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Games Software Entertainment Linux

WineX and the Future of Linux Gaming 93

Posted by Cliff from the linux-native-games dept.
SQLz asks: "I'm a Linux user and an avid gamer but unfortunately for me, I have a very limited selection of games to play without having to reboot into my 'Xbox partition' (a Win2k partition with only games). To supplement my aging collection of Loki titles, as well as UT2003 and a few Q3A mods, I use WineX to play titles like Battlefield 1942, SimCity 4, and Homeworld Cataclysm. Apparently this is bad, as many people in the community feel that Transgaming's WineX is discouraging developers from creating native Linux ports. Does anyone have any real proof of this happening? Do developers really point out WineX as a alternative to doing a native Linux port?"
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WineX and the Future of Linux Gaming More

WineX and the Future of Linux Gaming

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  • Don't think so (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jazir1979 ( 637570 ) on Monday August 18, 2003 @09:58PM (#6729297)
    If MS Word worked really well under wine, would that stop people from wanting a native Linux word processor?

    WineX is great, but nothing beats a native game, and developers using WineX as an excuse to be windows-only are just lazy.

    Okay perhaps you are right - laziness is very common after all ;)

    • Re:Don't think so (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gregh76 ( 121243 ) on Monday August 18, 2003 @10:34PM (#6729565)
      Lazy? How can you make such a stupid comment?

      Did you ever stop to think that it's ultimately not up to the developers? The game companies are, first and foremost, businesses. Considering what happened to Loki, porting mainstream games to Linux is not profitable (yet, anyway). Too bad, too. I bought Loki's ports of SOF and Q3A and thoroughly enjoyed playing them.

      Where I work (not the gaming industry), developers' ideas are constantly getting shot down due to lack of money. And it often doesn't matter how good the idea is or whether it will make things "better" or not.

      • Yeah, that's a fair enough dig at my comment. I was not really thinking in terms of commercial games (and I should have been).

        The same is true where I work (also not the gaming industry).
      • Bzzt! Wrong answer.

        If you think Loki went out of business because there was no money to be made doing native Linux game ports, you need to read this [linuxandmain.com]. It may have been a problem, but it certainly wasn't the biggest one.

        Unfortunately, I think a lot of people are living under the same bad assumption as the parent. Maybe someone else will take another crack at this, and do it right next time.
        • Regardless of your management (as was obviously a problem at Loki), selling ~7500-9000 copies of a port usually means that you're going to stop porting to that platform, especially when the game sold quite well for Windows, and that was the best-selling game for Loki. When one of the most outspoken supporters of Linux gaming ends up being among the creditors that Loki owed money to when they filed bankruptcy, there's a good chance that things are going to dry up for at least a little while.

    • There is no Linux "game market" (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AHumbleOpinion ( 546848 ) on Monday August 18, 2003 @11:15PM (#6729805) Homepage
      ... developers using WineX as an excuse to be windows-only are just lazy

      No they are profit oriented. The Linux "game market" is not as large as most people think. It is not the number of people willing to buy a Linux port of a game. It is only those individuals who would never buy the Win32 version of the game. Most Linux gamers dual boot or use WineX, they are already customers. A Linux port does not generate a new sale, it merely replaces a Win32 sale with a Linux sale, there is no new profit, no economic justification for the port.
      • Thanks... this has actually enlightened me to why we should stop buying Windows games. Before I couldn't really picture the economic reasoning, but if we're already buying stuff for WineX, we're not like Mac users who only buy Mac-compatible gaming software and thus we lessen the impact of porting directly to Linux.
        • It is a "blessing" for Mac gamers that their system uses a different CPU. On the Mac emulators need to emulate the CPU's instruction set not merely Win32/DirectX APIs. For business apps this is often fine but for games it's like taking your CPU clockrate and dividing by 5. Got that new 2 GHz PowerMac G5, divide by 5, 400 MHz. Look for PC games with a recommended system of 400 MHz. YMMV.

          Unlike Linux gamers, without a native port you just couldn't get a Mac gamer's money.

