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Games Entertainment

Loki's Draeker On WineX, Transgaming And More 218

Posted by Hemos from the i-just-wanna-play-my-games dept.
pseen wrote to us with a conversation with Scott Draeker (of Loki Games concerning the recent Transgaming and Wine announcements, as well as the Mandrake Linux Gamer announcements.
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Loki's Draeker On WineX, Transgaming And More More

Loki's Draeker On WineX, Transgaming And More

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  • is there something like a WineX lib of sorts which lets you port windows programs using DirectX to a native linux app? could loki use this/

    • Re:wineX lib? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by garett_spencley ( 193892 )
      I don't think Loki would want to use something like that. Sure it would speed up devel-time but it would still just be a wrapper (a huge ugly wrapper) to native linux libs which would make things slow and ugly.

      Loki's philosophy has been 100% native linux software. They strip out all windows-specific code and replace it with linux-specific code. In the process they also fix and remove bugs in the windows version.

      Actually, there's another reason not to use wrappers. Using wrappers means there will be large blocks of code that the developers will never know anything about. Porting 100% of the code means that the developers understand the code much better which results in more bugs (from the original code that doesn't get thrown out) getting fixed.

      --
      Garett
  • If I'm going to play games, I'm not going to run them through an emulator. I keep 3 machines on my desk at work. One is a Win2K machine I use to get to network shares etc. that exist on the campus Novell network. One is an Apple G4 Cube to assist Apple users in trouble (remote workstation management). The other is the Linux machine I use to get actual work done.

    The division between work and play is simple: if I have a Ferrari and an '85 Volvo Wagon, I drive one when I want to do something fun and the other when I need to get from point A to point B. I'm not taking the Ferrari out of the garage anytime soon.

    Why waste time attempting "transgaming" when most gaming takes place on Windows boxes that people pick up at Best Buy for $599 minus MSN rebates that they're always hawking?

    • Why should linux have a windows like GUI? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by HanzoSan ( 251665 ) on Sunday October 28, 2001 @02:32PM (#2489971) Homepage Journal


      Simple, to get windows users to migrate to linux, giving linux more support with hardware such as drivers, and software.

      This is a GOOD thing.

      Windows users want games, they dont care if the games are native or not, they just want to play their OLD games in Linux.

      The new games can be native but the old games are what transgaming should be porting.
    • like the title says :)

    • Re:Here's the thing, though... (Score:5, Informative)

      by friedmud ( 512466 ) on Sunday October 28, 2001 @02:44PM (#2490002)
      WINE = Wine Is Not an Emulator

      Why can't people get this through their heads??

      This is not the same thing as VMWARE or VirtualPC for the Mac. This is an implementation of the Windows API for linux. What does that mean? It means games run just about the same in linux as in windows because there is no overhead of an emulator.

      With the case of Direct3d the WINE implementation actually converts the calls on the fly to OpenGL - it does not emulate a Direct3d card - it just does a conversion, there is a difference because when a Direct3d card is emulated (as in VirtualPC) the software that is run has no real knowledge of what is underneath - this is not so with WINE.

      You can even run things such as 3dmark 2000 because of this. I get about 2500 3dmarks on a 1.2GHz Athlon with 512MB of RAM and a Geforce2 MX - not quite as good as what I do in Windows, but it is damn smooth.

      So don't bash it unless you try it because it really does work.

      Derek
      • From the WINE faq:

        An emulator is something that duplicates the environment that an application runs in.

        Give that wine duplicates the win32 environment (the dlls) that a win32 application needs to run, WINE qualifies as an emulator according the very definition in their FAQ.

        Dinivin
      • WINE = Wine Is Not an Emulator
        Why can't people get this through their heads??

        Mostly because we can see beyond semantic games. If pine was an acronym for "Pine Is Not Email" would you believe it? If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably emulating a duck...

    • Re:Here's the thing, though... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Troodon ( 213660 ) on Sunday October 28, 2001 @05:24PM (#2490377) Homepage

      "If I'm going to play games, I'm not going to run them through an emulator. I keep 3 machines on my desk at work"...

      Thats very nice for you and for those in your situation, an ideal solution. 'Heres the thing, though' Im a student, and while I have enough disposable capital for games and the odd rare hardware upgrade, I certainly couldnt afford OS dedicated machines.

      Now while perhaps on an indvidual basis you are a much more interesting consumer, as a representative of a wider income range cohort, whom do you think might be a more attractive target?

  • The trouble with Transgaming... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by aussersterne ( 212916 ) on Sunday October 28, 2001 @01:47PM (#2489869) Homepage
    Is that it's using Wine. Maybe I'm behind the times or biased, but Wine has been around for a long time now and still can't even be used to run already-installed business applications like MS Word, much less the Word installer, much less still DirectX games, much less even that that installers for DirectX games...

    The one important commercial product released so far using Wine is Corel WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux, which was such a dismal failure that many users who paid hundreds in cash for it ended up buying the windows version in addition anyway to run under VMWare or Win4Lin.

    Wine simply has not proven itself a viable project. Don't get me wrong -- I'm not complaining about the Wine developers at all. I'm just wondering whether it's really possible (both legally and technically) to get a working, current implementation of the Windows and DirectX APIs on Linux.

