---------- Cedega 4.0 ---------- Release Notes, June 22, 2004. Overview ======== TransGaming is pleased to announce the release of the newly renamed and much improved Cedega 4.0, giving our users access to more Windows games in Linux, with greater ease. TransGamers can now download Cedega in RPM, Debian and TGZ formats from the downloads section of TransGaming's website: http://www.transgaming.com/ Cedega 4.0 represents a major advancement over our previous products. In the technology arena this release has support for Pixel Shaders, a new and improved ALSA sound driver, much reduced client server latency, and greatly improved installer support. In addition, we're pleased to announce support for DirectX 9 and several new games including: Battlefield Vietnam, City of Heroes, Star Wars Galaxies, and Hitman: Contracts. Enjoy! New Features ============ Cedega 4.0 ---------- * TransGamers can now enjoy playing Battlefield Vietnam, City of Heroes, Star Wars Galaxies and Hitman: Contracts. * First release with DirectX 9 support focusing on Direct3D 9. Additionally, Pixel Shaders are now supported in Direct3D 9 and Direct3D 8 on graphic cards that support the OpenGL ARB_fragment_program extension. * A brand new ALSA backend is available which offers reduced latency and lower CPU requirements. * Many improvements to installers. MSI installers should now be more reliable, more InstallShield installers will work, and Nullsoft installers are now supported. Additionally, we have a solution for CD switching for previously problematic multi-CD installers. This solution will also allow you to push the eject button on your drive and Cedega will automatically unmount the drive for you, even if the installer has kept files open on the CD. * Much improved mouse support which should, among other things, resolve the "warping" issues that some games demonstrated. * The previously slow path for client to server communication has been redesigned for more speed. By improving on the previous prototype design, we have been able to get a 5 fold speed up on certain operations. We call this functionality Accelerated Interprocess Communication and it allows some games such as American McGee's Alice to achieve much higher performance. * TransGamers with an ATI card can now enjoy an experimental graphical acceleration feature using the Vertex Buffer Object extension. * Many other enhancements and bug fixes. New Configuration Options ========================= The following are a list of options which are new in Cedega 4.0. Under most circumstances you will not need to use these options; they are only provided for completeness and the inquisitive. All options can be overridden on a per executable basis. [x11drv] NV_VAR and ARB_VBO: These two options control what method to use to enhance graphical speed. Prior to Cedega 4.0, NV_VAR was always on and the only option available. NV_VAR is only generally available on nVidia graphics cards. ARB_VBO is what ATI users should specify. Choosing "Y" for these options asks Cedega to attempt to use that extension. If it is not available, the next enabled extension will be tried. NV_VAR takes precedence over ARB_VBO, as it is more mature in current 3D drivers. Both of these options default to "Y". [d3dgl] PixelShaders and PixelShadersLevel: These two options determine if Pixel Shaders should be reported as available to the application and, if so, what level of support Cedega should claim. PixelShaders can have a value of "Y" or "N" and default to "Y". PixelShadersLevel can be one of "1.0","1.1", "1.2", or "1.3". PixelShadersLevel defaults to "1.3". [dinput] DefaultDeadZone: This option allows you to define the default dead zone for your joystick expressed as a number between 0 and 10000. The default is 1000 which is 10% of the range of your joystick. [winealsa] UseMMap: This option allows you to configure Cedega to write directly to memory on the sound card rather than having to use the slower route through the kernel. This can be set to either "Y" or "N"; the default is "Y". [winealsa] pcm0 and ctl0: These options allow you to specify what ALSA sound devices Cedega should use. The default values are "hw" for pcm0 and "hw" for ctl0. Appropriate selection of these options can allow you to select a secondary sound card or a plugin. It should be noted that most ALSA plugins seem to be quite buggy and will not work with "UseMMap" = "Y". [Wineserver] SHMWineserver: This option indicates if Cedega should accelerate interprocess communication (AIC) between the client and server. This value can be either "Y" or "N" and defaults to "Y". It can have a very positive impact on performance for some titles, and is generally best left on. System Requirements =================== Operating System ---------------- Core requirements are: - Linux Kernel 2.2 or higher. Stock Kernels recommended over RedHat 7.x/8.x/9.x kernels. 2.6 kernels may have some scheduler issues. - XFree86 4.0 or higher (4.2 and above recommended) - glibc 2.2 or higher - Working hardware accelerated OpenGL video card CPU Type and Speed ------------------ Recommended minimum hardware is - 500 MHz or faster Pentium or Athlon CPU - 64MB of memory; 128 MB or higher recommended - Several GB free hard disk space for games - Linux-supported 3D graphics card with 16MB of video RAM is required. nVidia GeForce-class GPU recommended. ATI Radeon 8500 or higher with working ATI FireGL drivers should work for many (though not all) games, but will not perform as well for the moment. Please note: individual requirements may be higher for certain games. Pixel Shaders ------------- Pixel Shaders are a DirectX 8 and higher feature that are used by many games for graphical effects. Cedega's Pixel Shaders are built on top of the OpenGL ARB_fragment_program extension. ARB_fragment_program is more powerful than Pixel Shaders versions 1.0-1.3, but is only supported on a higher class of graphics card. Thus, while Pixel Shaders are available on Windows systems starting with GeForce 3 or Radeon 8500, ARB_fragment_program is only available starting with GeForce FX and Radeon 9700 cards. What this means is that a game which may have a minimum requirement of a GeForce 3 may actually be making the assumption that Pixel Shaders are available. In these siutations the game may not function correctly without them. For example, Battlefield Vietnam requires Pixel Shaders to play at higher detail levels. While a GeForce 3 is capable of playing the game on a Windows system, a GeForce FX is required to play the game under Linux, as only the FX series supports ARB_fragment_program on Linux. Copy Protection and Linux Kernel 2.6.x -------------------------------------- Late in the development cycle of Cedega 4.0, TransGaming determined that some users' systems