Transgaming releases "WineX" 4.0 "Cedega" 475
visy writes "Transgaming has opened a new site at today and are announcing WineX 4.0, now dubbed Cedega after a unique variety of grape. Transgaming claims Cedega allows "Windows ® games to seamlessly and transparently run under Linux, out-of-the-box, with outstanding performance and equivalent game-play". Will we see a new era of game compatibilty?"
WINE (Score:4, Funny)
New Win ZPI for Longhorn (Score:4, Interesting)
In 05/06 Window$ will release a new OS with a brand nre API - Avalon - based on a completely new file system/table... WinFS (or whatever its called)
I've no doubt they will make this the most convoluted file system ever seen with no chance of proper reverse engineering or even emulating.
So, shouldnt we be pushing for new and smarer ways to develop more sophisticated OpenGL render engines faster and better so Linux can compete eith Window$ in gaming rather than living off M$ scraps?
Re:New Win ZPI for Longhorn (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the point of this is to shut people up about, "The only reason I haven't switched is because I play games." After that, with more people on Linux, a Linux native version of a new game gets released, and it gains more support. Finally, more and more publishers look at making Linux versions.
Hopefully, this will be set in to action before Longhorn is released (you know, right after Duke Nukem Forever).
One more thing, I believe most games don't use too much anymore of the Windows API than the winmain() function (to run the app in windows). The rest is engine code or DirectX/OpenGL. So I doubt it will be that much of a problem when the day comes.
I'm pretty sure it's still spelled "Windows" and "Microsoft." [penny-arcade.com] If they did change the name to "Window$," I'm pretty sure there'd be a Slashdot story on it.
New era (Score:4, Insightful)
Or a new era of litigation
Re:New era (Score:2, Funny)
"We made this game to play on Windows and X-boxen... now these Linux geeks have, totally without anyone's permission, made them play on everything including E-Z-Bake ovens! Which, in addition to being totally contrary to our intent, is in breach of the law!"
And so, as the grandparent says, a new era of lawsuits must ensue.
City of Heroes? (Score:2, Interesting)
Some friends have been trying to get me to get a PC for this game, and I'd rather run Linux on it as opposed to Windows.
Yes, it does (Score:5, Informative)
TransGaming's flagship Linux product, Cedega, supports hundreds of the hottest and most popular games on Linux, out-of-the-box, including hit titles such as Max Payne 2(TM), Battlefield 1942(TM), Battlefield Vietnam(TM), Medal of Honor(TM), Diablo II ®, EverQuest(TM), Star Wars Galaxies(TM), City of Heroes ® and many more. TransGaming has also ported such blockbuster titles as TRON 2.0 ®, James Bond 007(TM): Nightfire(TM), Law & Order(TM), Indiana Jones ® and The Emperor's Tomb(TM), just to name a few.
I was a subscriber for many months, and quit my subscription. I cited that the only game I was interested in was SW Galaxies, and that until it was supported, I would no longer subscribe. I contributed a chunk of change, and now I'll have to put my money where my mouth is and re-subscribce to run the game I want.
Re:Yes, it does (Score:3, Informative)
The second thing I'd like to note is that not many games use DirectPlay. The last one that comes to mind is Dungeon Siege, which did indeed have horrible online play.
Re:City of Heroes? (Score:3, Informative)
Support Codeweavers (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Support Codeweavers (Score:5, Informative)
"The source code to TransGaming WineX (minus copy protection related code, for now) is available through VA Linux's SourceForge website. You can examine and modify it to your heart's content, you can watch the changes we make as we go, and you can participate in detailed development discussions on our mailing list. The only thing you can't do is redistribute WineX code for any commercial purpose. The WineX code is licensed under the Aladdin Free Public License, which prohibits commercial use of our work. If you wish to use WineX commercially, please contact our sales team to arrange for alternative licensing arrangements.
Once we have reached our subscription goals, we plan to release all of the WineX source code under the Wine license, which will allow it to be directly integrated with the core Wine project code hosted at www.winehq.com. Until then, we will periodically submit selected portions of our code for integration with the Wine project.""
