Running CoH in Linux

[DethLeaf]

I've been playing City of Heroes in Linux and it seems to run quite well. So here's how I got it working, in case there are any others out there who don't use Windows but want to play the game.

There's an emulator (well not really an emulator, more like a runtime library maybe?) called Wine that allows Linux to execute _some_ Win32 code. In order to run City of Heroes, you must use a version of Wine called Cedega (formerly WineX). Cedega was forked from the main emulator some time ago by the people at Transgaming (which caused no end of grief in the free software community, but that's a discussion for another time) and is now a commercial program. You can either buy WineX from Transgaming.com (which you may not want to do if you are a GPL purist, as Transgaming kinda "stole" the original BSD licensed code in the first place), or if you are feeling adventurous, you can compile it from CVS without paying, using the instructions here: http://www.linux-gamers.net/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=45

After installing Cedega (at the time of this writing, version 4.0.1), you should be able to mount the CoH CDs and install them via "cedega /cdrom/setup.exe" or whatever your CD mount point is. Just remember not to cd into the cdrom mount point, or you won't be able to unmount CD1 when you need to insert CD2.

After installation, you can just cd into your installation directory (mine is ~/COH/), and run the game via "cedega CohUpdater.exe".

There are some issues, however, which I will enumerate below:

1). (May only apply to nVidia cards) Run your X server in 24 bits. 16 bit color causes the game to run _very_ slowly.

2). (May only apply to nVidia cards) If the cursor appears as a black rectangle, maybe with some junk underneath, set the following options in the "Device" section of your XFree86 configuration file:
Option "SWCursor" "true"
Option "HWCursor" "false"
After doing this, the cursor will only be visible when you move the mouse, will flicker, and will sometimes produce artifacts. A minor annoyance.

3). Make sure you set the VideoRam and AGPVertexRam options in the [x11drv] section of ~/.transgaming/config to the proper values. Otherwise, not all of the RAM on your video card will be used properly. And also make sure you actually have OpenGL turned on from within XFree86 configuration and that it is working, using the glxinfo program (I think there are instructions in the Cedega documentation).

4). Make sure that cedega reports itself as being Windows 2000, either with a commandline option or a section for CoH in the ~/.transgaming/config file.

5). The license agreement is not displayed in the updater, nor are the release notes, because it tries to use an embedded IE window. The URL is, however, printed to stdout, so you can still get the documents by pasting the URL into mozilla. Which I highly recommend doing, because you have to read the license agreement to legally play the game, afaik, at least if you live in the US.

The game runs passably on my computer this way, even though everything but my video card is at or below the minimum spec printed on the box. The two biggest issues are lag when there's too much stuff on the screen (usually only happens in large groups) and that I have to relog after playing for 5 hours or so because the rendering gradually slows down to a noticable chop.

I hope this helps someone. Let's cross our fingers and hope the game still runs in Linux after the next update. :P

[FilmorePendrgn]

Out of curiosity, what kernel / distro do you use?

Do you run CoH/WineX in a naked X session, or do you boot into a window manager first?

[Annalena]

hi there,
i play coh in linux, too.
the game runs just as fast as on the windows installation on the same computer.
i run gentoo and cedega 4.1 and have coh running in a windowmaker window. i also tried with gnome but that slows it done some naturally.
its also adviseable to use a 2.4.x kernel for playing coh since the lag issues are for some reason worse with the 2.6.x kernels i run normally and the mouse behaves weird (meaning you can't click on things very well)
also i've only been able to get it to run with nvidia cards.
if anyone has gotten it to work with ati cards could you please post here?
that would be greatly appriciated.
kind regards

[Yiliar]

I also run under Linux with cedega.

Athalon XP 1800, 1GB PC2100 RAM, FX7500 Ultra video.

This is an old system, but it seems to run well now.
cedega-4.1-1
I suffered all the problems others have mentioned. However, cedega-4.1-1 cured most of my problems, and when I recently replace my aging Netgear router FM114P with a new (and updated firmware) Linksys WRT54G, the last issue of getting dropped all the time is now also gone.

As I mentioned in another thread, the issue of getting dropped all the time was related to my daughter's wireless card. Whenever it had issues and would reconnect, I would get dropped from the game. This issue was definately a router issue, and it no lnger occurs with the new router. She still has issues (which I now believe to be driver related).

