"Ask ATI" dev thread

[Silverthorn]

or without wine more companies would port. Have you ever thought, that maybe wine is a really bad idea?

And spend lots of money trying to create copy protection for Linux?

[gfxdrone]

soeiro, I can confirm the debian testing problem with fglrx, 3d is failing, although the driver installs fine, no errors, but on x start Xorg.0.log shows this:

(II) fglrx(0): driver needs X.org 7.1.x.y with x.y >= 0.0
(WW) fglrx(0): could not detect X server version (query_status=-1)
(EE) fglrx(0): atiddxDriScreenInit failed, GPS not been initialized.
(WW) fglrx(0): ***********************************************
(WW) fglrx(0): * DRI initialization failed! *
(WW) fglrx(0): * (maybe driver kernel module missing or bad) *
(WW) fglrx(0): * 2D acceleraton available (MMIO) *
(WW) fglrx(0): * no 3D acceleration available *
(WW) fglrx(0): ********************************************* *

This problem exists with 2.6.30 but not 2.6.29 or 2.6.26.

The problem does not exist in an up to date Sid install, 32 or 64 bit.

I'd guess this is libdrm2 or something, not sure.

[energyman]

and as long as wine exists companies will always say 'we don't need to port, they can use wine'.

Wine is bad. Simple.

I have a XP and a Vista licence - of course not installed - just in case that at some point a game will be so great, that I just must play it. Until then I am happy with vegastrike, ut2004, wesnoth, freeciv, civctp and triplea, xskat. Wine? No, thank you.

[V!NCENT]

Wine isn't bad; it's great! Not only does it break the Windows lock-in and the MS monopoly, but games that work with Wine will always work with Wine. Tried the UT2004 Linux port? Try to play when Fedora 20 comes around. No, to me Wine is exactly what Linux needs: A general purpose API for which all proprietary apps are coded, that adapts to new software in the Linux world and never breaks compatibility.

[mirv]

Wine isn't bad; it's great! Not only does it break the Windows lock-in and the MS monopoly, but games that work with Wine will always work with Wine. Tried the UT2004 Linux port? Try to play when Fedora 20 comes around. No, to me Wine is exactly what Linux needs: A general purpose API for which all proprietary apps are coded, that adapts to new software in the Linux world and never breaks compatibility.

If you want a general purpose api for which proprietary apps are coded, why not just use windows? You talk about a microsoft monopoly as bad, but won't accept there being other ways of doing things. Native apps (including games) are always better for linux - if everyone just uses wine to run everything, there's just no point to using wine in the first place.

[V!NCENT]

If you want a general purpose api for which proprietary apps are coded, why not just use windows? You talk about a microsoft monopoly as bad, but won't accept there being other ways of doing things. Native apps (including games) are always better for linux - if everyone just uses wine to run everything, there's just no point to using wine in the first place.

Native is awesome, as long as it is open source so one could recompile it or update it so it remains working. But if you have native proprietary games, then how is that a good thing? In a few years it probably won't work anymore and you can kiss your game goodbye.

FLOSS and proprietary are two different worlds, that require different approaches, and if Wine is the centralized solution for using proprietary in a FLOSS environment, than I more than welcome that solution.

Once again my fear with proprietary Linux games is that they stop working after a while because the Linux ecosystem is changing and advancing at such a rapid rate, which is a good thing, but you have to have a safety net in case you decide to mix it with proprietary.

[benmoran]

I won't take sides on the Wine = good/bad debate, but I do share your fears about native games V!NCENT.

[energyman]

Vincent, I am playing ut2004 on linux since the day it was released.

And all I had to do over the years was replacing libsdl and openal.so.

works well and great. Even today.

Or have a look at CivCTP. Released 10 years ago or something. And it works - as long as you turn of heap randomization.

And wine? I have tried to use it in the past. With wing commander 5 for example and couple of other stuff. If something worked by mistake in one release, it surely was utterly broken the next.

And companies? Well, why should they port stuff, if they can make use of wine? Apps are slower, crash more and are missing funtionality? Who cares? It just shows people how inferior everything not windows is. A double win for microsoft!

wine is evil

[mirv]

Native is awesome, as long as it is open source so one could recompile it or update it so it remains working. But if you have native proprietary games, then how is that a good thing? In a few years it probably won't work anymore and you can kiss your game goodbye.

FLOSS and proprietary are two different worlds, that require different approaches, and if Wine is the centralized solution for using proprietary in a FLOSS environment, than I more than welcome that solution.

Once again my fear with proprietary Linux games is that they stop working after a while because the Linux ecosystem is changing and advancing at such a rapid rate, which is a good thing, but you have to have a safety net in case you decide to mix it with proprietary.

Linux, by the way, doesn't automatically mean everything on it should be free, and open source.
Everything you've said applies to microsoft too, by the way. It also changes and moves on (though more slowly, it does change, old games do break on newer systems). Wine, virtual machines, and emulators are very useful here, and that's granted. But changes are also for good - it encourages growth and development, new ideas and better systems. Backwards compatibility can be maintained with some standarised interfaces (SDL+OpenGL is a great combo, and can help make code cross-platform to boot) - but there's no reason any such interface should be wine and not something more native.

[cutterjohn]

Wine is actually pretty good, besides the only company that still ports games to linux is like mac ports, 3+y late and about 300% overpriced, especially considering that the Windows version of the game after 3y is definitely a $5 bargain bin/budget price for the super uber deluxe version...

[EDIT]
There are also a ton niche Windows apps that I use that will NEVER be ported natively to linux yet run fine under wine + linux.
[/EDIT]