  • Well... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Sevn ( 12012 ) on Monday August 18, 2003 @09:59PM (#6729308) Homepage Journal
    Up until a little while ago, you could grab the winex source from cvs. They do appear to be discouraging this now. I know they flipped out on the Gentoo guys for having an easy ebuild to install it from cvs. I know the cvs server is practically unusable. It took me 4 days with a slick cron job to get the source from cvs a few months back. For the time being I have a "Windendo" partition also. I think it's going to take a few years before companys start following the ID example in larger numbers. You think more game companys would realize the dedicated fan base they get from doing multiple OS releases. It's like instant geek points. Makes them look more technologically advanced. I wish Sierra released Linux games. I'd kill for some NOLF style fun under Linux.

    • Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jay Cornwall ( 525499 ) <jayNO@SPAMevilrealms.net> on Tuesday August 19, 2003 @02:25AM (#6730496) Homepage
      To be fair, CVS was never designed for the kind of mass distribution that many WineX users expect from it. A lot of people seem to checkout the source, build it, and delete the old source - if they fancy a new version, they just reget the entire source tree from the CVS server. It's put the Sourceforge CVS server under a lot of strain (or at least contributed heavily to it), which has made it almost unusable at times for other projects, where users genuinely need CVS checkouts to build and update from.

      I think Transgaming took the right step in discouraging automated checkouts, but I still think they should consider releasing nightly tarball snapshots of CVS for users to download. Sourceforge has a lot of bandwidth available for file distribution, and the majority of users wouldn't care whether their WineX came from the CVS server or from a tar.bz2.

      (If you'd like to see evidence of this, wander in to #winex on irc.freenode.net - note the number of completely clueless people who ask for help with CVS throughout the day. They're just looking for free WineX, they're not interested in testing/development at all)

    • There is a forum thread about them pulling the Gentoo ebuilds, and also a lot of interesting commentary, is here [gentoo.org].

  • No, actually they point out that doing something that will make them money is the alternative to doing a Linux port.

  • The thing stopping more linux games is... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dafoomie ( 521507 ) <dafoomie@@@hotmail...com> on Monday August 18, 2003 @10:16PM (#6729440) Homepage
    Profitability. Or lack thereof. Same reason why there aren't more Mac games. Do the potential gains justify the cost of porting it? Some games would be easier than others, but theres not a lot of money to be made in the Linux market.

    The other thing is that most people that play these kinds of games dualboot windows/linux. I'd say dualbooting is much more prevalent than using winex for games.

    I'm not saying anything negative about Linux. I use Linux. But how many gamers, or just regular casual gamers, use Linux and only Linux at home?
    • But how many gamers, or just regular casual gamers, use Linux and only Linux at home?

      That number is right around zero, I would say. Hardcore gamers would never choose Linux as their OS, for obvious reasons, and what 'regular casual gamer' has the technical skills to use Linux? Most of that sort can barely use Windows.

      Did you ever wonder what life would be like?
      • I guess I am one of the 'near zero'. I am a regular casual gamer with only linux at home. This has prevented me from buying any new games for quite some time. When I did play Descent or Heros of Might and Magic way back when, I had a blast. I wish I could get more games like that that ran on linx. I haven't moved on to use wineX out of pure bull headedness. I hate to think that I am paying twice for anything and that is what it seems like I am doing. Paying once for the game and again to make the game work
      • Well, at least one (M$-OS's get ritually burned here). Q3A, UT and UT2003 were all available for Linux, and I've thrown weeks/months/years into playing them online. Then came Enemy Territory, and it's chewing up all my time now. It seems that 'Hardcore Gamers' is definied as all those CS freaks, but if you look beyond CS you'll find quite a few interesting titles, even for the hardcore gamer.

        However, the only thing I sometimes miss are good Linux-based RTS-games. Starcraft works perfectly using Wine, but

        • It seems that 'Hardcore Gamers' is definied as all those CS freaks, but if you look beyond CS you'll find quite a few interesting titles, even for the hardcore gamer.

          Usually hardcore gamer is defined as someone that plays a large number of games, meaning more retail games than are released for Linux in any given time-frame.

