Transgaming to Support Half Life 2 Under Linux

rpdillon writes "According to Half-Life Fallout, Transgaming Technologies has announced that they will be releasing version 4.2 of Cedega, their Wine based software allowing some DirectX games to be played under Linux. The new version will be released Dec 7th with official support included for Valve Software's Half-Life 2 and Steam, Valve's online software store and distribution system, and a required component of Half-Life 2."

Re:slow?

[Orgazmus]

WINE = Wine Is Not an Emulator
You're right, it IS oart of the acronym

Re:slow?

[Huogo]

Wine stands for "Wine Is Not an Emulator". It doesn't emulate the graphics, it maps the syscalls from DirectX into opengl for graphics (This is my understanding of it, IANAWD (WineX Dev))

Re:Someone please tell me...

[Cyph]

I can tell you that it already works. They released a preview copy of Cedega 4.2 to their Emerald members (those who have been subscribed for 18+ months). Steam has worked fine in Cedega 4.0.1 and up in the past, so Steam obviously wasn't a problem. As for Half-Life 2, it runs very well.

Re:slow?

[P-Nuts]

Wine is not an emulator, but a reimplementation of the Win32 API. The various system calls that are made available to Windows programs are reinterpreted by the Wine libraries, so as to perform similar functionality, sometimes by making system calls to Linux. In the case of DirectX stuff, 3D calls are converted to OpenGL. Some people have found that games can even run a little faster under Wine, but in most cases there is a small performance hit, probably equivalent to a few frames per second.

Re:slow?

[Edgewize]

The mods will assume that you're trolling, but that's unfair. Some people just don't know how WINE works. (Of course Slashdotters will accuse you of living in a cave, but whatever.)

I trust that you're being honest so I'll just answer the question.

"WINE Is Not an Emulator" is one of those recursive acronyms that was invented after the fact. It used to stand for WINdows Emulator. But the important thing is that the new name is pretty much right; it isn't an emulator, it's a translation layer. Windows EXE and DLL files are directly executed by the CPU; WINE's job is just to implement all the Win32 API calls that they make.

Transgaming took a branch of WINE and added some fixes, some workarounds, and a much better implementation of the DirectX APIs. Specifically, most Direct3D functions are translated into their OpenGL equivalents, so the graphics are still hardware-accelerated (assuming you have a Linux-supported video card).

So to get back to your question,
there is generally very little performance loss when WINE is compared to Windows. The binary is running natively on your CPU, and the video calls are still hardware-accelerated. The only difference is another level of API indirection.

It's interesting that some programs actually perform better under WINE, due to differences in the Win32 and Linux kernel architectures.

Re:You know what?

[Sc00ter]

"You cant drag your disk over to your friends house and just play."

You dont' have to because you can DL the steam client, log in with your account and just DL any game you have purchased already.

I have HL1/CS on three computers. When I want to play I just click on the game, put in my login and off I go.

I love it. I lost my HL CD but still had the case, all I needed was the key number off the case.

And you do not need to have a net connection to play the single player mode

Re:What is real "halflife" ?

[Anonymous Coward]

HalfLife: Since Gordon Freeman (the protagonist) is a physicist working at the 'anomalous materials' section of the Black Mesa Research facility, he is exposed to all sorts of radiation, hence the need for his super-duper armour (the HEV). So really it's a reference to the physics research that Gordon is doing, but also play on words.

It's also worth mentioning that the 2 follow-ups to HL1, Opposing Forces, and Blue Shift are also 'physics-isms' and are both quite apt give that in OF, you are a soldier, teaming up with other members of your 'force' to fight the alien invasion. In Blue Shift, you play a security Guard on your 'shift', when the alien invasion occurs.

Re:Cedega and GPL

[wowbagger]

Cedega is based on the Wine codebase before Wine converted to GPL - in fact, that was part of the motivation for Wine to convert from a more BSD-ish license to GPL.

However, Transgaming does give code back to Wine occasionally, and some Wine contributors will allow Transgaming to also distribute their changes.

Re:slow?

[arose]

It is not a hardware emulator, true, but it still has to emulate DirectX (unless Half-Life 2 uses OpenGL).

Re:You know what?

[Anonymous Coward]

And you're just misinformed.

You can play HL2 without a net connection, its called "offline mode". The only thing it requires a network connection for is the initial activation, and thats no more odious than Microsoft's current required activation practices, and I bet you've got Windows on your PC. (Or did you leech or crack your copy of it, mr. high and mighty?)

