Windows games on Linux/Mac

I'm playing around with Ubuntu 6.10 after installing it on the PC (dual boot).

I found some software which apparently enables Windows games to run under Linux and Mac:

Cedega / Cider


Any linux or Mac users tried this?


Although I'm still only playing around with Ubuntu I gotta say its really good so far. In fact, I sometimes forget I'm using Linux. Things have certainly advanced since I last invited the Penguin into the PC.
Just got to bring BlitzMax Linux to life and I'm away.

It used to be called WineX.

I havent looked at it for a looong time... back then it was still a bit hit and miss.
In fact I have only recently ( like yourself ) decided to give Linux a go again.. I currently have XUbuntu installed and so far i have had no problems.

Looking at this article

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

from last year it seems

1. You pay $5/month to use it. ?!.. not sure about whether you can just have it for free.
2. It still seems to be hit and miss.

Still.. if you do go ahead and try it Id be interested to see how you get on with it.

Yes, it's $5 a month.... dunno if a Linux Fan will pay for that.

I used to build a Linux Box with loads of Libraries built in but that's long ago and I found distributing a game on Linux is somehow hard, maybe in the later days there'll be the "Universal Binary" for Linux?

"Distribution Hell".....sigh... Linux could be better....

WINE is the free (beer and speech) original that spawned Cedega (aka WINEX), which is more of a WINE that's specifically tailored for gaming. Cedega costs $15 for the first three months, and from then it's $5 a month if you want to maintain the ability to get updates. If you wanted to, you could not continue to subscribe and just stick with the version you last downloaded in the three month period.

There are a bunch of guides around on getting particular games to work with WINE/Cedega, and there are also a bunch of installers to get a few Windows games running natively in Linux (Google "loki installer" - the Linux version of Unreal Tournament 2004 outperforms the Windows one on this rig).

Whilst the anecdotal evidence seems to be that WINE (and especially Cedega) seem to work remarkably well, "hit and miss" seems to be a fairly apt description of Windows gaming in Linux. The most successful solution seems to be keeping a Windows partition around just for those Windows games you really must play.

PS: I just woke up so feel free to correct me if I've misstated anything.

ah bollox to that!($5 a month), just get a second harddisk and dirty it with windows just for playing games. Keep your linux dist for the 'serious computing' :)

No0t that games arent serious computing but you know what i mean :P

I use Cedega on my Linux box.

Works surprisingly well. Better than running "virtual" (like with parallels or vmware) since you get native 3D acceleration.

Sure it doesn't work with *all* Windows games, but then I don't play all Windows games anyway. :-)

If you are interested in doing it the free (Wine) way, I recommend you check out Winehq.com.
That site has a huge and well organized database of practically everything that runs in Wine, and how to get it working if it doesn't work out of the box. It just helped me to get Worms Armageddon running on the horrible computer :)

To get it in Ubuntu, you can quite easily download Wine via the repositories, though I think Edgy is still on an older version so maybe worth it to get it straight from the Wine folks. (Feisty, the next release, has an up to date Wine with some cool features such as adding new Wine apps to the menu).

has anyone managed to get a b3d prog working in wine or cadega

I have a vague memory of a B3D app running with sound but no video, via Wine on Ubuntu 7.04.

Should be quite interesting to say the least. May give that a whirl sometime soon. Might outperform Vista, definitely. Dunno what, if anything, could outperform XP, tho...

I have encountered instances of Wine outperforming Windows at its own game.
It can be run in a nearly bare-bones session, which of course causes a wonderful acceleration. It must be remembered that Wine and Cedega are not emulators; it is the same hardware, we're just running with different software. "Emulator" often refers to a program that simulates a whole other hardware environment for software to run in, while Wine and Cedega basically provide the missing software that an executable application wants.

Yep, just like there would be a slight difference between emulation and virtualization. Such as running VMWare, for a good example... Were there any differences between emulating and virtualizing software, like, taking Windows XP/Vista and remotely using the Linux platform to emulate and/or virtualize the other, and vice versa? I never did figure that out yet.

This is one of the primary reasons why I've suggested in the past that Blitz should be building to java or .net byte code rather than native code.

Wide area distribution is no longer a burden on the developer if that route is taken.