          On the other hand, there are many other ways to look at it, for instance someone that's played CS since it's initial public beta and still plays it today could be considered a hardcore
          • I consider myself a semi-hardcore gamer and I use nothing but linux. Gentoo is a great distribution for playing games because it's pretty easy to grab the latest drivers and sofware needed to get the non-native games working. e.g. WineX, NVidia drivers. The native games are always a plus too. Enemy Territory was definately a blessing. I used to dual-boot but stopped once I was able to afford a computer that could handle running games in WineX at a decent speed. Of course it takes some skill to get some thi
      • You're not correct. I have all Linux computers, but I am an avid gamer (playing some games via WineX) and own several consoles:
        Dreamcast, Genesis, Gamecube, PS1, PS2 and an X-Box.

        I hate Microsofts operating system. It cheeses me off to no end, and my wife isn't too fond of it, now that I make her install and manage it herself. (I got sick of it).

        I know several other people (even ones who have Windows OS) who mainly play in Linux or a Console or both.

        Ciao!
      • Hardcore gamers would never choose Linux as their OS, for obvious reasons, and what 'regular casual gamer' has the technical skills to use Linux?

        The same percentage as the hardcore gamers I'd suspect. I'll now counter your argument with "What non D&D player would ever read a book? Most of that sort can barely read the weekly world news".
    • Profitability. Or lack thereof. Same reason why there aren't more Mac games. Do the potential gains justify the cost of porting it?

      Er, you mean "Portability". Porting is cheap if you use cross-platform APIs from the beginning. What's needed more than anything is OpenGL 2.0 and SDL 2.0, so game companies can stop writing to DirectX.

      I'm not saying anything negative about Linux. I use Linux. But how many gamers, or just regular casual gamers, use Linux and only Linux at home?

      I do, but that's probably g

      • Re:The thing stopping more linux games is... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by TechnoPope ( 516563 ) on Monday August 18, 2003 @11:56PM (#6729966) Homepage
        Er, you mean "Portability". Porting is cheap if you use cross-platform APIs from the beginning. What's needed more than anything is OpenGL 2.0 and SDL 2.0, so game companies can stop writing to DirectX.

        I feel this actually shows how young you appear to be. Game companies really aren't all that interested in writing to many standards. This was apperent during the OpenGL/glide/Direct3D days. Right now, there is pretty much one viable choice for developers, Directx.

        Because of it's installed user base, DirectX already has an edge, not to mention that DirectX makes many things, like network play, easier on the developer by giving them a pre-built framework. The other problem is that the majority of game developers look at DirectX as a godsend in terms of getting hardware to work. Easy access to all of the advanced features of the hardware without having to work for it.

        While it is possible for OpenGL to make a comeback against D3D, SDL is kind of stuck. It's not going to provide enough features to make developers switch to it. As it stands, the only thing it holds over DirectX is that it is open and cross platform. Unfortunatly, this doesn't mean much to a game company who, in all honesty, isn't all that concerned with the small percentage of non-Windows gamers.

        • Re:The thing stopping more linux games is... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by EthSoma ( 136344 ) on Tuesday August 19, 2003 @12:54AM (#6730234)
          Hey, I've got a smaller user id than you ;)

          The point I was trying to make and maybe made too quickly is: the reason for the lack of native Linux games has more to do with the current lack of competitive cross-platform APIs than it does the number of Linux gamers. 1% martketshare is easily enough to justify a port if the cost of a port is effectively nothing. I think you reinforce that point.
          • Maybe the best argument in favour of cross-platform APIs for gaming companies is not Linux, but Mac OS.

            Mac users can't usually run windoze for games, they are a somewhat smaller market than windoze, but still much more significant in terms of money spent on such things than Linux. If there was an API that made porting to Mac OS a no-brainer, that might justify the investment into not using DirectX any more (remember, they've been using it for some time now, and they know it in and out), and a Linux port mi

            • If there was an API that made porting to Mac OS a no-brainer, that might justify the investment into not using DirectX any more (remember, they've been using it for some time now, and they know it in and out), and a Linux port might become a byproduct of producing for both the windoze and Mac worlds.

              The problem isn't just the investment of time into DirectX, but the very thing that brought DirectX into the front in the first place: that it moves much more quickly than OpenGL/SDL. DirectX has a standard wa
        • was DirectX considered alongside Internet Explorer in the Antitrust case?
        • I believe you a wrong! Cross platform IS something to worry about - without it, your game will not work on the PS2 - and saying no to PS2 sales isn't a smart move.

          So you HAVE to make your game platform independant to make it work on XBox, Windows AND PS2.