    This question is, of course, in addition to the significant question of performance, not even addressed in this post...
    • Well, from a performance standpoint I can say that UltraHLE runs slightly better under wine than Windows and Terragen renders almost twice as fast for me under wine than Windows.
      I've had no real problems speed-wise with the tomb-raider demo (although it eventually crashed hard), the Alice demo (same thing, but that also crashes at the same spot in Windows) or Monster Truck Madness.
      But in general I agree, Terragen's user interface is screwed up and that should be something they have down pat by now. I consistently tried new wine builds for a while but don't bother with it to much anymore
      NOTE: Just like the original poster I'm not taking shots at the wine developers, porting the entire Windows API is a HUGE undertaking.

      • What kind of video card do you have? Is it possible to get UltraHLE to work with an OpenGL card under Wine? I'd be interested to hear about your setup, thanks.
        • I have a voodoo 2. I haven't tried to run UltraHLE in a long time, so I make no promises about the current Wine. I believe Linuxgames.com has a tutorial for this. But I'll tell you my experience.
          I have Windows 98 on a seperate partition, I don't know if that makes a difference to whether or not it works. One thing I did have to do is put the rom files I wanted to run in the C:\ directory because for some reason the UltraHLE program under Wine didn't like the spaces in
          "C:\Program Files\etc,etc."
          But your mileage may vary.

    • Re:The trouble with Transgaming... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ami Ganguli ( 921 ) on Sunday October 28, 2001 @02:07PM (#2489915) Homepage

      My impression is that Wine has been "almost" ready for ages. The basic structure is there and works, but the MS APIs are so large and innacurately documented that many individual functions don't work or don't work exactly as on Windows. Transgaming claims to have a DirectX implementation.

      The Transgaming approach of selecting specific games and making sure that the API calls they use work properly could actually work. The question is whether or not their business model will generate enough revenue to keep up the development.

    • When is the last time you used wine? Last I heard it could almost run office 2000. Wine is not like a lot of emulators because it is only emulating an API. Linux will of course make up for the speed loss. Transgaming is the only way Top-tier games beside 3d-shooters will be playable on linux. I got into linux because I thought it was the fastest OS thus games would be the fastest and would be a great game development system. A couple things have happened since then that have swayed my opinion. No graphics drivers in the kernel, everybody using Xwindows instead of command line, and DirectX. Loki is complaining about Transgaming when they should be offering to help. Don't they see if they have windows games runnable on linux that windows will be gone from that computer and then they will buy the linux ports and only use wine to play the old games?
      • Last I heard it could almost run office 2000
        "Almost" only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and thermonuclear war.
        • Almost is a couple months for wine unlike mozilla where almost has been a couple years.
          • It has been much longer than a couple of months for Wine. Wine has been around for years as well (it significantly predates Mozilla) and has never once been able to install and run a version of MS Word (let alone the rest of office) out of the box on a clean disk yet.

            There are scattered success stories with big hacks and careful choosing of DLLs on pre-installed windows partitions, but I've yet been able to duplicate any of them over the years. I've got Office 4.3, Office 95, Office 97 and Office 2000 here on-site and none of them work with Wine yet.

            Now they're going to try DirectX too... I think somebody is just way too optimistic. Good luck to them, though, it would be cool if they ever get any of it to work.
            • I'm saying they are a couple months away from significant progress. Wine has been around a long time but if you think about it mozilla really started with mosiac.
            • Look, MS Office is perhaps the HARDEST application to get working with Wine, because it's written by MS and is KNOWN to use various "hidden" (undocumented) APIs, as well as re-implementing most of a widget set.

              If a windows application is NOT written by Micro$oft, you have a much better chance of it working on Wine - the third-party application developer is limited to the same semi-documented windows interfaces that Micro$oft makes publically available, just as the Wine authors are.

              The fact that Office runs at all is a testament to the reverse-engineering skills of the Wine crew, as well being definitive proof that MS engages in anti-competitive measures like having one API for it's apps, and a (typically lower performance API) for third-party ones.

              Windows programmers bitch about this all the time, it's not just a problem for Wine users - basically, since Microsoft controls the platform, Microsoft can make sure that their applications work the best.
      • Yeah it can almost run alot of apps.

        But guess what? Close only counts in hors...

        Wine is typical of many open source projects, they get 3/4 of the way and fall appart. Unforutnately, there are many more Mozillas and Wines than Apache or Sambas out there.

        Perhaps it's time for a change of strategy?
      • > Last I heard it could almost run office 2000

        I have less ambitious goals. It can "almost" run the bridge builder game (bridgebuilder-game.com).. It installs and loads flawlessly, but then when the actual game starts the mouse pointer starts jerking around and I barely can move it because of an unimplemented directx function.
        The problem has been known for quite some time, yet no fix has been done. I was going to work on this but then I could "almost" compile wine from CVS. So I've given up on this for a while.

        Wine has always been teasing me, but the only succes I had was some primitive midi program for Windows 3.1 and some very small games.
        • You could "almost" write some code to fix it too. I'm tired of the complainers...slashdot used to be full of open-source hackers, now it's elitist complainers.

  • hey! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Hey if this works, when ff10 comes out for the pc in 3 years i bet somebody could get it to run under wine then someone could hack it to run under linux on a ps2!

    Then you could play ff10 on a playstation 2!!

    aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah duh, i be a opun sorz weetord.

  • Bah... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cmowire ( 254489 ) on Sunday October 28, 2001 @02:01PM (#2489905) Homepage
    He's only half right.

    Sure, Loki's got the right idea, but it's better than booting over into windows if you are a hardcore linux junkie. Transgaming has the potential to be just like booting over to windows, without the whole booting over nonsense.