As other people have pointed out, once you have a steam account, you can fetch and play HL2 anywhere.

Sure Steam has its issues, mostly being an annoying adware program that currently pops up messages about HL2, but will probably start popping up all sorts of ads when Valve wants some extra cash. Also after years of watching MMO services crash and burn the first day, Valve let Steam's activation servers crash and burn for their first day, showing that some people just don't learn.

Re:Cedega and GPL

[I confirm I'm not a]

Is this [charging for software/subscription] not a violation of the GPL, and exactly the sort of thing it was written to prevent?

The GPL was not written to prevent charging for software, either a flat-rate charge or a subscription - from the GPL [gnu.org]: "When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish)" (my emphasis)

Now, I'm not a lawyer, and it is possible that Transgaming are breaking the GPL - but certainly not by charging a subscription.

My impressions on HL2

[ceeam]

First - they have removed "bobbing-and-swaying" when you walk, it's like you're riding on a Segway, just like it was in "Wolfenstein 3d" (1992). People are complaining of motion sickness and I say that IS THE reason! Pretty silly. Then the story is kinda jerky - ok, it starts great, just like adventure game (though "on the rails"). But then all of a sudden (I did not get why) you have to run somewhere with "energetic" music playing in background, then you shoot... Well - I tested it only for one late evening, so I may change my mind later ;)

Also - the whole Steam registration business is SO silly. I mean - warezed version is everywhere and runs seemingly problem-free w/o any registration. Oh, well, these days there is a new ironic meaning to the word "paying" in "paying customers".

Having read all the "wowed" reviews I expected a bit more, it's not bad, but not earth-shattering: you do need good hardware (my 8500 is barely usable, even though it's definitely faster than all the 9200s), fully-physical world is not so fully physical, not to say that someone aparently scripted all the holes and ladders - it's all on the rails I tell you. Gordon Freeman is the "Invisible Man" (and totally dumb. Speechless). And of course - the environment is a mix of post-soviet Russia - everything's dirty and broken - and that "Equilibrium" movie (talking man on the screens is a strong flashback :)

Well - maybe I will force myself and finish it though. Some day. I've spent over a year of sporadic play on the first Half-Life after all ;)

Re:slow?

[drinkypoo]

Okay well then, in the grand tradition of recursive acronyms like Gnu's Not Unix, Wine is Wine Is Not (an) Emulator [wikipedia.org]. Wine emulates the Win32 API so that windows programs can be run on Linux. Direct3D runs in Wine, though last I heard not very well, and it's going to have to be well-supported to run HL2.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:What is real "halflife" ?

[alwayslurking]

Light from objects moving towards the observer is shifted bluewards in the spectrum as the wavelength is shortened, an effect analagous to that working on the sound waves when a siren is approaching. Most objects in our expanding universe appear red-shifted, as they are receding from the observer.

Re:What is real "halflife" ?

[JFitzsimmons]

"Blue shift is the phenomenon that the frequency of an electromagnetic wave (such as light) emitted by a source moving towards the observer is shifted towards the blue end of the spectrum (that is, its wavelength is decreased)." [wikipedia.org]

Re:It's not an emulator!

[ZorinLynx]

Because ALSA is STILL not really ready for prime time.

Lots of people, including myself, have problems with it and continue to use the OSS drivers (listed as deprecated) in the 2.6.x kernels.

For instance, the SBLive! ALSA driver doesn't support volume control on the digital output (whereas the OSS driver does), and I've also had issues with ALSA based applications having stuttering audio and other issues that are not present under OSS.

Frankly, OSS worked fine, I'm not even sure why they come up with an entirely new API when they could have just improved on the existing one.

-Z

Re:What is real "halflife" ?

[Spindlegrin]

It's a reference to the Doppler effect. As an observer is moving towards a light source its spectrum appears to the observer to be shifted into the blue region. Hence "blue shift."

If you are moving away from the source then it is shifted into the red. Of course this assumes that you are speaking about the visible light spectrum.

Re:Cedega and GPL

[arodland]

Not a subscriber, but I think that's close. They have a publicly-accessible CVS containing the portions of wine that are provided under a mishmosh of variously-free licenses, and the commercial product consists of the build of that, plus some extra stuff ("aggregated" if you will) that's provided sans source. Theoretically, anyway; I don't know if anyone's ever tried to verify it. :)

Re:It's not an emulator!

