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Wine Compatability


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Hello all, first post. Recently discovered this project and I must say I'm more than a little excited, XCOM was (still is, actually) one of my favorite games of all time. Countless hours spent raging impotently at lobstermen and cryssalids.

But I digress; How well does the current build of Xenonauts play with WINE, if at all? I'm just going to go off on a limb and assume that it is incapable of running natively on linux.

Thanks, all. If positive there's the distinct possibility of a preorder to test it out myself.

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I really don't want to sound like a dickhead, but in this day and age there is really very little incentive to use Linux. If you are a regualr desktop user, student, heck even scientist, MS Windows offers everything you need with minimal hassle. Windows 7 is perfectly suited for almost every task, and has software support that dwarfs Linux/Mac OS you name it. It will always be your choice, but Windows is the most logical choice to me as it offers way more in terms of support and daily usability.

Edited by DamZe
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I really don't want to sound like a dickhead, but in this day and age there is really very little incentive to use Linux. If you are a regualr desktop user, student, heck even scientist, MS Windows offers everything you need with minimal hassle. Windows 7 is perfectly suited for almost every task, and has software support that dwarfs Linux/Mac OS you name it. It will always be your choice, but Windows is the most logical choice to me as it offers way more in terms of support and daily usability.

This is a silly thing to say. I use Linux whenever I can. I still keep Windows for two things, gaming and Photoshop. Desura has made Linux gaming MUCH more accessible though.

Windows is very flawed. Due to it's poor design it has a number of security issues. Linux viruses are possible, but extremely rear. Many businesses still use Linux, including Google, who use it a lot.

The success of Desura's linux client shows that there are people who want this.

And the average Linux users donation of $10 on humble bundle compared to windows users $4.

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This is a silly thing to say. I use Linux whenever I can. I still keep Windows for two things, gaming and Photoshop. Desura has made Linux gaming MUCH more accessible though.

Windows is very flawed. Due to it's poor design it has a number of security issues. Linux viruses are possible, but extremely rear. Many businesses still use Linux, including Google, who use it a lot.

The success of Desura's linux client shows that there are people who want this.

And the average Linux users donation of $10 on humble bundle compared to windows users $4.

I've used Linux myself, but at the end of the day, it is too much of a hassle to learn specific commands for it, heck installing something as simple as a driver can get frustratingly hard. Again it has limited functionality in the real world when you use it for work, and gaming is pretty much nonexistent. I hear you about Desura, but take a look at Steam. Steam is where it is at for PC gaming, and Xenonauts will be far more successful on Steam than it will ever be on Desura. Windows is vulnerable yes, but that is because it comprises 90% of the OS market, more people write viruses for MS Windows. With a solid free antimalware suite, Windows 7 is very secure so that is not an issue.

My 2 cents on the subject.

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Nowadays you can get by on popular Linux OS's without ever having to type a command. In support forums such as Ubuntu forums people will say copy this command into the terminal because it is much faster.

Say for example someone wants to install open office. You could say "Go to Applications > Software Centre > search 'open office' click install and enter password." or you could say "press ALT-F2 and type 'sudo apt-get install openoffice'.

Although I do agree Linux is a niche area, there is undoubtedly money in it. Even if you port it after release, so your not distracted from developing the game.

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I really don't want to sound like a dickhead, but in this day and age there is really very little incentive to use Linux. If you are a regualr desktop user, student, heck even scientist, MS Windows offers everything you need with minimal hassle. Windows 7 is perfectly suited for almost every task, and has software support that dwarfs Linux/Mac OS you name it. It will always be your choice, but Windows is the most logical choice to me as it offers way more in terms of support and daily usability.

Thank you for your opinion. I don't want to sound like a dickhead either, but if you don't really have anything to say which contributes meaningfully to the thread (As opposed to questioning my choice in OS), it's probably best to keep it to yourself or start a new thread.

As to why I'm using linux? My gaming desktop (A Windows machine, you'll probably be euphoric to hear) is currently several hundred miles away. The laptop I am currently using came second-hand with Vista barely chugging along on it. It really rustles my jimmies when an operating system sitting idle is taking up >30% of my CPU cycles and is holding a truly unacceptable quantity of RAM hostage. XP wasn't an option due to driver issues, so I came to an operating system that doesn't piss me off when I don't have a lot of system resources to spare.

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Thank you for your opinion. I don't want to sound like a dickhead either, but if you don't really have anything to say which contributes meaningfully to the thread (As opposed to questioning my choice in OS), it's probably best to keep it to yourself or start a new thread.