          And if you do it nicely, it shouldnt really be a problem to add linux support in there as well.

          But when that is said - gaming on Windows/Linux will mostly die within 5-10 years. The average user doesnt want the current mess with drivers an what have you.

    • Re:The thing stopping more linux games is... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by UnknownSoldier ( 67820 ) on Tuesday August 19, 2003 @08:40AM (#6732205)
      > Profitability. Or lack thereof. Same reason why there aren't more Mac games.

      IAAGD. (I am a game developer.) Take this with a grain of salt.

      I disagree. These days you're game is usually running on a PC + console, unless you're a really small developer. (Consoles generate more money, so it's not financially wise to ignore them.) Now you could argue Win32+Xbox, but how many [game] developers are *strictly* tied to the Intel platform?

      Do the gains justify porting? From an engineering point of view -- I'd say "Hell Yeah!" You find SO many hidden and potential bugs in your code-base. From a financial point of view, the attitude is "you developers want to take HOW much more time, to get a small percentage in stability?!? Ship it when it's supposed to be!" :-( The perceived gains, don't just the cost (of paying developers.)

      You implied the real reason "but theres not a lot of money to be made in the Linux market." Carmack has experienced it, we've experienced, and anyone else who has ported their client** to Linux. The sad and unfortunate truth, is that the BIGGEST reason for the lack of Linux games, is a complete and utter lack of SALES. True, it's a chicken and egg problem -- there just aren't that many Linux desktop users compared to Windows users. Same for Mac users. If they would buy more games, we'd be more inclined to port to Linux. It also doesn't help when the Linux version ships 1 year later, after the Windows version.

      I'd be curious in the buying decision when the Win32 and Linux client are seperate SKUs.

      Well, that's my take on it. Feel free to debate it.

      ** There have always been more Linux (game) servers then clients. Standardized networking (TCP/UDP) plays a big part in this.
    • Uhhhh..... I do. I simply made the decision to use Linux exclusively, and that includes gaming, and I would consider myself to lie somewhere between "casual" and "hardcore" on the gamer spectrum. Averaged out, I probably spend an hour or so a day gaming. ANY time I can get a native linux version over running a win32 version in wine, I will. In fact, there have been several titles I have bought Linux versions of even though I already owned win32 versions simply because they were available natively and I no l
  • At least you have the option of running WineX for unported games. I'm sure there are currently more Mac desktop machines out there than Linux desktop machines, and look how few ports there are to the Mac. And with a few exceptions, most games that are ported take at least a year (or even longer). If the Linux gamer's market is smaller, how do you expect companies to make a business case for porting to Linux? They're not until Linux becomes more prevalent on the desktop side.

    And now, for fun's sake,

    • Re:Mac Gaming (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Monday August 18, 2003 @10:49PM (#6729664) Journal
      Well, if you want to debate why companies would want to release linux versions of their games, why not look at the three companies that did. ID, Bioware and whoever does unreal. So why did they bother, well in all three cases as far as I know it was because at least one coder wanted to do it and was prepared to work on it in their free time.

      So why did the companies allow it? Why not? All it did was generate good publicity, no support costs, no development costs.

      But there may be another reason why companies should look at linux/mac. Microsoft is a direct competitor to every game company. It has been producing games for a long time but since directx it also controls the enviroment in wich games play. It has been found guilty in the past of using hidden parts of windows api to give itself an advantage over competitors in the desktop market. Is it really beyong belief that MS is doing or doing to do the same thing with DirectX?

      With them now also involved in hardware it may be to any games company advantage to be flexible on hardware. It is already perfectly normal for games to be crossplatform why not include two more and cover 100% off all computer owners?

      A dream? Years ago I read an article on OSes in a gaming mag. Linux was mentioned as a geek plaything that could barely play solitaire. Now many Multiplayer games depend on it for reliable servers. Who knows what will happen in the next few years.

      What I am still wondering about is why no game company has created the selfbooting game. No problem without to date drivers or thousand of background services causing crashes blamed on youre game. But then I suppose that would be like expecting hardware manufacturers to include software for a bootdisk with the bios files.

      • So why did they bother

        Some games are ported to Linux because they want Linux based game servers. Once you have the server the client-side game is a small step, but without the server there would be no client-side game. There's no money in it otherwise. Even id had stated in Game Developer magazine that a Linux port of Quake did not make business sense, they only did it because they thought it would be cool.

