So far in Cedega 6.1 we have added support for some of the hottest windows titles out there; Neverwinter Nights 2, Call of Duty 4, Spore Creature Creator, Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, Team Fortress 2, Portal and even gotten Shader Model 3.0 and HDR support working in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Some of these titles do still have a few issues but are in the most part playable out of the box. Most notably Neverwinter Nights 2 has some graphical corruption on all cards and some significant graphical corruption on NVIDIA 6XXX and 7XXX series of cards. We don’t have a fix for this issue yet but as soon we do we will make a new beta release available or post a work around in the forums. We have also had reports from our Beta Team that NVWN2 is working very well on ATI cards when specific options are selected. Check out the Neverwinter Nights 2 on ATI thread in the Cedega 6.1 Beta forum for more details.

Some games we thought we had working but still have some items that keep them from earning the supported rating. For example Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword and Sins of a Solar Empire. However, we do have work arounds for some of the key issues. One of the biggest problems getting Beyond the Sword working in Cedega is getting it installed in the first place. There is a work around that can get this going. The installer fails with an error message that the patch cannot be installed. This is actually not true. We believe that a call back to the game installer from the patch installer is failing and giving this erroneous message. In the background the patch is actually installing. If you open a terminal and do “ps ax |grep -i Civ4 ” you will see processes are running in the background, this is the patch. There is an easy work around for this issue. Before installing the Beyond the Sword expansion do an update from within the game. This will update the game to the necessary versions for BTS, once finished you can go ahead and install the expansion. If you have Warlords installed you will probably have to do an update both for the original game and for Warlords.

We have also had reports of instability issues in Civilization IV with Beyond the Sword. We are investigating these reports but are having great difficulty reproducing the problems internally. We are asking Cedega Gaming Service Members who are experiencing these issues to please report your experiences in the Civilization IV Beyond the Sword thread in the Cedega 6.1 Beta Forum. Please be sure to post the details from Cedega: Tools -> System/Hardware Information. The more we can learn about this issue the faster we will be able to solve it.

Sins of a Solar Empire is also working very well in Cedega once you get past a few issues. Some testers have had problems clicking the next button in the SoaSE installer. Running this in a window should allow you to complete the installation of the game. Once in the game there are a few minor issues including text size and some slowdowns. These issues will be looked at as time allows.

Certain members of our Beta Team have access to the World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King beta and have already started to test against Cedega 6.1 and log issues. We are happy to say that once it is installed the game is working well with certain settings. The installer is definitely an issue at this point requiring you to scroll through the EULA for the Agree button to become active. Currently there is no way to activate the Agree button making it impossible to install at this time. However, using a copy over from an installation under Windows (Wine also experiences the same Agree button issue) does work and Lich King beta members can play to their hearts content. Beta Team members have promised to post the details of their experiences in the Cedega 6.1 Beta forum. Thanks goes to our Beta team for all of their hard work.

As many of you may have already noticed we are currently in the midst of a number of updates to Cedega.com. We have started the process that will see a total overhaul of Member services over the coming months. The first step have been to amalgamate the entire site under a single look and feel and a single login. One of the most important facets of the current updates is moving Cedega.com to a new server and distribution that can handle greater load in preparation for the upcoming changes.

Once the server migration has been completed we will be rolling out new features and updates throughout the summer, into the fall and beyond. The key sections we will be focusing on over the next few months are the forums, the games database and the voting section. Each month we will be announcing additional details of our plans in The Grape Vine. Check the voting page for more information on our plans for updates there.

We are very excited about some of the planned changes. Keep coming back to Cedega.com to experience the changes first hand.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my thanks to the Cedega Beta Team. Without their help we would not have been able to meet our schedule for the 6.1 Beta or achieving the final 6.1 this summer and releasing 7.0 in the fall would be unthinkable. The Beta Team has put in tireless hours testing and retesting every aspect of Cedega from the User Interface to installers to gameplay. More than just testing they have been instrumental in helping to track down and eliminate a number of bugs that would have left both Source games and World of Warcraft unplayable.

The Beta Team continues to help make Cedega the best it can be providing feedback in the forums, finding best settings and workarounds and making sure that everyone both customers and the Cedega development have the information they need to have the best gaming experience possible.

If you run across a Beta Team member in the forums or on IRC be sure to let them know what a good job they’re doing and how much their efforts are appreciated.

I invite everyone to join me every Thursday from 3 to 6 pm EST until May 29th in #cedega on an irc.freenode.net server to discuss Cedega and Linux gaming. I will be available to answer questions but even more importantly take your comments and feedback. This is your chance to have your voice heard by the Cedega Product Manager.

To join the channel launch your favorite IRC client (such as XChat) and join a Freenode Server (irc.freenode.net) and join #cedega (/join #cedega)

Depending on the game you play, your choice of distribution and window manager you may find that the behavior of using alt-tab to switch out of games may vary. However, alt-tab is just far too useful a feature for people to live without. How are you supposed to check the hockey scores or see whats new on Digg if you can’t alt-tab away from your game for a while.

In this edition of The Den I discuss some of work arounds that various TransGamer’s use and introduce one I started playing with in the last few weeks.

The Virtual Desktop Method

One of the simplest methods is to run Cedega games in their own virtual desktop then use a simple key combo (ctrl-alt-arrow key for me) to switch away to other desktops. If this works for you its probably the easiest way to go but there are some problems as well.

Pros

Very easy, setup by default in most distributions and window managers.

Cons

May not work for all users even if it has been setup.
May not resize the desktop so if the game is run in 800×600 you will remain trapped in that resolution.
Some games may crash.
Some games may keep keyboard and mouse trapped.

The Separate X-Session Method

Many users choose to run Cedega in a completely separate x-session allowing them to switch between their applications and Cedega using ctrl-alt-f7 or ctrl-alt-f8 (in most cases). This solution is workable but can be problematic depending on the games you want to play. Many games (such as Steam games) are prone to crashing when switch between x-sessions. It can even bring down your whole box (locking up your video drivers) and require you to reboot. This approach can adversely affect performance of many games because of the two sessions and depending on your graphics hardware and drivers the second x-session may not be able to perform hardware 3d rendering at all.

Some users have posted various scripts that allow games to start in a separate x-session. I haven’t tested these scripts myself and used to use one of my own that didn’t work very well. In general I recommend writing a script that starts a minimal x-session with no window manager and then create an icon that does the following:


$ launch2ndxsession && export DISPLAY=:1 && cedega $GAME_FOLDER $GAME_ICON


If you are only interested in one game then just make the script do everything and let the icon launch that script.

Pros

Isolates Cedega from your regular desktop.
Don’t need to worry about resolution issues (each x-session can have independent resolutions).

Cons

Chance of system hangs and game crashes.
Can be very slow switching between x-sessions.
Can cause performance drops in games.