · · Score: 1

      I'm running Office 2003 in linux right now (via Crossover Office) and it works perfectly. (Perfectly meaning "the same as it works in Windows", of course)

    8. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If it wasn't for games would there be any argument for Windows at all?

      How about properly formatted /. posts instead of newlines randomly thrown around?

    9. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by BobPaul · · Score: 2, Funny

      If it wasn't for games would there be any argument for Windows at all?
      How about properly formatted /. posts instead of newlines randomly thrown around? I don't think the
      OS h
      as anything to
      do with how oft
      en I press the return
      key.
    10. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by mabhatter654 · · Score: 1

      Why is that stupid... that's spec for an average PC about $500 on the shelves everywhere 6 months ago. Why shouldn't somebody pick up a game from across the aisle at the same store and the same tine and expect to play it on their new fast computer? I know WE'RE all gamers and know better, but average guy does not... realize that on most days the "box" stores that sell the latest games don't have a balanced spec machine on the shelves that can actually PLAY the latest games properly.. or those machines are $1000 over priced. Who's fault is that? Certainly not "Linux" or Transgaming!

    11. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by Sancho · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Now I actually enjoy the fact that my Linux system wont play games.

      I'm sorry, but I just don't get that. That's like saying, "I'm proud that my car isn't capable of attaining speeds of 200 mph safely." There's nothing wrong with having the capabilities, as long as the capabilities don't interfere with necessary components.

      I think your statement must be pure elitism. You're proud that you've set yourself apart. Being proud of having a limited system, even if you don't need or want the extended capabilities, is something I just don't understand.

      I don't really care to run VMWare. An equivalent statement is, "I'm proud that my FreeBSD system can't run VMWare."

    12. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Now I actually enjoy the fact that my Linux system wont play games. I call it a grown ups computer system. Since I dumped Windows so many years ago productivity went up by a factor of ten. Many times I was tempted to install Wine and some games, but then thought better of it.

      "Grown ups" have a thing called "self control". We don't need artificial limits imposed by our environment because we have the internal discipline to accomplish what we need to. If you need a so called "grown up computer" to achieve better productivity, the problem is not with the computer, it's with you. Do some research, invest in yourself, don't rely on external crutches. Learn to be someone with the self control to say "I don't have time to play games right now, I have work to do".

    13. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by TrancePhreak · · Score: 1

      There's also DirectX, Visual Studio, XNA, and tons of other MS supplied services/help/software that makes programming on Windows that much easier for games development...

      --

      -]Phreak Out[-
    14. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      This is why I like BlorgOS(Score:-1, Offtopic)

      Ouch! I think my comment was way too subtle for the mods.

      Either that or I'm a victim of a mod reading newest first(ignore threads) who didn't see that the above comment was a reply to the ridiculously moderated Re:Linux is better for games than vista(Score:3, Insightful)

      Here, I'll write it in simple terms: I think that defining an OS as superior by saying it can't do something that another OS can and then saying it is "grown up" because it is hobbled is stupid. Here's a long analogy as to why it is stupid: This is why I like BlorgOS

    15. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by cyphercell · · Score: 1

      Yea, like I said it's called "vendor lock-in".

      --
      Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
    16. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by 0123456789 · · Score: 1

      Not to mention MS Office will run on a Mac. So MS Office doesn't tie the user into Windows exclusively (but you are partially right, in that it is a barrier to the average user switching to Linux).

    17. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe if you were actually grown up you'd be able to budget your time better and not wreck your productivity with you hobbies.

    18. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by sesshomaru · · Score: 1, Troll
      Not only is this comment dumb because it is basically saying, "Linux is better than Windows because of something it can't do," but it isn't true at all. There are tons of "productivity killing" games for Linux, you just don't get the same variety of games that you do with Windows.

      You don't need Wine to play games on Linux!

      So not only is the comment demented or stupid, it also isn't true.

      How did this get modded up to 5?

      --
      "MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
    19. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by cayenne8 · · Score: 1
      "Yea, like I said it's called "vendor lock-in".

      But, I see Cedega being the same thing. I was wanting to buy and play with it, but, it appears to be a subscription model. I don't want to 'rent' it...I want to buy a version of it, and play my games I'd want to play. I don't want my games going 'dark' if I miss a payment.

      Why don't they sell it outright? Hell, I'll pay for upgrades if I need them...but, I don't want to 'lock-in' to them and rent the damned thing....

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    20. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by mahmud · · Score: 5, Informative

      The Cedega software doesn't expire on you. Once your subscription ends you just can't download updates. You don't "rent" it.

    21. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by Drooling+Iguana · · Score: 3, Informative

      They may have changed their policy since the last time I checked, but I'm pretty sure subscribing to Cedega just means that you can download the new versions of the program when they're released. If your subscription expired, the last version you installed will still work, you just won't be able to get updates.

      --
      ... I'm addicted to placebos
    22. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by JakusMinimus · · Score: 1

      Learn to be someone with the self control to say "I don't have time to play games right now, I have work to do". I just learned to be someone with the self control to say, "I don't have time to read slashdot right now, I have work to do". Thanks!
      --

      You can be an atheist and still not want to succumb to some weird cross-over sheep disease -- AC
    23. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder if someday you'll grow up enough that you don't feel the need to justify your decision to use a non-gamer's OS by telling people you didn't want to do that anyway. Maybe someday you'll even grow up enough that you'll enjoy playing again. You sound like a Sony fanboy who says Nintendo is "too kiddy."

    24. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by Kjella · · Score: 1

      Since I dumped Windows so many years ago productivity went up by a factor of ten.

      I don't care if your current OS gives you free blowjobs (as if that'd increase productivity...) but if your productivity went up by factor ten, you must have had serious game addiction and used Linux as a form of mental therapy. I do have both a Windows install with games and a Wii, but even if I dedicated all my gaming time to "serious" work I wouldn't get remotely close. Also from what I've understood the leading addiction these days, World of Warcraft, runs perfectly on Linux...

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    25. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      It's not that unreasonable. I know a couple of people who'd save hours a day if they didn't have spider solitaire a click away. If I had that sort of addiction, I too would *enjoy* running a system that would make indulging too much of an irritation to indulge in.

    26. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by prelelat · · Score: 1

      I'm stictly a linux user at home and I would have to agree with you whole heartedly with what you said. I think an important question he did bring up though, is if gamming didn't factor in then what would stop the average user from switching? Ubuntu is fairly easy to install for a first OS and setting it up doesn't always have to be a pain. If a manufacture went and set it up like they do with windows when they ship a computer would it really be much different for the home user? Drivers installed and media functions configured. Gamming is the only thing holding back linux at this point as a main stream OS. I hope the game developers see this and start doing more linux ports again, and then we won't have to pay a subscription to play a broken version of a game(thats been purchased) on linux.

    27. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by Dr.+Manhattan · · Score: 1

      Not to be rude, but no shit. Trying to game on a Sempron 1.8 with only a gig of ram and integrated graphics is stupid.

      Well, all of the games I listed there ran fine on an Athlon 2600+ machine with 1GB RAM and a GeForce 5700LE (very closely equivalent specs) under XP. (Well, until XP corrupted itself and I gave up on it. That's a pure Linux box now.)

      --
      PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
    28. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by HermMunster · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I've never considered Office a barrier for acceptance for home users. When most of the people I support become aware of Open Office they are just very pleased at the fact that they can get a free word processor, spreadsheet, etc. This isn't to say that there aren't barriers there. Some are pretty major.

      Microsoft has been scanning the horizon to ensure that no one begins to kick at the blocks that prop up their monopoly. They are constantly looking for new ways to create more blocks. Some of these blocks are directx, drm, application/windows APIs, network interoperability (or the lack thereof), WGA/WGN lie, FUD, patents. Writing for OpenGL means you are writing for multiple platforms which gives a greater overall share.

      Another new block is DRM. Yes they have had DRM in their product in one fashion or another for decades--copy protection on software back in the 80s, activation keys in the 90s. The WGN/WGA lie in the 00's is a psychological game meant to make the consumer less in control but to give them a feeling they are being protected. They are essentially forcing the consumer to allow Microsoft to spy on them under the guise of protecting the consumer from organized pirating--this is the fundamental lie. The average consumer is already covered because they generally purchase from the likes of Dell, Gateway, etc. Only a small percentage of sales are from systems integrators and the odds of getting one that is dishonest is even more minuscule. Today it is the essential arm-twisting/drafting of the hardware manufacturers to comply with their draconian DRM/CRM procedures.

      Their APIs, not just DirectX, are also locking blocks, that block you from other platform development. Most companies don't have the time to learn multiple platform APIs in order to develop software. Apple recognized this (well NeXt computers did) when they were creating their development tools. Another block they use today are patents. Microsoft is not making a patent portfolio to protect itself, it is making it to prop up the monopoly and to attack competitors such as Linux. Software APIs for productivity applications aren't the barrier they once were. You can see that they will, over time, become less and less important as more and more programs build up for the competitor's platform. Since that form is diminishing there must be other ways for Microsoft to lock you into their platform. Gaming is a key API that they can change regularly. If they can keep changing the gaming API regularly then no entity can conceivably create a 100% compatible layer for other platforms. That's another reason why it is just silly to have game developers writing for directx instead of for OpenGL.

      Networking interoperability is another key block that Microsoft uses to block migration from Windows to other platforms. If the interoperability is difficult or impossible even over the short term, large, medium, and small companies will very likely decline migration to Linux (or even OSX).

      Patents and FUD seem to go hand in hand. Microsoft knows that if they say enough negative about Linux and threaten enough that migration will be slowed. If they create enough of a patent portfolio that will also slow development as competitors are constantly attempting to figure out what they can legally do and what they can't. DRM is similar in that it can't be copied and used in competitors platforms. The DMCA destroys all hope of that, at least if the user wants to stay 100% legal.

      I don't know what the current installed base of Linux is and I'm sure most developers don't either. My estimate is that it is somewhere between 10 and 50 million computers.