As far as her wireless driver issue, I put in the new SUSE 9.2 live DVD and had her play with that for a full day. She never once had a disconnect / reconnect from the router. She is currently using the orionco driver, but the SUSE test defaulted her to the madwifi driver, so I will make that change for her. Her card is a Netgear 411 (a 311 in a special PCI card).

[DethLeaf]

I'm running Debian unstable on an Athlon 900 with a geforce3, 320 megs of ram, an old 4 gig disk and /home over nfs, and a 2.4.26 kernel out of package management.

I use blackbox or ratpoison as my window manager, depending on my mood, which are both very lightweight, so I don't run it in a bare xsession or anything like that. Cedega _does_ eat 100% cpu all the time though, and I imagine most all my lag issues are due to my crappy CPU, so if you're running Gnome or KDE it might be a good idea to switch to another WM while playing, maybe. Honestly though I don't think most desktop environments will use enough CPU to make any difference; I never saw much if any performance increase running stuff on a bare xserver when I used to use KDE. Turning the graphics settings down all the way while in a big group helps a little bit, but not quite enough. In small groups I can run at 100% detail with high quality textures with no problems though.

My biggest issue atm is that my home directory, which is the only place I had enough space available for the installation, is mounted via nfs on a 100mbit link, so load times are beyond abysmal.

[The_Pheeb]

will Cedega run under OS X? i just returned a Dell laptop and am considering either a Sager 3790, or possibly a iBook. if Cedega can run CoH under OS X, i'm liable to go for the iBook :)

[DethLeaf]

[ QUOTE ]
will Cedega run under OS X? i just returned a Dell laptop and am considering either a Sager 3790, or possibly a iBook. if Cedega can run CoH under OS X, i'm liable to go for the iBook :)

[/ QUOTE ]

Nope, it won't run on PPC (I wish! My real computer is a Mac running Linux, heh). Wine/Cedega isn't really an emulator, but more of a runtime library that redirects Win32 api calls through libc (and whatever else, xlib and a bunch of other stuff probably). So it requires an x86 compatible CPU, as the code is still more or less executed natively rather than interpreted.

At least that's how I understand it. You may be able to use a real emulator such as Bochs or vmware or something to run a copy of windows and CoH on os10, but I have a feeling it would be godawful slow, and I don't think any of those emulators provide access to the 3d hardware.

[DethLeaf]

[ QUOTE ]
also i've only been able to get it to run with nvidia cards.
if anyone has gotten it to work with ati cards could you please post here?
that would be greatly appriciated.

[/ QUOTE ]

AFAIK some of Cedega's directx emulation will only work on nVidia hardware. I read somewhere that CoH supports OpenGL. Is this true? If so it ought to run under plain ol' still-free Wine, as long as dx6 calls are not used for input.

I know I tried running it under normal Wine, but it didn't work. Maybe there's some trick you have to use to get it to use OpenGL (if indeed the above rumor is true)?

[bigbadbear]

Yah, sux that WineX is $99/year.

I understand the cost, but I dont understand the cost on linux.
o.O

[DethLeaf]

[ QUOTE ]
Yah, sux that WineX is $99/year.
I understand the cost, but I dont understand the cost on linux.
o.O

[/ QUOTE ]

Heh, it's been argued to death by people other than me. Personally, I don't mind paying for software, or for some software to be proprietary. I just don't really want to give Transgaming my money because they took the freely available work done by 100s of people, made it proprietary by changing the license, and didn't contribute anything back to the original authors. Of course maybe this has changed; I don't keep up with the news very well. I doubt it though, otherwise the directx9 code from Cedega would have been folded back into the main Wine tree by now.

Hmm, should I really post this? Kinda off topic. Oh well, delete this if it's too far off track from the original intent. :P

[Peppercat]

I've run it in Slackware 10 with a 2.6.8 kernel (I think it is) it's okayish but definately slower then in windows (I dual boot)

[The_Pheeb]

[ QUOTE ]
So it requires an x86 compatible CPU, as the code is still more or less executed natively rather than interpreted.

[/ QUOTE ]

ya, that was kinda my guess too. too bad, as i bet running it on OS X's FreeBSD core would probably be a bit more robust than the standard linux flavor :p

[bigbadbear]

I dont know that BSD would ever get into DX code, due to "liability" issues. Last I heard, people working on DX ports to Linux got a cease and decist from Microsoft.

course thats not a legal reason to stop messing around with it.