    The problem is that most people who are hardcore linux junkies are also used to running multiple partitions for other reasons, which is why Loki's having problems.

    • Re:Bah... (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "The problem is that most people who are hardcore linux junkies are also used to running multiple partitions for other reasons, which is why Loki's having problems."


      They should port Arcade games that you can not play anywhere but the arcade over to linux. They should port console games to linux. I doubt Loki will do this since it actually makes sense, and as such it is an alien concept to them.

      • They should port Arcade games that you can not play anywhere but the arcade over to linux.

        http://x.mame.net

        They should port console games to linux

        xmess. Included with xmame (see above url)

        Why play a port when you can play the real thing?

  • The traditional Approuch FAILED (Score:3, Insightful)

    by HanzoSan ( 251665 ) on Sunday October 28, 2001 @02:24PM (#2489952) Homepage Journal


    Loki had their chance.
    They cannot do what needs to be done.
    What we need is games in linux, They dont have to be native games.

    I subcribed to transgaming, We are voting for them to mostly port old games, leaving the newer games to loki

    Loki will still have a job, Loki can port directX 9 based games, while WineX works with all the old games.

    The dicussions from the voting subcribers have said that most of them want old game support more than the new stuff.

    Loki is just being a typical company here, trying to have all the money to themselves.

    • > Loki is just being a typical company here, trying to have all the money to themselves.

      Which isn't much to begin with taking into account the size of the market.


      • Transgaming expands the market.

        First they have a new business model, which if proven possible, will finally prove you can make money on open source.

        Second they port games windows users already have, which makes windows users have no excuse not to use linux, making the market grow
    • Transgaming will fail in the same capacity. This is not something I rejoice in or look forward to, but it is inevitable. They have already overestimated the size of the market. Their goal of 20,000 subscribers is laughable. Considering that their money is coming from Mandrake, who likely paid for the Sims contract, whenever Mandrake realizes that TransGaming is a financial burden, they will be dropped. At that point, their 300-400 subscribers won't be able to keep them alive.
      • They only started taking subscriptions for a week.
        They didnt start advertising.
        They DO make money off of mandrake, and people who subscribe pay diffrent amounts, some pay $10, or $20 a month for more votes.

        400 subscribers in a week, thats damn good.

        Transgaming WILL definately fail if the market size doesnt increase, But I see Linux becoming more mainstream, Lindows for example should bring more windows people over, And Linux mandrake and KDE 3.0 should bring more windows users over to use Linux as a desktop.

        Linux has a future, Transgaming well get serveral thousand subscribers this year but, the real goal is to expand the market.

        Transgaming makes money by licensing their code, by subscribers, by partnerships, Lindows will most likely need transgaming code as well as anyone else with a Desktop Linux distro.

        Transgaming is definately making more money than code weavers and code weavers is still around, Transgaming will also make more money than Loki and Loki's been around for a while.

        Have some faith, give them some time.
        IF they still have 400 subscribers in jan 2002, then you should worry.

        The market however is growing, and as it grows, the gaming market grows, because desktop users are usually gamers.
        • 400 subscribers in a week, thats damn good.

          Didn't you say above that the first month is free?

          400 subscribers in a week; how many of them are PAYING subscribers? How many will continue their "subscription" when the bill arrives?

          I'm not trying to be negative, though I suppose it sounds that way. This is a genuine question.


          • The first month is free when you subscribe for an indefinate amount of time.

            I subscribed for 3 months.

            Transgaming has 3 months to come up with a useful product.

            When you subscribe with an indefinate account, they require you subscribe for at least 3 months anyhow.

            So the first month free thing is really just marketing.

            Like AOLs 500 free hours knowing theres not even 1000 huors in a month and knowing you are hooked into a contract for 2 years so whats a month.

    • unfortunately, getting decent games in linux is sorta difficult. While wine does provide a non-native approach, imagine how much better native ones could be (in addition to possibly being more portable, while wine was portable off of x86 last time i checked). What linux really needs is a graphical facelift, and some better driver support.
      I don't think loki wants all the money, they just don't want wine. separate ideals. however, you are right in saying that they [loki]couldn't get the job done, which was unfortunate. and wine does provide at least somewhere to start.

  • Draekers got a point, but ... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by halftrack ( 454203 ) <jonkje@gEEEmail.com minus threevowels> on Sunday October 28, 2001 @02:33PM (#2489974) Homepage
    The way I see it developers try to make money on games. Fast and easy API's are needed. Sure ther's OpenGL - better than DX some say - but it's just graphics. There's no wrapping. No joystick-, force feedback- or sound support and a set of Linux code will only compile on a Linux machine.

    All effors Mandrake, Transgaming, Wine developers and others are putting down in emulators, ports a.s.o. should be redirected to make an atractive API for both Linux and Windows. A top-top-level api. In bottom you could put OpenGL or DX depending on personal flavour or platform. One compile for each platform. There would be only one company maintaining the libraries. Game producers could then focus on an easy top level api and make whatever game run on any supported OS.

    I belive that joining effords in creating such a cross-platform api would ease up developers relationship to Linux as a gaming-platform. It can handle it.


  • Loki does not realize that they cant sell games to people who already own the windows version.