        • Once you have the server the client-side game is a small step

          I disagree. Linux provides a fast, stable, and easy-to-write-for platform for non-interactive, non-graphical network applications (such as game servers). However, it is the graphics and sound support that is still in a state of evolution--from drivers to APIs. And it is these aspects (the drivers in particular) that are, in many cases, lacking. So, when it comes to getting it working on Linux, the graphical, interactive client is certainly a far

          • Not really. The secret is to gracefully degrade when support for more advanced features is lacking. I've been told by Mac developers that a Direct3D/OpenGL shim is not that hard. However don't the cited games support OpenGL on the Windows side? With such games graphics is not an issue. Regarding sound the games can stick to basic sound support and avoid advanced and/or new functionality. The Windows side already has multiple sound paths due to the limitted capabilities of many PCs. Not all paths need to be

      • Re:Mac Gaming (Score:4, Interesting)

        by ghostlibrary ( 450718 ) on Tuesday August 19, 2003 @03:18AM (#6730736) Homepage Journal
        >What I am still wondering about is why no game company has created the selfbooting game.

        A self-booting game would have to include all possible video and sound (and network, if netplaying) drivers that the player's system _might_ have, and autodetect them flawlessly. While I've had great luck with Mandrake doing this, it's still not perfect.

        At least with a PC under Linux or Windows, the user has already gone through configuration hell getting things to work, and non-self-booting games can assume all systems okay and just use the API (DirectX or OpenGL).

        That's also the advantage of consoles, actually-- you can self-boot because the hardware is exactly known.

        • Re:Mac Gaming (Score:2, Interesting)

          by kiwaiti ( 95197 )
          Have you tried KNOPPIX [knoppix.org]?

          It is a CDROM live file system distribution with an amazing hardware detection and driver base. Basing a bootable game on it would make it run on pretty much every PC currently available.

          Kiwaiti

        • Gentoo Games has already done a self-booting game using America's Army.
      • What I am still wondering about is why no game company has created the selfbooting game.

        There is ... for Linux, anyway.

        Check out Gentoo Games [gentoogames.com] who already made Live CDs of Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, and America's Army.

        They work great .. just pop them in your puter, boot up, it detects everything, and runs over the network.

      • What I am still wondering about is why no game company has created the selfbooting game.

        Reminds me of the Amiga... sigh...

        At least with that platform, the only thing that could really change was the amount of memory installed. Easy to deal with that, a nice label on the box that says, "1 MB Required," for example.

  • Community (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Monday August 18, 2003 @10:33PM (#6729560) Homepage Journal
    I think the problem here is that the video game industry is contrary to the linux community in nature. The gaming industry creates closed source software and sells it in the store for money with a license for 1 machine. Linux is free as in beer and as in speech, and the software for it is usually the same.

    The problem is that the same people who like those closed source games (myself included) also like linux. I think that if linux wants to establish itself as a gaming platform it needs games exclusive to itself that are as good or better than games for windows. More people need to start open source games/game engines for linux. One for every genre would be good.

    When I look for video game hardware, especially consoles, the number one question on my mind is "what must-play games are here that aren't anywhere else". That's why I own a GameCube, and that why I use Windows to play games. XBoX and PS2 have good games, but the cube just has more games that I absolutely must play that aren't available for the pc or in the arcade, or on any other platform.

    Conclusion: Make new open source games for linux. Make them high quality. Make them so good that people running windows will install linux just to play these games. Remember a really good free game is more popular than a slightly better $50 game. Counter-Strike is free, and I believe it's still #1.

    End Rant!
    • the number one question on my mind is "what must-play games are here that aren't anywhere else".

      TuxRacer not good enough for you, eh?

      Seriously though, I don't think you'll see too many high-quality linux-only games; I think the basic trend for programming (anything, not just games), is that if you wrote it on linux using open source tools, it's easier to port to other platforms, but if you wrote it on windows with some proprietary tools, it will be very hard to port to other platforms. This works in favo
    • ...it'd be so weird.

      It's so easy to say: "Make new open source games for linux. Make them high quality". Do you think people strive to make low quality games?

