HOWTO: Diablo 3 on Linux

Like many nerds around the world this evening I am prepping for what, odds are, will be the first of many all-nighters involving Blizzard's soon-to-be-released Diablo III (which releases tonight at midnight!). If you have been by my blog before then odds are you will know that I prefer to do as much of my gaming as possible on my operating system of choice: Linux. Something else you may or may not know is that I am also a large fan of the company Code Weavers that produces the commercial Wine software Crossover.

Want to know the reason I am such a fan of Crossover? A few weekends ago I spent about 6 hours trying to get Wine sources to compile with various patches to make the Diablo 3 open beta work on Linux. The result? I ended up hanging my head in defeat and just playing on my OSx86 system so I didn't miss the weekend event. At that point Diablo 3 didn't work OOTB on default Wine builds or Crossover.

This morning I dropped by #crossover on FreeNode to check in with the Crossover folks to see what their plans were for the Diablo 3 release due out tonight - were us Linux folks going to have to wait?

Nope!

The Diablo 3 release is something they had been very aware of and had been testing rigorously in-house. I was informed they had internal builds of Crossover where Diablo 3 was functional enough to play this very day. In fact within three hours of my speaking with them they had an "unsupported build" release that was functional with the Diablo 3 installer (note: if you are not a current Crossover customer that above link will not work for you).

I promptly installed the update and was on my merry way:

As of now if you are using Crossover 11.1 or newer Diablo 3 is now officially supported,

Now - if you are not interested in supporting Crossover - you can attempt to succeed where I failed and compile Wine with some of the patches listed on the Diablo 3 Beta AppDB page. Odds are if you wait for the next Wine developmental release or two, Diablo 3 will just start working by default - the Crossover folks are one of the lead contributors to the Wine project and most of their code improvements go upstream.

Trouble Shooting Tips:
If you are having issues getting it to run via the latest Wine builds it might be worth your while to use winetricks to install the "vcrun2008" package.

If your login attempt is hanging at the "authenticating credentials" step, exit Diablo, open a terminal and run:

echo 0|sudo tee /proc/sys/kernel/yama/ptrace_scope

~Jeff Hoogland

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Crossover, Bordeaux, Cedega VS Vanilla Wine

A question I have fielded more then a couple times in the Wine section of the Ubuntu Forums is

What is the difference between commercial Wine products and vanilla Wine?

There are three main commercial Wine products: Bordeaux, Cedega, and Crossover. There are a few distinct differences between the commercial Wine products and the FOSS Wine.

Support:
One of the largest benefits to using a paid for Wine product is that not only are you paying for software, you are also paying for support of said software. What this means is that if an application that is suppose to function, doesn't work properly - You will have a real live person to help you debug the issue. While support for Cedega is somewhat lacking, Bordeaux and Crossover have fantastic support staff.

GUI/Automated Installer:
All three of the commercial Wine applications provide a GUI/automated installer for installing applications. This makes it much easier for new users (and faster for experienced users) to configure applications properly under Wine. Time is money as they say.

Added Application Support:
Commercial Wine products have added pieces of code that allow some applications to function better than they do under vanilla Wine. Notably under Cedega is a superior DirectX API that allows for better FPS under a few titles (as well as running Crysis). The primary piece of code Crossover adds to Wine is their custom HTML engine. This adds better functionality to Internet Explorer, Steam, and other web-based Windows applications. Bordeaux builds Wine with a few extra patches to fix bugs, as well as support for the pulse audio sound server.

Regression Resistance:
Ever had an application working perfectly under the latest beta Wine release and then have it magically stop working for some reason or another when Wine updates? That is called a regression. Commercial Wine products are tested to ensure that all of your applications that already work, will continue to do so with future releases.

Cost:
Ah, and now the the primary reason that is always brought up whenever someone mentions any sort of commercial Wine product: The Cost. I must say, my absolute favorite response is something along the lines of:

"Why would you pay for software to use on your free operating system! That goes against the very nature of Linux!"

You know what else goes against "the very nature of Linux"? Trying to run Windows applications. Odds are you paid for that Windows application as well, so if you are going to support application development on a platform you no longer use - Why not support it on your platform of choice as well? None of the products are terribly expensive. Bordeaux starts at 20$, Crossover at 40$, and Cedega starts at 15$ (but is subscription based).

If perhaps I have persuaded you to invest one of these products and you are confused on which of the three is best for you, check out my Cedega VS Crossover comparison and my Bordeaux 2.0.4 review.

~Jeff Hoogland

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Wine vs Native - 3D Performance Benchmarks

In the past I've done Wine on Linux versus native Windows 7 benchmarks for 3D applications. Source engine games are some of my favorite benchmarking applications. Since Valve ported Steam to OSX earlier this year and I recently acquired an OSX PC I figured this would be an opportune time to see how Wine performance measures up to a native client, not only on the same hardware - but on the same operating system.

My benchmarking tools this time around will be Counter Strike: Source and Team Fortress 2, as they both run native on OSX. For Wine software I used the recently released Crossover Games 9.1

Scores:
Counter Strike: Source

• 1680x1050, Wine - 44.16fps
• 800x600, Wine - 48.59fps
• 1680x1050, Native - 54.02fps
• 800x600, Native - 56.22fps

Team Fortress 2

• 1680x1050, Wine - 43.88fps
• 800x600, Wine - 49.58fps
• 1680x1050, Native - 50.56fps
• 800x600, Native - 58.47fps

As you can see - the numbers are fairly close (at least closer than they are with the Windows vs Linux Wine benchmarks). With CSS Wine scored 81% the speed of the native version and in TF2 Wine was 86% the FPS native version. It is fantastic the progress the Wine project has made over the past few years, to the point where it can almost keep up with a native version of modern games - even so I would love to see native ports of these games to my favorite operating system.

~Jeff Hoogland
Please note while these benchmark scores presented are accurate to the best of my abilities, they only represent my personal hardware and software configurations. Your results on your own system(s) may vary (and if they do, please share them!).

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HOWTO: Starcraft 2 on Linux with Wine

Okie dokie - so I've mentioned before that I play Starcraft 2 under my Linux install with no issues. Since the game's official release a few days ago I have been getting a good bit of traffic on those two pages - so I figured I would put together a quick HOWTO for getting Starcraft 2 working on your Linux distro of choice. The game runs under Wine 1.2 and/or Crossover Games 9.1 with a small bit of work (the latter is easier to make work).

Since free is good I'll talk about the Wine HOWTO first. First off, download and install Wine 1.2 on your system. Next, run the following commands in terminal:

cd ~/Downloads

wget http://winezeug.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/winetricks

chmod +x winetricks

./winetricks droid fontfix fontsmooth-rgb gdiplus gecko
./winetricks vcrun2008 vcrun2005 allfonts d3dx9 win7

winecfg

In the configuration Window it opens go to the libraries tab and enter mmdevapi in the new override for library box and click add. Now scroll through the existing over rides list for mmdevapi click edit and set it to disabled. Finally click on the audio tab and set it to alsa.

If you still have audio issues after doing this and your distro uses Pulse Audio (Ubuntu does) install Wine 1.2 that has been built with pulse audio support with the following commands in terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:c-korn/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

As of Crossover 9.1 Starcraft 2 is listed as "officially support" and as such you will find that it has an entry in the automated games installer. The only issue is that after the game has actually finished installing the StarCraft 2 process hangs around - meaning Crossover never actually knows that the game has finished installing and thusly never creates menu entries for it. Thank fully there is a simple fix for this - after Starcraft 2 has finished installing, open up your system monitor and look for any rogue Starcraft 2 processes and kill them off. After you have done this the CXGames installer will know that it has finished installing and will create the menu entries as it should.

