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Windows Games on Macs Without Windows
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Aug 03, 2006 05:39 PM
from the holy-land dept.
from the holy-land dept.
Dotnaught writes "TransGaming Inc. is making its 'Cider' portability engine for Apple's Intel-based Macs available to Windows game developers. The software promises to let Windows games run on Intel Macs without Windows or Apple's Boot Camp. 'Cider works by directly loading a Windows program into memory on an Intel-Mac and linking it to an optimized version of the Win32 APIs,' the company claims. Cider is a software for game developers, not end-users. Cider-enhanced games are scheduled to appear as soon as October. If Cider works well, will there be any more Mac-specific game development? And if not, will it matter?"
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Cool! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Informative)
Cedega is a fork of Wine from back when Wine was BSD licensed. It's really cool; I play lots of Windows games on Linux with it.
Presumably Cider is a Winelib-style toolkit to generate OS X games from Windows games. I, for one, welcome our Cedega-lib powered OS X overlords
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Re:Cool! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Cool! (Score:3, Funny)
And thats how it works !
Oh, that and the dynamic API linking thingy...
NOT COOL (Score:5, Interesting)
Transgaming brags about all these great results on their website but the sheer number of workarounds and hacks to get a game to play are unbearable. And what's worse is that the games, once installed, randomly crash, screw up graphics, display incorrect fonts, lose mouse control, can't position correctly on the screen, takes an inordinate amount of Microsoft software to even function... BLAH.
I bought (and still pay) for Cedega because of their promises of Civilization IV stability. Nope. Will their tech support help you? Nnnnope. Will Fixraxis ever consider putting out a Linux binary? Why should they? Transgaming's site just brags and brags about how well Civ IV works under Cedega. Now take a look at Transgaming's forums and see just how successful their product is at running Civ IV: it isn't.
Add Transgaming's SHIT license and restrictions (We steal from Wine. We Do not GIVE to Wine. And don't even think about adding Cedega to your distribution.) and you have a complete turd of a product.
Cedega's major improvements to their software in the last two months has been: Interface improvements and a patch for Guild Wars. That's it. The end. I'm not just asking for Civ IV support either. There's scores of games that are supported by edega that just don't work. Just check their forums.
If this is the future of gaming on the Mac, there is NO future of gaming on the Mac.
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Re:NOT COOL (Score:5, Interesting)
This is actually what stops me, not the poor quality of the software. You've got to start somewhere, right? But they promised to give back to Wine in a timely fashion and they are not doing so. People who break their promises to other people will probably break their promises to you, too.
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Re:NOT COOL (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure they didn't want to run Windows, that's why most of them don't buy a normal PC. They want to run MacOS, but they still want to run certain Windows programs.
I, too, want to run windows games, but on linux. There is a certain amount of truth to the idea that if I want the games to be on linux, and not on windows, that I should pay for them. The problem is that the only game I actually want to play that is available for linux (at least, the only commercial game) costs more than twice as much for linux as it does for windows. I'm just not going to support that kind of behavior. I'd rather dual-boot. Or, as I am now doing, I'd rather run windows, and put linux in a vm so I can run linux software.
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Re:NOT COOL (Score:4, Informative)
But this is Firaxis's programming - this is the state of the game under windows. And sadly it has improved a hell of a lot since the shipped version...
As far as installation goes. This was a bitch at first, but most of those forum posts are about how to get the game installed *before* Cedega supported it. Now you just run the installer (selecting XP mode or whichever way round it is) and then hit properties afterwards to set the right windows version. Everything else is automatic.
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Re:NOT COOL (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why I don't use Cedega. I've already paid for the games, and if I have to spend MORE money to play them, I'm just going to spend $400 for a Windows PC. Yeah, it's more expensive, but it'll play 100% of my games 100% of the time. It doesn't make sense to pay for something that doesn't work.
I guess that's a benefit of only playing older games.
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Perfect emulation (Score:5, Funny)
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Finally! (Score:5, Funny)
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This will *not* mean more Mac ports ... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, this will not mean more Mac ports. If anything it may mean fewer. Developers considering Mac may be able to blow off native Mac ports using the same reasons that they blow off native Linux ports: (1) Dual boot. (2) Emulation of the Win32 gaming APIs. Under PowerPC dual booting was not an option and emulation would mean emulating a CPU not just a gaming API. Since running the Win32 version of a game on Mac hardware was not realistic, a native port was justified. If Ciders allows Win32 games to run "well enough" then there is no economic reason to do a native Mac port.
The market for a game is *not* the number of Mac/Linux purchasers. Yeah, that sounds odd but hang on a minute. The market is really only those who refuse to dual boot or emulate and won't buy unless they have a native port. Those who are willing to dual boot or emulate and run the Win32 version don't count because they do not add any revenue. They are already customers buying the Win32 version. A native Mac/Linux version would generate no additional revenue from these people, it would only move a sale from the Win32 column to the Mac or Linux column. So there is no new revenue, but there are the expenses from development and support, and these expenses have to be paid for by those who would never buy the Win32. Under Linux there are too few of these people.