Re:Support Codeweavers (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, they've been saying that they were going to release everything from the beginning. Remember the beginning? As soon as they got enough money, they were going to distribute it for free for everyone. Well, after many bought into that, the promise changed. They liked making a profit. Nothing wrong with that, but people don't like being deceived, even when the initial promises are so ill conceived.
Re:Support Codeweavers (Score:5, Informative)
Only the binaries that they distribute under their subscription includes this code. Is it so bad that
A) they are trying to make ends meet (pay the bills)
and
B) keeping themselves from getting sued out of exisitance?
Re:Support Codeweavers (Score:4, Informative)
SO WHAT
So they promised to release it under the Wine License and then didn't. (incidentally, I'm a subscriber..)
Re:Support Codeweavers (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Support Codeweavers (Score:3, Funny)
TransGaming Wine Contributions (Score:5, Informative)
Despite that fact, and despite the fact that we have not yet reached the 20,000 subscriber number in our original plans, we have contributed and we continue to contribute to the Wine project in a number of substantial ways. These include major contributions or rearchitectures of: 2D DirectDraw, DirectSound, DirectInput, DCOM, RPC, the WIDL IDL compiler, and wininet code, including SSL support. Additionally, we continue to maintain the X11 licensed ReWind tree, we've contributed code for a DIB renderer, and the Shared Memory WineServer.
Overall, we've contributed tens of thousands of lines of code under Open Source license term.
In particular, our DCOM, RPC, and WIDL work - required for use of InstallShield based installer - is extremely substantial work, and we are actively continuing to contribute that work to Wine and ReWind. We have probably spent as much engineering efforts on this as we have on our closed source Direct3D support.
If you want to see some of what we've contributed, just browse the wine-devel and wine-patches mailing lists.
-Gav
Gavriel State, Co-CEO & CTO
TransGaming Technologies Inc
Re:Support Codeweavers (Score:3, Informative)
The question of whether GPL or BSD is more free depends on who we're talking about. BSD is more free if you're a developer, because you can basically do whatever you want with the source. The GPL is more free if you're an end-user, because you're always guaranteed not to get locked in to any particular developer to do your maintenance. It's apples and oranges.
Finally, the BSD license is not public domain, and people really need to stop making that rather ridiculous comparison. If you don't include the prop
Re:Support Codeweavers (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact that the users of the software get all the source code is a side benefit.
Re:Support Codeweavers (Score:5, Informative)
While the license says that, consider what happened when Debian wanted to package it and include it in non-free. Transgaming asked Debian not to, with a threat to change the license to stop Debian distributing any future versions. Quoteth Gavriel State, Transgaming's CEO: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2002/05/msg0
Gentoo removed WineX for similar reasons [gentoo.org].
Re:Support Codeweavers (Score:3, Informative)
Winex used to run Lotus Notes better than the wine package Debian's unstable branch, but as of the last time I tried it, the one Debian had was about even. I'd like to think that by the time I end up on another IBM contract they'd have come to their sense
Support Wine (Score:2, Informative)
Don't forget that Codeweavers products are closed source, different from Transgaming.
OK, Winex CVS version is not that compatible as commercial, but it is because of the proprietary parts.
The only true OS project is Wine.
Re:Support Wine (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Support Wine (Score:3, Informative)
I'm against what Transgaming is doing, but they are on sound legal footing open-source-wise, I think.
Re:Support Codeweavers (Score:5, Informative)
Go to Wine [winehq.com] website, download the full change log, and grep for @transagaming.com, then come back here and post an apology.
Re:Support Codeweavers (Score:5, Interesting)
wget http://source.winehq.org/source/ChangeLog
I count 14826 changelog entries
$ grep @ ChangeLog | wc -l
14826
226 of which are from a transgaming employee
$ grep -i @transgaming.com ChangeLog | wc -l
226
And 1701 for codeweavers
$ grep -i @codeweavers.com ChangeLog | wc -l
1701
So Transgaming gave back a little after all. But not that much. I browsed the top transgaming changelog entries and they concerned relatively minor stuff, like fixes for alsa audio support.