      When you use all of these together, including FUD and attempting to hide the sheer number of Linux (or any competitors true numbers) you can see how strong these blocks are. It only takes companies and individuals to start knocking more of these blocks out faster to bring down the monopoly. It isn't just having a product or even advertising your product or even gi

      --
      You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
    29. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by Gheesh · · Score: 1

      I know a couple of people who'd save hours a day if they didn't have spider solitaire a click away

      But... KDE includes an app named Patience which lets you play many kinds of solitaires, including Spider :-)

    30. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by irc.goatse.cx+troll · · Score: 1

      If it wasn't for games would there be any argument
      for Windows at all?


      The question is why would I run Linux over windows? Your argument is that Linux doesn't run games. Thats fine, my windows box can also not run games, all it takes is some self control. Failing that, remove direct3d, opengl, or even replace your videocard with something cheap.

      Now, as for what Windows can do that Linux can't: Run plenty of applications. Just about any good 'Linux' app has been ported to windows (gaim, firefox, xchat, apache or thttpd, perl/php/etc, gvim, mplayer and vlc, really anything I'd ever want to run on linux runs on windows.)
      What about windows apps on linux? No foobar2000 (far above and beyond any other media player), none of those enjoyable games you don't want to run, no IM clients capable all the features of the protocol the way the official ones are (webcams, voip, rich content, etc), no utorrent, no photoshop/autocad/soundforge/vegas (pick your specialty..and no, opensource clones don't count as most run on windows too anyways, at least we get the choice).

      I won't get started on the hardware support. Linux has gotten much better, but as far as slapping in random usb devices and getting something functional out of them windows is still ahead. Yeah, you can probably get your usb printer to work, but what about syncing a cellphone? Reprogramming that phone?

      When I was younger I strived to do things the hard way because I thought there was some kind of pride, ran all kinds of flavors of linux, freebsd, openbsd, you name it. Spent months without even having my mouse plugged in because I could do everything in console. Then I matured and realized I was wasting time and effort like an idiot and would be better served using the best tool for the job. For desktop computing, thats still windows for me.
      Obviously thats not true for everyone, but I'd say its true for a lot more people than like to admit due to some kind of pride, ego, or outright ignorance due to having never given XP a fair chance.

      To keep things on topic: Cedega is nice but you really can't depend on it, especially for an online game where every few months a new update will break it, and you're constantly having to worry about your cdkey getting banned due to cedega not being 100% on the anticheat, etc. If you want to game, you're better off dual booting or just running windows on your desktop and linux on your servers, doing your work in putty. Or even doing your work in a VM on windows. Or even running Linux on windows with CoLinux -- Like I said, everything worth running gets ported, even the kernel itself.
      --
      Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
    31. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If it wasn't for games would there be any argument for Windows at all?

      Umm... Microsoft Office? Adobe suite of software? I'm sure there are dozens or hundreds of other examples.

    32. re:Linux is better for games than vista by jwisser · · Score: 1

      Teenagers predominantly using Windows? Hah. Say what you like about teens, they have an eye for what's new and pretty and (get this) what works; teenagers are flocking to the Mac. The only reason most teens use Windows is because that's what their parents and their schools have.

      I bet you anything that Apple's market share continues climbing for the next few years as young adults who have gone through college using Mac OS X get into the job market; first, it'll be individuals, buying the computers that Just Worked at school. Then, they'll get into decision-making positions, and then it'll be small business, bigger businesses... you name it.

      Teens know when they've got a good thing going, and Windows isn't it.

    33. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by jnnnnn · · Score: 1

      I disagree. When I had to choose a laptop for school, the main reason I went with a non-windows machine was that I wouldn't be able to play games. Needless to say, I spent my time at school working hard while everyone around me was playing games. Needless to say, everyone got what they deserved. You are suggesting that it would be just as easy for a reformed alcoholic to stay dry if his or her kitchen had a fully-stocked bar or a fridge full of milk. And anyway, there is something wrong with having a really fast car. How many people would be tempted to find out how fast it can really go? It's extremely irresponsible... but some people are still tempted. Sometimes it's all about people being able to remove the temptation.

    34. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by Sancho · · Score: 1
      I'll agree with your statements on alcoholism when you show me evidence that gaming is actually, physically addictive. Lack of self-control is not the same as addiction.

      And anyway, there is something wrong with having a really fast car. How many people would be tempted to find out how fast it can really go? Misuse of a tool is not grounds for banning a tool. Are you the type of person who thinks that handguns should be banned?
    35. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "at the age where I treat a computer as a serious tool" ???

      I really hope that's an exaggeration, otherwise I feel sorry for you. Fun in life is just as important and just as valid as 'work' is. You (by your post) obviously enjoyed games once. Don't lose that spirit, growing up too much is bad for you.

      Before people discount games, maybe they should ask how the programmers of todays 'serious' fields got into computers. I bet many of the guys and gals who are now writing software for artificial hearts, or bionic ears, or for the space shuttle, or for some other invention that might one day become important to your life, got their start in computers by playing or seeing games.

      I certainly know that when I have children, they'll be playing my Wii (or Wii 2 or whatever is out by then) and I'll be enjoying it with them.

    36. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by geminidomino · · Score: 1

      We don't need artificial limits imposed by our environment because we have the internal discipline to accomplish what we need to. Best argument for switching away from Windows that I've ever heard.
    37. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by kklein · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Okay, once more, with feeling: Linux is a toy. A powerful toy. An-almost-infinitely-customizable toy. But a toy nonetheless. I say this not as a troll or as flamebait; I say this because the people who use it, use it because they enjoy fiddling around with config files. Even if they actually like using it--and of course they do--using it requires one to fiddle with config files in ways that one would only know how to do if he enjoyed learning about such things. I'm sorry, but that is a tiny subset of the computer-using public. Most people don't want to fiddle with things to get them to work or use weird, off-brand knockoff software developed by groups of people who do it as a hobby. It is a toy.

      Invariably, this comment upsets a lot of people and there's the obligatory "It runs the internet!" and "dont be rediculous i use it for my business!" (sic) replies. But none of that means it's not a toy. OpenOffice or Crossover Office do not a real computer--as most people actually use them--make. Most businesses do more than type and make spreadsheets.

      Here is a quick list of software my parents' company, for whom I do IT from time to time, uses. These are industry-standard applications:

      PowerClaim

      Xactimate

      Internet Explorer (for dealing with the head office)

      Without these, their business does not run.

      Now, let's go to the applications I use for my job (university lecturer / researcher):

      SPSS

      RUMM 2020

      BILOG MG

      Facets

      DIFPack

      Micrograde

      Do you see a single item in that list with Linux compatibility? Most of them don't even have Mac versions. Most of these are heavy-duty software packages designed to handle specific tasks for business and/or research, and they are mostly only available for Windows. I'm sure that in the case of the stats packages, I could find something that could limp along and provide most of the functionality under Linux, but why would I do that? Everyone uses these packages, and that means if I send my SPSS .sav file over to a research partner in another country, he'll be able to open it and see if he sees what I see in the data.

      None of these packages are a hassle to install. All of them work on virtually any Windows system. Windows is not a toy. It works well with little fuss, it has unrivaled developer support, and you can play Battlefield 2 on it.

      Don't get me wrong; I like Linux. I have Ubuntu running on my laptop here at home. I love installing software off the net. I like some of the FOSS apps better than their proprietary counterparts. I enjoy that sense of calm you get from knowing that, if you ever get wifi to work without getting a new PCMCIA card that has better driver support and have it hanging off the side (banging into everything all the time), you could use this thing forever, free of all the problems associated with having software on your computer--because you'll never really have any. Until the argument for Linux isn't centered on how little you'll miss Windows, and goes to all the really great software available for it, Linux will remain as it is--a toy.

      See, you don't install Linux to get things done; you install Linux to install Linux. It is an end in and of itself. That is not true for installations of Windows, and not as true for installs of MacOS. Those OSes are for people who have something other than codemonkeying to do; Linux is for the codemonkeys who do most of their work in a text editor anyway so why bother having access to anything else? Further, th

    38. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What a verbose troll.

      So Microsoft has illegally dominated the desktop market for over ten years, and companies write software for whoever has the majority desktop share (regardless of how they got there), and that makes Linux a toy?

      Sadly, most people don't take the time to read posts such as yours and figure that with so many words, you must be right, and don't take the time to figure out how wrong you are.

      But then again, that's exactly what you want here, right?

    39. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by TrancePhreak · · Score: 1

      I was responding more to reasons one would not switch even without lock-in.

      --

      -]Phreak Out[-
    40. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by wiremind · · Score: 1

      I agree with every word of your post..

      From age 16 to age 22 I tried to be a Linux person.
      But for every reason you've mentioned I've given up.

      I still run linux for _Linux_ activities apache+php / fileserving.
      But I don't think I'll ever again make it a desktop system.

      Kyle

      (background: I love slackware, its my favorite linux distro, its a wondeful, stable server OS. I have a dedicated linux server in my house for filesharing and media center type stuff. And I use linux Virtual Machines at work all the time. Linux has its place, Routers, Servers, embedded systems, But as a desktop/office/gaming OS, I just cant see it ever sitting on top. )

    41. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by DrXym · · Score: 1

      Wolfenstein: ET and Doom are OpenGL games. We all know that Vista has pushed OpenGL over DirectX which means lower performance. What I want to know is how Cedega does on the large number of games which use DirectX and NOT OpenGL. My guess is that you would see the opposite result since now Cedega is forced to translate DirectX calls onto OpenGL equivalents.

    42. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by shaitand · · Score: 1

      As others have said, subscribing gets you updates. You can subscribe once and download all the binaries and never pay another dime if you like. Subscribing also used to get you a vote on what games/features they worked on next.

    43. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by moonbender · · Score: 1

      Why would anybody be proud that his or her car can go fast? It's not exactly a great achievement. I mean, I'd be happy if I had such a car, but proud? Nah.

      --
      Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
    44. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by forgotten_my_nick · · Score: 2, Insightful

      tbh, if Linux worked out of the box then it would be ready for desktop.

      I've tried to put Linux on a Dell XPS M170 but I am having absolutely no joy on getting the wireless card working which I need to be able to connect to the net to just download updates.

      If it was painless, or I could even figure it out with simple instructions that don't require some knowledge of Linux I'd have moved all my machines at this stage. :/

      Other then that I can see no benefit to using Windows at all.

