Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Perhaps a step towards influencing this situation is for Linux gamers to show their numbers by sending positive feedback to software companies acknowledging the Linux ports they have made thus far – or encouraging other companies to follow in the steps of id, Epic and the US military. (Well, let’s not go too far with the latter!)
Emulation
Not every game has a Windows version. Popular multi-player online role-playing game World of Warcraft is a compelling example. It is played daily (and that’s literal in some cases) by millions of people around the world. Yet, there is no native Linux engine for World of Warcraft.
Once again, the terrific Linux community come to the fore. Ubuntu’s community pages list comprehensive – and contemporary – instructions which will get you raiding and grinding in no time. The key to their success is Wine, a free open source implementation of the Windows Win32 API.
Wine is a special type of software application which seeks to emulate calls made to Windows system functions, thereby enabling Windows applications to run on Linux systems. Phooey to applications; what we’re keen on here is gaming – and pleasantly, many people use Wine to successfully play World of Warcraft as well as many other games. Indeed, it’s possible that the Ubuntu instructions are more helpful than any official Windows-based documentation for the game, with clear guidance given on matters like improving framerates and opening firewall ports for fast patch downloading.
Another popular title that is known to work under emulation is CounterStirke. As with World of Warcraft, detailed steps to get the game working are online; this includes downloading and running the necessary Steam installer.
Wine isn’t the be-all and end-all; in addition you ought to investigate Cedega 6.0. This is a commercial emulator which aims to target modern and graphically intense releases like Oblivion, Battlefield 2142, Madden 2007 and Need for Speed: Carbon. Rather than strive to emulate the Windows API in general, Cedega seeks to emulate specific games and thus work towards 100% compatibility of defined titles.
In theory, Cedega is the way to go, given it has a paid team working on it and that they are focusing heavily on video and audio performance. Additionally, Cedega is actually forked from the Wine source code and thus it is reasonable to assume it offers all Wine can do in addition to its own benefits. You can read more at Cedega's site.
This said, many Linux users report Wine works perfectly fine for them with all they throw at it. Your mileage will very likely vary depending on your gaming preferences and your hardware specifications, but do give Wine a try; after all, it’s free. More information on Wine is here. Cedega costs money, so you will need to purchase it to use it but logic suggests it will offer greater success.
David Bass
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