Sorry but I'm still convinced that Transgaming has been a bad wine citizen (the fact that the licence permitted it doesn't change my opinion), and that they were deceiving the community when they said they'd give back everything to wine after they reach a certain number of subscribers. I guess they have reached that number since they have not yet filed for bankruptcy.
Re:Support Codeweavers (Score:5, Insightful)
Transgaming is a commerical venture. They need to secure a line of income. They do this by restricting access to precompiled binaries, amoungst other things. To get it easily you have to pay a nominal subscription: $60 a year. Now that's not alot. Without this subscription they wouldn't have a profit model and would probably desinagrate.
Would you rather have them not do this venture at all? Or do you have another profit model that would alleviate what you criticize? For me the community benefits from their work: I can run Windows games under Linux. The OSS'ers may complain that they don't have full/libre access to the code, but if they had that, there wouldn't be a transgaming anyway. What do you want them to do?
and that they were deceiving the community when they said they'd give back everything to wine after they reach a certain number of subscribers. I guess they have reached that number since they have not yet filed for bankruptcy.
So just because they haven't yet, they're not going to? And they lied about it? Face it a pure software company just doesn't have a OSS profit model. Name one. Red Hat? Services, not software. Mozilla? Not a commerical entity, but backed by them. Come on, what would you have them do?
Re:Support Codeweavers (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hey Schmucktard (Score:3, Interesting)
Until you stop bitching and contribute or run your own open-source business, shut up.
yes, native alsa support is not a big deal, since a) most people still use OSS, and b) Alsa OSS emulation works perfectly fine
Re:Support Codeweavers (Score:3, Insightful)
Transgaming gives back. You're free to download their cvs product, install it, play games. If that isn't "giving back" I don't know what is. Hell you can read the source code if you wanted to.
Oh, I get it, because you actually have to *pay* for the licensed version, that's not "giving back". Well, welcome to the real world. Everything is not free.
Re:Support Codeweavers (Score:2)
Too bad (Score:4, Interesting)
Will Transgaming ever learn to work with the open source community instead of mearly tolerating its existance as an annoying necessity to business?
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Insightful)
To be entirely fair, Transgaming didn't force gentoo to pull the packages, they asked them to pull the packages and gave their reasons. The gentoo developers respected that and complied.
You (and I) may disagree with Transgaming's reasons, but saying that they "forced" gentoo to pull the packages is unfairly implying harsh measures on Transgaming's part.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too bad (Score:3, Informative)
This is *my* observation, and *directly* related to the parent in the interests of clearing up an instant judgement/misconception.
Re:Too bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Here? Pretty much.
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Informative)
Hardly any games ran with the CVS version at all anyway. You need the commerical version to do anything.
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Insightful)
To totally sidetrack, and leave animal analogies behind, I simply think that corporate power is being alowed to run amok, the current trend towards more and bigger mergers is probably a bigger threat to capitalism than communism ever dreamed of being. I view any concentration of power as a potential threat to individual liberties. Government concentrations of power were pretty closely monitored (until 9/11 and the USA PATRIOT act anyway, these days it seems as if anything goes), but corporate power is largely ignored by those who worry about liberty; despite the fact that corporations can trounce your liberties as much as the government can. On a total side note, I'll add that corporations aren't the only group to worry about, guilds, unions, etc are also potential threats. A group has more power than an individual, thus any group can *potentially* be a threat to individual liberty. There are occasional extremely powerful individuals, but they're the exception not the rule. I'm not a fear case who goes around seeing threats to my liberty everywhere, I just have a healthy degree of concern.
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Too bad (Score:3, Interesting)
"the fact that corporations can trounce your liberties as much as the government can."
1) Corporations don't back up their threats with guns, as the government does. They can attempt to stomp on your 'rights' on the scale that the government can, but they are not able to force you to do anything.
"Government concentrations of power were pretty closely monitored (until 9/11"
2) Not really. Look back to McCarthy, et. al. and the big name court cases. It
Re:Too bad (Score:4, Funny)
Not evil, but definitely unlikely.
Polar Bears - Arctic. Penguins - Antarctic!