    45. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by LordVader717 · · Score: 1

      With the exception of SPSS, I've never heard of anything you mentioned, and probably never would.

      I'd have expected you at least to know that, up until relatively recently, Windows support for "serious", "grown-up", scientific, and many business applications was the exception. Most really serious applications ran on some Unix flavour.

      What you have proven is that many small commercial products run exclusively on Windows. Now you can dare someone to give you small sample of the truly "heavy-duty" workstation applications that run on *nix systems.

    46. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by kklein · · Score: 1

      With the exception of SPSS, I've never heard of anything you mentioned, and probably never would.

      Yeah, that was kind of my point. You only know one industry. Ask anyone in insurance about the first two, and they'll know what they are (well, probably not salespeople, but they usually don't know much of anything). Ask any psychometrician about my list, and they'll know what they are.

      As for the "heavy-duty" *NIX apps, well, of course there are. I'd be a moron to claim otherwise. But I would only be surprised if any of them were used outside of IT or other computer-related industries. That is what I was trying to point out.

      I don't work in IT anymore. And I don't see *NIX of any flavor anymore. Ever. A bunch of CS types sitting around waxing rhapsodic about Linux and berating others for not sharing in the light of their infinite wisdom only highlights how little they know.

    47. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by Sancho · · Score: 1
      I didn't say anything about being proud of having a car that can go that fast.

      "I'm proud that my car isn't capable of attaining speeds of 200 mph safely." The point is that being proud of having a limited capability seems odd.
    48. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by Soltys · · Score: 1

      True, True, True...

    49. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by Hal_Porter · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Ouch! I think my comment was way too subtle for the mods.

      Umm, no. This is slashdot here's how it works.

      People here like Linux and hate Windows. But they know that the selection of games for Linux is much worse than that for Windows. When they suggest Linux to the first person shooter obsessed jocks at school, the jocks point this out before giving them an atomic wedgie.

      Now someone posts a well crafted piece of sophistry to explain why this weekness is actually a strength, which is severly flawed in that it could also be used to explain why disability is a good thing. E.g. "Since I went deaf, dumb and blind, I've had far more time to work on my open source, terminal based, pinball game".

      The sophistry is Informative, because it gives them a snappy comeback. They can savour the memory of it when they're hanging from a baseball hoop by their tighty whities. It's Insightful since no one posted it before. But someone like you arguing with them is a Troll because it makes most of the audience angry. Of course, some percentage of the audience gets annoyed with this every so often and leaves, but that just makes the problem worse.

      In many ways, individuals doing this sort of thing in their free time are far worse than employees doing PR for a company. The employees are getting paid to reclassify weakness as strength and so on, Newspeak style. Once they leave the office or change jobs, they hopefully stop believing in it. But if you're doing for free, your free time and modding down the opposition, you must have actually brainwashed yourself so completely that you can't accept any argument, no matter how valid, that doesn't match your worldview. That's plain scary.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    50. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by mcvos · · Score: 1

      tbh, if Linux worked out of the box then it would be ready for desktop.

      It does. Ofcourse it depends a lot on which linux your using, but Ubuntu is a lot easier to install than Windows nowadays. The main reason why windows remains big is that it comes preinstalled on new PCs. That's even easier for the average user.

    51. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by mhall119 · · Score: 1

      if Linux worked out of the box then it would be ready for desktop.

      Well that all depends on the box, doesn't it? I can name many platforms where Windows doesn't work out of the box, and many platforms where Mac OS X doesn't work out of the box. In fact, I can name more platforms where either of these "ready for the desktop" operating systems won't work, than where Linux won't work.

      On my PC, Linux (Ubuntu specifically) worked "out of the box", therefore it is ready for my desktop.

      So the moral of the story is, if your choice in operating system doesn't support your choice in hardware, it won't work, makes no difference if that OS is Linux, Windows or Mac OS X.
      --
      http://www.mhall119.com
    52. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I see. Well, looks like Tommy is going to be playing in my head for the rest of the day.

      Thanks for the explanation! It's sad, but I think it is correct.

    53. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by forgotten_my_nick · · Score: 1

      > Well that all depends on the box, doesn't it?

      Your absolutely correct, and if I hadn't commented on the thread I would of given you a mod point. ;)

      I use SLED10 in work and its primarily why I'm switching. OpenSuse I prefer (I played with a few distros).

      The problem becomes then that in order for me to switch for example is.

      (a). Find out how to install the card (intel 3945 is not overly intuitive on installing instructions). TBH the problem here is that documentation is written by the geeks/developers, who know you need 10 bits of knowledge to complete the task but automatically assume that as a user you should know 7 of them already so no need to document them.

      I mean I've been using computers for years, and while far from an expert at Linux I can only imagine the horror of a newbie wanting to switch.

      (b). Get new hardware. Which is fine when I finally move but holds me off switching now.

      At the moment I bought the OpenSuse. As soon as the CD-box shows up might as well try a support call. :) Switch is taking place, just a matter of when.

    54. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is like saying:

      I like the fact that my PC is slow, now I can pick my nose between keystrokes.

      or

      I like bieng a retart, because I enjoy riding on the short bus.

    55. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by mhall119 · · Score: 1

      For a) Have you tried contacting Intel customer support? They are responsible for clear and easy to understand documentation right? I don't see Microsoft writing docs for installing Intel wireless NIC hardware on Windows, but you can try contacting Novell customer support if Intel doesn't give you anything. You might also try the Ubuntu* LiveCD for 7.04, it has a nice and easy way of detecting and installing proprietary drivers for things like this.

      For b) This is likely your only option for switching to say Mac OS X. The fact that Linux is even likely to run on a machine designed specifically for Windows, it a noteworthy accomplishment in my book.

      * For anyone trying Ubuntu that just hates the default look, install the Blubuntu package, it gives you a much nicer cool blue theme, wallpapers, GDM screen, etc.

      --
      http://www.mhall119.com
    56. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by cyphercell · · Score: 1

      You responded by listing many pieces of vendor lock in. When you list a gamut of M$ technologies that run from game development all the way to better compatibility with game consoles you are not making a case against vendor lock in. In fact in some twisted way it seems that you're arguing the benefits of vendor lock in.

      --
      Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
    57. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by An0maly · · Score: 1

      i helped a friend "upgrade" his box. went from an athlon xp 2400+ and a geforce 4 to an athlon 64 4000+. didn't have money for a new video card so we got him a motherboard with the 6150 gpu. it was no faster, in fact it was slower than his old setup. the 61xx gpu blows for gaming. he put a 7800gt in there and nothing slows it down. so even though you may be getting the *features* of the 6000 series gpus, you're not getting the power to use it properly - 2 rendering pipes won't do squat. also, the 5700LE is more or less an overclocked 5200 which is actually very close in performance to a geforce4. i would suggest getting a real video card and maybe swapping out that sempron for a 4000+ (2.4ghz, 1mb L2) a64. they just dropped to $70 on new egg if you're using a 939 socket. i hear they overclock pretty well too.

      --
      "...if you don't like your job, you don't strike. You just go in every day and do it really half-assed..." -Homer
    58. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by ultranova · · Score: 1

      Misuse of a tool is not grounds for banning a tool. Are you the type of person who thinks that handguns should be banned?

      Handguns aren't tools, they're weapons.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    59. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by Dr.+Manhattan · · Score: 1

      i would suggest getting a real video card and maybe swapping out that sempron for a 4000+

      Yeah, after we finish getting braces for the oldest kid, buying a new oven and stove (the current ones are from 1966), take a short vacation for our tenth wedding anniversary, and finish getting ready for the new baby coming in June, I'll get right on that.

      --
      PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
    60. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      Yes it does! Everyone knows the web browser is an integral part of the OS.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    61. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      Sigh. Steve Ballmer jumps up and down and shouts "Developers! Developers! Developers!", Raymond Chen writes about the heroic efforts Microsoft make to make sure broken third party applications designed for Windows version n still work on Windows version n+5. Some dude explains all the obscure binary applications that some business depends on, and how he never sees Linux used at work. In each case, Linux advocates criticise, but they never spot the thread linking them all together.

      Microsoft marketing may have done some nasty stuff to Digital Research, Netscape and Real Networks, but the Microsoft techies did their damnedest to make sure that the Win32 interface stayed stable enough that all these obscure and ususally badly coded third party Win32 applications that people bought/wrote for Windows 95 still work on Windows Vista.

      Now if I tried to port one of these application to "Linux" I'd be pretty much forced to distribute it as source code to cover all the distributions. All to target an OS that has zero market share amongst my non CS users. Whereas if I build for Windows, even if I make some mistakes, Microsoft will put a app compatibility shim into Vista so my customers can use my binary after they upgrade without calling me. And Windows has 100% market share in the businesses I want to sell my code too. So the amount of effort per % market share is much, much lower.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    62. Re:Linux is better for games than vista by BobPaul · · Score: 1

      Just like the viruses? What doesn't format you makes you stronger??

  3. WINE Is Not an Emulator... by F-3582 · · Score: 0, Troll

    ...so why should Cedega be one?

    1. Re:WINE Is Not an Emulator... by BobPaul · · Score: 1

      Because it's based off a really old version of WINE?

    2. Re:WINE Is Not an Emulator... by richdun · · Score: 4, Funny

      Because the redunancy of acronyms doesn't cascade to their derivative projects?

    3. Re:WINE Is Not an Emulator... by kubrick · · Score: 5, Funny

      Cedega Emulates Direct Ex Games (Almost)?

      [ok, so I had to cheat a bit...]

      --
      deus does not exist but if he does
  4. Why bother? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I left Windoze for this? What's the point of running games at half speed when I can run the real thing by dual booting? I'd say Cedega is no better than Vista. Return this proprietary emulator back to sender!

    1. Re:Why bother? by physicsboy500 · · Score: 0

      Did you happen to actually read the article? If you do you'll see the games tested benchmark higher than the Vista (and in some cases XP) counterparts. This is a strong argument to go pure Linux.

      --
      The original generic sig.
    2. Re:Why bother? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      BS I played Balder's Gate with this crap and my mouse constantly had this black box under it, no audio, and randomly when loading a new level it would completely crap out. Framerates are not everything.