    Now, given the chance to buy the windows version and the linux version, most people will choose the linux version. But if theres only a windows version and now it works in transgaming, these people most likely werent going to buy the linux version if it DID come out, they most likely have been booting into windows.
  • do we want a watered down linux that everyone uses, or the linux we already have? Look... I'm not a linux elitest who says only "smart people should use linux" but I don't know how much I like the idea of running windows games on linux. I have alot of respect for what the wine people have done considering how gnarly the win32 api is (i've worked with it... ick), however thats the problem. Linux is relativly clean and well built, so why do we want to incorporate horribly written apis and code into our base? Alot of microsoft games don't even work right on microsoft computers with all the hidden hooks in win32, why would we assume that they'll work on linux? Another issue is the fact that sircam was demonstrated to run on wine, are we going to compromise security to play a few windows games? I'm on Draeker's side, if you want windows games then damnit, use windows. Of course there's always the "lets see if we can do it" argument which is a pretty good one, otherwise linux never even would of been here... but lets keep it at that. Now if they want to write some entertainement apps, why don't they write a quality dvd app (yes i know about the css licensing fees) because livid sucks or write some true linux games. As for me, if I get my hands on a windows computer game... I plan to use it in windows which is about the only thing I do in windows (except dvd). Its too much hassle to go figiting around with wine (I couldn't even imagine how random wine is right now with what works and not incorporating directx... i shudder at the thought).

    ps - Also if we keep a model of copying microsoft we'll find outselves always playing catch-up. For instance I got my hands on windows xp and was playing with wine and found that wine has no problem with win 2k advanced server or win me but seg faults on notepad.exe that comes with win xp. I know xp is officially supported however xp has a compatibility layer thing that allows programs to run as if they were win95 or winnt or win2k (its actually pretty cool). But it just makes me wonder just how much did microsoft break in releasing xp?


    • You tell them if they want games use windows.

      99 percent of computer users want games, email, surfing the web.
      Linux cant do games? Windows CAN? So they all use windows.
      • Your post doesn't make much sense... but linux can do games, just needs alittle fighting to get it done. The thing is people don't want to fight so with windows ease to use and the number of games already out... gamers may as well stick to windows. And i'm not talking about "everyone" i would like to make clear. I'm talking about linux users. If you are a linux user and want to play windows games, I would recommend you use to windows for those games. I know its a pain in the ass but it'll probably be quicker than reconfiguring wine.


        • You see, with no games in linux, and Loki and Linux people telling them keep using Windows.

          What will they do?

          Well, They will keep using windows.
          • let them keep using windows. I've had enough trouble trying to get my father and girlfriend to switch to linux hell with it. I think what your missing here is that loki may go bankrupt but linux will not and whether or not anyone else is using it i could care less. I use it because i like it. If someone wants to play games and they can't get it to work on linux, then use windows. Its not that big of a deal.


            • Which is why we should support transgaming.

              Transgaming may go bankrupt but all their games will work and their code will still be there.

              Loki goes bankrupt, and its like they never exsisted.

              And you say let them keep using windows? Well thats not what I want, i want linux to increase marketshare. So does transgaming and its subscribers, so we get better hardware support and real developers start porting games.
              • Transgaming has nothing to do with hardware support. Linux will never emulate drivers... as those are part of the kernel. If a game works on windows because windows has the display adapter device driver and linux doesn't then it won't work on linux no matter what you do. Transgaming is currently not opensource either... they are some mutant form which is their decision and i respect that. But if they do not get their $100,000 a month then they will not release their code into the wine project and will not become true open source and i don't see them getting $5 a month from 20,000 people anytime soon. As for loki, well they have a bad business model anyway but i still think theirs is a more logical one for linux. Linux needs linux apps, not ripped off half working windows ones. Example, can I ask you if you have ever used wine? If so then you know how it works and how transgaming is in for a hell of alot of work. If not i suggest you get a copy of it and try running some win programs. I still think loki has a better chance since if they write their apps in opengl its a matter of alittle changes and a recompile to port it to making a working game.


                • Hardware makers will make drivers for linux given a REASON to do so.

                  People who buy hardware are gamers, if linux has gamers, then linux will have hardware support.
                  • Most linux drivers are not written by companies, they are written by open source people. Driver creation only has to do with how open the hardware vender is. The reason matrox cards are so supported is because they are very friendly to open source by releasing hardware specs, etc. I think people are a little lost comparing linux to windows. They are not the same thing and are not aimed at the same markets. For programming and server stuff I use linux. For games and dvd i use windows. The example i gave was just that an example. I currently only have one piece of hardware not supported by linux which is the live drive for the soundblaster live. Just recently they released a driver for the midi sequencer in the soundblaster live which was not written by creative. Saying that people who buy hardware are gamers is an ignorant statement to make. Nvidia releases drivers for everything for linux because they do, not because people want to play games on linux. A geforce 2 isn't just for games its for everything. The video card is the only piece of hardware that affects games anyway... processor does but thats supported anyway, same thing with motherboard, ram, harddrive, etc. Games currently do not need anything that is not already out at a reasonable price. There is currently nothing that will run on a Geforce 3 card that will not run on my Geforce 2. Eventually yes, but now no and linux supports all that anyway so drivers are not an issue.


                    • With a bigger market, They'll write their drivers themselves like they do for windows and mac!
                    • Is this a good thing? Mac doesn't have drivers they have extensions and its all apple hardware anyway so of course they should write their own extensions. As for windows, how many buggy drivers have you used? How many updated drivers have you had to install? Companies apparently don't really care about drivers that much... hence why if you look microsoft writes a whole bunch of their own... much like the open source community. I recently installed Win XP and microsoft provided a driver for every piece of hardware i own. No 3rd party either. Linux doesn't have a problem with driver support... its there. Beos has a problem with that. BSD has a problem with that. Linux does not. So more games does not make that big of a difference for more and better drivers. Why do I need creative to write a half assed driver for something when some open source linux guy in canada already wrote a perfectly written one for me. If you write it fine the first time you don't need to upgrade... the hardware isn't changing.

