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First Person Shooters (Games) Software Wine Linux

Half-Life 2 Under Linux Review 71

Posted by Zonk from the hl2-makes-tux-happy dept.
as writes "TransGaming Technologies, a developer of software portability products that allow game developers and publishers to develop games for one system and deploy them across multiple platforms, has released version 4.2 of their Wine fork Cedega on 7 December 2004. The new version of Cedega 4.2 offers support for Valve's bleeding edge action shooter Half-Life 2. linuX-gamers.net has tested Half-Life 2 with Cedega 4.2 and has written a short review of the game under Linux."
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Half-Life 2 Under Linux Review More

Half-Life 2 Under Linux Review

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  • Cool! (Score:2)

    by zulux ( 112259 )
    Sounds like with a one more update or so, HL2 on Linux will be just fine.

    I'm waiting to install it in about 9 months:

    1) A good video card will be cheap by then
    2) Bugs in the video card drivers that HL2 triggers will be worked out.
    3) Bugs in HL2 and Steam will be worked out - load time problems might be fixed.
    4) The few bugs remain in WINE will be worked out.

    1 though 3 apply to out Windows owing friends as well.

    I took the same stratagy in the 90's for all of Origin's Ultima games - if you waited a year o
    • If 'one more update' is going to fix HL2 on Linux, then it'd have to be a pretty big update. Just from the review:

      Brand new video drivers have to be downloaded.
      There are loading issues.
      The graphics are not loaded correctly.
      Gameplay and frame rate drop for an unknown reason.
      Turning down the graphics settings do little to fix the frame rate.
      Attempts to modify the video settings results in HL2 locking up.
      Different drivers do not work.
      Textures and lightmaps do not always work.
      Sound does not work properly.
      Load

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Framerate (Score:3, Informative)

    by tolan-b ( 230077 ) on Thursday December 09, 2004 @12:46PM (#11043745)
    One likely cause of some of his graphics problems (framerate) is the use of an nVidia 5xxx card. I've played with a 5600, and it seems to be emulating dx9 in software, but saying the card is dx8. Generally it's just very slow.

    I tried setting the mat_dxlevel command line arg to 80 for reasonable performance, and later to 70 for a nice high framerate. This does cancel out a lot of the pretty shaders, but to be honest I really didn't notice them all that much before turning them off, and haven't missed them since.
    • I have the FX5950 and I don't have the DX problem you speak of. Nope, I think the problem is in the emulation.

    • Re:Framerate (Score:3, Interesting)

      by snuf23 ( 182335 )
      My understanding is that the Nvidia 5xxxFX line runs the direct X 8.1 path in half life 2. This is mostly due to these cards being too slow at running the DX 9 path with 32bit precision (Nvidia cards do not support 24bit precision).
      There is a hack for running the FX series at 16bit precision on the DX 9 path which supposedly gives much better performance in HL2.
      Dropping the DX lvl to 8 or 7 will definately speed things up at the expense of some graphical niceties.
  • Playing games under linux has never been easy, or much fun for that matter. So I bought a playstation2 and only use my computer for work. Computer gameing has always been more buggy, especially as the games get more complicated.
    • Computer games can be more buggy becuase they have the option to release a patch for anything thats wrong with the game...with a console system, this just doesn't happen. Therefore computer games seem to be of lesser quality. Lets hope that console systems do not start using a patch system or all games will be released with bugs that were not fixed before the develop freeze.
      • Actually, patching does happen on consoles. It happens quite a bit on the Xbox, so I hear, and it happens a bit on the PS2. FFXI has a patching system, but it's an MMORPG (also on the PC), so that's kinda expected. SOCOM II, however, has had two patches and I also believe that StarWars: Battlefront has had two patches as well.
    • Imagine that, a game that works with some big problems running on a Operating System that the games was not designed for!

      Yes, Transgaming has done a great job with Cedega and their work using Wine

      No, it is not perfect and has a lot of problems...especially with games that have been available for only a month

      Why did someone do this review? To look 'cool'?
      Let's have a review next of running Windows Longhorn in VMWare...at least that would make more sense
    • Yes you hook up your PS2 and play some HL2... oh wait.

      This article is aimed at people who want to play a specific Windows game on a different OS.
      We all know that consoles play games made for them just fine. We all know that its easier to put a PS2 disk in and turn it on then it is to install a computer game - even a Windows one!

      Inspite of how much it may suck, there is a small niche for people who want to run some games on Linux versus running a dual boot setup, having a windows box OR playing console gam
  • it's hardly bleeding edgier than any new game(unless you mean that it bled out of the box).

    though, I wonder, does this mean that the activation works as well?

