Converting Windows games to Linux

[fallen00sniper]

i've been googling for this info, but nothing yet, this forum shows promise though, i need information or a how-to on converting games and making them native to linux as much as possible or as needed to run stable, this may be more of an experiment than something that will actually work lol, but i was wondering if anyone knew anything about it, if i could convert my games and not use a program to emulate it would be so much easier to finally fully convert into a linux distro.

[Giles]

Sorry if I'm missing somehting obvious, but are you talking about changing the code in a game you've created, so that it runs natively in linux, or taking a commercially-produced windows game and getting it to run on a linux box? If it's the first, I probably cant help - it'll of course come down to working out what you're relying on the windows core utils to do for you, and what the analogue is in linux. If you want to make a commercial (closed-source) windows game run on linux, tho, you really will have to use an emulator or something similar - wine or cedega are likely options. Basically because you can't change how closed-source games work, you have to put them into environments they're happy with

Toodle-oo
Giles

[fallen00sniper]

well i am not sure if americas army is closed source, the last time there was a native linux version was 2.5, now the game is up to 2.8.1 and they have failed to make a linux version , but i was hoping to convert the latest version to linux so that it is updated, not sure why i want to anymore, but i figured its something to do lol. i am downloading fedora core 7, i hope i like it more than red hat 9, and a few others they didn't seem to suit me, can you recommend a free linux distro that has a easily navigated and used gui that runs games well?

[bigtomrodney]

You need the source code and usually some modification to run a game on another platform -whether it is Linux, Mac, BSD or anything other than its originally intended platform. The only exception is that most Unix/Linux/BSD and even some Mac programs are POSIX compliant or conformant and need nothing more than a recompile for the target platform.

[fallen00sniper]

i am pretty noob when it comes to compiling with linux or windows, what would i use to recompile, and how would i go about it and make it work with just about any linux? i am pretty noob with linux as well, but i have learned how to install from console a little bit.

[Juan Pablo]

Well, it's not easy in any way, if the game had a Linux version it probably written in OpenGL instead of DirectX which makes porting much easier.
Porting a game from Windows to Linux doesn't requiere a simple recompile, it requieres source code modification and maybe rewriting of some parts and of course it requieres C or C++ knowledge and the pretty good knowledge of OpenGL

But if they change to DirectX, porting means a complete rewrite of the code.

Sometimes is just impossible to port because it is closed-source

[fallen00sniper]

great i have no knowledge of c or c++, i believe the current version has the unreal engine, but i'm not sure, for the display settings it has an option for direct3d so i am assuming it is coded in directx, so i suppose once again i am stuck.

[\/[/-\rr-i0R]

Unreal Engine is the Game Engine, all the Game Engine has is standardized code for a companies releases of similar games to reduce time and cost of production.

DirectX may be the games API but you would have to have OpenGL to get it to work on Linux...alot of work changing it over...get a team