If you have audio issues under Crossover you can open your Starcraft 2 bottle's WineCFG, select the audio tab, and set hardware acceleration from full to emulated.

Also - if you are trying to install from the retail CD (with Wine or Crossover) you might need need to manually mount the disc due to an issue with its split PC/Mac auto mounter. To do this run the following two commands in terminal:

sudo umount /media/SC2*

sudo mount -t udf -o ro,unhide,uid=$(id -u) /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom

Note some drives may use /dev/sr0 (or other mount points) instead if /dev/cdrom. If you are having issues getting it working scroll through the comments for some good tips - if you are still unable to get it working after that, make a comment of your own :)

Also - if you are attempting to get the game running with an ATI card, it was suggested in the comments that making it run under a virtual desktop allows it to run on some systems it otherwise fails to work on.

I tested the above methods on Ubuntu 10.04, Linux Mint Debian, and Chakra - but they should be applicable to any modern Linux distribution. Have any issues feel free to drop a comment below and I will do my best to lend a hand debugging. Happy gaming!

~Jeff Hoogland

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A New Cycle in the Vinyard - Bordeaux, Crossover, and Wine 1.2

July 16th, 2010 marks the next release in the "stable" line of Wine releases. Periodic "stable" releases of Wine are important because they are heavily tested to ensure that no regressions have occurred (meaning software that was working, will continue to work) between versions. It has been over two years since we saw Wine 1.0 stable released (which feels like a life time in Linux years - I mean comon that's a whole Ubuntu LTS release ago). This new release brings with it over 3,000 various bug fixes, as well as added support for 64bit applications. For a complete change log check here.

New stable releases of Wine are so important that my two favorite commerical Wine products, Bordeaux and Crossover, have both jumped right in Wine 1.2's new stably goodness with soon to be release product updates.

In addition to all the improvements Wine 1.2 brings to the table Crossover's 9.1 release also includes fixes that allow Star Trek:Bridge Commander and Modern Warfare 2 to function properly again. Their change log also notes "Made several application profile tune-ups" so hopefully your favorite games will perform a bit better under this Crossover release than they did with older versions.

The soon to be released Bordeaux 2.0.6 release sports a few very important updates in addition to Wine 1.2 - these include:

• Support for Firefox 3.6.3 and multimedia plugins
• Support for VLC 1.1.0 (this is mostly for BSD and OpenSolaris users)
• Many Steam fixes (Including fixing this nasty bug)

Beyond all of these Bordeaux is also the first Wine binary package to add support for the ever more popular Pulse Audio (default sound server in Ubuntu for some time now):
Also worth mentioning is that in celebration of the Wine 1.2 release Bordeaux is currently having a 50% off sale - 10$ for this product is a steal. It is well worth it for the time it can save you if you use Wine software often on your Unix systems.

~Jeff Hoogland

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Starcraft 2 and a bit of Wine - Linux Performance

EDIT: If you stumbled upon this page looking for a HOWTO for getting Starcraft 2 working under Wine check here.

I mentioned earlier this month that I was enjoying the Starcraft 2 beta on Ubuntu 10.04 thanks to Wine software. In my previous posting I had simply stated that SC2 was "playable" under Wine. I have a fairly powerful gaming laptop that sports an nVidia 260m GTX and a 1680x1050 resolution panel. SC2 defaulted itself under Wine to "ultra" settings on my system - after playing one game at these settings (well it was really more like playing a slide-show). I promptly lowered the details and textures to low (while leaving the resolution the same).

With these settings I average around 40 FPS at the main menu and in game. At the high end I see just over 50 FPS while playing and at the low end it bottoms out around 20 FPS in combat. (For those wondering how I obtained these numbers press control+alt+f to put an FPS counter in the upper left hand corner of the screen while in SC2). These numbers come from the latest SC2 patch as of today (05/25/10).

Now for a bit of an ironic story regarding SC2. Late last night I dual booted my system with Windows 7 Ultimate again due to the need for an embedded youtube video to work in an Office 2007 power point presentation (it failed to work under Crossover and youtube plays poorly in VMs, thus native install was my only option left). Back on topic - since I had Windows installed anyways I figured I would copy over my SC2 files (god bless Blizzard and their portable installs) and see how comparable the performance was on the native operating system.

Needless to say it performs better, in fact the FPS I see under low settings on Wine is about equal to the same FPS I was seeing under high settings on Windows. That is about where the things that worked better under Windows ended for SC2 on my computer.

I would like to prefix my following statement with the fact that my network drivers are installed, working, and I had used several other applications online just fine.

When I joined my first SC2 game on Windows I had just selected my workers to start mining when the lag started, around two minutes later I was dropped from the game and it counted as a loss in my ladder league. I figured it was just something funky with my internet line, even though I had not had any issues in SC2 under Wine in the last three weeks, as such I promptly selected "find match" to start another game. Two minutes later I had "lost" another ladder game due to "connection" issues.

Fan-flipping-tastic.

Just out of curiosity I decided to boot in Linux to see if the issue existed there as well (I'm hoping the irony of rebooting into Linux to play a game isn't lost on anyone). Needless to say the problem was not present there, after sweeping two ladder games without any connection issues on Ubuntu I can indeed confirm that it was a "connection" issue with the SC2 was only happening under Windows.

Yes: I know this game is still in beta.
Yes: I know odds are this issue is limited to my system.

Is it still annoying? Yep. It is ridiculously ironic? You bet.

Anyone else have fun story they would like to share about an application working better under Wine than it does on Windows itself?

~Jeff Hoogland

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CXGames 9.0 - Hands on Review

Back on October of last year I did a comparison of Cedega and CXGames. As of yesterday Codeweavers launched their CXGames 9.0. If we had heard any news or updates from Cedega in the last five months this would be an updated comparison, but since Cedega has not changed I simply am going to be reviewing the newly released CXGames.

The first thing you will notice when using CXGames 9.0 if you had used past versions is that the GUI has under gone a refreshing change.

Application Installer:

Bottle Manager:One of the key things you will notice when installing a game is that there are now "profiles" built in for games. Officially supported games have a profile as well currently a handful of other games. Similar to how Cedega works people can now submit the Wine settings they use to successfully run a game to Codeweavers so others can replicate these settings with a single click from the installer. With the number of users Codeweavers has accumulated over the years I have no doubt that we will soon see profiles for the multitude of gold and silver rated unsupported applications listed in the Codeweaver's data base.

New GUI, game profiles, what else is new in CXGames 9.0? A much needed Wine version upgrade has been added to this release. CXGames is based off of the recently released Wine 1.1.42. If you are not aware newer Wine versions often times include many bug fixes that can allow applications that had failed to run under Wine in the past to suddenly start working. The benefit of purchasing commercial Wine software such as CXGames is that while you gain all the benefits of an updated Wine version you do not have to worry about experiencing any regressions that may have found their way into the Wine base.