  5. What a horrible review by dreamchaser · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you're going to test the performance of an emulation layer you certainly don't do so using graphics intensive games on low end and/or integrated graphics solutions. They should have at least used a midrange GPU. There are numerous other problems with the whole thing. Basically, not everything works and the performance of what *does* work is on par with the Linux equivalent based on the poorly thought out testing methodology.

    Don't waste your time.

    1. Re:What a horrible review by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Compared against Vista RC1....

      I'm by no means a MS fan-boy but that review ain't worth the pixels it's written on.

      Besides that: Cedega or Wine: Just to finicky to be worth the time and effort to get things to work.
      I just tripple boot: XP64 Pro, Vista Ultimate and Linux (whatever distro strikes my fancy this week).

    2. Re:What a horrible review by meabolex · · Score: 1

      They should have at least used a midrange GPU. Does anyone ever use a mid-ranged anything when doing reviews? I think all reviews should be done using the minimum requirements for the game and no better.

      Oh wait, pushing the hardware envelope means more expensive upgrades and games. This benefits all the companies, but consumers and good gameplay are forgotten.
      --
      FORTUNE FAVORS IRONY
    3. Re:What a horrible review by MindStalker · · Score: 1

      Games are special in this regard. If you have minimal GPU your only testing the GPU so there could be problems for CPU instructions, but you'd never see it because the game runs so slow that the CPU is idle frequently. The opposite is true. When testing games you really have to have 4 setups with a high and low CPU and GPU.

    4. Re:What a horrible review by popejeremy · · Score: 1

      Ahem. Emulation layer? Apparently someone has missed that Wine Is Not an Emulator, and neither is Cedega.

    5. Re:What a horrible review by GeeksHaveFeelings · · Score: 1

      Basically, the tests in this review are really limited by the GPU's performance, and not by the OS/library/app/CPU combo. It's impossible to reliably tell if the tests would be limited by WINE or Cedega compared to XP or or the native linux port simply because the graphics card will not run the test fast enough. While I'm sure the memory-hogging gunk in Vista, combined with the "modest" system they used, would slow down the benchmarks a little, the significantly lower performance in Vista is no doubt the result of poor drivers, and not as a result of some problem with the implementation of the windows API (which is what is supposed to be tested here). Heck, it would have been a better test if they just used some sort of "office benchmark," that isn't graphically intensive, so they could test the difference in the performance of the different platforms. That might be unfair because of not testing Cedega's 3D goodies, but at least it'll give some results a bit more meaningful.

  6. Get back to me... by drinkypoo · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Get back to me when they go Open Source. Anyone paying money for Cedega is an enemy of Free Software. If you want to make a difference, contribute the money to the wine project, instead.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    1. Re:Get back to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can compile Cedega from the CVS, you just won't have any of the support for the proprietary protection methods they include in the pay version. That's the stuff you're paying 15 bucks for.

    2. Re:Get back to me... by kuzb · · Score: 2, Funny

      thank you, mr. stalin. we'll gas them as soon as we round them up!

      --
      BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
    3. Re:Get back to me... by A+beautiful+mind · · Score: 3, Informative

      They ARE open source. CVS access is available, sourcecode is GPL.

      What you have to pay for is the convenient "snapshot" taken at a stable moment plus the packaging. You also support development that way.

      --
      It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
      Be yourself no matter what they say
    4. Re:Get back to me... by Sparr0 · · Score: 1

      Cedega *IS* open source, and you don't have to pay for it. Next?

    5. Re:Get back to me... by MarcoG42 · · Score: 1
      Because Wine only recently started to focus heavily on how well applications or games were supported, where before they were focusing on how many. I would have happily given 10x the amount of money I gave to Transgaming to the Wine Project had they supported what I wanted at the time.

      How, exactly, are we enemies to Free Software? I could just as well be playing the games in Windows, and not even using Linux at all. I submit bug reports, beta (and even alpha) test, though I'm not exactly the most knowledgeable person when it comes to using OSS. I donate to the projects I use, when I can. Perhaps you can help Transgaming go open source by convincing the gaming studios to use OpenGL, or petition for DirectX to be opened up. Or, better still, petition the game studios to develop for Linux? id does it, and does it well. Doom3 ran faster, natively, in Linux than it did in Windows on my machine.

      --
      If nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.
    6. Re:Get back to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Um, no, anyone paying for Cedega is a consumer of software. If Cedega actually wasn't Open Source, which it is, that would still just make the people consumers of software. If Open Source cannot provide products of enough quality (and that means ease of use and configuration) that people pay for proprietary software, then that does not make them enemies of Open Source... it makes Open Source inadequate for their needs. This is not a football match.

    7. Re:Get back to me... by Nova1313 · · Score: 1

      It is open sourced for the most part. The copy protections are licensed from other companies so that part is closed. But you can build Cedega from their CVS repository. You get support from the company for the cost and prepackaged binaries. I however have built Cedega from source and it works just fine I did not notice any problems with running most of the games I was using.

      --
      There exists some positive integer N that you are the Nth person to read this signature.
    8. Re:Get back to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Get back to me when they make a product that works.

    9. Re:Get back to me... by X_Bones · · Score: 2, Informative

      Close. The open-source bits of Cedega are LGPL'd or AFPL'd. The closed-source bits (the Cedega GUI, the copy-protection modules, and IIRC some DirectX goodies), plus the binary packaging and official support, are what you actually pay for.

    10. Re:Get back to me... by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 2, Informative

      What good is the CVS if it doesn't run?

      I tried it, and it compiled correctly, but it failed to run because it was missing some library that I couldn't find anywhere. Plus, it overwrites WINE. >:(

      I talked it over with some more experienced linux users and they are of the opinion the CVS version is intentionally hard to use, and even lacking in features, in order to force people to buy the commercial version.

    11. Re:Get back to me... by packeteer · · Score: 4, Informative

      Transgaming negotiated with game companies and are required to close the source. The agreement was that if game companies are going to share their copy protection code with Transgaming then they need to not release that code under the GPL in Cadega. Seems ok to me.

      Obviously free software is good but if a company is worried about the "viral nature" of the GPL they need to have some assurance that when they work with free software they are not going to get their code displayed for all to see. Ya the Transgaming people made a deal with the devil, get over it.

      --
      unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
    12. Re:Get back to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're right, it's next to impossible to compile the WineX engine from CVS. I've tried many times on countless different systems, and not a single one has produced a working binary. That's why *cough*bittorrent*cough* is such an easier way.

    13. Re:Get back to me... by caseih · · Score: 1

      Umm, really? Transgaming originally forked wine because the license went from the more permissible license which allowed them to have a closed version (safedisk, etc) to the LGPL (to prevent some of the games transgaming was playing). You can indeed get a source tree for transgaming, minus all the things like safedisk that are in their commercial version.

    14. Re:Get back to me... by BobPaul · · Score: 2, Informative

      Sort of open source. It'd be nice if they contributed changes upstream to the WINE project. Many of the problems they've had with games certain (esp older) games not working would be fixed if they used a recent version of WINE. (Un)Fortunately WINE wised-up and stopped using the MIT license, so Cedega development has suffered.

      CrossOver Office contributes their changes, and they continue to exist and earn money. We could have had good D3D support in Wine a long time ago if Transgaming wasn't a bunch of freeloading asshats.

    15. Re:Get back to me... by mikearthur · · Score: 2, Informative

      That simply isn't the case.

      Firstly, the sourcecode has never been GPL, it is a mix of AFPL, LGPL and proprietary licensed code that is not included on the CVS.

      Secondly, the CVS hasn't been updated for ages.

    16. Re:Get back to me... by G00F · · Score: 1

      I had old winx 2. something, but couln't find it, and I have tried downloading from torrent, but asked me information about logging on to get key or some such. WTF?

      Can you even buy a few months anymore, and play your games?

      --
      The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
    17. Re:Get back to me... by notamisfit · · Score: 1

      First of all, Transgaming really doesn't have much in the way of changes to contribute. They license, rather than develop in-house. CrossOver/Codeweavers is Wine, more or less. They bankroll the thing and have all the key developers on their payroll.

      --
      Jesus is coming -- look busy!
    18. Re:Get back to me... by seebs · · Score: 1

      I tried that.

      It's bull. The CVS source doesn't even come close to compiling or running. You can't even start to compile it without a many-years-old unmaintained version of flex.

      Wine just compiles. Winex doesn't.

      --
      My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
    19. Re:Get back to me... by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      Note that AFPL is not properly open-source: it restricts commercial redistribution.

    20. Re:Get back to me... by shaitand · · Score: 1

      Would people stop spreading this Cedegra is open source nonsense. There is some source available for Cedegra but only what they have to make available under the terms of the LGPL. Some is actually under the AFPL which is not an open source license at all because it bars commercial distribution. Everything that they can get away with not opening up isn't opened up. The CVS isn't compilable or even up to date.

    21. Re:Get back to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The only thing they license is the copy protection stuff. They do their own D3D and WinAPI work to fill in whatever APIs a game is using that aren't implemented yet. MS isn't going to license that stuff to them, nor are the game developers--if they had it to license they wouldn't need Cedega...

  7. Wine and WoW by MarcoG42 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I use Cedega to play WoW so I don't have to boot to the much maligned Windows partition on my machine. It's there so my girlfriend (I'm not a liar, I swear!) can watch her 'time shifted' television shows on our HDTV, since I have trouble getting dual head output to work on my nvidia card in Ubuntu.

    On topic, kinda: I use Cedega because I'm lazy and don't mind the $5 it cost me to get a copy. I read the review linked in TFA, and I'm curious; how well does WINE play with WoW? Is it worth the (little, i'm sure) extra effort to get up and running to put that $5 towards something else the next time an upgrade comes around?

    --
    If nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.
    1. Re:Wine and WoW by exwhyze · · Score: 4, Informative

      wine-0.9.29 works 'out of the box' with WoW. Probably a couple earlier versions do, too.

