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Cedega Being Replaced By GameTree Linux
An anonymous reader writes "TransGaming Cedega, the software forked from Wine that allows running Windows games under Linux, is being discontinued and replaced by GameTree Linux. This new software is also free. From the new website: 'TransGaming is pleased to announce the continued development of Cedega Technology under the GameTree Developer Program. This repositioning of the technology that powered the Cedega Gaming Service will allow the entire Linux community to gain free access going forward. Cedega is a cross-platform enablement technology that allows for Windows-native games to be executed on both the Linux desktop and embedded Linux platforms.'"
Is it supposed to be GameTree or TreeGame? Who knows.
Yes, they're discontinuing the subscription plan and will be working with developers. Personally, I will continue to not buy anything from them as they don't seem to give much, if anything, back. That may have changed, but Codeweavers at least contributes most of their patches back to Wine.
It should be noted that CodeWeavers employs both Jeremy White and Alexandre Julliard.
I wonder if they're going to attempt to incorporate Wine code (assuming that licensing is made compatible)? The most recent versions of Wine are honestly just *better* at playing Windows games than Cedega is! Cedega had some advantages - convenience and commercial backing (CodeWeavers, the backing for Wine, usually seemed more interested in business apps). However, if you were willing to use Wine, you could actually game a lot better on it than on Cedega.
I'm reminded of EVE Online. They released a Linux version of their client, which was just a Windows version wrapped in Cedega. It was an immense download, and while it worked, the advanced graphics options were disabled - Cedega didn't support them. Most of us just continued using Wine, which aside from a few glitches and a more complicated setup was better in almost every way. CCP (makers of EVE) eventually discontinued the Linux client, saying that the game ran so well on Wine that there was no reason to pay Cedega for their version (the client was free to players; presumeably CCP was eating the cost of the Cedega license). At the time of discontinuation, Cedega still didn't support the advanced graphics options, but Wine did - and the glitches were all but gone.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
I dont know if its changed but one thing Cedega was better at was support for copy protection used on games (the binary builds of Cedega include stuff licenced from the makers of those copy protection technologies)
IIRC Wine developers were reluctant to try to support these technologies because of concerns over the DMCA and lawsuits from DRM manufacturers.
I'm not sure whether those concerns were ever addressed, but Wine implements just enough of the Windows kernel APIs to make the more common DRM schemes work. I'm not sure how it fares on the newest stuff - though it works fine with Steam, which is about as much DRM as I'll tolerate on a game these days - but Securom and so forth were specifically made to work.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
TransGaming did some really nasty things back in the days - after all, it was so bad that the WINE devs decided the best thing to do was relicense WINE from BSD to LGPL. While TransGaming is legally in the right since they forked the code prior to the license switch, what they did still doesn't sit well.
Why support them when you can support the WINE guys by buying CodeWeaver's Crossover product? At least CodeWeavers directly supports WINE, and all the patches CodeWeavers make to support new games and apps make it back into WINE for everyone to enjoy?
Even the WINE guys recommend CodeWeavers.
You're much better off just downloading a cracked executable for those protected games. Less bullshit, more stability, no headaches.
Now be perfectly honest: Did you not buy from them because of philosophy, or because it cost money? Because despite what Linux users say about wanting things like gaming every time I see someone actually try to support Linux by catering to them, like Cedega or Loki, they end up going tits up. From where I have been sitting as an interested but on the sidelines observer, the only way to actually make money with Linux is to 1.-Sell support contracts to corps, ala Red Hat or 2.-Embed it into a device and sell that, ala every Router out there.
So why should all these companies that currently make Windows only consumer programs, like games and Photoshop and the nice picture app that came with the camera you gave grandma for Xmas, actually spend all that money to give Linux users product if they just don't buy squat? Because from where I'm sitting despite RMS saying it is about "free as in freedom" the only stuff I see popular on Linux is "free as in beer".
So answer honestly Linux guys, how much money have you spent on the software that is currently installed on your PC? Because hiring coders, constantly having to deal with the changes in the kernel, this I'm sure costs serious money. I've probably got at least a grand sunk into the software I use not counting the money I paid for Windows, and having that money sunk gives me motivation to learn to get the most out of it as well as that money motivating the developers to support me by writing more apps. Where is the motivation in Linux? Because you can't feed your family or pay your mortgage with pats on the back, and unless you are selling to corps that seems to me all you get from writing for Linux.