From a gamer's aspect the most important thing about this new release is added support for the recently released Steam GUI. The new interface for the Steam content delivery service I find runs much better under CXGames 9.0 than the old Steam interface ever ran under past Crossover versions. CXGames 9.0 also advertises added support for StarTrek Online and the Starcraft 2 Beta. There is a profile under "unsupported applications" for StarTrek, I am not much of an MMO guy so I have not tested this game yet. Upon searching for an entry for Starcraft 2 you will not find one, on the Crossover forums one of the staff makes the claim that it just works OOTB when selecting "install other application". I can confirm this is not the case. By default SC2 crashes at upon startup, after some tweaking I have it at least showing me a loading screen (even though it freezes with no terminal output).

Finally I always like to mention cost, CXGames 9.0 continues to be 40$ (this includes one year of support and updates). Overall CXGames 9.0 is another great release in a fantastic product line. The GUI updates are for the better, the game profiles work well, and a newer Wine version is always appreciated. If you are a Steam gamer on Linux then CXGames 9.0 is a must have, if Starcraft 2 under Linux is what you are looking for you are going to have to pass on CXGames for the time being - but I have no doubt that by the time SC2 releases at the end of July it will be fully supported under Crossover.

~Jeff Hoogland

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Bordeaux 2.0.4 - Hands on Review

Competition is an important part of all markets. It drives innovation, keeps prices down, and typically tends to ensure a quality product. Don't get me wrong, I think Crossover is fantastic software, but with Cedega pretty much being dead where is the choice in commercial Wine software? Lesser known than the two previously mentioned is Bordeaux.

Bordeaux is a commercial Wine software more similar to Crossover than Cedega in respect to the fact that it directly uses the Wine project. What makes Bordeaux worth taking a look at? Well there are a few things!

Firstly I would like to highlight the fact that Bordeaux updates their software regularly. The version I obtained to use for this review is the soon to be released 2.0.4, which ships with Wine version 1.1.41. The current release, 2.0.0, ships with Wine 1.1.36 (where is Crossover has been shipping with Wine 1.1.24 for sometime now). For those not familiar a newer Wine version typically means support for more applications and better performance for those that already ran in past versions. Worried about buying Bordeaux and then having an new version come out a couple months later? No worries, your purchase comes with free upgrades for six months after purchase.

The next wonderful things about Bordeaux is that just like Wine - they support most forms of Unix officially. Bordeaux is available for purchase for the BSD, Linux, OSX, and Solaris platforms (Where is Crossover only officially supports OSX and Linux even though they have unsupported BSD and Solaris builds). Bordeaux is also affordable, at 20$ for the Linux binary it is half the cost of even the cheapest Crossover product.

Now for the most important part of any review - the functionality of the product. While the list of software Bordeaux officially supports is not extremely large, they do support many of the key applications that most Unix users require from the Windows environment. These include (but are not limited to) Microsoft Office 2000/2003/2007, Photoshop 6/7/CS/CS2, Internet Explorer 6/7, and Steam. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the recently released new Steam GUI was near fully functional under this latest release of Bordeaux. In fact the only issue it gave me was a distortion of the tray image icon. I loaded up a few of my source engine games (L4D2, Team Fortress, Counter Strike: Source) and they all ran perfectly fine.

Bordeaux's GUI for installing and managing software is simple, but functional. It contains three main sections: Install Applications, Manage Wine, and Unsupported Packages.
The Wine management tab provides easy access to tools such as a command prompt, notepad, regedit, taskmgr, winecfg, and application un-installer. The unsupported packages tab allows for installing all of the various Winetricks packages into a given "wine cellar" (Bordeaux's version of the "bottle" or WINEPREFIX).

Over all Bordeaux works quite well and this 2.0.4 release is a step in the right direction. One key reason to pick up Bordeaux over Crossover is if you have need of both Steam and Office 2007 on your Linux install (A prime example for this is if you are a student such as myself and game occasionally while needing M$ Office because your school requires it). To have both of these applications supported under Crossover you would at least have to purchase their 70$ professional package versus the 20$ it would cost to have support for both these applications under Bordeaux.

~Jeff Hoogland

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Why there is a Market for Linux Games

Linux users are starved for quality games - there is no doubting that. Bring up the topic of a Linux port on most gaming forums and you will typically see responses about the market share of the operating system, that Linux users are cheap (thus why they use a free operating system) or there are too many package formats to support (which really is a non-issue). I'm not even going to bother trying to argue the point of market share, we all know Windows is a large majority and Linux is the under dog - lets leave it at that.

Lets stop and think about something for a moment - nowhere near all of those Windows users are gamers. In fact with the world we live in that is so heavily populated with consoles I would be surprised if even half of the people using Windows are the type that go out and purchase the latest and greatest PC games (or even play casually). Linux users on the other hand are typically a more tech savvy bunch and tech savvy people more often than not tend to gravitate towards being gamers.

Alright - enough speculation and assumptions, lets look at some cold hard numbers. Two recent games that had successful Linux ports would be 2DBoy's World of Goo and Frictional Game's Penumbra Series. 2DBoy reported that since they released their Linux port of the game 10% of their total game sales have been for the Linux platform. Frictional Games reports a similair statistic - in fact 12% of their sales for the Penumbra series up to this point are for the Linux operating system.

Still need more convincing? If you have not been made aware of it yet as of my posting this there are still two days left to participate in the Humble Indie Bundle experiment. The Humble Indie Bundle offers your five games (including World of Goo and the first of the Penumbra series) at what ever cost you can afford. All five of the games are fully cross-platform (Windows, OSX, Linux) and when you make your donation you are asked to mark which operating system you are purchasing the games for. Take a look at the following statistics up until this point from the donations they have received:
Judging by that pie chart Linux users appear to make up almost 25% of the donations and their average donation amount is almost double that of the average Windows user donation. This means that of the 571,048$ donated thus far 142,762$ is from Linux users. But remember Linux users are cheap and their is no money in Linux game market - right.

Games that already exist on only the Windows platform need ports as well. In fact there is so much demand for some of these games to run on Linux that Codeweavers has a business commercially supporting many of these titles on the Linux operating system (it's not perfect - but for now it works).

I can huff and puff about the facts and statistics till I am blue in the face, but the point is this: There is a market for Linux gaming and one that is still largely untapped at that. If you are a game developer I implore you to please port your game to Linux!

Anyone know of any other games released for Linux that have been successful? Let me know! I am always interested in picking up a new game that runs natively on my systems.

~Jeff Hoogland

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Some WINE with your Starcraft 2?

EDIT: If you stumbled upon this page looking for a HOWTO for getting Starcraft 2 working under Wine check here.

It finally happened. I have a Starcraft2 closed beta key! What feels like decades ago now I had applied for a Starcraft2 beta key on Battle.net and had all but given up hope after many months of waiting when a friend was kind enough to give me one of his invite passes. I entered the key into my account and was thoroughly excited when I saw the beta appear in my downloads. I was clicking through the website as quick as I could so I could get the game downloading, when reality came crashing down on top of me as I hit the downloads page and was asked to choose between a Windows and an OSX client.

What is a Linux user to do? With the recent release of Ubuntu 10.04 I had removed Windows 7 from my hardrive as it had not been booted into in over a month and was simply taking up storage space. My first thought was to simply reinstall Windows 7, giving it just enough space to boot and install Starcraft. Then I thought about the fact that I almost never reboot my system and that having to restart just to play Starcraft would be a real kill joy (and a time waster).