[paulbd]

the main reason is the OSS API isn't capable of being used in a h/w independent way across all of the many many different designs for audio interfaces that now exist. when you look at the contrast between, say, the RME HDSP and an SBLive!, you will see the kind of thing i mean. interleaved versus noninterleaved access, the incredible complexity of many modern h/w mixer designs ... OSS has no way to represent any of this other than with h/w specific helper apps that use dozens of h/w specific ioctls.

the other major reason is to avoid direct open/read/write/close calls. even though its the Unix Way (TM), you will note that ever since we moved on from VGA video, very few applications use the Unix open/read/write/close API to access video devices. they use an abstraction and/or a library (X, svgalib, OpenGL etc). ALSA is an attempt to do the same thing for sound, thus making many things possible that are not acceptable with OSS (because everything in OSS is in the kernel; simple example: there is no floating point support in the kernel).

Another option - wait for XBox version

[SuperKendall]

It seems they are going to have an XBox version in 2005 (probably late), so if you don't like Steam and can wait then you have an option.

Re:What is real "halflife" ?

[rpdillon]

That letter is Lambda, which is the notation used in Chemistry to denote the half-life of a radioactive isotope.

Incidentally, they use the lower case lambda, since using upper case would look like and upside down V, which people would probably think was just an A and Valve had "stylized" it.

Re:slow?

[swv3752]

Wine is more of a translator. It takes the windows API and translates those calls to the appropriate POSIX one.

Most things run just as fast in WINE as they do in Windows.

Re:You know what?

[Nos.]

Okay, I'm going to dispell a few myths about Steam here, so pay attention

• Spyware - Valve has addressed this issue before. There is no spyware in Steam. Its is an authentication and update tool. It allows friend lists so you can join a game that friends are currently playing. It will automatically keep your games up to date - IF you want it to
• Popups - there was an issue about this over a year ago. Since then I have not seen one, and Steam is always left running on my computer
• HL2 Requires the Internet - Yes, for the initial authentication. After that you can run it in Offline mode without an interenet connection. If you don't have an internet connection, don't by the game, its listed as a requirement.
• Install/Upgrades a pain - yes, the first few days showed the Steam servers overloaded. I purchased HL2 over Steam (already had the pre-release downloads) - took about an hour. A few minutes to purchase, 10-15 for the unlocking, and about 45 minutes for the upgrade. Take any game off the shelf and you're probably looking at 30 minutes plus to install and upgrade the game. however, that doesn't include the time to go to the store, buy it, and return home. I could not have gone to buy HL2, installed and upgraded it in less than the hour it took to purchase through Steam
• Steam sucks - Its not perfect, but its come along way since they first shut down WON. I have been using it since slightly before the shutdown of WON without a major hassle. I've moved my steam install (without any reinstalls) a couple of times to accomodate drive space for all the mods. I've never had to wait to upgrade a multiplayer game, since Steam did it for me as soon as it was released. Sure, its a little slow at times, and a few times I've had problems authenticating. However, for the most part, its saved me time and hassle trying to keep my games up to date.
• If I want to reinstall, I have download 4+Gb all over again - No, you don't. Steam can back up your games into appropriate sized chunks for CD or DVD and burn them, copy them, whatever. Put these back in place and all you have to do is authenticate next time
• In X years I won't be able to play this game. Again, Steam has an offline mode, you won't need to authenticate to play. Also, if Valve starts dying (unlikely for the next few years at least) there's nothing to say they won't release a patch to stop requiring authentication for online mode, or open source the Steam servers.

Yes, I like Steam. Yes, some people have valid issues with Steam, including the time it takes to start playing the first time you install HL2. However, a lot of people are passing around misinformation regarding what it can't do. I hope some of you have paid attention here. You can verify ALL of this with some simple google searches or by hitting the Steam Forums

Re:Multiplayer support

[Mazem]

Well, its really hackish, but it sort of works:

Bring up the console
net_start
sv_lan 0
deathmatch 1
maxplayers #
map [mapname]
restart

To connect to the server,
connect ip:port
eg:
connect 111.222.333.444:27015

Note: the models are screwy (there is actually no gordon model that comes with HL2!), and it crashes a lot.

Don't worry though, the full SDK is coming out "soon" [valve-erc.com] (heh, somehow that doesn't sound so convincing from Valve), and when the full SDK is out there will be DM mods galore.