And while Wine is nice lets be honest: The average Joe isn't gonna jump through all those hoops trying to get the Windows software they need, which as I just pointed out has very little reason to come out natively on Linux, to run correctly. So like it or not you kinda need companies like Cedega that make it simple for the masses. So how is Linux ever gonna get the apps and the OOTB ease of use that the masses require, if one can't make a living supporting consumers on which is easily arguably the more difficult platform to write for?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
So answer honestly Linux guys, how much money have you spent on the software that is currently installed on your PC?
Full ticket price? NWN set me back $80, quake 3 set me back $50, quake 4 set me back $60. Baldurs gate 2 set me back $80, mostly older titles I know.
Humble indie bundle I donated $25 to.
Thing is, if the game company tells me (ala ID software) that they will eventually open source the game engine code but not the art so you will still pay for it, I'm a hell of a lot more likely to pay for their stuff.
Closed source has far too many drawbacks to be worthwhile to me on most occasions, if the game engine is open it means so long as the game is semi popular it will always work on my platform of choice.
Money is not the issue, the issue is people (or at least me) don't want to fork out $60 for a game where you are screwed when the engine breaks because of lack of updates. Or in a couple years when the multiplayer servers get killed and you can't play online.
I've dropped about a grand on wii games simply because I'm guaranteed they will continue to work so long as they have a wii. Only way to ensure it will continue to work on the pc is to have the engine source open and have people actually interested in using it.
Added bonus is you get free labour for the port, and code improvements over time which the company did not have to pay a cent for.
It's not exactly that "Codeweavers at least contributes most of their patches back to Wine", it's that Codeweavers are entirely behind Wine, employing Alexandre Julliard and most of the important devs of Wine, hosting winehq.org etc. The proprietary parts of CXO/CXG are mostly related to ease of use, MacOS ports, copy protection and support. And Codeweavers is really a cool company with excellent (if a bit crazy) communication, friendly behavior towards their customers, etc.
I own and pay updates for CXO Pro (thus having access to Crossover Office AND Crossover games for about $30/year, and often less due to their occasional great promotions), and it's really worth every penny.
I just bought a lot of games on Steam/GOG during the holiday sales, and I've been really astonished at the number of games that run more or less flawlessly on CXG. Basically almost everything I bought runs, including Company of Heroes, Left4Dead 1/2, all the Half-Life, the Flatouts, Civilization IV and expansions, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.... Some actually run that are indicated by GOG as not running on Win7 (http://www.gog.com/en/mix/games_that_are_not_windows_7_compatibile_yet)... I get better compatibility for Windows games on Linux than on Win7, how ironic is that ?
I don't know what this new thing from Cedega will give, but I for sure will stay a customer at Codeweavers as long as they keep their ways, and I don't see that changing in the foreseeable future. Long life Codeweavers !
Just a reminder that Cedega is not a repackaging of Wine. It's a proprietary fork, from back before Wine went GPL (which it did precisely because Cedega - then WineX - felt entitled to use Wine as a solid base, but not so keen to contribute their improvements back to the community). For this reason, they cannot port code over from Wine, and has diverged a lot from it since.
I've bought Cedega back in the day when they were superior for Linux gaming, but abandoned them when their they started to noticeably lag behind vanilla Wine in most games that I care about. I haven't been running Linux-only for several years now and don't know how things are today, but from what I heard, the gap has only widened since, to the point that Wine is better for vast majority of games.
What I also recall is that one other reason why TransGaming was very much disliked is due to their "source available but don't dare use it" license. See, they used to provide the code to most of Cedega (IIRC the various DRM bits were excluded), and you could actually fetch it from a public CVS and build it yourself to get a working product for free. However, TransGaming has stated that the source code is made available for "community improvements", and not simply for people using it to get a free if not full-featured version for themselves (that despite the license for the code making no such distinctions!), and that, if source code access would be abused, they'd remove it completely. They especially hated how the various source-based distros (such as Gentoo) provided automated fetch-and-build scripts allowing users to get Cedega for free with a single invocation of the package manager. Given how the product itself was largely based on a community-developed, FOSS code base, it was seen as a particularly offensive slap in the face, more so than if the code was just closed.
This is really not safe - in the default setup, for instance, the Z: drive is Unix / (file tree root). Wine DOES NOT SANDBOX in any actually effective manner.
People have run viruses with Wine. Wine is compatible enough to run malware!
Any binary running in Wine can do anything that user can do, like trashing the home directory or filling /tmp .
If you want to be cautious, run it as a different username (with access to your X11 screen). Wine is compatible with toxic waste too.
http://rocknerd.co.uk