Re:Too bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Informative)
I see your point though.
Re:Too bad (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Informative)
Now, if they really wanted to be jerks, they could have just shut down their public CVS access. Seems to me, however, that politely asking (they didn't sue or anything) Gentoo to remove the ebuilds in question was a much nicer alternative. Could you explain what's wrong with this, exactly?
They Didn't Sue? (Score:3, Insightful)
What would the argument be, exactly? "You're honor, we only meant that CVS tree for people that wanted to do free work, not everyone else. That's why we made it publicly available"? They essentially threatened to pull the CVS tree if Gentoo didn't remove their ebuild. Real nice. HUGE believers in OS
Re:Too bad (Score:3, Insightful)
I've been wondering... IF Wine is a LGPL-ed product, then how can WineX exist without source code? I might be horribly wrong here, but doesn't the LGPL, like the GPL, force the creators of derivative works to make the source code available? I know they can just sod it all and only include sources with every CD they sell, that'd their right. But the person receiving that source code has the right to distribute it then, iirc.
Then again, it's the LGPL, so there might be something involved here that I'm not
Re:Too bad (Score:2, Informative)
WineX is a fork of the old code.
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Interesting)
Brad
[1] Side note to the snarky BSD poster: which is basically the same as the 3-clause BSD license. So much for the inate superiority of the BSD license, huh? Not that I don't like the BSD license, but claiming that its a panacea is just so much nonesense. I think the world needs both licenses, personally.
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Interesting)
LGPL vs binary modules (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Too bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Because BSD is truely free.
It doesn't impose any moral obligations to you. It tells you that you would do well for yourself by contributing back, but we are not going to force you to be nice.
Its like gifts to family members. Your aunt buys you a crappy sweater for your birthday, and for the next 10 years, every time you see your aunt you are obligated to wear it. Wrong size? Too bad. You can't take it back. You can't get your money for it an
Re:Too bad (Score:3, Interesting)
Transgaming has chosen a business-model that requires them to keep their source closed. I'm not sure they have a viable alternative for running a for-profit business.
So, I think the answer is absolutely no, they will never work with the open source community. They will continue to sell useful software to those will
For those wondering how to pronounce it... (Score:2, Informative)
Cedega (Se-day-gah) - [noun] - a unique variety of grape used to make some of the finest Port Wines in the world;
Re: (Score:2)
Re:For those wondering how to pronounce it... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:For those wondering how to pronounce it... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:For those wondering how to pronounce it... (Score:2)
>So what they are saying is that it is the finest port of wine in the World...
Sokath, his eyes uncovered !
MIA after before 5 replies (Score:2, Funny)
Re:MIA after before 5 replies (Score:2)
Of course, they are probably not down...most likely too many people clicked at once cloging their pipe.
They should be fine by now or soon
If I offered $50 to whoever asks, I sure as hell know that I'd physically get Slashdotted in seconds!
Saw it yesterday (Score:4, Funny)
Will we see a new era of game compatibilty? (Score:4, Insightful)
Will we see a new era of game compatibilty?
Yes, as soon as games are compatible with platforms other than Windows, not before.
Impressive, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
My main problem with games in X is that I have to change the screen resolution myself. Most applications I'm quite happy with seeing in a window, but games I want full screen, often at a much lower resolution. I also want cutscenes to be displayed fullscreen.
Does this solve that problem?
Re:Impressive, but... (Score:5, Informative)
the games usually allows one to set the resolution.
Re:Impressive, but... (Score:2)
Most games default to 800x600 when they start, but cover all the bases and add all the common resolutions
Shared Wineserver (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Shared Wineserver (Score:5, Informative)
Currently, there's only one wineserver process launched to serve all Wine threads for a given user. What happens though, is that there are at least two context switches for each request to the wineserver. A shared memory wineserver architecture allow a Wine thread to access some data without any context switch, by only reading part of the shared memory of the wineserver. Thus the speed increase.
At the last Wineconf in January, Gavriel State (of Transgaming) showed a short demo of American McGee's Alice with a partial shared memory wineserver, and the increase in the fps was about two fold (yes, double of what it was with the current design).
