Transgaming Introduces Cedega 6.0

Tux Penguin writes "Today Transgaming introduced Cedega 6.0, which is the popular Linux game emulator based upon WINE. Among the new features in Cedega 6.0 is support for a number of new games, Shader Model 2.0 support, new FBO extensions support, and ALSA audio. Phoronix has provided a performance preview that has Doom 3 and Enemy Territory benchmarks from Windows XP, Windows Vista, Linux, WINE, and Cedega."

So we're paying for what?

[Inner_Child]

Looking at the benchmarks, there's what, one test where Cedega outperformed Wine? What exactly is this monthly subscription fee supposed to pay for, minimal if any improvement over Wine? I understand that it supports newer games than Wine does, but I'd rather put my money into an open-source project than throw it into a monthly fee, especially considering the minor differences.

Am I misunderstanding something vital about Cedega here, or is Transgaming really asking us to pay for the same functionality?

Re:Linux is better for games than vista

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny how your priorities change with life. Once I shunned Linux becuase I couldn't play games
on it. Now I actually enjoy the fact that my Linux system wont play games. I call it a grown ups computer system.
Since I dumped Windows so many years ago productivity went up by a factor of ten. Many times I was tempted
to install Wine and some games, but then thought better of it.
It's very revealing that Windows is seen primarily as a gamers platform. I'm at that age where I treat
a computer as a serious tool and all my peers and family also want "grown up" computers so they don't use
MS Windows. Most people who seem to use it are teenagers. If it wasn't for games would there be any argument
for Windows at all?

Re:Linux is better for games than vista

[Sancho]

Now I actually enjoy the fact that my Linux system wont play games.

I'm sorry, but I just don't get that. That's like saying, "I'm proud that my car isn't capable of attaining speeds of 200 mph safely." There's nothing wrong with having the capabilities, as long as the capabilities don't interfere with necessary components.

I think your statement must be pure elitism. You're proud that you've set yourself apart. Being proud of having a limited system, even if you don't need or want the extended capabilities, is something I just don't understand.

I don't really care to run VMWare. An equivalent statement is, "I'm proud that my FreeBSD system can't run VMWare."

Re:Linux is better for games than vista

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that unreasonable. I know a couple of people who'd save hours a day if they didn't have spider solitaire a click away. If I had that sort of addiction, I too would *enjoy* running a system that would make indulging too much of an irritation to indulge in.

Re:And...

[k1e0x]

Wine often works better.

This is because where at one point they were the same code base.. Wine has been attempting to provide a full implementation of windows. Cedega on the other hand has just been hacking and older alpha version of Wine so that it works with certain popular games.

If you follow this to the logical end.. eventually Wine will have a full implementation of windows on unix where new games (and anything else) will run.. and Cedega will have a bunch of hacks requiring constant tweaking for newer games.

Re:And...

[philgross]

Er... No. "standard libraries... without resorting to Win32 calls"? It's not the Win32 part that's the issue, it's the DirectX part, a high-level, high-performance interface to 3D hardware. OpenGL is somewhat comparable, and in the mid-90s was the polished alternative to the weak hack that was DirectX. However, OpenGL evolves by committee, and has many conservative stakeholders such as CAD firms, while MS totally controls DirectX, and has been pushing hard for it to be used as widely as possible. Each iteration has made it much more powerful and better suited to games programming, as well as tracking the rapid advances in consumer 3D hardware. Further, if your PC game uses DirectX, it's much easier to port it to the Xbox360, and vice versa.

Both Parallels and VMWare are working on cloning the DirectX API so VM applications can have accelerated 3D, but it's a big task. The DirectX libraries are massive, and each version has major differences with the previous one. VMWare is working hard just to get DirectX 8.1 compatibility, i.e. two revisions ago.

Some of the big graphics engine makers continue to support OpenGL, but even so, how do they financially justify spending the time and money to port their games to a platform with a tiny desktop market share, and where a significant percentage of the users expect everything on their machine to be free and open source?

This [linuxgamingworld.com] is a passionate and well-argued plea for mainstream developers to develop for Linux, but I don't think he convinced too many game company CFOs.

I would refer you to the sad post from John Carmack [omnipotent.net], regarding the disappointing sales of the Linux version of Quake III back in 2000. So far, not too many companies have wanted to risk seeing if things have changed.

Here's the logic...

[sterno]

I'm glad my car doesn't go 200mph, because the temptation of all that raw horsepower will be too great to resist. High speed pursuits and law enforcement derived beatings will certainly ensue. It's a used geo metro for me.