I run all of my source engine games on Linux via CXGames however upon looking at their entry for Starcraft II I had little faith that it would work under Crossover. Not quite ready to give up hope yet I headed over to the WINE AppDB entry for SC2, lo-and-behold it had a gold rating! Browsing through the page you will find a wonderful HOWTO for recompiling WINE from git with a custom patch for SC2. Always one to jump in with both feet first I promptly uninstalled my current WINE version from my system and began downloading/compiling a patch version of 1.1.43 Twenty minutes later (I have a fairly good processor) I had the patched version of WINE built and installed. I then proceeded to download the beta client and get it installing under WINE (I also followed the directions here that contains some extra tweaks for running the beta under WINE, it also installs SC2 to it's own WINE prefix).

I have been happily playing Starcraft 2 under Ubuntu 10.04 for the last three days now. All I have to say is that it is a true testament to how much progress the WINE project has made in recent years when it can be counted upon to run a new title that hasn't even been fully released yet! Performance under WINE is not perfect, but on lower settings it is more than playable (which is what really counts). There seems to be a processor bottle neck on higher detail settings (also present in L4D2 under WINE actually) that hinders performance.
~Jeff Hoogland

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Alternative Unix Software Installation Methods

In one of my education classes this trimester we are getting to play with wonderful pieces of technology called "SMART Boards" Essentially a SMART board is an interactive white board, they are typically used in classrooms or occasionally in business meetings (if you have never played with one before I highly recommend you check them out, very fun). At any rate - we all know that hardware is fairly useless without good software to make it function properly.

My teacher informed us the first day of class that the school would provide us with copies of the SMART software so we would have a chance to learn to use the SMART board fully. I'm been using Linux for some time now and I'm going to be honest, when I heard this I thought to myself "Well there is one more thing I'll have to run through Crossover or boot up the VM to use."

What can I say: I'm a cynic at heart.

As such I was pleasantly surprised when I navigated my way to SMART's website and discovered a fully cross-platform application set for interacting with the SMART board. When I clicked through to the download page for the latest version of the SMART software I found a single package download link for Linux. Again being a cynic at heart I was expecting to have to go through something like this again once I opened that tar.gz package. After the 22megish file archive finished downloading, I extracted the contents and much to my surprise I was greeted by a single file with the extension ".package" Curious, I had never seen a file with this extension before. Being a "jump in with both feet first" type person when it comes to technology I gave the file a double click, doing so caused Ubuntu to greet me with a message I had seen many times before: "The contents of this file appear to be an executable text file what would you like to do?" I went ahead and selected "run contents in terminal".

All I have to say is: Man was I blown away.

What proceeded to run on my computer was quite possibly the most seamless non-distro specific package installation I have ever experienced. While the installer worked it's magik I did a quick search on the Linux Answer Machine as to what exactly this ".package" file was. I found it was created by a packaging system called "Autopackage"

Autopackage is a distro neutral method of packaging up software for distribution to the Linux platform. It provides a sleek GUI for doing so and even installs itself from the first .package file you run on your system. Autopackage is designed to install and manage non-core libraries and software on Linux systems with ease. Upon further research I discovered that the Autopackage project had been around for some time now.

Wait, there has been an easy method of packaging software for any Linux Distribution and I have just now discovered it some years after it's creation? Why is that? Something must be wrong with it or defective for this to be the case, right?

Unfortunately this is one of those more gray Yes and No. Type answers.

On the yes aspect, Autopackage works - and works well. It allows a software developer to only have to maintain a single package (or two if they want to support 64bit platforms) and rest assured that it will work regardless of the Linux environment of the user. It makes software installation on Linux as seamless as it is on the Windows platform - which is something Linux needs if it is going to gain support from commercial software developers.

On the no end of the answer, many Linux users will point out that installing something through Autopackage means that the software installation circumvents your distro's package management system. Meaning said installed software will need to keep track of it's own updates (Autopackage keeps track of the software's components for removal purposes).

Now, perhaps you like the idea behind Autopackage, but you don't care for how it handles certain things. There must be some other choice out there for a universal Linux software installer right? Of course there is! The "MojoSetup" installer allows for a similar easy package installation method for Linux software. The two most notable differences between the two are that Mojo relies on each package to keep track of it's own files for removal purposes while Autopackage provides a central location for managing all things installed from .package files. This fact leads to the other difference about the two. Autopackage needs to install itself before it can function on your system, MojoSetup runs fully from the install .bin/.sh file and does not need to install any additional components on a user's system to function. While the second of these is really a minor detail for most people I feel it is worth mentioning.

Finally I would like to mention two other alternative application installers for Linux. Zero Install is a net-based method for running applications on your computer without having to actually install the application itself and Klik is a method of compiling packages into a compressed archive that can later be mounted and run again without any installation.

Know of another piece of (non-package manager) software that enables a distribution neutral, friendly, application installation that I didn't mention here? Drop a comment below so I can check it out!

~Jeff Hoogland

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Steam Client and Source Games Porting to OSX

So the devil called me this afternoon and said they where having a snowstorm in hell.

In other news Valve announced that their revolutionary "content delivery service" known as "Steam" is being ported to OSX and will be available as early as April 2010. No really its true, straight from the horse's mouth. In addition the actual client and "Steam-works" being brought to Apple's operating system Valve also plans to port all of the Source Engine games, these include:

• Half Life 2 Series
  
• Counter Strike: Source
• Team Fortress 2
• Left 4 Dead Series
  
• Day of Defeat: Source

All I have to say is: Microsoft has to quaking in their boots. For some time Microsoft's Windows operating system has been the standard for gaming on the PC. With Valve making the push into OSX this means more than just trouble for Microsoft's operating system. It also means their famed DirectX API that is Windows only may be in jeopardy. I say this because as stated in Valve's official announcement in order to port their engine/games to OSX they will be reimplementing them in OpenGL. After the porting of these past released source games Valve plans to treat OSX as a "first tier" operating system. Meaning that all future releases of source games will occur simultaneously for OSX, Windows, and Xbox 360.

Not a fan of Valve's flag-ship gaming engine? Not a problem, take a peak at these other titles already for sale on Steam that have a native OSX client:

• Aliens versus Predator (original)
  
• Altitude
  
• And Yet It Moves
  
• Ankh: Battle of the Gods
  
• Ankh: Heart of Osiris
  
• Aquaria
  
• BioShock
  
• Braid
  
• Brainpipe
  
• Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars
  
• Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror
  
• Call of Duty
  
• Call of Duty: United Offensive
  
• Call of Duty 2
  
• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
  
• Championship Manager 2007
  
• Championship Manager 2008
  
• Championship Manager 2010
  
• Civilization IV
  
• Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword
  
• Civilization IV: Colonization
  
• Civilization IV: Warlords
  
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3
  
• Darwinia
  
• DEFCON
  
• Delta Force: Black Hawk Down
  
• Deus Ex
  
• Doom
  
• Doom 3
  
• Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil
  
• Doom II: Hell on Earth
• Dragon Age: Origins
  
• Elven Legacy
  
• Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
  
• Eschalon: Book I
  
• Europa Universalis III
  
• Europa Universalis: Rome
  
• FlatOut 2
  
• Final Doom
  
• Football Manager 2009
  
• Football Manager 2010
  
• Football Manager Live
  
• Freedom Force
  
• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
  
• Harvest: Massive Encounter
  
• Hearts of Iron II
  
• Hearts of Iron III
  
• Heretic
  
• Heroes of Might and Magic V
  
• Hexen
  
• Hexen II
  
• Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
  
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
  
• Jade Empire
  
• LEGO Batman: The Videogame
  
• LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures
  
• LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues
  
• LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga
  
• Loom
  
• Luxor
  
• Luxor 2
  
• Luxor 3
  
• Machinarium
  
• Multiwinia
  
• Osmos
  
• Peggle
  
• Peggle Nights
  
• Penguins Arena
  
• Penumbra: Black Plague
  
• Penumbra: Overture
  
• Penumbra: Requiem
  
• Plants vs. Zombies
  
• Prey
  
• Prince of Persia (2008)
  
• Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords
  
• Quake
  
• Quake II
  
• Quake III Arena
  
• Return to Castle Wolfenstein
  
• Rome: Total War
  
• Samorost 2
  
• Shaun White Snowboarding
  
• Sid Meier’s Pirates
  
• SiN
  
• Spore
  
• Star Wars: Force Unleashed
  
• Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast
  
• Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy
  
• Star Wars: Dark Forces
  
• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
  
• Tales of Monkey Island
  
• The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
  
• The Dig
  
• The Graveyard
  
• The Path
  
• TOCA Race Driver 3
  
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield
  
• Tomb Raider: Anniversary
  
• Torchlight
  
• Unreal
  
• Unreal Tournament
  
• Unreal Tournament 2004
  
• Uplink
  
• Virtual Families
  
• Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
  
• World of Goo
  
• X²: The Threat
  
• X³: Reunion
  
• X³: Terran Conflict

Phew! Who was it that said you couldn't game on a non-Windows operating system? Well truth be told thanks to wonderful software like CXGames some of us have been enjoying source games on the operating system of our choice for some time now. (Food for thought and maybe a future topic: What do you think this announcement is going to do to Codeweaver's bottom line?)

What brought this seemingly sudden announcement from Valve? Well a few months back a rumor had surfaced that a lead Steam developer had posted looking for people with experience porting Windows software to OSX and Linux.

Yep, that is right and Linux.

While there is still nothing official about the latter of these two operating systems from Valve, all I have to say is that the porting of Source Engine to use OpenGL only makes the eventuality of them running without emulation on Linux much more likely (not to mention in the mean time Windows games that run under OpenGL tend to perform better under Wine).

~Jeff Hoogland

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Minting the Girlfriend

A few weeks back the girl I have been dating for awhile now had idly made a complaint about her laptop being poky at certain tasks. I'd used the thing once or twice to check my email and recalled it was running Vista - no surprise there. I like this girl a lot and figured it was time to take that next step in our relationship:

I offered to put Linux on her laptop.

She had used my many computers which all run various forms of Linux several times and was open to the idea. After reassuring her that none of her data was going to be lost by installing Linux and in fact I would even leave Vista on the computer should she want to go back to it, she was ready to let me get Linux installing on her laptop. Thankfully she had a 320gig hard drive in the system, most of which was unused, so I was able to give Linux 80gigs to reside on.

For a long time I have always installed Ubuntu on friend's computers who where interested in moving away from Windows, however as I recently stated I now feel Linux Mint is better suited for this situation. Thankfully I keep a 1gig flash drive in my laptop bag that boots a Linux Mint LiveCD (Created using unetbootin - if you have never installed from a flash drive before I highly recommend it, much faster than installing from a disc). Around half an hour later I had the operating system fully updated and installed. I spent another five minutes creating a mount point and fstab entry for her Windows partition. And lastly for the sake of easiness I created symlinks in her /home directory so she could easily access her pictures/documents/music stored on the Windows partition.

Then came that fateful question: What about Microsoft Office?

Personally I had grown up using Office 03 for a short bit and then mostly OpenOffice.org, so when I made the move to Linux just having OpenOffice on my own systems was fine for myself. She was used to the ribbon setup of Office 07 though, beyond that she also had all of her calender dates residing in Outlook and she used OneNote a few times a week. The solution?

Crossover

Thanks to this wonderful GUI front end for the Wine Project, Office 07 can be installed under Linux just as easily as on Windows. In fact, after I had installed Crossover on the system and she saw the GUI she took the computer from me and installed Office 07 herself because "anyone can follow an installation wizard". Which is very true, the point of the Crossover products is that you don't need to be a Linux Guru or even a computer tech to install Windows software on Linux and it does a fantastic job to this end.

Was the move to Linux successful for her? More than three weeks later and I can say with confidence:

Yes it was.

Is Vista gone from her laptop? Not yet, but maybe someday (Move Media Player not installing on Linux or through Wine is the last hangup). She is booted in Mint more often than not and has found her way around the Ubuntu Software Center to install Frostwire (among other things). She also used the Linux answer machine to hunt down the driver for her Cannon MP190 printer when it was not auto-found by the printer installer on Mint.

All in all I must say though, the best part about installing Mint on her laptop is that now when I use it to check my email I no longer have to use Vista :)

~Jeff Hoogland

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Why Mint over Ubuntu

I've been an Ubuntu fan for some time now. No matter which distro I tried, I always found it lacked some feature or another and I eventually made my way back to Ubuntu. Then I found Mint. Linux Mint is a derivative of Ubuntu which is a derivative of Debian (Debian' = Ubuntu and Ubuntu' = Linux Mint). Why use a derivative of Ubuntu (or Debian for that matter) instead of just using the original product?

Simple: The derivative is better.

What makes Linux Mint better than Ubuntu you ask? There are a few things that come to mind:

1.) The System Menu - Mint's menu is based off of the Ubuntu System Panel. It gives a menu that is similar to a KDE style menu in the Gnome desktop.

2.) The Update Manager - I can't tell you the number of times I've had a working Ubuntu system when a kernel (or some other) update comes along and foobars things. Mint's update program nicely divides all updates into different levels of importance so you can toggle which ones you would like to receive (by default, kernel updates are off)

3.) Default Software - I like Mint's choices of default software. It contains OpenOffice and Firefox, like most distributions, but beyond this it is still shipping with Pidgin as the default IM client, Mozilla's Thunderbird for email, and XChat for IRC communication.

4.) Media Codecs, Flash, and Java by Default - This has to be one of my favorite things about Mint. With a fresh install (or off the live CD), Mint will play just about any media format you can throw at it, stream youtube (or hulu) videos, and run any java application you might have laying around.

5.) Default Theme - Mint's green skin is much nicer to look at as opposed to Ubuntu's brown/orange layout.

Personally, I feel there is very little reason not to use Mint over Ubuntu. Why do I say this? In addition to all of my above reasons, Mint stays on a very close release cycle to that of it's parent distro, meaning it is able to stay fully backwards compatible with all Ubuntu packages (For instance, Mint 8 equates to Ubuntu 9.10 and Mint 7 equates to Ubuntu 9.04 ect.).

Do you have any reasons I did not list here for choosing Mint over Ubuntu? If so, feel free to share.

~Jeff Hoogland

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Is Cedega Hanging in There?

In one of my past articles I made a bold assessment that it appeared Transgaming might be dropping support for their Cedega Wine software. However it now appears that Cedega might be hanging in there - After more than a year of silence there was finally an update posted in Cedega's "Den" (announcements section). The post promises the certification of two games, Torchlight and Defense Grid: The Awakening, that happen to work well under their "recently" released 7.3.3 engine (The latter of the two pleases me greatly, I had purchased DG on Steam over the holidays and it does not function properly under Wine/CXGames as of yet). Also provided is a very vague "Development Update" that promises better OpenGL performance and mentions that at some point in the near future we should see a more detailed development plan - Alas two weeks later and still nothing.

