Fragging on Linux and TransGaming

Kez writes "HEXUS.net has an article looking at the current state of Linux gaming and the broad number of supported games both natively and through emulation. Included in the article is a chat with the Product Manager of TransGaming - the creators of Cedega (formerly known as WineX.)" From the article: "Well, Linux certainly isn't most peoples' thought for a games-based PC. Especially one being taken to a big tournament LAN party. However, by design or trickery, none of the tournament games at the event were out-of-bounds to my Linux machine, and rousing games of Call of Duty, Quake 2 and Unreal Tournament 2004 were shared by the HEXUS.net collective and any other gamers who felt like joining in." We ran a story about a similar article back in February.

Heh

[cerberus4696]

I've actually found that the Linux version of UT2004 actually runs a bit better under Linux than under windows. I think it has something to do with the way windows allocates virtual memory; when I run under windows, the game eventually starts stuttering as windows valiantly tries to compensate for my woefully small amount of RAM; under Linux, it seems to keep chugging along just fine.

Square peg -- Round hole

[spaeschke]

I see the usual suspects again rear their heads: Quake 3, UT2004, etc, etc, etc.

Love Linux on a server, as a games machine you've got to ask yourself why you're ponying up cash for a graphics card that is only going to be used by a handful of games. And if you're such a gamer that Cedega is a must for you, why are you even bothering to screw around with a kludge when you could just dual boot.

I guess I'm just not hardcore enough to be that much of a purist that I'd jump through so many damned hoops just to be MS free. I enjoy having access to a huge library of games, and I really enjoy not having to deal with botched textures and subpar performance just to make sure it runs on my pet OS. I'm a gamer first and foremost, and in this day and age that means Microsoft.

tastefully done

[Anonymous Coward]

I espically liked how the screenshot showed XFCE and not some ungodly goofy looking KDE or Red-hat stylized Gnome. Slapping Farcy and Steam up on the dock is straight up ill, props to Transgaming and Hexus for showing the haters at TomsHardware "how its done".

An important note is needed. I beleive more reasonably priced OpenGL 2.0 video cards need to come onto the market inorder to even out the ratio of OpenGL to the DirectX (shadder equiped) cards.

Re:Heh

[c0l0]

I've made similar experiences with Quake III with Punkbuster enabled. On WinNT 5.x, it seems impossible to get the game to run without SEVERE stuttering for the first 5 or so minutes it's been loaded - even on my 3.5GHz rig with a RAID0-setup. Under Linux, I fire up the binary, and get my 125fps from the very beginning of all the fun. That's just another good reason for Linux being my OS of choice. ;)

A Gaming VM

[Anonymous Coward]

some thoughts in the linuxgaming forums [happypenguin.org]

Why not do something like this? It might be 2d-only at first but it would satisfy the requirements of almost any game.

Random Thoughts

[MBCook]

I have a few random thoughts on this issue.

First Loki is mentioned in the article, in a way that seems to imply that they would be more successful today thanks to the larger installed base (which sounds plausable). That said, it made me think of something. What about Aspyr? They seem to specialize in porting Windows games to the Mac. If they are doing that (which would probably require moving the games to OpenGL and OpenAL if they don't use 'em already), then shouldn't it be a quick walk from there to Linux? Seems like as long as you are moving platforms, the little extra effort for the increased market share you can sell to seems like a good idea.

Second is Tux Racer. Why do these articles always mention Tux Racer. It was cute that it existed 5 years ago, but the last time I tried it (a year to so ago) it still seemed amaturish (not bad, just simple and not as polished as a "real" game). It just doesn't seem like it should be an example that is trotted out every time one of these articles comes out.

Too bad we can't just get more people to use OpenGL and OpenAL/SDL/whatever in the first place so things no NEED full ports to be sellable on Linux/BSD/OS X/whatever. If MS were to somehow lose 20%+ market share quickly, the scramble to move these Windows only programs to other OSes would be fun to watch.

Last but not least... why do I have to pay so much? I moved from PC to Mac and would have to rebuy all my games. The data files are where most of your money is tied up. Write portable, and sell one box with one DVD that works on Win/Lin/Mac. Or just sell a Windows version and when the Linux/Mac version are ready make the files freely downloadable so anyone with a Windows copy run under Linux/Mac.

If (seemingly) every big console game can come out on all three consoles within a year (usually at the same time), then surely you can launch a computer game that runs on the big 3 OSes (Win, Lin, Mac) without 2+ year porting times. The difference between a Mac and a Linux box are MUCH MUCH SMALLER than between a Cube and a PS2.

Re:Square peg -- Round hole

[mlmitton]

Why do we bother? Network externalities. For a number of reasons, I run Linux instead of Windows. I like (but don't love) gaming, and there's no question Windows is the place for that. However, if people don't use games on Linux, then there never will be any games for Linux. It's a chicken and egg problem that *somebody* has to step forward to try and solve. It'll be hard to convince game publishers to be the one to solve it, so that leaves Linux users.

Those of us who use Linux may need to boot Windows to play a particular game (if we have dual boot--I don't), but why not use Linux when a game is available? And why not let game publishers know that you would rather play, and be more likely to buy, if the game were released under Linux? It has to start somewhere, and that means us.

