Phoenix Network Forums

If there's one area where Linux distributions fall behind Windows, it's games. Most PC games are built for Windows. Where does that leave Linux users? With Cedega, a melding of Wine and DirectX developed by TransGaming. Today, Cedega 5.2.3 officially supports about 50 games, though in reality it can run a lot more.

Browsing the TransGaming.org Games Database, you can spot blockbuster titles such as World of Warcraft, Civilization 4, Battlefield 2, Need for Speed Most Wanted, Half Life 2, Counter Strike, and Fifa 2006 -- just to name a few of the officially supported titles. In addition, the database includes more than 1,300 games that are reported to work -- more or less. Since Cedega is nothing more than a translation layer -- it translates DirectX and Windows API calls to OpenGL, OSS/ALSA, and Linux APIs -- not everything runs perfectly.

Installing Cedega is easy, but installing a game under Cedega isn't always simple. For example, to play Civilization 4 you have to install it configuring Cedega to emulate Windows 98, so the installer will copy some additional DLLs. You also need to install the DirectX version shipped with the game, then run the game using the Windows XP emulation -- and pray. If you wish to update Civilization 4 with the latest patch -- don't! Bringing the game up to version 1.61 means more crashes, so stick to 1.52 if possible. Even so, I haven't been able to play Civ4 under Cedega; the menus worked great, the intro movie as well, but as soon as it is finished loading a scenario or a quick game -- crash, boom, bang.

You can read more... here.

http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/07/25/1726224

i compiled cedega i report it to be working nicely i like it the only thing that bothers me is that the compiles version are not free,as most things in the linux world are

Cedega is ethicly questionable beacause it`s based on wine ,it took wine when it was using the bsd licence and made wineX ,then they renamed it to cedega and so on.So you can say ,that transgaming is making money off the work of wine developers.The second bad impact of cedega is that it discouragees develepors to develop cross platform games.These are the two main reasons why many linux users hesitate to use it and simply because it`s not free.

By the way ,many games work with wine too, like World of Warcraft ,Warcraft 3 ,Star Craft and many others.

shadowlabs wrote:If there's one area where Linux distributions fall behind Windows, it's games. Most PC games are built for Windows.

The real problem is the graphics cards drivers problem.

Hopefully, AMD will speed up a lot the opening of the ATI specs as Intel did with their WiFi devices (for which they even provide open source drivers). That would change everything.

shadowlabs wrote:If there's one area where Linux distributions fall behind Windows, it's games. Most PC games are built for Windows. Where does that leave Linux users? With Cedega, a melding of Wine and DirectX developed by TransGaming. Today, Cedega 5.2.3 officially supports about 50 games, though in reality it can run a lot more.

Browsing the TransGaming.org Games Database, you can spot blockbuster titles such as World of Warcraft, Civilization 4, Battlefield 2, Need for Speed Most Wanted, Half Life 2, Counter Strike, and Fifa 2006 -- just to name a few of the officially supported titles. In addition, the database includes more than 1,300 games that are reported to work -- more or less. Since Cedega is nothing more than a translation layer -- it translates DirectX and Windows API calls to OpenGL, OSS/ALSA, and Linux APIs -- not everything runs perfectly.

Installing Cedega is easy, but installing a game under Cedega isn't always simple. For example, to play Civilization 4 you have to install it configuring Cedega to emulate Windows 98, so the installer will copy some additional DLLs. You also need to install the DirectX version shipped with the game, then run the game using the Windows XP emulation -- and pray. If you wish to update Civilization 4 with the latest patch -- don't! Bringing the game up to version 1.61 means more crashes, so stick to 1.52 if possible. Even so, I haven't been able to play Civ4 under Cedega; the menus worked great, the intro movie as well, but as soon as it is finished loading a scenario or a quick game -- crash, boom, bang.

You can read more... here.

http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/07/25/1726224

Firstly, were you having trouble running civ 4, or was it the author of the article? I only wish I could run some windows apps under wine or cedega without having to resort to an entire vmware setup.

Well, the games wich can run in OpenGL runs perfectly in Wine. But when it comes to dirextx only games, it suck.. Like you can't run Guild Wars proberly in Wine, but it runs fairly in Cedega, only thing is a quite annoying bug where you can't see the god damn mice

I currently need Windows to be running 24/7 but when I finish my current project, this will make the transition to linux that much better.

o do not play games but i would rather pay for cedega and play games than pay for windows nad play games

Cedega is a great thing. The only thing that kept me from being able to run linux and only linux was the fact that I had a few games that I like to play occasionally. And now, I don't need to worry ab out that at all.

Personally, I haven't used Cedega. Why? Well, I have a PIII that runs at 800 mhz and a video card with 32 megs video RAM. It's not exactly a gaming rig.

Also, emulating anything, especially PC games, is not a cakewalk. There are always headaches, and it's not worth it if you can just boot up into Windows and play the game. That's why dual booting is crucial in the Linux world: even though you hate it, Windows is necessary for some things (i.e.: Gaming, and Microsoft Word... unless you use Crossover Office, or if you can get by with OpenOffice).

Get by with OpenOffice? OpenOffice has now become vastly superior to MS Office, partially because MS Office is regressing, and partially because OO.o 2.x has made truly huge strides in performance and features. I see no reason to pay $300-400 for the only usable version of the OS and then an additional $200-300 for the only usable version of the productivity software to go on it.

I have my folks, who are largely anti-OSS, converted to OO.o. Even those who refuse to convert to Linux. (OK, I'm still the only one in the house to prefer Linux.)

As for gaming, sometimes you're right, but I've found almost any game worth playing will run in Cedega, if not in vanilla wine. Vanilla wine is starting to add directx remappings that are actually smarter and faster performing than the ones Cedega uses, so if you can get a game to run in vanilla wine and look decent, it's recommended. Often, however, the style vanilla wine uses for directx emulation results in poor visual quality including artifacts and opaque textures where they're supposed to be alpha, in those cases you'll need the more accurate, but slower, Cedega.

So to sum everything up, as of 2006, there is really no longer any reason to keep a dual boot. If you can run linux, (winmodems... :/) you really should convert. Unless you share your machine with a bunch of late-adopters that are unwilling to learn something new, even though they claim to be frugle, and linux could save them a ton of money. (my situation, I'm trying to get my own computer though...)

SlicerSV wrote:(OK, I'm still the only one in the house to prefer Linux.)

Then it's your job to sit everyone down, educate them on computers and show them linux is exactly the same

If they have a problem, you can be the IT engineer of the family

If you don't want to pay you can look around and find a copy on some certain peer to peer networks

ultramancool wrote:If you don't want to pay you can look around and find a copy on some certain peer to peer networks

Bad boys ,bad boys ,watcha gonna do ?watcha gonna do when the BSA comes for you?

I gave Cedega a try and I actually got WC3 running on it, well, the game recognized the cd after pressing the "retry"-button in the "insert cd"-screen for like 100 times or something. Anyways it's really great to have programs like this even tho it ain't freeware which I don't really like, but because of cedega/wine i might be able to make my computer microsoft-free at some point.