                    • BS (Score:1)

                      by HanzoSan ( 251665 )
                      Linux didnt work right on my computer until recently, I HAD to use windows.

                      Now it works perfectly except for my cd burner.
                      Hardware support is a main reason why people dont use linux
                    • and those people should then use windows, which goes all the way back to my main point. And what hardware did you have that did not work in linux? Thats very strange unless you were using an older version or have old or random hardware. My cd burner works so... ?
    • If you want a good dvd player application for linux, then try out Ogle, it's easy to install and it works great. The website for Ogle is http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/groups/dvd/
  • Does he understand that the Linux community is rather tight knit, and that anything that can be done to increase the number of Linux users is a good thing? I mean, if he wants to be in business, he is going to have to realize that sometimes competetion is good.

    After all, 90% of 24,000 is less than 25% of 100,000.

    (these figures randomly generated by me)


  • "Why use Linux? It cant play any of my games!!!"

    "I've spent thousands of dollars on this state of the art computer to play games on it, Linux cant do that?"

    Sure Linux is secure

    "Why cant it play my games????????"

    Its stable

    "But it cant play my games!!!!!"

    Now lets look at what Loki says.

    Loki:"Well if you want games, you either buy the games you already own on windows again and from us, or you can use windows"

  • And that is the problem with WineX. That is why developers do not use Java to develop games. [Please don't turn this into a C++/Java flame war] But the fact of the matter is, whenever you put another layer between the hardware and end user software you incur an overhead.
    This isn't a problem with *most* applications. However, for games to run at 60 fps, you need to render a frame every 16ms or so. With this kind of constraint you do not want to be farting around with a VM.
    There are alternatives to this. The problem right now is the fact that a lot of developers use Direct3D rather than OpenGL to develop games. You could argue about what API you like better, but both APIs are functionaly complete [minus the time it takes for extensions to be approved when new hardware comes out]. Therefore, using a Turing machine argument, applications that are developed using Direct3D can be developed using OpenGL, and vice versa.
    But why do developers use Direct3D? Because cross-platform operability is not a big concern. It's a catch-22 situation. Developers do not develop games for Linux because nobody buys them. Noboby buys games for Linux because there are no games developed for Linux.
    Now, Quake 3 was an exception to the above argument. It was released for Linux...but nobody bought it strictly to play on Linux. And developers still don't have any confidence about releasing games for Linux.
    My advice, when Doom3 is released a year and a half down the road. Buy it. Play it. Play it on Linux. That is the only way to convince developers that Linux is a viable platform.

    SL
    • Wine Is Not an Emulator. Say it with me. A Java VM IS an emulator. It emulates a fictional processor that Sun made up.

      Wine is much more like a wrapper, and wrappers can be orders of magnitude faster than emulators. Wile it's true that a wrapper will introduce some overhead, it's not at all clear that the overhead must be significant.

      First of all, the wrapper may have small overhead per call. Second, the wrapper may have large overhead per call, but there may not be a lot of calls-- the program may spend the majority of its time in the main program, or in the actual wrapped calls.

      Look, I'm not some Wine fanatic. I know it's got a long way to go. But your argument makes a lot of assertions that I don't think you can prove.
      • Wrapper implies layer, layer implies slower. You've said that yourself. 1ms per frame is significant. It's the difference between 60fps and missing the VSYNC and rendering at 30fps. Developers want to write to the metal. Transgaming should spend it's resources helping developers write to the metal. Listen to the developers, give them what they want. SL
        • You can't do thought experiments to determine the validity of this approach. You have to test it on real-world data.

          While layer implies slower, it's not necessarily so. If Linux is more efficient, it can more than make up for the wrapper.

          Besides, it's not all about performance all the time. When was the last time you saw a game written for a particular graphics card, skipping the drivers, written to the bare metal? No one writes to the bare metal these days.

          There are times when it's appropriate to sacrifice performance for another good thing.

          Furthermore, we don't know what the delay is-- on a 1 GHz processor, it could be a microsecond.

          And it's more than possible, it's plausible that the game spends more than 90% of its time in the game and the drivers. If it's not spending much time in the actual API, then the wrapping doesn't matter.

          Name a game that is so badly designed that the framerate reduces by half when performance drops slightly.
  • Draeker adds: "The reason people use Linux is not because it's a great way to run Windows software. If you want Windows software then you should be running Windows. Our customers use Linux to run Linux software."

    Ok, suppose I want to run Linux software and Windows software? Is that outside the realm of possibility? In that case I have two choices, Wine and Cygwin.



    • Most people if forced to choose Linux or Windows software, Will choose windows software.

      What we need to do, is not force them to choose anymore, Just give them both and let them choose from inside Linux.

  • They should be friends. . . (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Webmonger ( 24302 ) on Sunday October 28, 2001 @03:27PM (#2490135) Homepage
    Loki should recognize that TransGaming is actually helping them.

    Where I live, there are a few streets that are absolutely infested with computer stores. If they were thinking like Loki here, this never would have happened. But storeowners realized that, far from stealing each other's business, they enhance each other's business. People know that if they want computer equipment, they should go to that street, and everyone benefits from that.

