Mateo

Found this in my inbox this AM;

That's added support for BF2, Dungeon Siege 2, City of Villans, and Madden 2006.

Review to follow.

Phantom

But I Want Tactical OS!!!!!

Please!!!

Pretty Please!!!

With A Flipping Cherry On Top!!!`

__________________

Mateo

I want it too! Where can I get it!

Oh, wait, I'm the lead on that.

Nevermind.

Phantom

EXACTLY!!

I really really want this.

My 140 GB HDD I bought for this wants it.

SO PLEASE!!!

I BEG YOU!!!!

Sub-Alpha release is better then nothing!!!`

__________________

perry

Boooo! From the release notes:

Mateo

Crap. That's bad news. Transgaming is blocked by WebSense, so I couldn't get to the release notes.

I wonder why punkbuster is an issue. Seems to me that other titles use PB, and they run under Cedega.

perry

In the Developer Update thingie they also say that VoIP is not supported. Without PB and without VoIP, I don't think the game is really supported. Singleplayer just ain't the same.. but at least it's a step in the right direction. Maybe in December or January..

Here's all the BF2 stuff in the changelog:
They've integrated Point2Play, the graphical part, with the command line part.. People are complaining on the Transgaming.org forums about that, and about how picky Cedega is being with migrating games and such. I guess they did it in an effort to reduce piracy - you have to have a Point2Play account to download the "Cedega Engine". But they won't get me to buy it until I can verify that my games work -- I have no interest in paying them if their product doesn't work!

Mateo

Agreed. To my mind, until all the game's features are implemented, it's not supported.

Well, I can see both sides of it.

You can readily get Cedega off every pirate network extant. Some Linux sites even compile the CVS version, and post a link. So they need to do something.

They actually have directx 9.0c installing, so that is a major step. To the extent that they send those changes upstream to WINE HQ, they are doing a major service.

On the other hand, integrating all this crap is sort of counter to the whole Linux idea.

I don't think they will ever actually verify that the games work. From my experience, all games require some measure of hacking to get them to run.

That's going in my review for sure.

Mateo

Ok, did some looking at the release notes, and the forums: It's not that bad.

There seems to be an issue with how PB is used in BF2 that is different from the other titles. You can use Cedega to update PB manually (via the pbweb.exe) for the other games.

Sooooo.....hurry up and wait.

I'm wondering about the whole Cedega thing anyway....there are several paragraphs of hacks to get games running, some of which you would have to be a linux zealot to want to undertake.

Is the average user going to want to edit a config file and shut off pfthread?

I've not even started my review, and already, I hate it.

perry

That's the way it is with plain ole Wine too.. Put special DLL's here and there, change this option and that option. Those hacks are just a fact of life on Linux, unfortunately. I guess you've not used Wine and/or Cedega much in the past if all this is new.

I see that people are finding hacks for the removal of the command line interface. I guess Transgaming didn't understand how their customers used their product since they removed a feature that so many miss.

Oh, the subscription thing.. $110 for 2 years. $92 for Windows XP Home at Newegg. Why pay Transgaming just to have to jump through hoops when you can buy the entire OS and play without worries? Use XP for games, Linux for the other 90%.

Mateo

No, I am familiar with it, but it seems as if the hacks are becoming more prominent, with less actual work being done to streamline the end user experience. That's a huge mistake to my mind.

Good.

Agreed in principle, although other principles get in the way. Are you going to upgrade to Vista? If not, what happens when XP is no longer supported?

Since Loki, Linux gaming is a haphazard affair: if you are lucky, there might be a linux port or installer, if not, you have to hack WINE. The linux community's major failing was allowing Loki to fail.

Getting Directx to run on linux is a big step forward, so Transgaming has done something to help.

$5 per month is not so much. I cancelled fileshack, picked up Transgaming instead. Besides, all you really need is $15 per year. Subscribe at the next major release, cancel your subscription after 3 months, rinse, repeat.

It's not an optimal solution.

perry

Things move so fast and there's only so much developer time. By the time they get one game working in a hacked up manner, a new one comes along to work on. No time to get the old stuff perfected. I mean, would you rather they figure out if anything can be done about the pthread thing, or that they get DirectX9 support in there?

Unless you play Steam games. Seems that once every couple months, at least here recently, Steam does something and Cedega has to rush a new version out the door. Look at the beginning of October... 4.4.2 released on the 11th, Steam breaks, 4.4.3 comes out on the 12th. I think something similar happened in August. So when Steam breaks something in December, your 3 month August subscription will be up and you'll have to renew. Maybe it's a conspiracy between Valve and Transgaming

Mateo

Well, look at it from a new users standpoint, as I try to. Say we have a TacticalOS user, wants to get CS:S to run.

On a windows system, it's simple: install Steam, install the game, reboot (sometimes) and run. If a problem arises, update sound and video drivers, or your version of DX.

And noone goes: WINDOWS Sucks. Ok, they do, but they grit their teeth and bear it.

Now, with Linux, you have to install the correct drivers, enable 3D, install Cedega, install Steam, download the game (I haven't seen the discs work), and cross your fingers. That's alot of steps.

Now, if something is broken, then you have to hunt for the solution, open the command line, grab a text editor......a Windows convert has to really hate Windows to do all of that.

The basic WINE distro has seperate config files for every app they have running. I assume (I haven't looked) that Cedega does the same. Why not add a "IF/Then" routine to the application so that the user never has to edit the file? Seems to me that something like "if ati, then pfthread=off" wouldn't take much developer time.

Unless there is a performance boost, I fail to see the point. Frankly, XP is easier.

Wouldn't doubt it. It seems that Transgaming has a close relationship with Valve, Blizzard, and NCSoft: patches result in a fast Cedega update.

$5 is one less latte a month. I think I can afford it.