[Phantom_Matrix]

Has anyone tried running CoH in Linux using VMWhare???

Phantom Matrix

[FilmorePendrgn]

Just imagining booting to WinXP, running VMWare to boot Linux, then running CoH through WineX

[Aliana Blue]

[ QUOTE ]
Just imagining booting to WinXP, running VMWare to boot Linux, then running CoH through WineX

[/ QUOTE ]

Wasn't there a program to run WinXP on Mac OS X? :)

[CuppaJo_NA]

Moving to Guides section for safe keeping ;)

[John_Law]

[ QUOTE ]
Has anyone tried running CoH in Linux using VMWhare???

[/ QUOTE ]

The virtual video adapter in a VMware VM is (currently anyway) a "generic video card" sort of thing that does not support 3D graphics acceleration.

[styopa]

I run CoH using Debian unstable with the 2.6.8 kernel on a P4 2GHz, 768 MB ram and a GForce FX 5700. In general I play under Gnome with Metacity, but if I know I will be on the game for a long period of time I will switch over to a generic X-session. I have also gotten this working under the 2.4.26 kernel without any problems. I am using Cedega 4.0.1 and its companion application Point2Play. I am emulating Win98 and it seems to work just fine with the problem of a small memory leak.

[ QUOTE ]
Heh, it's been argued to death by people other than me. Personally, I don't mind paying for software, or for some software to be proprietary. I just don't really want to give Transgaming my money because they took the freely available work done by 100s of people, made it proprietary by changing the license, and didn't contribute anything back to the original authors. Of course maybe this has changed; I don't keep up with the news very well. I doubt it though, otherwise the directx9 code from Cedega would have been folded back into the main Wine tree by now.

[/ QUOTE ]

When I was looking at buying Cedega I noticed that it is possible to actually download the source of their product and compile it yourself for free (as in beer). Cedega charges for two things, precompiled versions for the different distrobutions and their excellent product Point2Play. Trying to use Cedega, and all of the flags necessary to do anything with it, by itself would be a nightmare which is where Point2Play is useful.

I dislike sounding like a mouth piece for Transgaming, but Point2Play is how Wine should do its setup. It is a front end that does all of the downloading of their updates and allows for you do setup the configuration without having to type in all of the flags over and over again. Very similar to the Crossover Office setup only cleaner.

My 2 inf on the cost issue. Cedega only costs $99/year if you want to be able to use their upgrading system. Since Cedega 4.0.1 works beautifully with CoH just spend the $30 and get the product. They spend a lot of time specializing their code to work specifically for games. Would I love to see this under a Free as in Speech license? Of course. But I don't think that merging their product back with standard Wine is a viable option anymore. They are a company that provides a good, solid product that does exactly what they say it does and I don't mind supporting them and their programmers.

VMWare, as someone pointed out earlier, emulates the hardware as generic hardware so you lose the graphics acceleration. The early versions couldn't do directX either.

[Keplar]

Bah, I bought a new hard drive to install Windows on, so I could play CoH. :-/

(I know there are more $$ effcient ways to do that, but I'm lazy)

[Peppercat]

[ QUOTE ]
Trying to use Cedega, and all of the flags necessary to do anything with it, by itself would be a nightmare which is where Point2Play is useful.

[/ QUOTE ]

Most games require very few if ANY flags, City of Heroes for example does not require any.

[JohnnyRocket]

[ QUOTE ]


Wasn't there a program to run WinXP on Mac OS X? :)

[/ QUOTE ]

You really don't want to be running games with high machine requirements like this one on Microsoft VirtualPC. It will melt. It can emulate apps like Word and Excel, but if you want to play PC games on a Mac, stick to Minesweeper or Solataire.

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but CoH will likely never run on a Mac. Cryptic has already said they ain't gonna port it, and VirtualPC can't handle it.

[Rkik_Dnec]

Now the real question is:

Have any of you managed to get CoH running on Linux using 3D acceleration and an ATI video card?

I know that has been the biggest problem and the only thing that is stopping me from switching to Linux completely.

[sidney_b]

fwiw, i've gotten it working under gentoo linux 2.6.x w/ cedega...