    2. Re:Wine and WoW by mandelbr0t · · Score: 1

      It doesn't, at least it didn't for me. Direct3D locked up the PC within 30 minutes of launching WoW, and OpenGL is an ugly, ugly hack. Results are still best with Cedega+NVIDIA. In some ways, the performance is better too, though on the Windows platform it seems that there is more of a balance between network and graphical performace (higher latency, better framerates) than on Linux+Cedega.

      --
      "Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
    3. Re:Wine and WoW by rcb1974 · · Score: 1

      WoW runs fine using the most recent version of Wine on my Gentoo GNU/Linux box. I use the proprietary nVidia drivers for my Nvidia GeForce 7600 PCI-express video card. WoW never crashes when running under Wine on my box.

    4. Re:Wine and WoW by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      OpenGL is an ugly, ugly hack

      Um... OpenGL works just fine as the WoW renderer. It's not just ignored... they keep it fairly up-to-date since the Mac version of WoW uses it. And Macs are fully supported by Blizzard.

    5. Re:Wine and WoW by the_greywolf · · Score: 1

      I've had WoW working in Wine since 0.9.22, and I'm sure there are others who've had it working even sooner. It has run flawlessly since 0.9.30.

      --
      grey wolf
      LET FORTRAN DIE!
    6. Re:Wine and WoW by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      You're out of your mind. "wine WoW.exe -opengl" works beautifully. OpenGL is not a hack, it has all the features of the DirectX 9.0c render. Bliz supports the OpenGL render pathh 100% because its what their Mac client uses. Hell, you can run WoW.exe -opengl in Windows and you won't notice the difference.

    7. Re:Wine and WoW by BobPaul · · Score: 3, Informative

      Wine handles Wow just as good as Cedega. If you're paying for Cedega just for WoW, stop... there's no benefit. If you use it for other games as well, then it's probably worth it. Just MHO.

      Check here:
      http://www.wowwiki.com/Linux/Wine
      and here:
      http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?iVersionId=648 2

    8. Re:Wine and WoW by dvice_null · · Score: 1

      > since I have trouble getting dual head output to work on my nvidia card in Ubuntu.

      TVOut doesn't work? I got it working with these instructions quite easily:
      https://help.ubuntu.com/community/NvidiaTVOut

    9. Re:Wine and WoW by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A couple months ago I switched from using Cedega to WINE for WoW and haven't looked back. I'm running ubuntu with an nvidia card, the game runs near perfectly with excellent performance. A couple of things though, directX doesn't work well, but I've had no problems with opengl.

      When running the game, I've found that wine works best when set to behave like win98, however, when updating WoW, I need to set wine to behave as winNT or else the updater will hang. A little bit of a pain, but still far better than having to boot into windows or pay another $5 a month for cedega

    10. Re:Wine and WoW by k1e0x · · Score: 1

      Wow is playable on the default Fedora Core 6 RPMs with AMD64 & ATI hardware and OpenGL mode out of the box. Installs fine (if a port is opened for updates)

      Text and graphics look good in 12x10 resolution, (minimap also works) but it is somewhat slower in gameplay than in windows. One notble problem is you can't change the video settings in Linux so I had to generate a config of the settings I wanted in windows and copy them over.. however once I finished that it was ok. One odd thing is certan aspects like load screens are much faster in Linux than Windows only the graphics demand seems to affect the preformance.

      I've logged many many hours so the slowdown is not annoying enough to make me want to boot over to windows.

      --
      Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
    11. Re:Wine and WoW by lcf_bg · · Score: 1

      From 0.9.19 or so i play WoW only under vanilla wine with that patch: http://rapidshare.com/files/1209185/wow_patch_nvid ia_flicker_fix_0.9.24.diff.html

      Atm, 0.9.34 and everythink works fine.

    12. Re:Wine and WoW by Old+Wolf · · Score: 1

      My flatmate just bought a new PC specifically for playing WoW, and he installed Kubuntu on it. Installation took a while because his motherboard was so new that there were no Kubuntu drivers for the onboard sound or Ethernet, and it took some time to find the correct Nvidia graphics driver. He had to put in a 3rd party sound card to get sound.

      However, once the hardware was all set up, Wine ran first time and WoW ran under wine, first time.

    13. Re:Wine and WoW by MarcoG42 · · Score: 1

      It's an LCD HDTV, and I'd rather have it be used as a separate desktop instead of cloning it. I've used the setup from your link before, the only difference being that i set the default resolution to something appropriate to the dimensions of a 32" LCD widescreen. Instead the resolution is something approaching huge and the color is strangely blue tinted. It's using HD cables on the output of the card.

      --
      If nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.
    14. Re:Wine and WoW by seebs · · Score: 1

      For me, comparing to the pre-6 version of Cedega to Wine 0.9.31-34 or so:

      Sound worse, everything else noticably better. Cedega would visibly drop framerate massively if I spun around; Wine stays smooth. Wine drops occasional sounds; on the other hand, I have AA working (turn off full screen glow) and get good framerates even in lagforge.

      If the new version of Cedega is noticably better, which I guess I could try and see, I might use it again. Otherwise, no.

      --
      My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
    15. Re:Wine and WoW by seebs · · Score: 1

      Well, it took some doing to try it, because cedega has multiple requirements (dbus, python, and gtk2) that wine didn't, but... Cedega still has the same problem it did before, that spinning rapidly in crowded places makes the game drop frames like mad on and off. So, I might be getting a steady 60fps, then I spin in place in Ironforge and get 3fps during the spin. Then it comes back to normal.

      Doesn't happen with Wine.

      --
      My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
    16. Re:Wine and WoW by MMC+Monster · · Score: 1

      How about upgrading wine to the latest version. 0.9.34 is apparently out now. And, as was mentioned earlier, it works flawlessly with the latest version.

      --
      Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
    17. Re:Wine and WoW by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As many have already stated, WoW works great with Wine. Just follow the Linux/Wine -entry in wowwiki someone already linked and you should be good. However, last time I tried it with an ATI graphics card you couldn't use the "Full-Screen Glow Effect" (or something) which in my opinion makes the game look more pleasing, so having an NVidia graphics card is an advantage.

      Every single time I've had some kind of problem with wow in wine, and thought that NOW it was the fault of wine, it turns out that also the people around me ingame using windows had the same problem.

    18. Re:Wine and WoW by geminidomino · · Score: 1

      Have they finally stopped that "3 month minimum subscription" bullshit?

  8. Re:Woo Hoo An an other 1st person shooter. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    peter, keep that thought because when we get home i'm going to explain to you how many things are wrong with what you just said.

  9. Re:Woo Hoo An an other 1st person shooter. by SavedLinuXgeeK · · Score: 3, Informative

    Why doesn't Crossover spend more time with other games that are more inovative, and fun. Cedega != Crossover. They develop their own products. Also, why are they testing cedega with a game that has a linux port. That just seems silly.
    --
    je suis parce que j'aime
  10. So we're paying for what? by Inner_Child · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Looking at the benchmarks, there's what, one test where Cedega outperformed Wine? What exactly is this monthly subscription fee supposed to pay for, minimal if any improvement over Wine? I understand that it supports newer games than Wine does, but I'd rather put my money into an open-source project than throw it into a monthly fee, especially considering the minor differences.

    Am I misunderstanding something vital about Cedega here, or is Transgaming really asking us to pay for the same functionality?

    --
    Today is red jello day - all workers must eat all of their red jello. Failure to comply will result in five demerits.
    1. Re:So we're paying for what? by PipOC · · Score: 1

      Cedega has much greater compatibility among games than WINE, as it focuses on implementing the directX API rather than the Win32 API

    2. Re:So we're paying for what? by jZnat · · Score: 1

      That's how it used to be. Nowadays, WINE is overtaking the throne as the Linux DX implementation.

      --
      'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
  11. OpenGL by PipOC · · Score: 2

    Maybe I'm missing something, but aren't Doom 3 and Enemy Territory OpenGL based and Linux native? Benchmarking them with Cedega is pointless.

    1. Re:OpenGL by Inner_Child · · Score: 1

      Not really, TFA compared the native versions against the Win32 versions under Wine and Cedega. The native version didn't do so well, from the looks of it.

      --
      Today is red jello day - all workers must eat all of their red jello. Failure to comply will result in five demerits.
    2. Re:OpenGL by HuguesT · · Score: 1

      It does compare the quality of the Cedega DirectX implementation vs. native OpenGL under Linux for the games they tested.

    3. Re:OpenGL by Sark666 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Well, not really, those games are opengl on windows as well. They only use directx for input/sound.

    4. Re:OpenGL by PipOC · · Score: 1

      I was under the impression that niether of them actually used directx at all.

    5. Re:OpenGL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are very correct. OP is an idiot

    6. Re:OpenGL by xouumalperxe · · Score: 1

      Benchmarking the game in windows, natively on linux and on linux through translation is the ultimate in comparisons, really. Being able to compare all three lets you know a lot more about the overhead of cedega than simply having the windows and cedega performances compared. Reversely, without the windows version, you wouldn't know if the hypothetical performance difference between cedega and pure linux is a matter of overhead or port quality.

  12. Funky Name / Acronym Overload by The+Media+Mechanic · · Score: 0, Troll

    FBO, WINE, ALSA, Cedega, Transgaming... Head Explodes

    --
    I can throw as many stones as I wish; my house is made of transparent aluminum.
  13. Shader model 2.0 brings us what games? by Sark666 · · Score: 1

    Isn't this what was stopping splinter cell 1 & 2 from working? I still play multiplayer chaos theory so I'd love splinter cell support.

    1. Re:Shader model 2.0 brings us what games? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Chaos theory has to have either Shader model 1.1, or can use Shader model 3.0 for a nicer look

  14. Re:Woo Hoo An an other 1st person shooter. by cyphercell · · Score: 1
    You're right during the eighties there wouldn't be any reason to have a pac-man machine laying around.

    Asside from that, yeah I hear you.

    --
    Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
  15. Vista RC1 ??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Anyone else notice...

    "For our Vista "Longhorn" benchmarks we had used Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate RC1 (Build 5600)".

    Sure. Because that will give you a good, impartial quality result.

    Bloody muppets.