Re:Performance issues are the real problem

[mandelbr0t]

I think the fact that many are buying Cedega and other Windows environment programs to play Windows games under Linux shows that there is a need for Linux native games.

And I think that all of us who remember Loki Games know that this will not work. Transgaming allows a project to put a business face on some deals that desperately need to be made to support gaming on Linux. Cedega works with game companies to provide an API that works equally well on Windows and Linux. This approach is better, since what happens is that game companies continue to develop games on Windows where most of their market is, without causing any extra work for the Linux side. Admittedly those who develop to the WINElib API will get the same benefits without the devilish business dealings, but who develops games on Windows that's that enlightened?

A rewrite as a port is generally too much work to be profitable, especially when the target market is at best one tenth of the original market. There's been some very rare exceptions to this, such as the Linux Neverwinter Nights client and some id games, but in those cases there's almost as many Linux people who play as Windows gamers. The drive to synchronize the higher-level APIs has a better chance of overall success (where success is defined as any DirectX 9 or previous game will run on Linux) in the long run, IMO. Whether transgaming.com is actually required is certainly worth debating. I'm still giving them my $5 every month even though I'm not using it right now.

Re:Linux is better for games than vista

[HermMunster]

I've never considered Office a barrier for acceptance for home users. When most of the people I support become aware of Open Office they are just very pleased at the fact that they can get a free word processor, spreadsheet, etc. This isn't to say that there aren't barriers there. Some are pretty major.

Microsoft has been scanning the horizon to ensure that no one begins to kick at the blocks that prop up their monopoly. They are constantly looking for new ways to create more blocks. Some of these blocks are directx, drm, application/windows APIs, network interoperability (or the lack thereof), WGA/WGN lie, FUD, patents. Writing for OpenGL means you are writing for multiple platforms which gives a greater overall share.

Another new block is DRM. Yes they have had DRM in their product in one fashion or another for decades--copy protection on software back in the 80s, activation keys in the 90s. The WGN/WGA lie in the 00's is a psychological game meant to make the consumer less in control but to give them a feeling they are being protected. They are essentially forcing the consumer to allow Microsoft to spy on them under the guise of protecting the consumer from organized pirating--this is the fundamental lie. The average consumer is already covered because they generally purchase from the likes of Dell, Gateway, etc. Only a small percentage of sales are from systems integrators and the odds of getting one that is dishonest is even more minuscule. Today it is the essential arm-twisting/drafting of the hardware manufacturers to comply with their draconian DRM/CRM procedures.

Their APIs, not just DirectX, are also locking blocks, that block you from other platform development. Most companies don't have the time to learn multiple platform APIs in order to develop software. Apple recognized this (well NeXt computers did) when they were creating their development tools. Another block they use today are patents. Microsoft is not making a patent portfolio to protect itself, it is making it to prop up the monopoly and to attack competitors such as Linux. Software APIs for productivity applications aren't the barrier they once were. You can see that they will, over time, become less and less important as more and more programs build up for the competitor's platform. Since that form is diminishing there must be other ways for Microsoft to lock you into their platform. Gaming is a key API that they can change regularly. If they can keep changing the gaming API regularly then no entity can conceivably create a 100% compatible layer for other platforms. That's another reason why it is just silly to have game developers writing for directx instead of for OpenGL.

Networking interoperability is another key block that Microsoft uses to block migration from Windows to other platforms. If the interoperability is difficult or impossible even over the short term, large, medium, and small companies will very likely decline migration to Linux (or even OSX).

Patents and FUD seem to go hand in hand. Microsoft knows that if they say enough negative about Linux and threaten enough that migration will be slowed. If they create enough of a patent portfolio that will also slow development as competitors are constantly attempting to figure out what they can legally do and what they can't. DRM is similar in that it can't be copied and used in competitors platforms. The DMCA destroys all hope of that, at least if the user wants to stay 100% legal.

I don't know what the current installed base of Linux is and I'm sure most developers don't either. My estimate is that it is somewhere between 10 and 50 million computers.

When you use all of these together, including FUD and attempting to hide the sheer number of Linux (or any competitors true numbers) you can see how strong these blocks are. It only takes companies and individuals to start knocking more of these blocks out faster to bring down the monopoly. It isn't just having a product or even advertising your product or even gi

Re:And...