    Now let's say WineX helps Linux become a popular gaming platform. Most of my games work well enough that I don't use a Windows partition anymore. Now, when I go to the store, am I going to buy Unreal 2 for Windows, or Unreal 2 for Linux?

    Seems pretty obvious I'll get the one that's designed and optimized for Linux, rather than the one that will "probably work". Note also that TransGaming isn't focusing on games that Loki has ported.

    Of course, if there's no Linux version available yet, I'll have to think more carefully about whether I wait for a port, or get the Windows version. I guess ports can't be an afterthought if WineX succeeds.

    What I wonder, though, is whether TransGaming's working on a clone of the X box. If it takes off, WineX could win big there.

  • Has to be said (Score:3, Funny)

    by Robotech_Master ( 14247 ) on Sunday October 28, 2001 @03:36PM (#2490155) Homepage Journal
    Do I detect a hint of sour grapes in this W(h)ine? :)
  • from dictionary.com [dictionary.com]

    emulate (my-lt)
    tr.v. emulated, emulating, emulates
    1. To strive to equal or excel, especially through imitation: an older pupil
    whose accomplishments and style I emulated.
    2. To compete with successfully; approach or attain equality with.
    3. Computer Science. To imitate the function of (another system), as by modifications to hardware or software that allow the imitating system to accept the same data, execute the same
    programs, and achieve the same results as the imitated system    .(emphasis mine)

    Someone explain to me how wine does not fit definition #3?(I have nothing against WINE. I just don't see how it isn't an emulator.)

  • Cool (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Myuu ( 529245 )
    I am truely happy that there will be more competition on the linux gaming market. More Games!! However, WINE isn't the fastest program, I think win4lin would be better....
  • They want money for what they "might" do. This isn't a product where if I want to play a windows-only game, I can buy it and make it work. They aren't even making any guarentees on what works and what doesn't. Games they have listed as "working" are still flaky at best.

    I'd like nothing more then to play NHL 2002 on my linux system. A port is less then likely. So something like this is really my only option. But why wouldn't I suscribe? Pay $5/month to ask them to get a game working? There isn't even a guarentee that it will ever work.

    Now, it would be worth money, if it could actually play all DirectX 8 games. If I could buy a game that uses DirectX, and know it's going to work. THAT'S something that's actually worth money.

    Paying someone in advance for work they might do, and never even getting a guarentee that it's going to get done isn't something I do.


    • Are you a programmer? If you arent, then you have to pay some programmers $5 (wow Cds cost more) to write the code for you.

      This is a service, i bet you pay more in a day to travel! Breakfast costs more.

      Breakfast may taste like shit, your bus may be late, hey, thats how service works, this is how capitalism works, this is how the world works.

      You never know what you will get until its done.

      Paying for services is alot better than paying for something you'll never own, like say windows98.

      Would you rather pay in advance for a license to use something ? (windowsXP) or would you prefer to pay for a service which produces code which you OWN? (transgaming)?



    • The games which cant work, They dont even list.

      They list games which they think they can make work, which they have tested.

      I'm subcribed, every game listed has been tested and will work, but some bug, or small peice is mising keeping it from working.

      Transgaming does testing, then has you vote on the games you want to work.

  • I think this is a huge step forward. Many people that are tired of windows tell me they now want to try Linux.

    I myself subscribed to WineX and everything is working GREAT. I know several friends who also are interested in either the Mandrake Gaming edition or the WineX subscribtion. I'm pretty sure Transgaming are gonna make money pretty soon.

    And for Loki it doesn't have to mean bad times. When interest for Linux gaming is greater they'll get deals to port games to a native environment.

    Ciryon
  • Ok I tried compiling this stuff on mandrake 8.1 and it kept barfing on me. Anyone know where the packages can be downloaded from?
  • I'd be really curious to see something running in WINE versus the "In-Windows" running difference...

    I guess it's how much api calls are made, but that could be interresting for porting some stuff (especially rendering like Lightwave or MAX or truespace) over linux, build cheap renderfarms and not having to pay a 33% microsoft tax over each system for the OS to run over EACH node.
  • It doesn't matter that the games will be windows native. It's still non-free with a linux native binary, and it doesn't provide any real value either way.

    I say good on Transgaming for taking the initiative, a common binary (neccessary evil) format could also provide value for mac users.
  • Ok, so we talk about the philosophy and the this_product v. that_product side of things. But what i'm interested in is this: Transgaming's WineX seems to be trying to be able to accept all of the calls from a win32 game. As it gets better and better, accepting more and more calls, shouldn't it snowball..so that eventually it will properly accept them all/most? Is WineX customizing it's processing to the particular game? Shouldn't things get a lot better as we go along?
  • I like linux a lot and have followed it for about 3.5 years(or whenever Redhat 5.2 came out). I've also been trying to get into programming in my free time, focusing mainly on games and graphics(bought all the applicable best sellers). I wanted to someday program games for Linux, but games take a lot to do, and the industry is pretty competitive to get into, I hear. I would love to see linux get _completely_ up to speed in the driver and game support markets, like it's beginning to in the office suite area. Anyone think I could convince game companies to contract me out--cheap--to do their linux port for them, so they dont have to free up necessary developers for it? I'd do it for free if I had time outside of that to hold a regular job. Or would they likely shy from that idea, to protect their intellectual property? I think that open source programmers could do a lot by offering up their services to these companies. They'd probably just have to sign into a lot of legal stuff, to prevent closed source piracy. Insert criticism here.
  • This pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter:
    Draeker's response to Gupta's quote on how TranGaming is making the traditional approach obsolete: "Sure it does, in exactly the same way that deleting Linux and running Windows makes porting games to Linux obsolete."