[Rkik_Dnec]

Are you using an ATI card?

If so, did you have to do anything special?

Please let me know if you have CoH working in linux on an ATI card

[sidney_b]

:( sorry, i have an nvidia card...

[Annalena]

[ QUOTE ]
Are you using an ATI card?

If so, did you have to do anything special?

Please let me know if you have CoH working in linux on an ATI card

[/ QUOTE ]

hi there,
a little update on the ati part of things.
this is how far i get with cedega 4.1.1-1 / xorg 6.7 / ati driver version 3.14.1

this is how far i get right now:
-cohupdater.exe works
-coh loads up
-i can enter my account name and select my server
-immediatly after server selection the whole x session crashes

from what i´ve read on a couple of boards the problem lies in the different implementation of pixel buffers and render to texture of nvidia and ati.
and apparently transgaming is trying to get more support into cedega for ati cards. i guess we will just have to wait.
on the other hand i´ve read some reports of people getting coh to work with radeons <= 9200.
there are drivers available for those cards through the dri project that have accelerated 3D. so apparently those can handle whatever cedega wants from them better than atis own drivers...

any info on getting past that server selection screen is greatly appreciated :)

kind regards

[Westley]

[ QUOTE ]
My 2 inf on the cost issue. Cedega only costs $99/year if you want to be able to use their upgrading system. Since Cedega 4.0.1 works beautifully with CoH just spend the $30 and get the product...

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm..... last time I checked Windows XP upgrade cost $89..... so with that $99 you could buy the actual operating system, have NO compatibility issues and still have enough money for 10 Frostee's at Wendy's! Now why would I want to pay for this program? :D

[DeemedOffensive]

so funny....as if i'd go through more trouble than i already do to play a game....

[Keplar]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
My 2 inf on the cost issue. Cedega only costs $99/year if you want to be able to use their upgrading system. Since Cedega 4.0.1 works beautifully with CoH just spend the $30 and get the product...

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm..... last time I checked Windows XP upgrade cost $89..... so with that $99 you could buy the actual operating system, have NO compatibility issues and still have enough money for 10 Frostee's at Wendy's! Now why would I want to pay for this program? :D

[/ QUOTE ]

Hrm...why even post something like this? It contributes nothing. If you don't want to run CoH in Linux and/or buy that program, there is no need to post.

I'll be popping it on this system soon enough:
P4 3 Ghz @ 3.2
GeForce 4 Ti4200 w/ 128 MB DDR
1 Gig Corsair PC3200 (@ 440mhz) XL Pro something or another RAM (with LED things--so cool)

Running SuSE 9.2/Win XP Pro

Nothing else really matters. :P 40 Gig Wester Digital for linux, 80 Gig Wester Digital for Windows...mmm, yeah, that's all. You suggested just getting the current version for 30$? How much difference is there in game play? Would it just be more reasonable to reboot into Windows?

[TheClaus]

[ QUOTE ]
so funny....as if i'd go through more trouble than i already do to play a game....

[/ QUOTE ]

As the poster above stated what good does this do. Some people prefer to not deal with the hassles of Windows anymore or find that Linux offers them more control over things. Regardless of the reason I think all game developers should seriously look into Linux clients for there games. If you look at Transgaming you see there is a need and people would still pay the $50 to get the game if it had a linux/windows client.

[Greyed]

[ QUOTE ]
Hmm..... last time I checked Windows XP upgrade cost $89..... so with that $99 you could buy the actual operating system, have NO compatibility issues and still have enough money for 10 Frostee's at Wendy's! Now why would I want to pay for this program? :D

[/ QUOTE ]

Operative word, upgrade. You have to upgrade from an existing version of Windows. IIRC specific versions at that. It also leaves you with a non-working coaster if you ever fry your entire HD. A complete version is far more than $89.

BTW, the main reason XP shall never taint my HD. I make 3 changes to my machine and I have to call Microsoft for a reactivation code. Let's see, in the past year I've upgraded my video card, CPU, RAM, botherboard, case, went from a CD-R to a DVD-R/CD-RW and switched between my external sound card and the mobo's on board sound card about 6 times. I'm thinkin' there's at least 2 calls to Microsoft in there somewhere, if not 3. Of course all of that is avoidable if I fork out the money for XP Pro.