      As far as I can see, there are 2 primary differences between games and most other software:

      1) Product cycle. Unlike other software, most games are one-time products. This is true for any game with a story of any sort - most single-player games. Developing games like other open-source software, by releasing mostly-completed (read half-completed) soft

    • Re:Community (Score:3, Insightful)

      by BenjyD ( 316700 )
      Free games is a great idea, and I play Day of Defeat (free half-life mod) all the time. However, most of the decent free games are reasonably simple. A Half Life mod, although a major piece of work, is a tiny amount of work compared to (say) Zelda:WW. The CS people don't need to bother with story or cut scenes, the levels are all pretty small and simple.
      I don't think open source games are the way to get gamers to use Linux. The only way that will happen is if a majority of new titles have a linux version re

  • A better Wine(x), better are the chances... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ptaff ( 165113 ) on Monday August 18, 2003 @10:46PM (#6729644) Homepage
    An almost-perfect Wine/WineX 'emulation' of some parts of a game might just be a perfect way for companies to start selling Linux ports.

    For some trivial things like menu interfaces, performance is not an issue. The real trouble lies usually in the fast heavy graphical stuff. As GL is becoming less of a barrier, an hybrid-port (regular stuff via WineX, CPU-intensive GL stuff recompiled for Linux) could be a good bet for game companies.

    I can understand that spending 10,000USD or more for a Linux port might not be that bright right now for a game company, but if Wine/WineX can lower that cost, companies will have "nothing to lose".

    And while that's not the perfect solution, don't expect companies to release stuff "free as in speech" for a couple of years anyway.

    • The squeeky wheel (Score:3, Insightful)

      by quinkin ( 601839 )
      As far as I can see - if we run it on Wine that is not a help or hindrance really. If native port is available, we would use it instead.

      If a native port is not available, then wine is the only (free) option available for Linux.

      The crux of the matter is that you should let the developers know that you are running it on Wine. Without this feedback you are just another windows statistic - to be regurgitated by MS at a later date as a reason not to port the software.

      If they are aware of the linux demand

  • I have to say, M$ succeeded in their dirty strategy again. By luring developers into using DirectX, lots of games that would have been easily ported, had they used OpenGL and the like, are now very difficult to do so. DirectX does offer some features not available in OpenGL (yet?) mostly due to more manufacturers supporting it, but most games, given their shitty quality (want barbie games on linux?), didn't need to use them anyway, not to say DX is a bitch to code for.

    But M$ shipped better SDK with better

    • DirectX has more features than OpenGL, it evolves faster, and it's generally easier to squeeze good performance out of the gfx cards. So, if you want to be ahead of the pack on the visuals, there's not much to choose from besides DirectX.

      Too bad really, I've been pushing inhouse for a Linux port as we already have all code except rendering running just fine on Linux, but our GFX guys simply refuse to port to OpenGL due to the reasons mentioned above.
      • and DirectX makes the various video cards look like a single platform to the game developers.

        In DirectX's early days, developing a game using a 3D card in Windows was like doing cross-platform development anyway, because you had to program in Glide for the 3dfx cards, and use the proper OpenGL extensions for each of the other cards you wanted to support. The renderer only had a very small number of functions that were supported by all cards, and since most gamers had 3dfx cards, you had to rewrite even tho

  • Winelib (Score:4, Interesting)

    by natmsincome.com ( 528791 ) <adinobro@gmail.com> on Tuesday August 19, 2003 @12:09AM (#6730035) Homepage
    While a 100% Native port would be cool I know lots of the Loki games and a fair few of the other ports from windows Use winelib.

    From a Developers poing a view it's perfect. For as much as possible use winelib but if there are problems then port those area's. This means that with minimal effort you get a high quality game in Linux.

    Instead of porting 100% just for the sake of it you can port 10% and get the same results. You get more games on linux that run better. As wine gets the games will run better with less porting. The less porting that is required the more likely a game will be ported. As more games get ported more engines will become cross platform to make it easyier for companies to port thier games to other platforms.

    The engines are more impotant than the games. Look at http://www.garagegames.com/ about half the games run on linux because the engine supports it. Halflife is another good example. Lots of the mods start as windows only but as they gain in popularity the include linux Support.

    The main thing to notice is that Wine is good for Linux as it gets more games on linux which means more engines will support linux (So they don't have the overhead of wine) which means you'll get more games on linux.