Re:Shared Wineserver (Score:5, Informative)
Just thought I'd mention that this game is one of the corner cases that is drastically affected by reducing the number of context switches. A shared memory wineserver would not automatically give this sort of performance boost to any game/application. Not that you were implying it would, but just so people know.
---
Re:Shared Wineserver (Score:2)
Wine[X]/Cedega uses only one wineserver for a single user (under normal situations) no matter how many wine programs are running. That has always been the case.
What TransGaming have been working on is a shared memory wineserver, so there isn't so much overhead with context switching and stuff like that.
Anyhow, it has been done, and is now available/active in Cedega 4.0
From the release notes:
* The previously slow path for client to server communication
has
New Era? Probably Not (Score:3, Insightful)
People want their games to work, not to pay for something (or deal with cvs) to get their stuff to partially work. Most people with a computer good enough to play DX9 games have a Windows disc anyways and a hd big enough to keep both. Transgaming will never be anything more than a niche company servicing a very small niche.
Not necessarily... (Score:3, Interesting)
Native GNU/Linux gaming versus WINE (Score:2, Insightful)
But anyway, I used to think things like WINE would hinder "true" GNU/Linux game development, and while that may be true, the games are going to be proprietary anyway, so really what's the difference between running a locked-up native binary and a locked-up WINE-translated one? And in the case of WineX, even the program doing the emulation/translation is non-Free. Folks who don't care that PC games aren't open-so
A couple of questions... (Score:4, Interesting)
However, I'm also looking at Crossover Office (or the SuSe "Wine Rack") for office compatability. Can I install both this and Transgaming's software or will they stomp on each other?
Thanks,
Re:A couple of questions... (Score:3, Informative)
---
Re:A couple of questions... (Score:4, Informative)
Btw, if you want to get cvswinex up and running, follow the instructions at linuX-gamers.net [linux-gamers.net]
Re:A couple of questions... (Score:4, Informative)
I am using Debian unstable, and installed winex with their provided
Both wonderful projects and make my GNU/Linux use almost seamless with windows progs.
Re:A couple of questions... (Score:2)
They were smart enough to give each directory their own path and commands in
They forgot to mention... (Score:4, Informative)
They forgot to mention that small detail about all the bleeding-edge hardware you need to run the latest games.... THAT will give you the biggest part of the oustanding performance....
Re:They forgot to mention... (Score:3, Informative)
I have played a number of games that actually had improved framerates under WineX 3. It seems all that Windows backend stuff puts a higher tax on the system than most people realize, since the dev team for Windows focuses on making things feel responsive at the cost of overall performance. When it comes time to do purely heavy computations (such as in games), this approach costs CPU time that would otherwise have gone
Is it ok? (Score:5, Interesting)
All I really want to do is to play Steam and all of the mods and stuff that go along with it, in linux. If I can do it for a really low one time fee and never pay again, then I think this is a good deal.
Re:Is it ok? (Score:5, Informative)
You are free to cancel after those first 3 months anytime
You are free to browse and download as often as needed during that time. I don't have a copy of the license available, but I believe it is a per-user license. But I'm not sure...I have it on two of my machines at least
Will we see a new era of game compatibilty? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, I haven't tried this grape thing yet, but I have a month left on my Transgaming membership. Maybe I will be bitchslapped by reality, but I am low on optimism....
Too bad it's not (Score:2)
I suppose the transgaming crowd put a lot of work into this.
I have noticed though, that games are the one area where open source/FSF hasn't really made inroads. They're aren't a lot of high quaility games for linux and the emulators on it seem to be almost always inferior to the win32 application from whence they came?
I suppose this is due to the high cost and workload associated with making a modern game. Makes you wonder though? How long until the cost and workl
Re:Too bad it's not (Score:4, Informative)
Having worked in a few betas, often a 90% finished game is still quite unplayable. Also for a good game you really need a group of people to decide what the goals are for the game and then reach these and release.