Ooooor I can run Linux, have an OS that does what I want it to do instead of tell me what it thinks I should do and support Transgaming with the overall money and time I save.

Of course I am still having problems getting CoH running. >.<

[OtakuBaka]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Hmm..... last time I checked Windows XP upgrade cost $89..... so with that $99 you could buy the actual operating system, have NO compatibility issues and still have enough money for 10 Frostee's at Wendy's! Now why would I want to pay for this program? :D

[/ QUOTE ]

Operative word, upgrade. You have to upgrade from an existing version of Windows. IIRC specific versions at that. It also leaves you with a non-working coaster if you ever fry your entire HD. A complete version is far more than $89.

BTW, the main reason XP shall never taint my HD. I make 3 changes to my machine and I have to call Microsoft for a reactivation code. Let's see, in the past year I've upgraded my video card, CPU, RAM, botherboard, case, went from a CD-R to a DVD-R/CD-RW and switched between my external sound card and the mobo's on board sound card about 6 times. I'm thinkin' there's at least 2 calls to Microsoft in there somewhere, if not 3. Of course all of that is avoidable if I fork out the money for XP Pro.

Ooooor I can run Linux, have an OS that does what I want it to do instead of tell me what it thinks I should do and support Transgaming with the overall money and time I save.

Of course I am still having problems getting CoH running. >.<

[/ QUOTE ]

what's happening when you try to run CoH?

[DarthMord]

I've made more changes than that in a year's time and the only time I ever had to reactivate was when I did a clean install.

BTW, if the changes are made over time, the activation counter does normalize to your current configuration. So if you only changed sound & video one month and a few months passed before doing more changes, the system will have normalized to the changed hardware and treat it as baseline.

So bashing XP because you don't like activation is bunk. Even moreso since your cited reasons are false. It sounds more like sour grapes towards Microsoft than being anyhting wrong with Windows.

Perhaps you should read up on how activation works rather than spout off anti-Microsoft crap. Otherwise, you just appear to be nothing but a Linux fanboi.

For the record, Windows & Linux are both good. Just how good depends on what use you have for them.

[OtakuBaka]

[ QUOTE ]
I've made more changes than that in a year's time and the only time I ever had to reactivate was when I did a clean install.

BTW, if the changes are made over time, the activation counter does normalize to your current configuration. So if you only changed sound & video one month and a few months passed before doing more changes, the system will have normalized to the changed hardware and treat it as baseline.

So bashing XP because you don't like activation is bunk. Even moreso since your cited reasons are false. It sounds more like sour grapes towards Microsoft than being anyhting wrong with Windows.

Perhaps you should read up on how activation works rather than spout off anti-Microsoft crap. Otherwise, you just appear to be nothing but a Linux fanboi.

For the record, Windows & Linux are both good. Just how good depends on what use you have for them.

[/ QUOTE ]

ease up there. who are you, bill gates' personal towel boy?

[chonger]

Transgaming's winex is available for free from http://www.transgaming.com/sources.php.

You need to pull the sources using CVS and build it yourself, but it's free :)

It was very easy for me to set it up. Than again I'm a hardcore Linux user and I can honestly say that building and installing binaries on your own is not rookies.

For more details on running CofH on Linux, please check out the forums at http://www.gentoo.org.

I am running gentoo linux and CofH runs fine on my machine. The only annoyance is that the mouse cursor is just a white blob. But I can deal with that.

I noticed that to get the best experience you'll want to start X without a window manager and run cofh from there. Otherwise you'll get an annoying WM border around your screen.

Yes it is a hassle to run games on Linux. The truth is, most of us chose Linux for reasons other than playing video games, but that shouldn't stop us from playing games that are meant to run on Windows only.

[Westley]

Lookie what I found :D

http://frankscorner.org/index.php?p=cedegacvs

[TuxGangrel]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
will Cedega run under OS X? i just returned a Dell laptop and am considering either a Sager 3790, or possibly a iBook. if Cedega can run CoH under OS X, i'm liable to go for the iBook :)

[/ QUOTE ]

Nope, it won't run on PPC (I wish! My real computer is a Mac running Linux, heh). Wine/Cedega isn't really an emulator, but more of a runtime library that redirects Win32 api calls through libc (and whatever else, xlib and a bunch of other stuff probably). So it requires an x86 compatible CPU, as the code is still more or less executed natively rather than interpreted.