  • Allow me to summarize (Score:5, Informative)

    by jvmatthe ( 116058 ) on Thursday December 09, 2004 @12:52PM (#11043796) Homepage
    1) Steam is bad, yes, but the shiny Half-life 2 box was so pretty I overcame my compunction.
    2) I'd already installed Cedega 4.2 from CVS, so I don't know how new users would do it. Good luck.
    3) Half-life 2 didn't load the first time.
    4) The game loaded the second time, but I don't know how long because I took a nap.
    5) I changed the resolution and the game locked up.
    6) I couldn't see the cut scenes, so I skipped them.
    7) Graphics were rough, framerate was low, sound skipped. It was a fine experience.
    8) Hacking my video card settings hung my machine.
    9) I'm a little bit disappointed.

    That's about it. Have fun.
    • 7) Graphics were rough, framerate was low, sound skipped. It was a fine experience.

      Is this "fine" in the RTFM sense?
    • *6) I couldn't see the cut scenes, so I skipped them.*

      hl2 had cutscenes?
    • I didn't know you were also commenting here, and I would like to post my post to your article at Linux Gamers:

      *** START PASTING
      I experienced some problems on gaming using custom kernels, specially ones running the koliva's patchset (like ck or nitro). Last time it was with Vendetta Online (low framerates and specially choppy sound). They're mostly caused by buggy task schedulers.

      Keep in mind that those patchsets are often very very buggy. I remember specially huge 3D perfomance lows when running 2.6.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • No, no, no, no, no!!!!
        A lot of his issues are that Transgiming has kept Direct X and Install shield updates out of CVS, because Transgaming don't to OSS.

        Problems with copy-protection are problems with copyprotection, so just no-cd and make the problem go away.
    • 1) Steam is bad, yes, but the shiny Half-life 2 box was so pretty I overcame my compunction.

      Microsoft is evil. Bill Gates is evil. I hate Windows. I hate Microsoft products. But my shiny PC is so pretty... I love new games, I love using that Internet thing I love writting these great letters in editor... so I use Windows, I use Microsoft Office, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Internet Explorer and all these other Microsoft products and I am proud of it.

      The truth is - you just can't choose.
    • Cedega 4.2 isn't in CVS, winex-cvs is a compleatly different thing to cedega, dispite what transgaming put on the box.

      Don't forget their commercial workers not OSS freaks and there having a whole lot of problems trying to fit OSS into their world.
      using marked gzips, not releasing code to the CVS, asking gentoo to remove the wine-cvs ebuild, not passing back to vanila wine like they intended to do.

      I use Cedega because it is the only option for games, but any patches I make will be against wine vanilla an

    • Informative? Ridiculous. Almost all of this is bunk:

      1) Steam is bad, yes, but the shiny Half-life 2 box was so pretty I overcame my compunction.

      Whatever. It's the promise of a good game in that box that overcomes our issues with steam.

      2) I'd already installed Cedega 4.2 from CVS, so I don't know how new users would do it. Good luck.

      This is a game review, not a howto. Cedega has adequate documentation on its own.

      3) Half-life 2 didn't load the first time.

      No, the author lacked patience and killed i

  • Don't use Cedega for new games (Score:5, Insightful)

    by advocate_one ( 662832 ) on Thursday December 09, 2004 @01:07PM (#11043958)
    How does using the game with Cedega register as a Linux sale??? The games publishers aren't going to get any feedback that it was a Linux sale at all... they'll just see it as an ms-windows sale and thus won't have any incentive to port it to Linux. Using Cedega to run new games isn't doing Linux gaming any good. You should be boycotting the game and telling the publishers exactly why you are doing this.

    When an exciting game is announced by a publisher, take the trouble to go to the website and check if it will be available for Linux. If not, let them know you're not happy by using the feedback provided. If they don't know they're losing customers, they'll think everybody is happy.
    • Mod funny? WTF? Anyway, I bought UT2004 because it runs on linux (installs its own wine maybe?). The games server let me know when a new (windows) patch is ready. I usually have to check back in a week to find the linux patch. Do they even know how many linux customers they have? You would think that this would be priceless infomation for them.

    • Re:Don't use Cedega for new games (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      That is retarded.

      If there is no linux version, there will be no linux sales. NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO.

      If you want to go bitch to them about it not being available for linux, go for it.

      But there's absolutely no reason not to buy the game and have a good time playing it under emulation.

      Saying "there are no games for linux and no one should use emulation" is a great way of keeping anyone from using linux in the first place. Great job ass.