    1. Re:Vista RC1 ??? by throx · · Score: 1

      I saw that. Vista RTM is a good bit faster than Vista RC1, and the fact he was using drivers written for RTM (100.65) on RC1 is also likely to cause issues. I have no idea what he's talking about with "troubled" - the 100.65 drivers have been rock solid on my 8800GTX. Maybe it's something to do with the dog of a video card he's got that only pulls 12fps on Doom3? I strongly suspect it's barely even on the compatibility list for Vista. No one deserves the title "enthusiast" if they are running integrated video - that's just laughable.

      It should be noted that the two games he tested were OpenGL based and not DirectX based - something that is further going to skew against Vista, and explains the almost identical performance between the native Linux and Cedega versions (they were running directly to the OpenGL API).

      In any case, yeah Vista's generally slower but everything he's doing is accentuating that fact and just plain skewing it to (I assume unintentionally) make things look better for Linux and worse for Vista.

      Just for reference, I'm getting 60fps (down to 45ish in places) on Vista x64 in Doom3. That's at 1280x1024 with 4xAA and Ultra-High quality.

      --

      Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means

  16. Oblivion has been running on HQ Wine for a while.. by Mongoose · · Score: 1

    Here's how you do so:

    http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Linux

    NOTICE:
    You might want to check the history for the last Mongoose update in case asshats from slashdot add bullshit to the wiki entry. ;)

  17. Accounting Game by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I really enjoy this, uhm, game where we track a pretend inventory and write up make-believe orders for imaginary customers. The goal is to maximize your prof^h^h^h^hscore, keep track of "in game" assets, et cetera, et cetera. Does it play games like that?

  18. Re:Woo Hoo An an other 1st person shooter. by Kazrath · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I am going to address the FPS portion of your comment. The reason why I personally and I suspect many others enjoy online FPS games is because it is raw skill/talent vs another. Most games skill/player ability has little to do with the outcome of the fight. I am currently playing Eve-online and I enjoy playing it. The PVP aspect of the game IMHO is not very fun and very far from balanced. A !skill player in a hugely expensive well equipped ship will annilate a highly skilled player in the same ship but using more midrange quality of the same gear. Just because of the game mechanics.

    FPS is equal footing for all players and it is your skill that allows you to do well.

  19. Collateral Damage! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ha! This announcement has also slashdotted the tuxwarez site, despite the fact it wasn't linked. Awesome!

  20. You really have to like Cedega because... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...after wasting 3(!) days(!) of getting WoW (not) to work with it I (and probably everyone else who had similar experiences) demand native Linux ports even more.

    I sure hope Dell shipping preinstalled Linux will stop the need for this transition technology and make Game Companies port their shit.

  21. It's slashdotted but here's a mirror by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    1. Re:It's slashdotted but here's a mirror by Scott+Lockwood · · Score: 2, Funny

      Nice... Even the mirror is slashdotted. :-) lol

      --
      But this is slashdot. A slashdoter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber!
    2. Re:It's slashdotted but here's a mirror by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >A slashdoter

      You do know that a "slashdoter" is "one who dotes on Slashdot"?

    3. Re:It's slashdotted but here's a mirror by Scott+Lockwood · · Score: 1

      Most won't see that, and the sig was one letter too long for slashdotter....

      --
      But this is slashdot. A slashdoter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber!
  22. Re:Oblivion has been running on HQ Wine for a whil by JensenDied · · Score: 1

    Just fyi history > date/time of update
    http://www.uesp.net/w/index.php?title=Oblivion:Lin ux&oldid=106687
    Also there have been a couple changes since the last Mongoose entry that included many typo-fixes, and a possibly improved way of installing the DirectX dll's

    --

    09:F9:11:02 - 9D:74:E3:5B - D8:41:56:C5 - 63:56:88:C0

  23. Re:Woo Hoo An an other 1st person shooter. by Penguinisto · · Score: 1

    Also, why are they testing cedega with a game that has a linux port. That just seems silly.

    I dunno - I kind of like the idea: It would make a good selling point to developers who are thinking of doing a Linux port of their product. I can very easily imagine a developer saying "oh, why bother? it runs good enough in Cedega/WINE/etc". This way you have numbers to show up-front that porting may or may not be worth the trouble.

    Ferinstance, I can use Cedega or Crossover (both worked at one time) to run 3D/CG hobbyist apps in Linux (DAZ|Studio, Poser)... If I can show the producer how much faster, say, a frame render would complete natively vs. under emulation (games performance make a damned good comparator in many aspects), it's one less argument to have to chew on so much.

    /P

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  24. Re:Woo Hoo An an other 1st person shooter. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative
    FPS is equal footing for all players and it is your skill that allows you to do well.

    Absolutely, completely wrong. Turn based strategy is the true test of skill. It doesn't matter if you're an 80 year old paraplegic in a wheelchair or a 16 year old teenager. Everyone competes equally. FPS is just about who can react faster. Big deal.

  25. *Rimshot* by commisaro · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Maybe now everyone will stop Wine-ing. :D!

  26. Re:Woo Hoo An an other 1st person shooter. by Stevecrox · · Score: 1

    not really, I like to play CS and HL2 Deathmatch, even with latency near 200 I do about the same score wise. There is a great deal of inante ability necessary but when you play the skill is all down to you, did you dpot that go running along the second floor, are you going to take the stair to head him off, what route do you go to get to the sniper, team play, how acurate is your aiming. I've always found RTS games require 1 strategy build a base go insane wasting 90% of resources on making an incredible defense then go away for half an hour as you start building a redicioulus sized army (scout the enemey and tailor army to match his/her units) then send out insane sized army while creating a secondary force, once the secondary force is half way complete, attack then attack with primary amd send in secondary force as re-enforcements. A single strategy thats worked since C&C from single player to multiplayer, it only get interesting on who can do it first. Game like FF are save, play against monster if you scrape a win reload and then grind until your double your current level then repeat, when the games online research the untouchable level grind till you get there. Niether requires much in the way of real skill however. Driving and FPS games do

  27. Get back to me...OSS profitless. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Anyone paying money for Cedega is an enemy of Free Software."

    Anyone remember those "Ask Slashdot"s about "How to make money with OSS"? See above and bookmark the OP's post. You'll never have to look again for an answer.

    "If you want to make a difference, contribute the money to the wine project, instead."

    If I wanted to make a difference, I'd use the OS the game was originally written for. Life's too short and I play games to be entertained. Not fight RMS's battles for him.

  28. Wait a minute by SQLz · · Score: 1, Troll

    I thought Cedega had killed Linux years ago.....and that all Linux gamers have since switched to Windows, and that Cedega, not competetion from consoles, had killed Linux gaming for good, and blah blah blah blah.

  29. Re:Woo Hoo An an other 1st person shooter. by Mprx · · Score: 1

    For high level play, FPS is purely about the mindgames. It's assumed that everyone has near perfect twitch ability, so the only distinguishing factor is your ability to predict your opponent's moves while remaining as unpredictable as possible yourself. In this respect the FPS is very similar to the Street Fighter style fighting game.

  30. Re:Some karmawhoring by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Wall of Text hits you for 43124 (crushing).
    Your equipped items suffer a 10% durability loss.
    You are dead.

  31. Re:LOL by HermMunster · · Score: 1

    I believe there's a Doom 3 client for Linux and I know for certain there's an Enemy-Territory version for Linux. What's the point of benchmarking? They trying to show that the CEDEGA implementation is good when compared to the client running natively under linux and how that cmopares to those clients running under windows?

    --
    You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
  32. Useless by cortana · · Score: 3, Informative
  33. Any 64-bit wine in the future? by Deagol · · Score: 1
    I run FreeBSD/amd64. It seems that Wine is not in the cards for this platform. No, I won't use either Linux or 32-bit computability modes. Does Wine compile/run as a 64-bit app under Linux these days? VMWare has never been an official option for FreeBSD. Win4BSD is 32-bit only right now. Bummer.

    The good thing is that QEmu is finally at sufficient quality and speed to replace VMWare, so I have a good alternative now. Still... I'm disappointed about the lack of Wine. Sometimes its nice to run something w/o the overhead of a full VM.

    1. Re:Any 64-bit wine in the future? by PatrickThomson · · Score: 1

      32bit chroot? I run all my wine apps this way on my ubuntu desktop, with great success.

      --
      I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
    2. Re:Any 64-bit wine in the future? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah it kinda sucks to be on a platform where development has dried up because noone has any interest in contributing back to the software.

    3. Re:Any 64-bit wine in the future? by Nurgled · · Score: 1

      Presumably an amd64 build of Wine would only be capable of running Windows apps compiled for amd64, and there aren't really that many of those yet. I can see why there's little demand for it right now.

  34. what about directx? by __aalwyc6372 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    since wine aims to provide a directx compatible windows api, is directx a hack too?

    1. Re:what about directx? by Mayhem178 · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I think you got your analogy a little backwards there. And your facts. I'm not sure where you got the idea that WINE was developed with the intent of implementing DirectX compatibility for Linux, because it wasn't. DirectX compatibility was a feature added to a branch of WINE affectionately named WineX, which in 2004 was renamed to...you guessed it...Cedega.

      --

      "You will pay for your lack of vision..." - Emperor Palpatine to Ray Charles

  35. Re:Cedega? by blazematrix · · Score: 0

    LOL!

    It proves that Wine is not enough!

    BM

  36. Re:This is why I like BlorgOS by jojoba_oil · · Score: 1

    You see, the reason why I like BlorgOS is that I run a library and BlorgOS can't use soundcards at all, no soundcards are compatible with it.
    I've tried BlorgOS but I actually prefer its cousin, BorgOS. It's superior in that it uses you as its soundcard, and just about everything else while it's at it.

    (In mother Russia...)
  37. Performance issues are the real problem by Orion+Blastar · · Score: 1, Interesting

    for running Windows games under Linux.

    What needs to happen is for gaming companies to write Linux versions of games so that there won't be any performance issues due to running in some Windows environment or emulator.

    I think the fact that many are buying Cedega and other Windows environment programs to play Windows games under Linux shows that there is a need for Linux native games.

    My brother is a Gamehead and the only reason that he uses Windows XP still is because running the Windows games under Linux gives him great lag and performance issues. He says that if they wrote Linux native versions of the games, he'd switch to Linux.

