Re: [orca-list] Wine

[Thomas Ward <thomasward1978 gmail com>]

Hi,

Well, as an avid gamer and software developer I've had some really
mixed results using wine for games. Here is basically what I found
out.

First, one thing I discovered is game performance goes way down when
emulated. For example, the game I'm developing, Mysteries of the
Ancients,  ran terrible under wine. This might be a pulse issue, I"m
not sure, but the audio cut in and out, and certain things like the
footstep sounds didn't play at all. Then, there was issues with
certain input devices like joysticks that didn't seem to work through
wine. It was for various issues like that why I'm now developing Linux
specific ports of all of my new games using LibSDL and FMOD Ex.

Second, issue was installing dependencies and the games as well. To
get a game up and running such as Jim Kitchens games you have to
install Sapi 5.1, which the installer doesn't talk, install DirectX 8
via winetricks, and then run  his Winkit setup to finish adding VB
dependancies etc. Then, if you want a game like Shades of Doom or GMA
Tank Commander you pretty much have to do alt+n through all the
dialogs to get through the setups. Its doable but less than ideal.

That said there are sometimes work arounds for some of these issues.
One thing is some apps such as DirectX can be installed using a silent
install. If you pass the dexsetup.exe the /s switch it will install
the entire thing without prompting you.If I'm not mistaken the same
can be done for the Sapi 5.1 install as well. This makes it easier to
install dependencies as the /s silent install setup will just install
the program using the defaults.

HTH