That was a great post Holly, very informative,
I also run wine (every day at work) because I need to run Lotus Notes. And I was wondering about games under wine as well. Thank you very much. - AR On 5/24/05, Holly Bostick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] schreef: > > Thank you for the explanation. That clears it up. I don't play the Doom > > series either - I have Soldier of Fortune and Half-LIfe along with some > > others. And I have an Nvidia card <G>. > > > Yes, well, I hate you :) . But it is important to mention on behalf of > any other idio-- umm, unfortunate ATI users-- like myself, that our > regrettable choice of video card also has an effect on the situation. > > But as to the original question, here are some important resources: > > The Wine application database at http://appdb.winehq.org > > This resource is not well-maintained atm, but it's trying to come back, > so if you are a Wine user, please register, log in, and update > application information, or even apply to maintain an application so > that the developers can easily see if an app regressed after a monthly > release. > > Wine now also has a Wiki at http://wiki.winehq.org/FrontPage, and the > "user wiki" is at http://wine-wiki.org/ . > > Naturally, this also needs user support to survive, so any Wine users > might consider contributing. > > The Transgaming games database at http://transgaming.org/gamesdb/ . > > These resources require you to be a TG subscriber to contribute, but > anyone can read the data already provided. It's also not that > well-maintained (a lot of listed games don't have any info because no > one has tested them yet), but it is at least a place to start. TG also > has a Wiki, and if the game in question has an entry there, it is linked > in the gamesdb, so that's nice. > > Codeweavers (Crossover Office) also has an application database at > > http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/ . > > But I must say, in my experience with the CX demo, they hardly need > one-- only one "unsupported" app that I threw at it did not run > (CloneCD; but it installed fine)-- and that just doesn't run under > Linux, period, afaict. I've found Crossover to be really great, pretty > easy to use, looks like a real program, and if it ran games instead of > only applications that I have no use for (such as Office and Access and > the like), I would buy it in a minute. In fact, I'm almost sorry that I > have no use for it, because it's the kind of thing I *want* to buy, just > to show my support for how good it is. > > So for the applications that the OP wants to run (namely Office), I > would recommend it, but if the OP doesn't want to spend any money, I > would recommend Wine with WineTools: > > http://www.von-thadden.de/Joachim/WineTools/ > > which should make it easier to get Office installed and running if you > really must have it. > > However, WineTools vastly prefers the "last stable for Office" Wine > version, which is considered by the developer to be 20041019 (which is > still available in Portage). However, the developer does welcome > information on any further applications that users successfully install > and run with WineTools, so they can be included in the supported list, > which can be found at > > http://www.von-thadden.de/Joachim/WineTools/wt212jo.html > > As you might have guessed, I'm a pretty big Wine-head, and follow > developments fairly closely. As such, on the whole I would say that no > version or variant of Wine is (at this time, but that may be changing, > as soon as within the next quarter) sufficient for all cases, unless you > have very specific (and limited) needs. > > If you don't play games, for example (or only simple ones not requiring > DX support), then Crossover (or Wine and WineTools) is probably sufficient. > > If you play games, but only older ones (I'm re-playing Deus Ex and > Septerra Core atm), then Wine alone may be sufficient, but you may > require more than one version (an installed binary and a compiled CVS, > for example), as things have been known to break (regress) from month to > month. > > On the other hand, Wine can really surprise you sometimes with what runs > "out of the box"-- on one of my "live on the edge" days, I installed In > Memoriam (Missing: Since January in Europe), which is only a year and a > half old, under either Wine 20050111 or 20050211. I didn't really expect > it to work, especially since the game requires an Internet connection, > both because you get a FreeWeb account (which enables a password to be > sent to you so you can even play the game), and because it also contains > a lot of embedded links in the puzzle graphics to get clues (it's a > "pre-murder" mystery adventure game, and I was having Adventure Game > Withdrawal Syndrome, which is why I was trying this at all). > > To my complete