In the end what does all this mean? Maybe nothing, but then only time will tell. I'm hoping that Transgaming gets around to posting development updates faster than they have been about fixing their application voting system (which has been non-functional for close to two years now). If Transgaming want's to save their Linux product they need to get on the ball - and quick. They are no longer the only big player in the world of commercial "Win-on-Lin" for gaming. Codeweavers has already posted their plans for development in 2010 and since they already support L4D2 (one of the most recently released hit PC titles) Transgaming is going to be hard-pressed to play catch-up.

As I've said in the past: I think Cedega is good software, however there is more to buying software than just the product itself. Here is to hoping Transgaming can get their customer service act together in 2010, because - while I like CXGames, competition is a wonderful driving factor in the business world.

~Jeff Hoogland

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Wine, CXGames, and Windows 7 Performance Comparison

I blog more than a little about Wine software. In the past I have run benchmarks between the most current pieces of Wine technology out there and how they compare with each other. However one important question many gamers have when looking to game on Linux is not so much how do the different Wine technologies compare with each other so much as how do they perform compared with the program(s) running natively on Windows? Since I finally installed Windows 7 I figured I would take a look into just how well my favorite non-emulators stack up against the native platform for a few 3D applications.

The Tests: I ran both a synthetic benchmark (3D Mark 2001se) as well as some actual game applications (TF2, L4D, & L4D2). Each test was run several times under Wine/CXGames/Windows to ensure that the scores are as accurate as possible.

The Hardware: While my hardware is not fastest in the world it is (as of posting this) relatively new and decently quick. Processor - Intel p9700 2.8ghz Dual Core, RAM - 4gigs of DDR3, Video Card: nVidia 260m with 1gig DDR3 dedicated memory.

Operating Systems and Drivers: Ubuntu 9.10, running the nVidia 190.53 driver & Windows 7, running the nVidia 195.62 driver

The Wine Software: Wine version 1.1.35 (with extra fonts and the d3dx9 packages installed via Winetricks) and CXGames 8.1.4 - both of these are the latest versions as of my posting this.

The Results:

3D Mark 2001 SE

• Resolution: 1680x1050
• - Wine Scored: 18497
• - CXGames Scored: 18538
• - Windows 7 Scored: 31573
• Resolution: 1024x768
• - Wine Scored: 22141
• - CXGames Scored: 23265
• - Windows 7 Scored: 35508

Team Fortress 2

• Resolution: 1680x1050
• - Wine: 65.11 fps
• - CXGames: 61.78 fps
• - Windows 7: 87.13 fps
• Resolution: 1024x768
• - Wine: 81.82 fps
• - CXGames: 70.68 fps
• - Windows 7: 101.88 fps

Left 4 Dead

• Resolution: 1680x1050
• - Wine: 13.76 fps
• - CXGames: 27.36 fps
• - Windows 7: 63.48 fps
• Resolution: 1024x768
• - Wine: 19.93 fps
• - CXGames: 35.38 fps
• - Windows 7: 65.65 fps

Left 4 Dead 2

• Resolution: 1680x1050
• - Wine: n/a
• - CXGames: 38.45 fps
• - Windows 7: 72.04 fps
• Resolution: 1024x768
• - Wine: n/a
• - CXGames: 56.46 fps
• - Windows 7: 111.68 fps

Things Worth Noting: Obviously all the applications run faster natively under Windows than they do under Wine technology (I hope no one is surprised by this). Secondly I'd like to point out the FPS averages for Wine 1.1.35 and CXGames 8.1.4 have improved from older versions. Lastly I feel I should mention the n/a score Wine has on Left 4 Dead 2 - this is because try as I might no matter what hacks/cracks I throw at Wine I can still not get Left 4 Dead 2 to play for me under Wine.

Wrapping Up: Obviously if you are extremely worried about getting every last FPS out of your video games you should stick with Windows - however depending on your hardware and what games you are playing Linux may very well be capable of playing them at a satisfactory level (remember the human eye can only see 60 fps, so anything higher is overkill). Also remember that with almost every new release Wine continues to further advance it's performance so be sure to check back for new benchmarks/scores as new versions are released.

Happy New Year to everyone and keep on fragging!

~Jeff Hoogland
Please note while these benchmark scores presented are accurate to the best of my abilities, they only represent my personal hardware and software configurations. Your results on your own system(s) may vary (and if they do, please share them!).

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CXGames 8.1 (Zombie Mallard) Overview

Left 4 Dead 2 was one of the most anticipated games of 2009 (even with the boycott). Even before its full release (the demo opened to players a few weeks prior) the good people over at Codeweavers where hard at work making sure their CXGames software would be ready to allow Linux/Mac gamers everywhere to fully enjoy this latest edition to Valve's source games. Less than twenty four hours after L4D2 hit shelves (digital and otherwise) CXGames 8.1 (codename Zombie Mallard) was released.

This newest update to the CXGames line is really just a small update (as the version number increase of .1 implies) rather than a full upgrade. In fact depending on what games you play - you might not even notice a difference between this and the previous 8.0 release. From the official 8.1 change log:

• Add support for Left 4 Dead 2
• Fix a problem with directory permissions in World of Warcraft in Ubuntu 9.10
• Fix a number of problems with Guild Wars
• Fix a number of Mac audio issues which should fix Steam voice chat
• A few minor adjustments for Snow Leopard
• Fix a bug registering CrossOver under Snow Leopard

What makes this release so special then? I feel it important because it displays Codeweaver's dedication to their product. They are obviously aware of what their users want and what is going on in the gaming community at large. This CXGames update, I feel, shows how they plan to react to big releases in the future. I say this because the main reason for this CXGames update is to add support for L4D2 (in addition to the various other small bug fixes listed). This gives me great hope that they will be quick to the draw in their supporting of other soon to be release big name titles such as Starcraft II and Diablo III. As a side bar I feel it is also worth mentioning that performance under CXGames 8.1 is about the same as it was under 8.0 (And Left 4 Dead 2 benchmarks about the same as L4D)

All in all I am very pleased with this latest release of CXGames and for any Linux gamer who wants to quickly and easily rock out on L4D2 there is no doubt about it - "Zombie Mallard" is a must have (as L4D2 fails to run at all under Cedega). Hopefully I will catch some of my fellow Linux Gamers online putting bullets into the brains of the walking-dead some time soon :) Happy Fraging All!

~Jeff Hoogland

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Wine, Cedega, and CXGames Benchmark Comparision

In one of my earlier postings I did a compare and contrast of the various different features Cedega and Codeweavers offer. Today I am going to try leave my opinions aside and stick strictly to the numbers. Source Engine games are some of the most popular played today so I feel it is only fitting I use them to test the Wine software we have today.

The Test: I will be running an FPS test under both the original source engine (Counter Strike: Source) and the latest version of the source engine (Left 4 Dead). For each test I used the same detail settings and tested each game at three different resolutions, using each Wine, CXGames, and Cedega.

The Hardware: While my hardware is not fastest in the world it is (as of posting this) relatively new and decently quick. Processor - Intel p9700 2.8ghz Dual Core, RAM - 4gigs of DDR3, Video Card: nVidia 260m with 1gig DDR3 dedicated memory.

The Software: Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty), 64bit. Running the nVidia 190.42 driver

The Wine Programs Used: The following test results where obtained using CXGames 8.0.0, Cedega 7.3.3, and a vanilla install of Wine 1.1.32 (all latest versions as of today).