As to why I'm using linux? My gaming desktop (A Windows machine, you'll probably be euphoric to hear) is currently several hundred miles away. The laptop I am currently using came second-hand with Vista barely chugging along on it. It really rustles my jimmies when an operating system sitting idle is taking up >30% of my CPU cycles and is holding a truly unacceptable quantity of RAM hostage. XP wasn't an option due to driver issues, so I came to an operating system that doesn't piss me off when I don't have a lot of system resources to spare.

Did you update to SP2? I admit Vista is rubbish.

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WINE compatibility seems pretty good, was just playing on my Macbook Pro (Wineskin wrapper). Had some sound issues, but I didn't experiment with settings and/or different wine engine versions etc at all yet, just preordered and downloaded half an hour ago and tried it out real fast.

edit: I simply turned off audio hardware acceleration in wine cfg and the audio issues are gone (I had choppiness and/or delays before).

Edited by packinheat
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I really don't want to sound like a dickhead, but in this day and age there is really very little incentive to use Linux. If you are a regualr desktop user, student, heck even scientist, MS Windows offers everything you need with minimal hassle. Windows 7 is perfectly suited for almost every task, and has software support that dwarfs Linux/Mac OS you name it. It will always be your choice, but Windows is the most logical choice to me as it offers way more in terms of support and daily usability.

I agree, Windows 7 is pretty solid. except when it recently took a nose dive with a corrupt file system as result. The Linux installation on the same disk was unharmed, of course.

I would turn your quote around and say that in this day and age there are compellingly few reasons for most people to run Windows. Unless you are an avid gamer there really is no reason to pay extra for Windows when you can get Linux for free.

In the last few years I've had ONE application (except games) for which I need to use Windows. For everything else there are perfectly good alternatives.

Limited use? Give me a break. That would depend only on your type of work and policy of your employer.

As for usability I can't see why a Gnome or KDE desktop would be harder to use than Windows 7. Command line ninjery is (unless you want to) a thing of the past. My experience is "it just works". And when stuff doesn't work it is never harder to solve than similar problems on Windows.

As for WINE, I am happy to hear that it might work with it. I know it did with one of the first available versions, so I am happy to hear this still seems to be the case :)

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I agree, Windows 7 is pretty solid. except when it recently took a nose dive with a corrupt file system as result. The Linux installation on the same disk was unharmed, of course.

I would turn your quote around and say that in this day and age there are compellingly few reasons for most people to run Windows. Unless you are an avid gamer there really is no reason to pay extra for Windows when you can get Linux for free.

In the last few years I've had ONE application (except games) for which I need to use Windows. For everything else there are perfectly good alternatives.

Limited use? Give me a break. That would depend only on your type of work and policy of your employer.

As for usability I can't see why a Gnome or KDE desktop would be harder to use than Windows 7. Command line ninjery is (unless you want to) a thing of the past. My experience is "it just works". And when stuff doesn't work it is never harder to solve than similar problems on Windows.

As for WINE, I am happy to hear that it might work with it. I know it did with one of the first available versions, so I am happy to hear this still seems to be the case :)

Fair enough mate, to each his own. I can perfectly understand why some people find Linux more appealing, furthermore if there is software you like on a specific OS then stick with it as it is what works best for you.

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That is good advice. While the game is rated platinum for stability on winehq, it is just based on one review - and wine performance variesfrom system to system, a lot.

For example, on my machine (ArchLinux x64, latest Wine in 32 bit mode), the geoscope is very laggy, every two or so lines of text has the text warped as if it has a strikethrough, and right clicking on an item in a soldier's inventory results in a crash to desktop. Haven't had the chance to test ground combat yet.

Good thing I have a windows 7 installation just for cases like this (as a bonus, I can have two coffees while waiting for it to boot and load).

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That is good advice. While the game is rated platinum for stability on winehq, it is just based on one review - and wine performance variesfrom system to system, a lot.

For example, on my machine (ArchLinux x64, latest Wine in 32 bit mode), the geoscope is very laggy, every two or so lines of text has the text warped as if it has a strikethrough, and right clicking on an item in a soldier's inventory results in a crash to desktop. Haven't had the chance to test ground combat yet.

Good thing I have a windows 7 installation just for cases like this (as a bonus, I can have two coffees while waiting for it to boot and load).

Then you might look into upgrading your system, as Win7 x64 takes 28 seconds to boot to desktop for me.

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Then you might look into upgrading your system, as Win7 x64 takes 28 seconds to boot to desktop for me.

I really do not want to sound hostile here, but you might look into not giving advice lacking any context whatsoever, just to push your favorite product. I half expect the obligatory Mac Guy to pop up any second now. Sometimes you cannot fit a round peg in a square hole.