Open source does lend itself to simpler more open ended games like nethack, but games more than anything really aren't much good until they are almost totally finished, and also most people won't play a game through more than a couple of times no matter how good it is
Got it (Score:5, Informative)
I've tried a couple of new DirectX 9 games, and so far I'm quite happy with the results, first game is Far Cry, it used to work with the previous version, but now the performance is much better, with less artifacts and more effects.
The other game is PainKiller, it runs quite well too, I had all kinds of problems trying to get this game running with the previous version.
I know I'm going to be flamed for this post, but I wiped my Windows partition a while ago, and WineX (Cedega whatever) is doing a very good job giving me my gaming needs, it's still much better than having a Windows gaming partition.
Here's the slashdotted text (Score:3, Informative)
Toronto/Ottawa -- June 22, 2004 -- TransGaming today unveils the milestone release of version 4.0 of its flagship product, WineX, which has been renamed to Cedega. Cedega allows Windows ® games to seamlessly and transparently run under Linux, out-of-the-box, with outstanding performance and equivalent game-play. Cedega 4.0 includes support for Microsoft ® DirectX ® 9.0, significantly broadening the scope and availability of the latest triple "A" titles for avid Linux gamers. The landmark release of Cedega 4.0 adds support for new blockbuster DirectX 9.0 titles such as EA's(TM) Battlefield Vietnam(TM), Eidos'(TM) Hitman: Contracts ©, and LucasArts' © Star Wars(TM)Galaxies(TM), bringing the total number of games supported under Cedega to well over 300. Furthermore, Cedega features unprecedented support for NCSoft's ® recently released massive multiplayer online game, City of Heroes ® and Blizzard Entertainment's ® unreleased but highly anticipated World of WarCraft ®.
Cedega (Se-day-gah) - [noun] - a unique variety of grape used to make some of the finest Port Wines in the world; an innovative portability technology developed by TransGaming that allows Windows games to run on Linux.
"Cedega 4.0 represents an amazing evolution of our Linux product. Thus, it was only fitting to give it a new name; a name that is representative of our product's maturity, complexity, sophistication, and elegance. The new name, Cedega, is meaningful and reflects the significant growth that both the product and TransGaming have enjoyed over the last few years," comments Vikas Gupta, Co-CEO and President of TransGaming Technologies.
From a technical standpoint, this release sets a new benchmark for the support of games on Linux. "The Cedega 4.0 release contains more technological innovation than any previous TransGaming release and truly represents a milestone in game software portability. Cedega 4.0 supports titles that make use of the DirectX 9.0 API as well as advanced Pixel and Vertex shaders. Cedega 4.0 also includes a new advanced inter-process communication architecture that can double the speed of games which make heavy use of Win32 kernel synchronization primitives," remarks Gavriel State, CTO & Co-CEO of TransGaming Technologies.
To keep pace with the growth of Linux worldwide and to more effectively meet consumer demands internationally, TransGaming is also pleased to announce the European launch of Cedega 4.0. European customers and subscribers can now pay in Euros, a feature that has been much anticipated and will cater specifically to the rapidly growing Linux community in European countries. Cedega 4.0 includes an updated version of its user friendly interface, Point2Play, with multiple language support for English, Dutch, Danish, Portuguese and German.
About TransGaming Technologies Inc.
TransGaming Technologies is a global leader in the development of software portability products that allow game developers and publishers to develop games for one system and deploy them across multiple platforms - faster, cheaper and better than anyone else.
TransGaming's flagship Linux product, Cedega, supports hundreds of the hottest and most popular games on Linux, out-of-the-box, including hit titles such as Max Payne 2(TM), Battlefield 1942(TM), Battlefield Vietnam(TM), Medal of Honor(TM), Diablo II ®, EverQuest(TM), Star Wars Galaxies(TM), City of Heroes ® and many more. TransGaming has also ported such blockbuster titles as TRON 2.0 ®, James Bond 007(TM): Nightfire(TM), Law & Order(TM), Indiana Jones ® and The Emperor's Tomb(TM), just to name a few.