    Draeker adds: "The reason people use Linux is not because it's a great way to run Windows software. If you want Windows software then you should be running Windows. Our customers use Linux to run Linux software.

    "When Loki ports a game we don't use emulation or other tricks. We are creating a native Linux application. That's the only way to take advantage of the features and stability that Linux offers. No Windows software, no matter how well emulated, can do that ... Linux users demand more than Windows software can offer."

    • Making windows games playable (with varying success) on Linux is just another example of playing catch-up. Like the other examples, this one mainly serves the purpose of showing PHBs and Microserfs that Linux is equally capable as Windows.

      What is so difficult about the fact that Linux is better than Windows because it is different. Of course this means that it is better in certain tasks, and worse in some.

      If things end up in a situation where we have a complete Windows UI and API sitting on top of Linux, you might just as well run the real thing.

  • Reality check from a game developer (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SimHacker ( 180785 ) on Sunday October 28, 2001 @11:51PM (#2491410) Homepage Journal
    I worked full time at Maxis on The Sims for three years, and all that time I kept the idea of porting The Sims to other platforms in mind. So I wrote code as portably as I had time to, and thought a lot about what would need to be done.

    I evangelised to my co-workers and managers at Maxis about how I thought Loki would be the ideal company to port The Sims to Linux. Since there really isn't much demand for a Linux port, I proposed doing a Mac port in a way that would facilitate them both. Before The Sims was ever released, I wrote and sent a proposal around Maxis, outlining how to port The Sims to the Mac and Linux, using SDL and Open GL.

    I met Scott Draeker at the Game Developers conference on March 7 2000, about a month after The Sims shipped on Feb 4. I suggested that Loki port The Sims to Linux, because I was optimistic that it was going to be a popular game. He didn't seem to think so, and brushed me off, with a "go away kid, you're bothering me" attitude.

    But I gave Scott Draeker the benefit of the doubt, that he was just tired after a long day in the trade show booth, and not really as curt and indifferent to the idea as he seemed.

    Once The Sims shipped, I left my full time job at Maxis to work on some of my own projects, but I kept working on The Sims for Maxis as a contractor. I worked on content creation tools, developed Transmogrifier and other stuff. I still have legitimate access to The Sims source code, and I keep Will Wright up to date on what I'm doing.

    As a proof of concept, I started porting The Sims to Linux on my own time. I hoped to overcome the skepticism of some people at Maxis, as well as Scott Draeker at Loki, by demonstrating that it was indeed possible, and experimenting to find the best approach empirically.

    My goal was to find the best approach to getting The Sims to run on Linux. Not just to use one particular technology or another. The end result is what matters most, not the way it's implemented.

    Thanks to the encouragement of John Gilmore, I certainly did consider using Wine, but at the time it was nowhere near sufficient. (But since then, Transgaming has made astounding progress with Wine, and it's now obviously quite sufficient, to my delight.)

    So I used SDL to do a native port of The Sims to Linux, and got most of the game running quite well, except for drawing the people and roofs (which would require hacking a system memory back end to Mesa), and sound (which would require using OpenAL, with which I hoped Loki would have been able to help me).

    I was actually quite surprised at how quickly I was able to get a native port of The Sims running on Linux. My previous experience porting SimCity [catalog.com] to Unix took a lot more time. But the tools are much better and computers are way faster now. And of course I was more familiar with the code base.

    I offered the results of my work to Loki on reasonable terms. They didn't seem interested. I talked to some people at Maxis about it, and they said that Loki had been discussing it with Maxis, but they hadn't heard back from them in a long time.

    I finally got some brusque uninformative email from Scott Draeker, and we talked briefly on the phone, but he said that he was really busy, he had a lot of paperwork in progress that had to be finish, and he'd get back to me some time. So I stopped working on the port, and waited to hear back from him...

    I considered approaching other Linux game companies about porting The Sims to Linux, but decided to wait, because I still believed Loki was the best company to do it, and I did not want to undercut their ongoing negotiations with Maxis. Just the opposite -- I encouraged Maxis to quickly reach a fair deal with Loki, because I believed we could work together to get it to market fast. But Maxis wasn't the only company dragging their feet.

    Months later, I finally read on the net that Loki had decided not to port The Sims to Linux, because "Maxis wanted too much money". By that time, The Sims had been topping the charts for months, so of course Maxis was asking a lot for it.

    What I didn't know at the time, was that Loki was soon to declare Chapter 11. So it was actually a combination of Maxis wanting a lot for it, and Loki not having any money. But of course Draeker didn't mention that fact at the time.

    But fortunately, my time and effort porting The Sims to Linux was not wasted, because Maxis needed The Sims to run on Linux, as the multi-player game server for The Sims Online.

    So I used the original port at a guide, and more cleanly ported and optimized the newer Sims Online code to Linux again, making a headless build without all the graphics (removing SDL and DirectX). But the Linux build of the code is for Maxis's internal use on their servers, not as a commercial product for Linux.

    I made the same code base compile on both Windows and Linux, and both with or without graphic. The SDL graphics code still works on Linux, but it's only used for diagnostic and debugging purposes, and not for production.