and total shock, everything worked fine. I think I may > have had to install the Shockwave Flash Player by hand under Wine (but > had I been playing this under Windows, I would have had to do that as > well, so I don't count that as "tweaking"). But it worked. I told the > game to use my GMail account, and it sent the password there (meaning it > got the information correctly, because Wine was able to use my > DSL-via-the LAN connection properly to send it). Even more amazing, I > didn't have to install IE or any such thing-- I clicked on a link in the > game, and the game opened my installed Firefox. > > You have no idea how amazed I was that Wine just managed all this > without me having to do anything special. The point being, don't dismiss > Wine just because it may not claim to run any given "super game" or > "super app", whereas Cedega does. There are not a few things that > nonetheless run better under Wine than under Cedega, Wine has at least > one feature that beats Cedega hands-down (drive mapping through symlinks > rather than the config file-- very helpful if an installer needs to > change CDs, but locks the drive when requesting the CD change, as some > older installers do), and Wine's humility tends to conceal the fact that > it does have a few neat tricks up its virtual sleeve. > > If you want to play most current (DX9, but not DX 9.0c) games now > (rather than waiting for Wine), then you probably want Cedega, but then > you probably also want Point2Play (the GUI interface to Cedega), because > Transgaming *definitely* breaks things that used to work in their > never-ending quest to get the latest and greatest FPS running. For > example, an old (but very well-regarded) RPG, Planescape:Torment, works > with WineX 2.2.1, and with no WineX or Cedega version thereafter. The > voting population (subscribing to Cedega gives you the right to vote on > what they'll work on fixing) has not succeeded in placing this high > enough to get it some kind of priority, so if you wanted to play that > *and* HL2, you would have to install both WineX 2.2.1 and Cedega-- which > Point2Play allows you to do easily (in this case, so does Portage, but > Point2Play keeps better track of things in the Cedega backend, since > that's what it's for). Planescape is far from the only game that broke > after version name.your.poison (you can find a lot of this information > if the game has a Wiki entry, which usually specifies which Cedega > version works best). Point2Play seems to bring other problems, though > (some things will install or run properly under command-line Cedega, but > get borked under Point2Play, for example). But if you have to manage > multiple WineX/Cedega versions, it's really the best tool for the job > (despite its imperfections). > > I'm also working on a big "master list" of what I have (or my boyfriend > has) and tend to play (or that he would want to play if I ever got him > to switch to Linux) that works under what version of what Wine variant > (because I'm just tired of trying to figure this out all over again > every time I reorganize my system). Should I ever get it done, I'll > certainly post it to the Web (and I'm mentioning it so that I have some > impetus to actually get it done; it's a bloody big job). On that basis, > I would say that it is currently not possible to just choose one and be > good to go. You'll probably need at least two Wine variants to cover all > your bases. Wine and Cedega, Wine and CX, or CX and Cedega. > > However, with any two variants installed, you can probably run most any > relatively common/popular program you need to, usually with minimal or > no tweaking. If you stick to the Win98 default emulation, and if you > have a Win98 license, making real Win98 dlls legally available for use, > you can tweak a large proportion of things that must be tweaked into > running (because they need native Windows DLLs not installed by the app > itself but by Windows). Trying to emulate XP, though-- all bets are off > (afaik, neither Wine nor Cedega supports XP emulation or native XP DLLs > very well yet). Special-interest programs, such as those needed for > semi-pro audio recording, seem to be more of a crap-shoot at the moment, > but more because those interested are just starting to come forward and > publicize their results with specific programs, rather than because the > programs cannot be gotten to work. It rather seems that with tweaking, a > fair number of them can (isn't that right, Mr. Knecht, if you're here?). > > OK, so that's the summary of pretty much every piece of general > knowledge I have about Wine and its variants. Hope it was useful :) . > > Holly > -- > gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list > > -- If the truth can't set you free, a lie will save you. -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