TransGaming has a research and development center in Ottawa, Canada, with business, strategy, and operational activities conducted at the Toronto, Canada office. TransGaming was recently honored with inclusion on the Branham300 List of top IT companies in Canada for the second consecutive year. More information abou
It's Slashdotted (Score:4, Informative)
Toronto/Ottawa -- June 22, 2004 -- TransGaming today unveils the milestone release of version 4.0 of its flagship product, WineX, which has been renamed to Cedega. Cedega allows Windows ® games to seamlessly and transparently run under Linux, out-of-the-box, with outstanding performance and equivalent game-play. Cedega 4.0 includes support for Microsoft ® DirectX ® 9.0, significantly broadening the scope and availability of the latest triple "A" titles for avid Linux gamers. The landmark release of Cedega 4.0 adds support for new blockbuster DirectX 9.0 titles such as EA's(TM) Battlefield Vietnam(TM), Eidos'(TM) Hitman: Contracts ©, and LucasArts' © Star Wars(TM)Galaxies(TM), bringing the total number of games supported under Cedega to well over 300. Furthermore, Cedega features unprecedented support for NCSoft's ® recently released massive multiplayer online game, City of Heroes ® and Blizzard Entertainment's ® unreleased but highly anticipated World of WarCraft ®.
Cedega (Se-day-gah) - [noun] - a unique variety of grape used to make some of the finest Port Wines in the world; an innovative portability technology developed by TransGaming that allows Windows games to run on Linux.
"Cedega 4.0 represents an amazing evolution of our Linux product. Thus, it was only fitting to give it a new name; a name that is representative of our product's maturity, complexity, sophistication, and elegance. The new name, Cedega, is meaningful and reflects the significant growth that both the product and TransGaming have enjoyed over the last few years," comments Vikas Gupta, Co-CEO and President of TransGaming Technologies.
From a technical standpoint, this release sets a new benchmark for the support of games on Linux. "The Cedega 4.0 release contains more technological innovation than any previous TransGaming release and truly represents a milestone in game software portability. Cedega 4.0 supports titles that make use of the DirectX 9.0 API as well as advanced Pixel and Vertex shaders. Cedega 4.0 also includes a new advanced inter-process communication architecture that can double the speed of games which make heavy use of Win32 kernel synchronization primitives," remarks Gavriel State, CTO & Co-CEO of TransGaming Technologies.
To keep pace with the growth of Linux worldwide and to more effectively meet consumer demands internationally, TransGaming is also pleased to announce the European launch of Cedega 4.0. European customers and subscribers can now pay in Euros, a feature that has been much anticipated and will cater specifically to the rapidly growing Linux community in European countries. Cedega 4.0 includes an updated version of its user friendly interface, Point2Play, with multiple language support for English, Dutch, Danish, Portuguese and German.
About TransGaming Technologies Inc.
TransGaming Technologies is a global leader in the development of software portability products that allow game developers and publishers to develop games for one system and deploy them across multiple platforms - faster, cheaper and better than anyone else.
TransGaming's flagship Linux product, Cedega, supports hundreds of the hottest and most popular games on Linux, out-of-the-box, including hit titles such as Max Payne 2(TM), Battlefield 1942(TM), Battlefield Vietnam(TM), Medal of Honor(TM), Diablo II ®, EverQuest(TM), Star Wars Galaxies(TM), City of Heroes ® and many more. TransGaming has also ported such blockbuster titles as TRON 2.0 ®, James Bond 007(TM): Nightfire(TM), Law & Order(TM), Indiana Jones ® and The Emperor's Tomb(TM), just to name a few.
TransGaming has a research and development center in Ottawa, Canada, with business, strategy, and operational activities conducted at the Toronto, Canada office. TransGaming was recently honored with inclusion on the Branham300 List of top IT companies in Canada for the second consecutive year. More information about the c
Re:Just buy Windows you cheap asses ! (Score:4, Interesting)
Even if TransGaming is not software libre, those who would use it have already made the choice to give up some of their freedom of use in exchange for enjoyment--very few games that would require WineX are themselves libre. However, one may wish to support the developer of a game without supporting an evil organization that they are associated with.
An analogous situation might be, for example, going to a live performance of a band rather than buying their CD in a store, as, presumably, the live performance gives a minimal amount, if anything, to the RIAA, while giving plenty to the band.