  • really now (Score:3, Interesting)

    by XO ( 250276 ) <blade@eric.gmail@com> on Tuesday August 19, 2003 @12:56AM (#6730244) Homepage Journal
    Really now, it's mostly irrelevant, as Wine/WineX still doesn't run practically ANYTHING without crashing your machine. I did an install of Wine last night, to see if i could get Stair Dismount or Truck Dismount to run, because i wanted my girlfriend (who's a major geek) to check them out..

    Both of them instantly crashed my linux box. Brought it down, crying to it's knees, and then decapitated it. Instant crashola. Total lockup.

    Bet you don't see that much.. but it does happen.. I see it all the time. Every time I try to use WINE to do something.
    • So it imitates Windows perfectly?
      • > So it imitates Windows perfectly?

        That is the kind of stupid comment that makes me think: "I'll just continue playing Warcraft III, joke all you want."

        I was realling hoping that the Linux zealotry baggage from /. wouldn't carry over to games./.

        Oh well.

    • Your baseing and opinion of something after trying 2 'games' (that use the exact same engine) and you couldn't Cntl+Alt+Backspace or anything? I've never had wine crash the whole system (bad network card yes, application no)

      Sounds like you didn't like the ride at the amusment park because the line was smelly and the park closed before you got a chance to go on the ride =)

      Check the games you would like to run at the Transgaming website as they have an excellent collection of the games people have running
      • I've tried many many programs on Wine. I was just pointing out my most recent failures.

        Actually, Stair Dismount dropped the whole system - shut off the monitor, and everything went into 'sleep' mode.
        Truck Dismount took over the mouse and keyboard, and wouldn't let any other program have it, even after it, and wine, and the X server had been killed from remote.

        Both of these conditions happen regularly when attempting to use WINE. The only things I've ever gotten working WELL were MSN Messenger and I
        • Ouch...maybe stop running wine as root might make a difference? ;)

          I've never had any problems with java games in Linux using Mozilla
    • WineX has never crashed my machine. If I start installing unsupported games and messing with them maybe WineX will eat a 100% cpu but its nothing a little ctr-alt-backspace, then a startx can't cure in 2 seconds. Anyway, I would run memtest86 on your machine, maybe you have other issues that WineX is just tripping on.
  • As for OpenGL replacing DirectX: Hah!

    You have a one-in-all package: 2D and 3D support state-of-the-art, sound state-of-the art, etc. It's more feature-complete, it's widely supported, it's well-supported. If M$ got anything right, then this it is!

    Without SDL, there would be even less native Linux games, because the tedious task of bringing all those libraries together, assuring they are installed, building vs. them etc. and supporting
    multiple sound systems (ALSA, OSS, Esound ... hey this is Linux!) is rea

  • Yes (Score:1)

    by R0 ( 40549 )
    Sacrifice apparently [timedoctor.org]

    The Whys and Hows of Porting Software [pyrogon.com]by Ryan Gordon (icculus of icculus.org [icculus.org])

    Spy Hunter: For once, Windows users get ripped off [timedoctor.org] by transgaming

    • Re:Yes (Score:1)

      by SQLz ( 564901 )
      Sacrifice and SpyHunter is all you got? I'm supposed to give up WineX for that? I can choose from over 225 titles with WineX.

  • A strong, healthy emulator that allows Linux to run as many Windows apps as possible can only be in the best interest of the Linux community. If casual users know that the applications they use will run under emulation in Linux, they will be much more likely to make the switch. Thus, good, easily accessible emulators mean MORE USERS. This has to be the all-consuming goal of everyone who seeks to promote the Linux operating system, as well as the ideology that goes along with it. If we have the users, the ap

  • I'm about to make a general statement - as such, while it is true much of the time, it is not ALWAYS true. Pointing to such cases as a means to disprove my statement fails to disprove it.

    Wine is a double-edged sword - in the short run it enables people to move away from Windows, but in the long run it keeps them tied to it.