    --
    Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
    1. Re:Performance issues are the real problem by mandelbr0t · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think the fact that many are buying Cedega and other Windows environment programs to play Windows games under Linux shows that there is a need for Linux native games. And I think that all of us who remember Loki Games know that this will not work. Transgaming allows a project to put a business face on some deals that desperately need to be made to support gaming on Linux. Cedega works with game companies to provide an API that works equally well on Windows and Linux. This approach is better, since what happens is that game companies continue to develop games on Windows where most of their market is, without causing any extra work for the Linux side. Admittedly those who develop to the WINElib API will get the same benefits without the devilish business dealings, but who develops games on Windows that's that enlightened?

      A rewrite as a port is generally too much work to be profitable, especially when the target market is at best one tenth of the original market. There's been some very rare exceptions to this, such as the Linux Neverwinter Nights client and some id games, but in those cases there's almost as many Linux people who play as Windows gamers. The drive to synchronize the higher-level APIs has a better chance of overall success (where success is defined as any DirectX 9 or previous game will run on Linux) in the long run, IMO. Whether transgaming.com is actually required is certainly worth debating. I'm still giving them my $5 every month even though I'm not using it right now.
      --
      "Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
    2. Re:Performance issues are the real problem by westlake · · Score: 1
      A rewrite as a port is generally too much work to be profitable, especially when the target market is at best one tenth of the original market.

      One tenth? Get real. One hundreth would be closer to the truth.

    3. Re:Performance issues are the real problem by Pecisk · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I remember why Loki Games went down - NOT because they went under 'cause of bad sales. They just got bad/criminal CEO, who done anything possible to bancrupt Loki Games without any remorse. And he succeeded.

      Afaik, Loki Games was very successful creating needed infrastructure - and they knowledge in doing so was industry high. See SDL, see their installer, see OpenAL which they actively pushed and which now has some support in industry.

      It was sad that Loki had to go away just because of some greedy jerk.

      --
      user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
    4. Re:Performance issues are the real problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Heh. Yeah, I hate that urban legend about Loki being unable to sell games.

        "So the CEO and his wife were treating the company's bank account as their personal ATM to buy new cars and designer clothes and houses. Thus Loki proves you can't make money selling games on Linux!"

  38. 1 4M 73H l337 H4x0r! by msimm · · Score: 1

    Adult.

    *burble*

    (:

    --
    Quack, quack.
  39. Re:Some karmawhoring by PitaBred · · Score: 3, Funny

    To more effectively karma-whore, you should first consider learning the base skill of paragraph-whoring :)

  40. Re:Some karmawhoring by andreasg · · Score: 1

    I got owned by the fact that there is no edit button. Welcome to the year 2000.

  41. Re:Woo Hoo An an other 1st person shooter. by Knara · · Score: 1

    For chrissake use punctuation and paragraphs. What's the matter with you? Even if your point is valid, I can't understand a damn thing you wrote.

  42. I'm a subscriber... by friedmud · · Score: 1

    Wow... I'm actually still a subscriber... but I hardly ever use it.

    Just the other day I was thinking "Maybe I should cancel that... they haven't come out with any real improvements in a while"... Lo and Behold....

    I'll give it a whirl and see if I can spend some more time in Linux...

    Derek

    1. Re:I'm a subscriber... by fimbulvetr · · Score: 1

      I just canceled mine. I've had it for 2 years and have been using it on and off. After reading above that they having been updating their CVS and confirming as much, I decided they don't need my money anymore since they've become a proprietary software vendor.

    2. Re:I'm a subscriber... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  43. Don't support Cedega by AlexMax2742 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    ...they're pure slime. They threatened debian maintainers with a licence change unless they withdrew a free, easy to install debian package from debian repoisotories. And they at one time had a promise on their page that said as soon as they crossed a certain number of licenses, that they would reopen the code and contribute back to wine. That promise has since been taken down.

    And on top of that, according to reliable reports, cedega is only marginally more stable than Wine ever was. Which in my opinion is not worth five bucks, especially given how much progress Wine has made in the last year or so in terms of compatability. Heck, the latest version can even run WoW with minimal amounts of fuss (according to its rank, which is Gold). And I'd rather wait for someone to brute-force copy protection in a free way instead of having to be at the mercy of those that provide it.

    Cedega doesn't need your support. Wine does. Give the latest version a spin, download it, and provide bug reports for your favorite games so the remaining bugaboos can be fixed up.

    --
    I'm the guy with the unpopular opinion
    1. Re:Don't support Cedega by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      They did something similar with Gentoo; there used to be a winex-cvs ebuild that pulled down the latest CVS, which doesn't include the proprietary copy-protection routine stuff of course, and built it for you. They made them remove that for some even more dubious reason. Still, I subscribed for a year just to check it out and see if it would run some of my problematic games; I can't say I was very impressed overall. Transgaming seem to focus on a few current AAA titles and largely ignore problems with older games.

    2. Re:Don't support Cedega by compwiz3688 · · Score: 1

      Which in my opinion is not worth five bucks

      Five bucks only? Last time I checked, they want you to subscribe a minimum of 3 months for the "monthly subscription". Thats $15 minimum just to get their software. $5/month my ass.
    3. Re:Don't support Cedega by wolf31o2 · · Score: 1

      What they did was pretty nefarious. Transgaming said that they would take down their CVS repository for the open source portions of WineX (way before the Cedega days) if we did not remove the ebuild from the tree. I would like to mention that Gentoo was not packaging a single file from Transgaming, and was using a publicly accessible CVS repository. Transgaming went to sar as to tell us that this hurt their business model. Rather than fight with a company that we (the Games team, at the time) thought was bad for the gaming industry, the ebuild was removed from the tree.

    4. Re:Don't support Cedega by xemit · · Score: 1

      I remember stumbling upon the Transgaming site and thought this sounds like a cool product! So, I paid the "donation" fee to play an old mmorpg on. The only problem is that cedega would run the game almost perfectly except when it came to letting the game update itself. The solution was to load up wine to let the game update itself (which alot of games use the same process) then load cedega back up. Since, they said that used code and supported the wine project, I figured it would be only a matter of time before that particular feature made it into the cedega code. A year later it still wasn't there, but the game plays nicely in WINE by itself now. I saw no point in supporting this company any further. Not to mention all those people that got banned for playing WOW in cedega that time.

  44. Re:Woo Hoo An an other 1st person shooter. by Stevecrox · · Score: 1

    Why? No offense I'm not trying to be insightful or anything my spelling and grammar have always sucked and the only reason I'm even on slashdot is because I need a break from writing a project report its nice not having to use big words, check for grammatical correctness and worry about the flow of a paragraph for a minute and try to ask a question that makes the poster attempt to actually justify their comment, but since you asked:

    FPS games do not just rely on fast reaction times, I like to play CS and HL2 Deathmatch. Even when suffering from high latency (150 to 200) my score doesn't change much. There is a great deal of innate ability necessary to play a FPS game but, when you play the it is all down to you. Did you spot that guy running along the second floor? Are you going to take the stairs to head him off? What route do you go to get to the sniper? Team play? How accurate is your aiming?
    I've always found RTS games require a single strategy which is to build a base, waste 90% of resources on building an incredible defence, While your defence keeps the attackers at bay leave for half an hour with your manufacturing facilities set to build a ridiculous sized army (scout the enemy and tailor army to match his/her units.) Once this is complete send out your army, as this army moves into position start creating a secondary force which is equal or half of your current force, once the secondary force is half way complete attack your enemy. Attack with the primary force and send in the secondary force as re-enforcements. A single strategy that's worked since C&C in single player and multiplayer, the only interesting aspect is when other human players use the same strategy and it becomes a game of who can get their army built first.
    Games like Final Fantasy are very formulaic. First save your game, play against the next monster if you scrape a win then reload your game and level grind until your double the original level. When the games are online, all you have to do is research the 'untouchable' level and grind until you get to that level. Neither requires much in the way of real skill, just patience.

    Driving and FPS games do rely on the players natural skill.

  45. Here's the logic... by sterno · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm glad my car doesn't go 200mph, because the temptation of all that raw horsepower will be too great to resist. High speed pursuits and law enforcement derived beatings will certainly ensue. It's a used geo metro for me.

    --
    This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
    1. Re:Here's the logic... by Sancho · · Score: 1

      I'm sure you were trying to be funny, but if you were serious, my response would be that an inability to resist temptation is nothing to be proud of, and an entirely different problem altogether.

    2. Re:Here's the logic... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    3. Re:Here's the logic... by Whitemage12380 · · Score: 1

      Entirely different problem, yes. But, temptation is a trait present in all humans. The original poster was not trying to brag about that. But it's not as if it's his fault, either. And despite being different problems, they relate to each other for the reasons that the original poster gave.

    4. Re:Here's the logic... by stud9920 · · Score: 1

      It's called a fucking Suzuki Swift. Fuck your Sega Genesis too by the way, it's a Megadrive. And you can shove your fucking Twixes up your asses, I want my Raiders back.

    5. Re:Here's the logic... by illumin8 · · Score: 1

      I'm glad my car doesn't go 200mph, because the temptation of all that raw horsepower will be too great to resist. High speed pursuits and law enforcement derived beatings will certainly ensue. It's a used geo metro for me.
      I'm still not buying that argument. Sure you may not need to and shouldn't go 200mph, which is why most cars that fast have speed limiters installed in them; however, if you need to accelerate to get out of the way of an 18-wheeler on the freeway you're going to be glad you're in the car that can go 200mph, as opposed to the Geo metro that just got crushed like a bug.
      --
      "When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
    6. Re:Here's the logic... by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      It's called a fucking Suzuki Swift. Fuck your Sega Genesis too by the way, it's a Megadrive. And you can shove your fucking Twixes up your asses, I want my Raiders back.

      It's spelled arses HTH!

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  46. Re:Some karmawhoring by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    You got owned by the fact that you were too lazy to use the preview button.

  47. Re:LOL by ACS+Solver · · Score: 1

    Yes, there are native clients for both games. The Doom3 client actually uses the same data as the Windows one, it's really a small download, consisting of little else than the binary itself. Funny how they benchmark two of the very few popular games that have native Linux clients, indeed.