The Results:

Counter Strike - Source

• Resolution: 1680x1050
• - Wine: 72.29 fps
• - CXGames: 153.03 fps
• - Cedega: 113.83 fps
• Resolution: 1024x768
• - Wine: 49.33 fps
• - CXGames: 163.03 fps
• - Cedega: 119.22 fps
• Resolution: 640x480
• - Wine: 63.23 fps
• - CXGames: 179.94 fps
• - Cedega: n/a

Left 4 Dead

• Resolution: 1680x1050
• - Wine: 12.41 fps
• - CXGames: 25.46 fps
• - Cedega: 31.69 fps
• Resolution: 1024x768
• - Wine: 25.37 fps
• - CXGames: 20.25 fps
• - Cedega: 68.34 fps
• Resolution: 640x480
• - Wine: 20.7 fps
• - CXGames: 22.05 fps
• - Cedega: 67.83 fps

Things Worth Noting: As you can see all three are able to perform the first test at a relatively decent FPS - however both Cedega and CXGames far out perform a vanilla Wine install. Also worth noting is the fact that Wine actually took a performance decrease when running at lower resolutions (I was very surprised by this, in fact I ran the test three times at each resolution just to confirm it was accurate). I'd like to point out as well that Cedega failed to load CSS for me in the 640x480 resolution - thus the n/a score.

Left 4 Dead is where we really see a difference between the different pieces of software. Both Wine and CXGames where unable to break the 30fps marker while Cedega was able to snag 31fps on my high resolution and over twice that frame rate on lower resolutions.

Wrapping Up: Please remember to take my above listed scores with a grain of salt - as your own mileage may very well vary depending on your particular configuration. Also remember the Wine install I used was a vanilla install. Meaning that odds are it could stand to be tweaked a bit to get a slightly better frame rate. Lastly remember when trying to get the most out of your Linux Gaming experience be sure to optimize where ever you can.

~Jeff Hoogland
Please note while these benchmark scores presented are accurate to the best of my abilities, they only represent my personal hardware and software configurations. Your results on your own system(s) may vary (and if they do, please share them!).

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My Linux Gaming Experience

Arguably gaming is the one place in which Linux is sorely lacking. Very few titles release with a native installer for this platform and as such many say gaming is impossible on Linux. This is just not true. For a long time I was a "hardcore" gamer, spending easily over forty hours a week in front of my computer playing various online games. In the last couple years I have slowly moved into the "casual" gamer category. On average I spend between ten and twenty hours a week currently playing various PC games. As they are PC games very obviously I run them on my computer and my computer only contains an Ubuntu as an operating system - as such this also means all the games I play run on Ubuntu. Ubuntu is fully ready for desktop systems and for a casual (or in some cases even hardcore) gamer it is more than capable of running most of the important titles. The following are games I enjoy on a regular basis on Ubuntu (and how I run them):

Starcraft - Wine with Windows version set to 98
Warcraft III Frozen Throne - Wine with default settings
Diablo 2 - Wine with default settings
Counter Strike: Source - Wine with default settings. I set the game to run with dxlevel 81 to obtain a better FPS
Team Fortress 2 - Wine with default settings. I set the game to run with dxlevel 81 to obtain a better FPS
Left 4 Dead - Cedega using the Left 4 Dead profile.

Left 4 Dead 2 - CXGames with default settings
Borderlands - Cedega using the UT3 profile
Unreal Tournament 3 - Cedega using the UT3 profile
Killing Floor - Cedega using the UT3 profile
Unreal Tournament 2004 - Native Linux Installer
Savage 2 - Native Linux Installer
Morrowind - Wine with default settings
Oblivion - Wine with default settings
Crysis - Cedega using the UT3 profile and a few native dll over rides
Half-Life 2 - Wine with default settings
Pirates, Vikings, and Knights - Wine with default settings
Guild Wars - Wine with default settings
Day of Defeat: Source - Wine with default settings. I set the game to run with dxlevel 81 to obtain a better FPS
Dark Messiah Might & Magic - Wine with default settings.

As you can see its a fair size list of games. These are just the ones I play personally there are many more than run just fine under Linux. Check out the Wine Applications Database to see how well others fare with various applications.

~Jeff Hoogland

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Cedega vs Crossover Games - Hands on Review

Most people who use Linux for desktop use are well aware of the one of the largest issues facing the platform: Lack of commercial software. Now in most cases this is not an issue, no MS Office - use OpenOffice, no Internet Explorer - use FireFox. However one thing which there is currently no replacement for is gaming. Try as they might there are just not enough Open-Source game developers (or even closed-sourced ones) that bring the level of gaming quality, as of yet, to Linux that Windows enjoys.

Enter the world of Win-on-Lin. The Wine Project, was started in 1993 and has slowly come into maturity over the course of the last sixteen years. Wine is a compatibility layer, or more precisely a reimplementation of the Windows API, that allows Windows applications to run under Linux. While the Wine project does a wonderful job of what it is designed to do (run Windows applications on Linux) how ever it sorely lacks in the means of a GUI front end for easy configuration/calibration.

Which brings me to my topic at hand - Cedega & Codeweavers. What are Cedega and Codeweavers? They two (closed source) programs both based off of the Wine Project to create what it lacks - a user friendly interface. Designed to help you get your Windows games working with ease on Linux. They both have their ups and downs and today I am going to look at each program and see how they compare. I currently have both Cedega and Codeweavers licenses so all the information given is from first hand experience working with both products. I'm going to be judging based on following criteria:

1. Functionality - How well do they do what they are suppose to do?
   
2. GUI Front End - How do the front-ends between the two compare?
3. Website - Being able to find information is everything, how do the websites compare?
4. Customer Service/Support - If you are paying for a product you want to know you can get help with it if it doesn't work properly.
5. Fees & Licensing - How much do they cost and what are you paying for?
   

Functionality -

Cedega does a fairly good job of helping the user get their programs up and running. Upon selecting install it auto-detects any disc drives on the system for known game discs it can install. If it does not find any (or finds the wrong one) it is easy enough to direct it to the proper file/disc via the GUI. One of the things I really like about Cedega is the large number of pre-defined profiles it contains for different game titles (and just because you game isn't listed doesn't mean it will not work). Basically what this means is when you install a game that has a profile it automatically uses what are known to be the "best Wine settings" to get the optimum performance out of your game.

While Cedega does a great job at actually running the important parts of your games it is obvious that certain aspects of some programs have been neglected, Steam for instance works fine for loading and playing games but the friends network does not work in the slightest and installing flash for it is difficult at best.

Also worth noting here is that while Cedega started off as a fork of the Wine project (version 4.0 and earlier of Cedega was known as WineX or Wine Extreme) initially, it is no longer associated with it. Because of this of this fact the Windows API behind Cedega is also now different from that which powers Wine and as such there are a few applications that will not function under Wine (or things powered by Wine) that perform with out a hick-up under Cedega.

All in all I'm giving Cedega a 9 out of 10 points for functionality - it is a good software.

Functionality 9/10 - Cedega Total 9/10

Upon opening the Codeweavers program installer you are presented with a small list of applications that it will auto install and configure for you. I say small list because by comparison to the amount of game profiles listed under Cedega it feels somewhat incomplete. How ever as with Cedega just because the game you want to run is not on the list does not mean that it will not work. Also like Cedega, Codeweavers will auto detect any disc drives you have when you go to install a piece of software, one thing I also really like is that when detecting disc drives it also detects mounted iso files you may want to install from.