Re:Just buy Windows you cheap asses ! (Score:3, Insightful)
Why would it be a troll? I think the original poster is raising a valid question.
Some people wish to enjoy at least a small portion of the cornucopia of applications developed for the Windows platform without supporting what they see as an evil company
I get so sick and tired of this anti Microsoft lobby. Microsoft is not an evil company, it's a company. Period.
But to answer the original posters question: there are reasons why someone
Re:Just buy Windows you cheap asses ! (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're a PC gamer, don't whine about Linux not working for you... stick to Windows. Most friends I know use their PC as an appliance. It lets them talk on Aim and play games.
I never understood people's missionary attempts to "recruit" people to Linux. Who cares? Stick with what you like, try something else when you get tir
Re:Will we see a new era of game compatibilty? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Will we see a new era of game compatibilty? (Score:3, Funny)
Well, we have "redundant", but we need something which is "The opposite of insightful"
I might suggest (-1 Banal)
Re:What I don't get is... (Score:2, Interesting)
Basically what you're saying is that if I want to run linux AND play games, I should spend more money on more computers and more consoles so that I can have 500 different pieces of hardware to do all the things I want to do. If my computer can do linux and games and I don't have to buy anything else, thats more economical and more money for beer later.
Re:What I don't get is... (Score:4, Insightful)
I already have thousands of dollars' worth of Windows games. I can't play them on any of the "many fine gaming consoles" you enumerate, and I don't know why I'd want to buy another machine when I already have a perfectly good PC, anyway. Are you suggesting I just throw them all away now I've switched to Linux, or will you concede that I might have a legitimate reason to be interested in something like WineX?
If computer gaming is something you can't do without, use Windows. Why not devote a small partition to Windows/games, and use the rest for linux?
Because I might only want to play for ten minutes in my coffee break, and constantly rebooting is really rather a drag?
If you don't want to play Windows games in Linux, good for you - don't use WineX then. For the rest of us, this is one more step towards making a permanent migration possible. That's a Good Thing, in case you didn't realise.
Re:What I don't get is... (Score:2)
I agree, to a point. In this house we have OSX boxes ( another game impoverished platform... ) as well as an Xbox, a Gamecube, a PS1, a Dreamcast, an N64, a SNES and an NES, as well as a GBA or two depending on who is home. And they're great fun.
The remaining problem can be eloquently summed up in one word - Counterstrike ( and don't suggest the XBox version, I need keys and mouse ). Sadly, to totally rewrite Herbert, he who controls the Counterstrike controls the multiplayer gaming world.
Get real... (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me quote a page [netwit.net.au] that ALL linux users should read and know by heart: "WHAT? You mean to say you own enough hardware to run this stuff, yet you're too lousy to pay 15 bucks for binary packages? Get real."
(or at least not use it with Portage
The ebuilds are there. Just pay the money and you can use it within portage with no trouble.
Re:How well does this work? (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally, I love it, and I don't regret paying for it [1]. When I want to play a supported game I don't have to boot back to Windows, and that's definately a good thing. I do wish they'd spend a bit more time making the older stuff run though. I vote for it every time I can, but the bulk of the votes always wind up going to the latest FPS candy...
.
[1] Put that in your pipe and smoke it, all you "Linux users won't pay for anything" dips.
Re:2 Games (Score:3, Insightful)
I like your comment (Score:3, Insightful)
Computers aren't very different from anything really and no matter how much of a need there is for standard, there never will be really a standard.
Have you ever dreamed installing a big block hemi in your shiny WRX impreza or Ford Focus ?
If that's the case, keep dreaming, it'll never happen. Because chevy stuff are for chevys, ford stuff is for ford stu
Re:Additional games support? (Score:5, Informative)
I guess you didn't pay for UT2K4 or you might have seen that it supports linux on the box. The Linux install binary sits right next to the windows binary in the root directory. It plays better on my Linux partition than it does on my Windows. C&C I don't know about and don't play, but ut2004 has NATIVE linux support, which beats playing a game under wienx any day