Today Mac has the advantage over Linux that Mac gamers have a proven track record of spending money. If developers can get Mac gamers to to accept Cider in large enough numbers then native Mac ports will no longer occur.
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Winelib? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't get it (Score:3, Insightful)
Not that Linux and Mac aren't technically viable game platforms, but that's not their general use.
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:I don't get it (Score:4, Interesting)
Besides, Windows started out as just a "work" OS (as all computer were for "work" back in those days).
But Windows wasn't Microsoft's brain child. It was the brain & love child of Microsoft and IBM. When the collaborative license was due to be renewed, Microsoft bolted, putting Plan B into effect: making one of their own. For a while after that, OS/2 and Windows software were interchangeable. There were even OS/2 focused books ~1993+ (Win 3.1 was ~May '92) before the publishers saw the spraypaint on the wall. I've probably got one somewhere in my unusual stack. (e.g. The first Internet book - Ed Krol ~Fall '92, the last OS/2 (user) book, a VB/DOS book, etc.
This should not prove to be a surprise. Ethically or Financially, Right or Wrong, Microsoft has made a lot of money (and saved a lot of time) purchasing & modifying the work product of others. See OS/2 & Windows (above), Microsoft providing HQ service & support with Compu$erve (someone asked me what I thought would happen then and I told them: "Micro$oft is preparing for an online service by seeing the ins and outs of how someone makes theirs work." M$N. Front Page. Visual SourceSafe, GIANT software, etc. Heck, look at DOS. Bought it a leverage of $50'000, hoping IBM would license it. (whew! they did). No chance for Microsoft Bob. The marriage to WHG III got in the way. So they scrapped it for pieces -- that's how Clippy was born.
People have talked about submarining patents, Microsoft has done the same thing with products. Never write what you can buy or steal. Or, as Nathan said after getting his JD: "You can't out-develop Microsoft, but you can out-invent them." The part re: not-develop is because they can buy a couple of companies in an extremely short period of time, out-developing someone else in what amounts to a short period of time. And Nathan should know, as his JD focused upon patent law and his group has focused specifically upon investing in or purchasing patents and been rather open about it. In fact, he and Microsoft have invested in the same companies (despite claims of animosity). The danger of trying to out-invent them is hearing the spooky voice of a landshark saying one word, over & over: " Farnsworth ".
This just in: Bush announces Exit Plan: January 20, 2009.
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As long as they perform well enough... (Score:5, Insightful)
With games then they're usually full screen and you see none of the usual OS user interface and so a game does not need a Mac look and feel like for example a word processing application.
So for apps an approach like this would be bad, imagine companies stop producing their mac apps because they could easily port over using something like winelib then you'd lose the mac experience, but for games it does not matter as they don't follow platform conventions anyway.
It's called Qt (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's called Qt (Score:5, Interesting)
In short, there are already many ways to write games that run on Windows, Mac and Linux simultaneously. Qt is one. SDL is another.
Having yet another framework to program with doesn't change the fact that testing and quality control on multiple operating systems is a -nightmare-.
Devs don't ignore linux/mac because they lack a framework, they ignore it because their employers have told them it doesn't make monetary sense. Adding the cost of a game framework onto that cost won't help it any.
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The Sky is Falling (Score:4, Insightful)
The biggest road blocks I hear of for switching from Windows to a Mac are "price" and "games". I won't fuel the flamewars by making definitive statements about either point, other than to say that it looks like those blocks are starting to come down.
Microsoft has to be worried about this.
Please ... NO!!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
'Cider works by directly loading a Windows program into memory on an Intel-Mac and linking it to an optimized version of the Win32 APIs,' the company claims.
This is absoultely the worst idea. Better to write your favorite company and tell them to use some open and standard technologies (e.g., OpenGL, OpenAL, SDL, etc.). What they want to do will only promote the status quo.
Re:Please ... NO!!!! (Score:5, Informative)
Now if porting games was (almost as) easy as re-linking with an extra library, we'd see many more games for the Mac. The problem would be that they have to pay money to get the library, but it doesn't cost as much as a full port. Now they can do this and get a bunch more money.
Now the suits take over, as well as some logic from the programmers. "Sure, we made money off the Mac there. But with a little more time upfront and using OpenGL we can make this next game Mac too without having to pay for that library! It will probably perform better too."
Next thing you know, more and more games are Mac native. If that doesn't happen, then what's the loss? Mac gamers still get more games that we have now. It's not ideal, but it's a plus.
I agree that OpenGL/OpenAL/SDL is the ideal solution. But this may lead to that.
Now let's not forget just how many games these days (especially big name stuff like movie games, etc) are put on EVERY platform. They are put on the PS2/GC/XBox/360/Wii/PS3/PC. Guess what runs on almost all those platforms? OpenGL. If you want to make it easy to go on a console later (or multiple consoles) then just use OpenGL. Oh... look... now making it work on a Mac is trivial.
This is either useful, or will propel steps in the right direction. Either way, it's good.
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How about some equality... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Lemme get this straight.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:But Cedega is still Linux-only? (Score:5, Insightful)
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