    Consider this gedanken experiment - suppose a version of Wine were to be released tomorrow that ran every Windows application (not drivers, just apps). You could go to the store and buy
  • Expending extra effort to make a linux-native game will not be worthwhile until there is actually a linux games market. There won't be a linux games market without games. So I think WineX/Transgaming/whatever is probably helping in this regard, bootstrapping the process. Short of some sort of technical feat which makes games perform, say, 10% better on Linux, there is just no reason to write to linux (unless you are John Carmack, and have wads of money to blow on maintaining your geek ethos). That Linux
  • Hey u guys..
    cant u see that windows is sinking?

    linux and mac are rising these days.

    someday windows is gonna get without its game ports...

    i think mac will allways be superior to linux in matter of desktop.

    games for mac will came in a torrent.

    and linux ports too :)
  • ...the open source community should get together and start implementing the DirectX API in open, cross-platform (Mac and Linux) code, licensed under the LGPL.

    Then we'd see a lot more cross-platform games.
  • The only way I see the gaming side of Linux growing (short of a 1000 fold increase in desktop users) is for a game developer to make a truly awesome game and have it for Linux only.
    Since this would financially be the equivalent of putting the development money into a wood burning stove, it wouldn't matter if the linux community pirated the hell out of it.
    It would draw people to the OS just to check out the game. This would all have to be done almost as a sacrifice for the good of Linux by a donor entity wit
  • No matter how you look at it Linux sucks as a game platform. Same with Mac. Aside from Bungie I don't know of any company that has made a game that rivals the Windows port, or native version in Windows.

    Don't ask me to explain it, all I know is that every game I've ever seen looks better, and plays better on Windows. I'm even counting those games that were developed on Mac or Linux (well Mac at least, I don't know of any games developed for Linux then ported to Windows) that were ported to Windows (with
  • As the owner of a commercial game development company I must say that WineX is great. We don't have time for native ports, and there is not enough money in them for our developers. Don't get me wrong, I love Linux. My point is, if it was not for WineX most people would never play any of our games on Linux. We will continue to do everything we can with Transgaming to ensure the best performance when playing our games. I am sure someday that Linux will become more widespread, and then you can expect native re
  • Dude, only a very few developers even consider porting to Linux. The rest don't care if it runs on Winex. If it does, great. If not, who cares. Really, native ports might come about if we go out and buy the linux version of games. Vote with your cash.
  • I know of one game, wizardry 8 I believe it was, that was due to be ported, but then when the porting company that had the agreement discovered it worked 'well enough' in winex, they cancelled the contract. More imformation here [timedoctor.org].

    Transgaming have said they will not actively promote compatability with games that have native ports, but this is a lie, their comments made on the Majesty section of their website [transgaming.com] make it quite plain they consider they are superior to native and they intend to beat native out of

    • Majesty sucks and so does SpyHunter. TuxGames should be applauding WineX. If it was not for WineX, I would not be gaming on my Linux desktop because many of the games I want to play don't have native ports and never will. Since I've been gaming on my Linux desktop I've placed at least 5 orders with Tux Games in the last year to get more games to play on my Linux desktop. I don't care if its WineX or not as long as it runs. I just placed my Savage pre-order with you and if you sold games that ran on Wi
      • In the short term ytou are correct, it is very profitable in the short term. But in the long term it will kill Linux applications and gaming.

        It will always be easier to emulate than to port natively, which is what makes it so attractive to do. Right now, emulation is a lot less stable and reliable than native, but as time goes on, it will improve, obviously. But what happens when emulation has won and the native companies are dead? Well, then everything will be emulated.

        Yeah and if the emulation runs flaw
        • Aactually, it would be very foolish of MS to start enforcing DirectX patents on developers. There is no better way for them to scare developers away from DirectX than to start suing people for using a SDK you can download for free. Not only that, you can't just selectively enforce a patent on someone and noone else. WineX is a dead end, as soon as there are enough Linux gamers that developers code their games knowing that there will be a PC,Xbox, Linux, and Mac port.
          • Actually thats not what the patent would do. It would be applicable to people making clones or emulators of directx. Examine the gif patent as an example. The patent wasnt applied to individuals using gifs, it was applied to companies or groups making products that handled gifs. The end user wasnt affected in any way, the companies and groups were the ones being made to pay license fees.
            If that happens in directx, then you have wine having to pay $10 per copy of wine that is downloaded or something along th
  • Gentoo is releasing game CDs based on Gentoo where the user puts the CD into the computer and boots up directly into the game. Just like in a console box. That should be the future of all games

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