In this case, the context is that my ArchLinux x64 boots for less than 10 seconds and shuts down in 4, has increased battery life because of some fine tuning, but most important of all has all the tools that I need and gives me full control over everythig, ever. Bash, git, vim, gcc and python as they were intended to run. Also package management and it's free.

Windows 7 is a nice system, I used it for about a year in parallel, it just does not offer me anything that justifies the disk space it uses (I mean come on, the basic Win7 installation is about 4-5 times the size of my full current installation).

Back on topic, Air combat seems to work perfectly fine.

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I half expect the obligatory Mac Guy to pop up any second now.

PRESENT! Hehe.. I have a triple boot up on my Macbook Pro; OSX, Win7 and Gentoo Linux. Also I have a a Windows 7, Windows XP and Windows Server 2008 R2 virtual machines on OSX (via Parallels Desktop).

Why stick with just one when I can have the best of all worlds.. the native Win7 for the odd games that I play and don't work in OSX, the virtual Windows machines for AD etc administration practice, Gentoo just because I like Linux and OSX for everyday stuff and any serious work.

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Hard drives are so big the installation size generally doesn't matter to me.

I mainly use my pc for playing games and doing my uni work for which win7 works fine.

I would have liked to try linux at some point but the lack of support from games developers means it would be a waste of time for me.

At some point PC gaming will come back into the focus of devs and publishers then I wouldn't be surprised to find linux versions will also become more common.

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I really do not want to sound hostile here, but you might look into not giving advice lacking any context whatsoever, just to push your favorite product. I half expect the obligatory Mac Guy to pop up any second now. Sometimes you cannot fit a round peg in a square hole.

In this case, the context is that my ArchLinux x64 boots for less than 10 seconds and shuts down in 4, has increased battery life because of some fine tuning, but most important of all has all the tools that I need and gives me full control over everythig, ever. Bash, git, vim, gcc and python as they were intended to run. Also package management and it's free.

Windows 7 is a nice system, I used it for about a year in parallel, it just does not offer me anything that justifies the disk space it uses (I mean come on, the basic Win7 installation is about 4-5 times the size of my full current installation).

Back on topic, Air combat seems to work perfectly fine.

I am not trying to tell anyone what to use for their specific needs, I only imply that for gaming Windows is imperative. You can use Wine, but more demanding games just don't work properly on Linux, no matter what. It would take a hideous amount of top quality hardware to run BF3 on linux, not even sure if it is possible to even get it to install. Games using DirectX are meant to be run on Windows. And if people come to expect that they can run those games without issues on Linux, they will certainly be dissapointed. As for 2D/openGL games I see no problem trying to run them on Linux.

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Wine results in a very small performance hit, if any in many cases. Just check out all those 'Crysis 1/2 on Linux' videos out there, the hardware used for the demonstrations is hardly hideously powerful and the performance is very close to what you'd get on a similar system running Windows and the video capturing software.

Not that wine can reach the exact same performance; DX10 is still not implemented for it, so that's that.

As for whether people would be disappointed, this topic is about Wine compatibility. Chances are, if you are using Wine you know what you are dealing with.

Anyway...

Turns out the bad performance on the geoscape got fixed by reinstalling the GPU driver, so yay. Got to play a little longer today and the winehq review seems to be true - everything in the game that currently works works, and seemingly most of the bugs that are confirmed make appearence too. Just a good thing to keep in mind.

Also, just to be sure, is the game's rendering using SDL?

P.S.

PRESENT!

I am sorry but you do not qualify; I was referring to the fact that in every OS vs OS discussion a mac user appears and starts posting those annoying 'Mac vs PC' ads like they are the grail of truth.

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I am not trying to tell anyone what to use for their specific needs, I only imply that for gaming Windows is imperative. You can use Wine, but more demanding games just don't work properly on Linux, no matter what. It would take a hideous amount of top quality hardware to run BF3 on linux, not even sure if it is possible to even get it to install. Games using DirectX are meant to be run on Windows. And if people come to expect that they can run those games without issues on Linux, they will certainly be dissapointed. As for 2D/openGL games I see no problem trying to run them on Linux.

If you look at the app list on winehq.org you would see that a quite a lot of serious, fairly new, graphics heavy games work pretty fine in WINE. The problem with WINE is rarely performance, as it is a compatibility layer, and not an emulator (WINE = Wine Is Not an Emulator ;))

As noted, no one is trying to get Goldhawk to support Xenonauts on WINE. Some of us are interested in finding out how it works anyway, so we might be able to play without rebooting if possible.

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