Kiddie games something to consider

[Anonymous Coward]

Another sector of the gaming market we seem to constantly ignore is kids' games. One of the things that might keep Joe Desktop from switching to Linux is that little Timmy's games won't work. Does Joe really want to have to run WineX or Cedega every time Timmy wants to play "Thomas the Tank Engine Goes to the Fair"? Probably not.

Re:Screw WineX, Cedega...

[martian265]

I'm sorry, but I'm too much of a gamer to just boycott games until the publishers/producers start pumping out games designed specifically for Linux. While it's a great idea, I'm afraid that it won't work. I think that they won't start doing this until consumers start buying computers installed with Linux regularly. The executives and marketing/salespeople just don't see the potential yet because most Linux users either build their own machine or install Linux onto a manufacturers machine.

Personally I would love to completely drop windows, and gaming is the only reason I still have XP. However, that doesn't mean that I'm willing to start boycotting the latest/greatest games, or start buying big manu computers that are sans OS or have Linux installed (I like getting a total custom system without propietary hardware crap and for cheaper than a comparable system from a manu). I realize that makes me "part of the problem", but I don't feel strongly enough about this to make the sacrifice.

FYI, if you think this is a strange attitude, I should mention that the only reason I ever got into computers was because of gaming. I played games all the way through commodores, amigas, x86s. Warcraft 2 is of course what really threw me full on into the computer world and later the industry.

Re:Boycott Transgaming

[oliverthered]

I'm working on DirectX 9 for vanila wine, you can checkout the current version from my website [oliverthered.com]. There's another update going up in a few days as well as instructions on patching the wine tree.
The current state of play is more-or-less everything works except shaders (because I haven't ported them from d3d8 yet), the current version has some texture problems, the fix will be in the next release.

Pardon my ignorance but what is "fragging"?

[World_Leader]

To an old-timer like me "fragging" meant killing your squad leader (typically a lieutenant) in Vietnam usually either for getting someone busted for smoking pot (or similar), or insisting on going on dangerous patrols (which usually were pointless.)

But, hey, now KIA is a car brand but to me it still means "Killed In Action", not the most attractive name for a car.

Re:List of games

[joeljkp]

Or even better, Icculus' list [icculus.org] of actual commercial games that run natively on Linux.

Re:Heh

[mike5904]

How much RAM, and what kind of video card do you have? I've found that Quake3 will run perfectly fine under XP, on the order of 150fps at high detail and 1600x1200 settings, with my 2 year old graphics card, 512MB of memory, and 2.4GHz processor (no disk striping either). I get a little bit less, around 135fps under Linux. Your problem really sounds like a configuration issue.

Well, I have to say...

[SQLz]

I played Max Payne 2 all the way through at 1280x1024 with almost all detail options on and it ran like a dream. Not a single crash, the FPS was great, and it felt native. In fact if I didn't know and saw someone playing it, I would have guessed it was native. I usually prefer native games but if WineX can deliever even a few top notch games that will never be ported to Linux (political/busines reasons), then I'd call it a success. I mean, if they can get 10 games to run like that on Linux, thats like a 100% increase in recent high quality games from the platform. (not counting old Loki stuff, its way to out of date)

I'm a gamer and I've used Linux exclusively for work since 1997 and have always booted into my Winetendo partition for games. Not having to do that to play a game as good as Max Payne 2 is great.

Those of you clamoring "native or nothing", good luck. There has been no significant rise in native ports for years. We get 1 or 2 big titles thats it. So, if WineX can deliver 1 or 2 more a year, thats fine with me.

Re:Screw WineX, Cedega...

[adam31]

Not trolling (not my intent at least), but the 'majority of games that define the "gaming world"' don't run on PC Windows either... They run on GC, PS2, X-Box, DC, PSP, GBA.

Go get one and enjoy the world of games, online and offline, that exist. Appreciate linux for whatever reason you decided to install it, but bickering about Respect Aw Communitay is not worth the effort when you can get a console for half the price of a year-old video card!

It's hard enough for publishers to make money off PC games already without having to worry about linux.
And if it makes you feel better, I'm positive that Linux games will flourish when the Cell gets a foothold.

Re:Cube

[smchris]

My feeling too. But then I assume you also ran it single-player. If you just look at it as arenas, they have to be pretty nice for tournaments.

I'm mostly annoyed that cursor key movements aren't the same as IDs.

A question I'd like to ask someone like you

[Anonymous Coward]

Since Cedega isn't released under the LGPL but Wine is and they're originally from the same codebase and both try to re-implement/emulate (or not)/replicate Windows - have there been any issues regarding "code theft"? That is, I know that Transgaming does make some contributions to Wine and gets some goodwill in return (I guess) but they also keep a lot of their source to themselves (due to copy protection issues or for commercial reasons) so has there ever been any suspicion that Transgaming has taken LGPL Wine source into their product without releasing their changes? I'm very grateful for the work you do (running IE with wine to test web applications on localhost is great) but have been wondering whether there are - or are likely to be - such issues in the Wine-Transgaming relationship.