[robbiethefett]

"Linux has its uses, and they are many. Gaming is not currently among them, and this hack (yeah, I went there; Cedega is a hack, nothing more) is not the solution to bring Linux gaming into the mainstream." i really disagree with that statement. i think Cedega is, in fact, a great step towards bringing linux gaming into the mainstream. let me extrapolate.. the reason cedega is significant is because there are users willing to pay money to a subscription service that is specifically geared towards gamers who's preferred OS is *nix. in other words, there is a number of people purchasing a product for the express purpose of playing video games under the *nix OS's. The reason i think that is significant is because in order for a subscription-based service like cedega to work, there has to be not only a user base, but a fairly dedicated user base. that is to say, people who keep their subscriptions to cedega are most likely not someone who plays games under *nix sporadically, but rather people who play often, and are interested in playing newer games. i say they are probably interested in playing newer games because if you just play counter-strike or whatever your game of choice is, then you would probably just configure wine to run that one game, rather than buy a subscription to a service that tries to keep up-to-date on the newer stuff. the bottom line? cedega proves there is a market for games under *nix. basically, if a market exists, companies will step in to make money off of that market. if Cedega subscriptions suddenly skyrocketed, i bet you would eventually see large game publishers releasing native linux ports of games. sure, progress is slow, and the market is tiny, but with with time is it really insane to think that this small market will become statistically significant to large companies?

Re:And...

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux has its uses, and they are many. Gaming is not currently among them, and this hack (yeah, I went there; Cedega is a hack, nothing more) is not the solution to bring Linux gaming into the mainstream.

But it is a solution to play some games on Linux. I have my reasons to use Linux, the games I want to play are supported by Cedega. While I'm not willing to use proprietary software for some uses, gaming is not one of them, and so Cedaga is in deed a solution for my gaming needs.

Besides gaming and entertainment is the last frontier for Linux and any help it gets there should be welcome. Lack of games is the main reason why I cannot recommend Linux for my relatives and family. I know there are many good games available on Linux, but really the amount of games my relatives and friends would wish to play available on Linux doesn't even aproach the the number of such Windows games, so it's kind of a hard to sell. I'm sad to say it but it's true. Luckily so far I'm mostly able to satisfy my gaming needs on Linux.

Re:Performance issues are the real problem

[Pecisk]

I remember why Loki Games went down - NOT because they went under 'cause of bad sales. They just got bad/criminal CEO, who done anything possible to bancrupt Loki Games without any remorse. And he succeeded.

Afaik, Loki Games was very successful creating needed infrastructure - and they knowledge in doing so was industry high. See SDL, see their installer, see OpenAL which they actively pushed and which now has some support in industry.

It was sad that Loki had to go away just because of some greedy jerk.

Re:Linux is better for games than vista

[forgotten_my_nick]

tbh, if Linux worked out of the box then it would be ready for desktop.

I've tried to put Linux on a Dell XPS M170 but I am having absolutely no joy on getting the wireless card working which I need to be able to connect to the net to just download updates.

If it was painless, or I could even figure it out with simple instructions that don't require some knowledge of Linux I'd have moved all my machines at this stage. :/

Other then that I can see no benefit to using Windows at all.

Re:Linux is better for games than vista

[Hal_Porter]

Ouch! I think my comment was way too subtle for the mods.

Umm, no. This is slashdot here's how it works.

People here like Linux and hate Windows. But they know that the selection of games for Linux is much worse than that for Windows. When they suggest Linux to the first person shooter obsessed jocks at school, the jocks point this out before giving them an atomic wedgie.

Now someone posts a well crafted piece of sophistry to explain why this weekness is actually a strength, which is severly flawed in that it could also be used to explain why disability is a good thing. E.g. "Since I went deaf, dumb and blind, I've had far more time to work on my open source, terminal based, pinball game".

The sophistry is Informative, because it gives them a snappy comeback. They can savour the memory of it when they're hanging from a baseball hoop by their tighty whities. It's Insightful since no one posted it before. But someone like you arguing with them is a Troll because it makes most of the audience angry. Of course, some percentage of the audience gets annoyed with this every so often and leaves, but that just makes the problem worse.

In many ways, individuals doing this sort of thing in their free time are far worse than employees doing PR for a company. The employees are getting paid to reclassify weakness as strength and so on, Newspeak style. Once they leave the office or change jobs, they hopefully stop believing in it. But if you're doing for free, your free time and modding down the opposition, you must have actually brainwashed yourself so completely that you can't accept any argument, no matter how valid, that doesn't match your worldview. That's plain scary.