    It's nice to run the graphical build of the Linux server in order to see what the server's doing during development. But the production server can't require a connection to an X server, and doesn't read in any graphics, because many must run on the same machine in parallel.

    Even though Loki blew their chance to port The Sims to Linux, I still wanted to see it happen anyway. But because so much time had passed since the release of The Sims, I would rather put my efforts into finishing porting The Sims Online client to Linux, and work with some other company than Loki.

    But I discussed it with Will Wright, and he explained to me in his reasonable, thoughtful, well considered manner: a native port of The Sims Online client to Linux would not be practical as a commercial product, because of its nature as a dynamically updated online game.

    The way The Sims Online and many other online games work, is that the server and the clients all run the same deterministic simulation in lock step, funneling any user requested changes through a central "headless" server, so the actions can be scheduled to happen at the same time in all parallel universes.

    So the server simulation and protocol must be *EXACTLY* the same as the clients, or all hell will break loose. Any online game, no matter what the architecture, requires that the client and the servers be in sync. That's not so hard if the game is trivial like Othello or Quake, but The Sims network protocol is much more complex and quite sensitive to incompatibilities.

    So there is absolutely no way to support any more than one client executable, because the clients and servers must be updated together in real time by downloading patches, just like Ultima Online and other games.

    In order for there to be a Linux port (or a Mac port), it would necessarily have to be done in-house at Maxis, built off of the same code tree, developed in parallel.

    It is simply not possible for a third party developer like Loki to stay in sync with the ongoing development at Maxis of The Sims Online. That would require enormous overhead and resources on the part of Maxis, all for an extremely negative return on investment: it would extremely complicate and slow down the development process, require extra programmers, quality assurance people with Linux skills, etc.

    Cross platform development requires a LOT of overhead -- please believe me if you haven't tried it. The gross income from selling Linux clients would be infintesimal, and would never outweigh the enormous cost of development. There is absolutely no way EA would ever allow Maxis to flush their stock holders' money down the toilet like that.

    That is the harsh, real, undenyable reason that Wine is the most practical and economical way to run games on Linux.

    I am quite pleased that Transgaming has developed Wine so far that it can now actually run The Sims! What's wrong with one Linux company coming up with a free and practical implementation of a great idea, that puts another Linux company out of business? Think of it as evolution in action, to quote somebody whose name doesn't deserve mentioning.

    The way Transgaming has improved Wine is so generally beneficial, that running The Sims Online on Linux the very day it's release on Windows, is now practically in the bag! With Loki's pace and approach, there was never any hope of that.

    The thing that matters most is the fact that a game DOES run on Linux, not HOW it's implemented. Real People in the Real World don't care about religious issues like if it's running under Wine or if it's a native port. It takes over the whole screen anyway, so what does it matter? The end experience is the same.

    Thanks to the generality of Wine, now there exists a whole spectrum of solutions, from binary emulation, to recompilation, all the way to native porting. Wine could be an extremely useful tool in the process of doing a fully native port.

    Those irrational people who reject Wine for purely political reasons, are doing much more damage to Linux than Wine will ever do. They're trying to argue that trivial invisible implementation details matter so much to users, that they would reject Linux if their favorite games weren't native ports, even if they ran under Wine. That's totally ridiculous.

    The fact that a game runs on Linux at all, is MUCH more important than whether or not it's a native port.

    Another advantage to Transgaming's Wine approach, is that all the existing free external tools like Transmogrifier, SimShow, Facelift, Art Studio, Home Crafer, Menu Edit, File Cop, and the many third party tools, will all probably run under Wine. And if they don't, Transgaming considers it a bug in Wine, and wants to fix it. Most of those tools will never be ported native to Linux, so the only way to use them is though Wine.

    I just can't believe that people would attack Transgaming for all that they've done and given back to the community. The alternative is for Linux to simply hold its breath and go without most games.

    The consequences of that alternative are dreadful, and much more harmful to Linux than the imaginary consequences of Wine. Now that Wine has been improved enough to run games like The Sims, it has so many other wonderful uses as well. Why would you ever consider sacrificing all that?

    It's not worth attacking Wine out of political correctness, in order to wait around forever for native ports that will never happen. Please don't cut off your nose to spite your face.

    -Don [donhopkins.com]

    • You mention Ultima Online. I never tried it, but I remember seeing that they had released a non-supported linux client. Presumably therefore it was functional _in some sense_...

      Otherwise you make a lot of sense. These methods are just two different ways of doing things. Last night I downloaded the loki demo to Kohan and, besides for having a good bit of fun, it ran very smoothly. Loki does its job well. But if I had the choice of not having a game on linux, and having it run on linux in non-native form (and working), I'd choose the latter.
  • "When Loki ports a game we don't use emulation or other tricks. We are creating a native Linux application. That's the only way to take advantage of the features and stability that Linux offers. No Windows software, no matter how well emulated, can do that ... Linux users demand more than Windows software can offer."

    Since when is Win32 software inherently unstable? Honestly, can it be proven that a Windows game is unstable just because it's a Windows game? I think not... Quake III is rock-solid on my machine. Through 3 CPU's, 3 OS' and 3 video cards, it's been great. I haven't had it crash on me at all this year. It starts when I start it (every time), it ends when I end it (without crashing).

    What's so unstable about it? In fact, I have a grand total of three programs that crash on my machine (Max Payne and the two 3DMark programs). Sounds fine to me, since it's a grand total of ONE engine that crashes on me.

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