While the given list of games that are pre-configured in Codeweavers is small compared to the games list present in Cedega, it is very obvious that most of the games on the list have been worked on extensively to get them working to a optimum level with a careful attention to detail. Using Steam as my example again upon installation Codeweavers downloads and configures flash, in addition to other things, to help it work almost as good as it does natively on Windows (the only issue currently with the Steam UI is a small scroll bar issue).

Codeweavers is based directly off the Wine project, as such if a program works poorly under Wine odds are it is going to work just as poorly under Codeweavers. As such this also means that any performance you see with an application under Codeweavers can be replicated under just a standard Wine install (how ever it may take you several hours to get everything just right).

I'm giving Codeweavers an 8 out of 10 on functionality. It is good software but it needs to expand its games list some.

Functionality 8/10 - Codeweavers Total 8/10

GUI Front End -
One of the most important things about both these pieces of software is their GUI. One of the wonderful things about Linux is how alot of things "just work" and having a front end to install Windows applications through is a nice addition to have.

The Cedega GUI does a nice job of giving you a centralized location to house all of your Games/Windows applications. (You can add launchers for your favorite native Linux apps/games to it as well) Also present in Cedega that Codeweavers does not have is a "diagnostic test". Basically it checks over your hardware and configuration for anything that may cause issues when running your games. In addition to being able to check your configuration the diagnostic tool also allows for an easy copy and paste of your system specifications which is useful if you are unsure of your setup (or too lazy to type it out) when trying to debug an issue.

Lacking in the Cedega GUI how ever are native menu entries. Applications installed under Cedega often times feel foreign as you have to open a separate program to launch them or create your own custom menu entry (and hunting down the correct icon for you game can be a headache). Also worth noting with netbooks becoming more and more popular is that the Cedega GUI is obviously designed for a resolution of at least 768 pixel height, parts of it get cut off on most netbook screens. The Cedega GUI as a whole is good but it could stand a few changes - 8 out of 10

GUI Front End 8/10 - Cedega Total 8.5/10

While Codeweavers does not give you a centralized location for all your install applications like Cedega does, however it is still well done. Codeweavers does a beautiful job of integrating with your local menus (Gnome, KDE, ect) when installing applications. In fact if Codeweavers would simply add the games you install to the games section of your menu instead of its own section I do not think most users would be able to tell the difference between a natively installed game and one installed via Codeweavers. Same as Cedega here 8 of 10, fully functional but could still be slightly better.

GUI Front End 8/10 - Codeweavers Total 8/10

Website -

Knowledge is power as they say, one of the most important things about any piece of software you may have is that you fully understand how to use it. Often times these days ones of the best resources for learning such information is an application's homepage.

Cedega's home page is relatively horrid to say the least. It does provide the basic information on the product and pricing but that is about it. Many parts of the website have been 100% non-functional for the last months I have had my subscription and it really takes from the product as a whole. Voting for which applications you wish to be supported is one key feature that is lacking for example. On top of this another "feature" of the page is that you cannot view certain data if you do not have a current subscription - meaning if you are someone looking into Cedega to see if it will run a certain game you will have to pony up the cash to give it a try. Also horrid is the Cedega rating system for applications which has three options: "Certified, Works, and Known not to Work". Certified means you are able to contact customer service in order to get help with said application should an issue arise and well the other two kind of explain them self. Also, and this is not Cedega's fault per-say but odds are is due to a small user base, but the information about many application in their listing is rather lacking by comparison to others.

Cedega's website needs some HUGE improvements, as of now it is functional. So I'll give it a 4 out of 10.

Website 4/10 - Cedega Total 6.7/10

Codeweaver's website is a refreshing change from that of Cedega. It is obviously that of a professional company, the layout is nice and everything is clearly labeled. Everything is accessible with or with out a user login. If you are a member they have a nice system for allowing you to "vote" for which applications you would like to see better support for (So they know what they should be spending time working on). The user forums are slightly non-standard but not necessarily in a bad way, they just take some getting used to. Also a feature worth noting is Codeweavers ticketing system, you can browse past support tickets that yourself or other people have posted for solutions to past issues.

I really do not have anything bad to say about the Codeweavers website, it is well done and fully functional - 10 out of 10

Website 10/10 - Codeweavers Total 8.5/10

Customer Service/Support -

So one of the most important things to know when you are buying something is that you are going to be able to get support for the product if it does not work as it is suppose to.

Cedega's customer support is decent. They give you a good response and help you solve any issues you may be having to a satisfactory amount. How ever also worth noting is that the only way to get customer support is via Email. And they only provide official support for their list of forty or so "certified" games and if you are running certain hardware configuration (they only support nVidia gfx cards and certain distros). And I feel I should also mention that their customer service is rather slow to return emails.

They also how ever have community powered message boards (which they link from their website) where there are a few very dedicated people who work hard to help people solve their problems, I found these boards to be a much faster response than the official email support.

Cedega customer support isn't bad per-say but it also is not anything exceptional - 7 out of 10

Customer Service/Support 7/10 - Cedega Total 7/10

Codeweaver's provides two different channels of customer support, one through their wonderful ticket/email system and on their official message boards. The response time for a ticket I have filed has never been less than a day, often times if I filed the ticket during normal business hours I would see a response within a few hours. Their forums also have a few helpful individuals as well as good number of staff that watch over and do their best to help out with any issues that may arise while using the software.

No customer support is perfect but Codeweaver's is darn good to say the least 9 out of 10

Customer Service/Support 9/10 - Codeweavers Total 8.75/10

Fees and Licensing -

I've spent time talking about the ups and downs of these two pieces of software now - how do you get it? And more importantly how much does it cost?

Cedega starts at 15$ for a three month subscription with varying prices if you buy for an extended length of time (45$ for a year for instance). Cedega is yours to install so long as you keep paying for it (after the subscription runs out you will no longer be able to download Cedega anymore - meaning if you format you are SOL). Also worth mentioning here is that the only "demo" Cedega provides is for a single game - Spore. And as I said above you cannot see the full games data base unless you also pay for it. So unless you know someone else with a subscription you may very well pay for it to try a game only to find out doesn't work well. Too be fair though it's only 15$ for the three months, not truly expensive. I personally do not care for how Cedega licensing works - 6 out of 10.

Fees and Licensing 6/10 - Cedega Total 6.8/10

Codeweaver's CXGames costs 40$ for the product and a year's worth of support and updates. After that it is 35$ for a following year of support/updates and even if you do not renew you still get to continue using the Codeweavers software you had paid for initially. Now 40$ is a fair bit of cash if you are unsure if something is going to work for you - however Codeweavers offers a 7 day demo of the full software so you can use it and see if it works for your needs. Also worth noting is that while Codeweavers is closed source software they are powered directly by the Wine project - and as such they give back to it (with code and money). I don't mind paying a reasonable cost for good software and the fact that they give some of it back to the Wine project also makes me feel good - 9/10

Fees and Licensing 9/10 - Codeweavers Total 8.8/10

Final Scores - Cedega 6.8 & Codeweavers 8.8

Follow Up -

Obviously no piece of software is perfect - these two included - and while Wine technology has come a long way in the last decade (or so) it still has a long way to go. As you can see from the numbers and the above information I prefer Codeweavers to Cedega, come the end of the year I do not think I will be renewing my Cedega license Which of the two is right for you is your choice, I just hope my little comparison here may have presented you with some information on each of them you had not known before.

Update -

For my thoughts on the recently released CXGames 9.0 check here.

~Jeff Hoogland

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