  48. Terrible benchmarks.. by pak9rabid · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What a HORRIBLE review done in TFA. It only compares games whose rendering engine is OpenGL (doom3 and enemy territory). I don't give a shit about how Cedega "emulates" OpenGL games. All it's doing is forwarding those requests unmodified (or maybe *slightly* modified) to the native OpenGL subsystem running on the Linux box. What I, and I'm assuming all others out there are concerned with, is gaming performance when Cedega is actually emulating Direc3D calls. Not only are there barely any game companies left that use OpenGL for their games, but the ones that do (ID Software, Epic) already have versions of their games for Linux. The fact that games utilizing Direc3D are omitted from the Cedega benchmarks listed in the article implies to me that it's probably not even worth the trouble of trying it out...

    1. Re:Terrible benchmarks.. by schotty · · Score: 1

      Did you actually read this and not get it?

      The article's whole purpose was to benchmark the performance. The easiest way is to take a game that is on windows and linux. WoW isnt on linux. FEAR isnt either. Doom and ET is.

      Now, to accurately bench them, the settings need to be the same. Well... no DX on linux. Just OpenGL. Hence the GL tests ...

      --
      Sigs are nice guns ...
  49. Re:Woo Hoo An an other 1st person shooter. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    FPS is equal footing for all players and it is your skill that allows you to do well.

    and your aimbot.
  50. Re:Some karmawhoring by Knara · · Score: 1

    "Use the Preview Button! Check those URLs!"

    Been there on the page for like 10 years now

  51. Actually by renegadesx · · Score: 2, Informative

    In my experience Doom III played better on Linux than it did with Windows on the exact same system.

    --
    Make SELinux enforcing again!
  52. Bad choice of games, and Vista by Skeith · · Score: 1

    They tested games that also run natively on Linux, emulating the Windows versions of them via WINE/Cedega is going to get you good performance. The games also use OpenGL, which leads to low Vista results and high performance everywhere else. A better test of performance across the board would be to use games like Half Life 2 that can use different DirectX versions. WINE has made great progress (can't comment on Cedega) but unless you've got some programming ability or want to run a popular program then you are out of luck.

  53. Re:Woo Hoo An an other 1st person shooter. by Knara · · Score: 1

    Why? Because if you're going to bother posting at all, ostensibly so that other people can real the textual expression of your ideas and opinions, you may as well make it readable. If you don't care about other people's ability to understand your post, why bother posting at all?

  54. Re:Woo Hoo An an other 1st person shooter. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    For high level play, FPS is purely about the mindgames. It's assumed that everyone has near perfect twitch ability

    So..everyone competes equally...as long as they're already equal? That contradicts what the poster I replied to said, he claimed that in an FPS everyone competes equally, which is patently false. A skilled player with slower reflexes will lose to an equally skilled player with faster ones. Therefore it's not all about skill.

  55. Re:Woo Hoo An an other 1st person shooter. by Mprx · · Score: 1

    Well, of course you will lose if you have slow reflexes. FPSs aren't for everyone. But "twitch", as in snap aiming skill, is developed by training. Once you've trained this skill enough that you're into severely diminishing returns and can hit a fast moving target from across the map, then things become interesting.

  56. One of the days by suitepotato · · Score: 1

    a game will come out on Windows that simulates Linux within it and someone will run it on Cedega on Linux and create a rip in spacetime.

    In the meantime, I see no point in emulating Windows guts on Linux just to play games. I'll stick with XP for that. When the Linux community gets its head out of its rear regarding making money being evil, intellectual property ownership being evil, corporate regimentation in product development via economically sustainable business investment, and mere polite cooperation and gets something going on *nix comparable to Active X, because OpenGL AIN'T it, then we can see about games on Linux.

    Until then, XP is where it is at. Sad that an OS platform like Linux which is not nearly so heavily loaded right at the finish of booting to a GUI desktop as Windows is and Vista even more so, cannot get out of its own way. This property of DOS, dedication to the task at hand with all else shoved out of the way, was what made Doom rock compared to the best of early Windows games. Linux can do this and still multitask. XP pretty much sort of agrees to cooperate and Vists basically says screw you, the OS and every damn tchtochke code piece MS could toss in comes first no matter what and your needs dead last.

    Wake up Linux idiots! Time to shine, time to seize the day! Don't make the mistake the Macintosh cultists took! Seize victory from the jaws of defeat and not the other way around. Make gaming on the Linux platform family easy, fast, and mind blowing.

    For pete's sake, just with OpenGL the Really Slick Screensavers rock. The proper nVidia drivers make Tux Racer fly. And yet you still maintain a Windows box for freaking Rainbox Six!

    --
    If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
    1. Re:One of the days by mrsteveman1 · · Score: 1

      You should at least get the irony of your post...... you say Linux idiots should get their head out of their ass and make it easier to run games on Linux, in a thread about Cedega? Have you even seen Cedega?

      Even without Cedega or wine, most of the games that are cult hits, like Unreal, are released for Linux as well as Windows, even the demos, but that leads into the real problems.........

      The real problem is the ridiculous state of package management in Linux, which is totally unnecessary and IS in fact an example of Linux programmers (Debian maintainers, Suse maintainers, Redhat maintainers) screwing up the most basic part of the system for years on end. Add to that a systemic obsession with building text apps with gui's on top of them, instead of building an API that both text and gui can use. Those 2 things are the single biggest problems with Linux, with no good reason whatsoever.

    2. Re:One of the days by flayzernax · · Score: 1

      pretty close...

      i prefer slackwares simple tgz.sh method...

  57. Re:Woo Hoo An an other 1st person shooter. by Jackmn · · Score: 1

    A skilled player with slower reflexes will lose to an equally skilled player with faster ones. Therefore it's not all about skill.
    Trained reflexes are one of the skills of the game.
  58. Re:LOL by bettlebrox · · Score: 3, Informative
    >Funny how they benchmark two of the very few popular games that have native Linux clients, indeed.

    That's the point. So they can compare the Windows version, the Linux version, & the Windows version on both Wine & Cedega. This lets the folk doing the benchmark figure out how much overhead there is to wine & cedega and show if it perform better, worse, or the same than playing games natively.

    --

    I have a very small mind and must live with it.
    -- E. Dijkstra

  59. vlad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    STOP RAPING BABIES

  60. If you're going to rail shouldn't you give credit by msimm · · Score: 1

    where credit is due? Namely, CodeWeavers? I agree that the TransGaming/Cedega crew has acted objectionably and their product is questionable. CodeWeavers are a much better example of OSS stewardship with a product that I think is actually worthwhile *and* worth supporting.

    I'm all for railing as much as anyone else, but if you're going to slam a company and there is another doing exactly what you feel the first should be doing, giving that other company credit is always a nice thing to do. :)

    --
    Quack, quack.
  61. Tools, misuse, ban by demon+driver · · Score: 1

    Misuse of a tool is not grounds for banning a tool. Are you the type of person who thinks that handguns should be banned? In a society with a significant percentage of irresponsible individuals not likely to be persuaded to refrain from misuse, yes, continuous misuse of a tool would very much be grounds for banning the tool. And yes, don't know what 'type of person' parent is, but that includes handguns, too.
  62. Re:Woo Hoo An an other 1st person shooter. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    WTF is a "gammer"? Someone who "gamms"?

  63. Late to the party... by xtracto · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Not to forget that OpenGL can not be compared to DirectX as DirectX besides Direct3D, there are a lot of other full fledged features as DirectInput, DirectPlay, DirectSound, DirectMusic, DirectSetup, DirectX-Media and DirectX Media Objects (Look at wikipedia for a description of all of those), all of that in one lean package and consistent APIs (through all of them... of course the darn version function suffixes are shit).

    Whereas in Linux you'll have to make a mutant join of SDL(with all the half assed libraries that were never finished to play) OpenAL OpenGL Allegro X11 , TCP/IP freetype, ffmpeg etc etc etc etc...

    I know because I have developed games in both of them.

    As a personal opinion, I still prefer the OpenGL modeling approach (against the Direct3D one), as it is cleaner. I use it when doing scientific 3D visualization apps (which do not need all the other media things).

    --
    Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
  64. Re:Woo Hoo An an other 1st person shooter. by Cochonou · · Score: 1

    I've always found RTS games require 1 strategy build a base go insane wasting 90% of resources on making an incredible defense then go away for half an hour as you start building a redicioulus sized army (scout the enemey and tailor army to match his/her units) then send out insane sized army while creating a secondary force, once the secondary force is half way complete, attack then attack with primary amd send in secondary force as re-enforcements.

    My Gosh ! For how long have you been not playing online ? This strategy might have worked in the infancy of C&C when nobody really knew how to play, but these happy times are over. If it was that straightforward to win, it would be really easy to make computer opponents that would outright crush you. However, it appears that in most strategy games, the AI is unable to beat experienced players without having to resort on cheating (having an economy boost, their build time reduced, etc...).
    In opposition, you can make FPS bots with insane reaction times. They might be challenged in gametypes requiring a strong team strategy (Team DM with spawning weapons, multiclass games such as TF/Gloom/Tremulous), but in my opinion, they are much more effective than their strategy games counterparts. And they will own Free For All games.

    By the way, you might have noticed that your parent did not talk about Real Time Strategy games (RTS), but about Turn Based Strategy games (TBS).
  65. Re:This is why I like BlorgOS by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

    Every time someone mods satire as Troll, Baby Jesus cries.

    --
    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  66. Re:If you're going to rail shouldn't you give cred by AlexMax2742 · · Score: 1

    I didn't make a statement on CodeWavers precisely becauase I haven't checked them out personally, due to me not particularly needing many Windows productivity applications since the Linux ones are almost as nice.

    However, I'll take your word for it unless someone posts to the contrary. In fact, since you say such nice things about them, I might have to give Codeweavers a spin out of principle. =)

    --
    I'm the guy with the unpopular opinion
  67. Lol. by msimm · · Score: 1

    Fair enough. They are the corporate sponsors of the Wine project, so they do have OSS cred. (:

    --
    Quack, quack.