WINE, Cider, and Cedega

[techieMoe]

As a past customer of Transgaming's Cedega software I was interested to hear they are working on a similar project called Cider, which should allow easier ports between MS Windows and Mac OS X software.

http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/08/03/cider/index.php

The difference between Cider and Cedega seems to be that Transgaming won't be offering Cider to end-users. It's a technology where basically the developers of a PC game send their code to Transgaming where they "wrap it" and give it back to the original developer in a Mac-friendly form, which is then sold pre-ported to the end user.

It's an interesting concept, but given the spotty performance I've seen with Cedega in Linux I'm waiting to see results before I make any judgments. On the other hand, since OS X is a proprietary (and therefore centrally-controlled) OS it's theoretically easier for them to get their product working well due to the homogeneous software bases of all OS X Mac computers. Time will tell, I guess. An intriguing idea, if nothing else.

[benjamin20]

it may turn out better than cedaga. since cedega is just a slightly modified version of wine, which is a good program but hasnt exactly been the cleanest and most stable code.

of course is this going to actualy replace code or simply make a wrapper around it.

[techieMoe]

of course is this going to actualy replace code or simply make a wrapper around it.

To my understanding (which is based on just this single article) it's not going to be a re-code, but a wrapper.

[stubbe]

Better stick to wine instead. I prefer supporting wine rather than other company, specially proprietary company who uses wine code and repack it but contribute back such minimally. Ever wonder why there's crossover ad in winehq but no transgaming one? I look into wine's appdb most games I have already supported anyway.

oh, it's for macosx? I don't really care then...

[bigtomrodney]

I've never really held with cedega. I find as many games work in wine with a little attention. I'm more against the idea of subscription based support for something that isn't even guaranteed to work.

[techieMoe]

I've never really held with cedega. I find as many games work in wine with a little attention. I'm more against the idea of subscription based support for something that isn't even guaranteed to work.

As I said, according to the article Cider is not an end-user product. I have issues with subscription software as well, but this is not the same thing as Cedega. It's a service being offered by Transgaming to publishers of MS Widnows games. In theory at least, it should be transparent to the end user. It will be just like buying a ported game, except they wouldn't need to completely rewrite the code to make it work. That to me sounds very promising, provided it works. I'm waiting to see the first commercial game they release like this before I make any kind of judgment call.

[stubbe]

I prefer native support rather than wrapper. Didn't a company has already tried this back then? With games such as unreal? Loki if I'm not mistaken. I'm not sure if they really built linux binaries for the games or also just doing a wrapper instead.

All in all, I just really hope if this works, more games and apps on Linux. yay!

ooops. I forgot, for macosx? ehm...

[techieMoe]

I prefer native support rather than wrapper.

Well I prefer to make a six-figure income but the reality is different. This isn't a matter of preference, it's a matter of making it easier for companies to port their software to other platforms. In this case, specifically Mac OS X. Who knows, maybe if the technology works well enough for Mac they'll adapt it to work with Linux. They've had experience with this in Cedega. But now I'm just speculating.

[stubbe]

back in the old days there're native macintosh games. Such as descent and absolute zero. Loki also don't seem successful aswell, since the website has been dead for years i think? Although not many games ported but only selected ones are ported. I don't know why these companies porting games suddenly dissapear.

yeah I understand it's not about preference. Lets just hope this would bring something good to linux.

[a12ctic]

i told my buddy who owns a gaming lan center about this, he just bought a mac book, now he has some hope in OSX