Re:Heh

[jrockway]

Incorrect. I remember seeing some benchmarks a while ago about running UT2004 under Wine. The windows version under wine was faster than the windows version under windows.

Just goes to show you that Windows isn't good for anything. No security, and games are slow too.

Re:Well, I have to say...

[Bios_Hakr]

The problem is that you don't really know what you are missing.

I was curious, so I benchmarked UT2k4 under Linux and WinXP. I ran the test at 640*480 up to 1280*1024. All options were set to full on.

Linux always beet WinXP in every test. I was amazed. But then I started looking at the details.

Under Linux, I was missing FSAA and FSAF. Sure, you can tweak the xf86config file, but under WinXP, it's an in-game option.

Under Linux, the scenes just looked shittier. Even with both platforms set with AA/AF off, the WinXP scene looked cleaner. Lights were brighter and hilights, shadows, particles, etc all looked better.

And don't even get me started on bump-mapping.

Anyway, under Linux, the games run at a decent framerate, but you are always missing a lot of things that add to the atmosphere of the game.

Re:good enough

[jrockway]

> You don't understand flightsimmers: we need realism.

You're lying. Flightgear is ultra-realistic. The military uses it in their flight simulators. You know why it's hard to fly? Because you have to know what you're doing. Flying a real plane is not as simple as turning it on and moving a joystick. Flightgear is a true flight simulator, not a fun game to play.

This is the main drawback for me`

[PhreakinPenguin]

I hate to admit this, but gaming is the sole reason myself and alot of people I know haven't switched completely to linux. While their are alot of games that are "playable" under Linux/Wine, the bottom line is that performace wise, they don't match up to a Windows system. I don't blame the Open Source community for this, in fact I don't really blame anyone. But as long as people, read geeks, don't get equal or superior game performance in linux, they are always going to have a Windows system laying around.

Re:This is the main drawback for me`

[TheMESMERIC]

that is the idea!

That is why the "Dark Forces" threaten *any* company that dare port their games to Linux
.
* Half-Life had just about been ported to Linux [linuxgames.com] but then ... silence.

* Tribes 2 was ported and was extremely successful, then all of a sudden - all distributors were explicitly prohibited in making more copies. Despite huge demand.

* For sometime people have been lobbying to get WarCraft ported to Linux [blizzpub.net], the current signature holds 12'000. Not only that was ignored, but the attempt to have a Linux free alternative [freecraft.org] was immediately culled.

Again and again - understand - if Linux or Apple become true gaming platform, Microsoft will lose the Desktop war for good.
That is why we have the Blizzards, Vivendis and Sierras pro-actively stopping such thing from happening.

Of course they don't mind using Linux to develop game servers; free platform and stability; suits them all very fine ... "thanks very much!" - they say.

Gaming on Windows...

[Anonymous Coward]

...allmost didn't exist before DirectX... Games were running in DOS. There are complains here that X is lousy for games... there are no need for games to run under X, they could have their own graphic environment running from the non-graphic ui this could give us the nessesary performance.
On the other hand... it would be cool if we could run games from X... no need for having 20 pc's for a gameparty... just one 4-cpu box and some X-terminals... :-)

Re:Random Thoughts

[qa'lth]

This is why Loki failed.

Who wants to buy a Linux title for $60 when the Windows version is 6 months old and costs $25?

Back in the heady heyday of Loki, I suggested to them numerous times (the joy of IRC.. :) ) that they should be selling binaries that work with the existing datafiles. I'd pay $10 for a, say, Heavy Gear 2 binary that worked on Linux, but why waste $60 on rebuying the whole damn game?

Sadly, wise words were ignored and they tried to sell $60 games in a market of $25 competition.

Re:List of games

[kuzb]

Well, lets see. Black and White comes to mind as an innovative and creative style of play. There is always the Sims, which introduces some interesting gaming dynamics, albiet living a life when you already have one doesn't appeal to some. I particularly liked sacrifice by shiney, which tried to combine elements of a shooter with those of a RTS style game. Not to mention, Homeworld, which was a really polished completely 3d space RTS which was entertaining for weeks instead of an afternoon.

Not all of these concepts are original, but the execution and quality brought forth in each is lightyears better than anything the opensource community has ever produced. With the possible exception of Nethack, which is so complex and addictive that it remains one of my favorites.

Nethack, hoever, is the exception. Not the rule. Further, as a person who grew up on infocom adventures, I don't appreciate being called a kid. I played all the classics. And guess what? The best ones then were commercial too! I mean, Elite! Pirates gold! Sundog! Ooo! and who could forget Dungeons of Daggorath on the old trash-80? Not to mention the entire Sierra adventure set when it was still owned by Ken and Roberta Williams. In fact, I'd be willing to bet my computer gaming experience goes back farther than yours. I even owned an original pong tabletop arcade machine (that took quarters) - you don't get much more retro than that.

In closing - most opensource games DO suck. They're mostly clones of the same boring time-wasters lots of us are sick of. How many times can you play tetris, breakout, solitare and worthless little puzzle games before you want a new experience? So what if some of us crave some icing? Good graphics and sound add to the experience. It's not our fault you're stuck in 1981.