      If people migrate to linux using emulation, there will still be a hug
  • When I read about this on /. a few weeks ago I was really looking forward to playing HL2 under linux.

    I recently suffered a fatal hard drive crash and decided to use the opportunity to start using FC full time. FC has been great but I sure would like to play HL without booting to the windows partition I also created just for gaming.

    I guess I'm just part of the ongoing problem but my desire to play the game outweighed my urge to send a message to the game publishers.

  • If he doesn't like the original HL platform jumping in the first one, he is really gonna hate the ending in HL2. No spoilers though.

  • More trouble than it's worth (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hogger ( 566646 ) on Thursday December 09, 2004 @04:22PM (#11046235)
    I've tried winex about half a dozen times over the last three or so years, and every time my conclusion has been that it's more trouble than it's worth.

    Games generally push the limits of affordable technology. If a cutting-edge game is designed solely for windows, it usually pushes the limits of memory, CPU, and graphics to such an extreme that it's barely playable on a typical gaming PC. HL2 is no exception. If you take that barely playable game and then run it through an additional layer of overhead (winex) then it's going to be less than "barely playable." How could it not be?

    Doom3 is cutting edge, yet it works great in Linux. The powers that be at Id were nice enough to devote sufficient resources to insuring that a native Linux version existed. Maybe it was done out of respect for the community that makes the high-availability servers possible that host the multiplayer doom (and quake, and RTCW) games. Whatever the reason, Id deserves the Linux gaming community's support.

    The makers of HL2 seem to have shown very little desire to support Linux. They don't want the Linux gaming community's business. I can accept that, and move on. If the game is so friggin great, I'll suck it up, buy Windows XP home for $100 or so, install it on a 10G partition, and play the damn game. It probably won't take any longer to get going, or cost much less (if any) in the long run.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Although i do agree with you that I think that it is more trouble than it is worth at this point, I think one thing you must remember is that W.I.N.E. IS an acronym. It means, Wine is not an emulator... Meaning that wine does not add any "extra" layers on top of the os, but actually adds the functionality, such as libraries, so instead of the game linking to "windows.dll" (or whatever...i dont know) it links to a "windows.so" which is just a reverse engineered version of the windows.dll. Allowing the system
      • Wine is not an emulator

        Actually, Wine stands for "WINdows Emulator". Someone dishonestly changed it to "not an emulator" later, but even the Wine webpage reveals that is untrue [winehq.org].

        Meaning that wine does not add any "extra" layers on top of the os

        That's precisely false. Wine absolutely adds extra layers on top of the OS; including the wineserver for example.
    • Quake was compiled using djgpp, a dos port of GCC, so they've been using GNU for a very long time.

  • Issues in Windows? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Khuffie ( 818093 )
    From the review: The sound _is_ a problem for I didn't found a way to get it without the dropouts and hangs.

    It doesn't explain HOW much this happens. This is also an issue in the Windows version (it still happens to me even with the latest patches).

    Regardless of those issues this game has one major drawback: 'Loading..'

    Once again, these issues are also present in Windows. It takes ages to load, sometimes up to 2 minutes...

    • Re:Issues in Windows? (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Once again, these issues are also present in Windows. It takes ages to load, sometimes up to 2 minutes...


      I'm on an Athlon 3200 and I've never had a loading time longer than twenty seconds (not counting the startup). Sounds like more of a system issue to me.
      • I'm on an Athlon 3200 and I've never had a loading time longer than twenty seconds (not counting the startup). Sounds like more of a system issue to me. I'm on an Athlon 2200+, 1 gig ram and Radeon 9700 Pro. The processor isnt the fastest in the word, but it's still a relatively beefy system.
    • Here's how to make HL2 load a bit faster on startup. I wrote this little howto when I got so sick of hl2's load times that I figured out how to stop it.

      How to make starting up Half-Life 2 somewhat bearable:

      1) First to stop Half-Life2 from loading an entire map every time you start. The loading times are bad enough when there's actually a REASON to load the level...

      Go into this folder:

      ?:\Steam\SteamApps\accountname\half-life 2\hl2\cfg

      Open valve.rc in Notepad and add two forward slashes to the line th
    • First to stop Half-Life2 from loading an entire map every time you start. The loading times are bad enough when there's actually a REASON to load the level

      Which would make you wonder why Valve put that there in the first place. "OH LOOK! WE HAVE NICE FLASHY MENU! WEEEEEEEEEEE!" It doesnt seem to reduce loading times for when you actually load your save, so whats the point?

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