At least that's how I understand it. You may be able to use a real emulator such as Bochs or vmware or something to run a copy of windows and CoH on os10, but I have a feeling it would be godawful slow, and I don't think any of those emulators provide access to the 3d hardware.

[/ QUOTE ]

While this was true, with the introduction of Tiger on Intel, I have been able to install and run CoH on my Athlon FX65 under OS X Tiger. Albeit that some applications are still horrible under Tiger, the support is coming and should be a serious gaming platform. THIS IS MY OPINION!!!!
I know I will be getting some flame here but I like the look and feel of OS X. While running CoH, I had major issues with drivers, hardware compat. and not having any resources to solve some of the coding aspects. e.g.
getting CoH to get past a loading other than going to Atlas.
Well, thats it. As for playing with an iBook, step up and get a better laptop....Intel with Tiger. ;)

[TuxGangrel]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
My 2 inf on the cost issue. Cedega only costs $99/year if you want to be able to use their upgrading system. Since Cedega 4.0.1 works beautifully with CoH just spend the $30 and get the product...

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm..... last time I checked Windows XP upgrade cost $89..... so with that $99 you could buy the actual operating system, have NO compatibility issues and still have enough money for 10 Frostee's at Wendy's! Now why would I want to pay for this program? :D

[/ QUOTE ]

PLEASE NO WINDOWS vs. LINUX BASHING HERE!!!!

boo

[Psydekick]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
My 2 inf on the cost issue. Cedega only costs $99/year if you want to be able to use their upgrading system. Since Cedega 4.0.1 works beautifully with CoH just spend the $30 and get the product...

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm..... last time I checked Windows XP upgrade cost $89..... so with that $99 you could buy the actual operating system, have NO compatibility issues and still have enough money for 10 Frostee's at Wendy's! Now why would I want to pay for this program? :D

[/ QUOTE ]

PLEASE NO WINDOWS vs. LINUX BASHING HERE!!!!

boo

[/ QUOTE ]

/agreed

OP: Thank you. You've given me incentive to dual boot again. And CoX will probably run better on a... what was it called... a Naked X Session. I will probably push this thread through several pages as I get this to work.

[Ssyrie]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
will Cedega run under OS X? i just returned a Dell laptop and am considering either a Sager 3790, or possibly a iBook. if Cedega can run CoH under OS X, i'm liable to go for the iBook :)

[/ QUOTE ]

Nope, it won't run on PPC (I wish! My real computer is a Mac running Linux, heh). Wine/Cedega isn't really an emulator, but more of a runtime library that redirects Win32 api calls through libc (and whatever else, xlib and a bunch of other stuff probably). So it requires an x86 compatible CPU, as the code is still more or less executed natively rather than interpreted.

At least that's how I understand it. You may be able to use a real emulator such as Bochs or vmware or something to run a copy of windows and CoH on os10, but I have a feeling it would be godawful slow, and I don't think any of those emulators provide access to the 3d hardware.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok, but Apple is switching to Intel chips. Now if they could just get Wine/Cedega to run under Mac/Intel systems, you could probably could play CoX on a Mac.

[glasswalkerny]

MrsHill: look into blackbox/fluxbox.. they are both very lightweight desktop managers that will still provide you with some functionality at virtually no performance hits.. they are very small compared to KDE or Gnome (guaged by compile times under gentoo on the same system). I currently use Fluxbox on my Main PC (used for e-mail, openoffice, PVR, web) and there's little to no load from it on my memory or CPU. The only reason my Gaming PC isn't running linux over XP is there are quite a few games yet that don't run under Cedega.

[thiefofslippers]

has anyone gotten this game to work in gpl'ed wine yet? the launcher starts up flawlessly and much faster than with cedega (i have IE installed too so it looks like on windows). but it dies once the game starts. so i play with a version of cedega like 4 upgrades old (the last one i paid for).

i run xfce4 as my desktop, and even with numerous programs in the background and several apps forwarded over ssh to another computer i don't notice any slowdowns (p4 2.2ghz, 768mb of ram, and an amazing 64mb nvidia card), so it's cool on the performance front. just seems that wine is the better coded program until directx kicks in.