may have problems running certain copy protected games. Some Linux systems using kernel version 2.6 and higher have the default CD readahead parameter set to 256. This can interfere with copy protection for some titles (such as Civilization 3) when running with an older CD-ROM or DVD drive. Systems using the ide-scsi system with CD-RW drives should not be affected. To check the readahead value for your CD drive, use the 'hdparm' command while logged in as root. If the device for your drive is /dev/cdrom, for example, execute the following at the command line: # hdparm /dev/cdrom If the readahead value is over 32, you may wish to reset it to 8 using the following command: # hdparm -a 8 /dev/cdrom Prelink and Exec-Shield ----------------------- Prelink is a new set of functionality, available in newer glibc versions and distributions such as Fedora Core 1, designed to reduce the startup time for applications which use dynamic libraries. The loading speed improvements are achieved by preassigning the addresses of various dynamic linked libraries that will be placed in memory. Thus, relocations will not have to be performed by the dynamic loader when loading the application. Unfortunately, more often than not, libraries are prelinked into addresses which are incompatible with Windows programs. Windows programs generally use a trick, similar to Prelink, to reduce the size of the executable and improve start times. This trick assumes, quite rightly for a Windows program, that the address 0x400000 is always available. Thus when Cedega attempts to load the Windows executable into the starting address, and it's not available, Cedega will fail to start the program with an error message mentioning "stripped relocation records" and "address 0x400000 not available". Exec-shield is a kernel level solution (http://people.redhat.com/mingo/exec-shield/ANNOUNCE-exec-shield) which remaps executable code to a lower memory address with the intention of eliminating ASCII based code overflow attacks. The new location of the executable has the potential of conflicting with the required windows range which will result in the same error message as with Prelink. The solution to the problems these two new technologies create is to disable them so that they don't affect any Cedega libraries or executable code. To disable automatic prelinking in the future, edit /etc/sysconfig/prelink and set PRELINKING to no by making sure the following line is present: PRELINKING=no Then execute the cron job, most likely /etc/cron.daily/prelink, to reverse the Prelink for all of your libraries or manually run: $ prelink -ua To disable exec-shield you can either use the boot time option "exec-shield=0" or it may be changed, before running Cedega, by typing either: $ echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/exec-shield or $ sysctl -w kernel.exec-shield=0 New CD Ejection system ====================== In the past, games that came on multiple CD-ROMs posed a problem for Cedega users, since the Linux OS would 'lock' the CD-ROM tray in some cases, preventing users from ejecting a disk and inserting the next disk. Cedega 4.0 includes a new feature that eliminates this problem in many cases. Simply press the eject button on your CD-ROM drive, wait a few seconds (ejecting may take as long as 10 seconds), and the disk will be automatically ejected. Insert your new disk, perform any mounting step required by your Linux distribution, and you should be able to simply continue your install. Use of the drive eject button to activate this feature is only available with recent model CD-RW and DVD drives. Users of older CD-ROM drives may need to use the Point2Play 'Unmount' button instead, or send a SIGUSR2 signal to the wineserver process at the command line using a command such as: $ killall -USR2 wineserver In all other respects, using the Point2Play unmount feature should act the same as hitting the drive's eject button. If you have other Wine based software running, such as CodeWeavers CrossOver Office product, you may wish to avoid the use of the unmount button or the killall command mentioned above, as they will cause any non Cedega 4.0 based Wine process to halt. Some installers may require you to re-insert the first CD-ROM to complete your install. Depending on the title, this may not yet work successfully. Please contact TransGaming support if you have any issues relating to CD-ROM eject support, so that we can continue to improve this feature. Known Issues and Comments ========================= ATI FireGL drivers ------------------ TransGaming has seen some instability with ATI cards using FireGL and/or DRI running Cedega. Games of note with issues are Battlefield 1942, Grand Theft Auto - Vice City and Sacrifice. TransGaming is continuing to improve support and we welcome all reports and your votes in the polls. ATI cards and VBO ----------------- The graphical acceleration included in Cedega 4.0 is of a slightly experimental nature. While it should work for most games, there are still a number of titles which seem to exhibit problems. For these titles you can simply disable the VBO option. HTML display of license agreements in on-line games --------------------------------------------------- Cedega 4.0 may not support the display of HTML content in some on-line games. As a result, any license agreements displayed by these games may not be readable while running with Cedega. TransGaming Technologies Inc. will not be held liable for any failure or breach on your part of any 3rd party license agreement. YOU ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ENSURING THAT YOU HAVE READ AND WILL ABIDE BY ANY THIRD PARTY LICENSE AGREEMENTS, REGARDLESS OF THE ABILITY OF THE CEDEGA SOFTWARE TO DISPLAY SUCH LICENSE AGREEMENTS ON A LINUX SYSTEM. Baldur's Gate 2 --------------- * The "Software Mirror BLT" option under the "2D 16 bit Color Depth" should be enabled if the character sprites appear garbled. * During the opening scene in the dungeon, occasionally the game will not advance after the sewer gollum has talked. Simply restart. Battlefield 1942 ---------------- * The game must be patched to at least version 1.3 in order to fix problems that will prevent it from starting the game engine properly. * The [d3dgl] 'ClipSpaceFix' option no longer needs to be disabled. This has been left off by default in the config file for backwards compatibility. * We recommend the use of 22 kHz sound for best performance, especially with the movies and cutscenes. 44 kHz sound is known to cause performance degradation. * Use of 24-bit color is recommended if shadow effects are enabled. * The animated background of the main menu does not work. * Using Punkbuster enabled servers may cause problems. * With AIC on 2.6 kernels the intro movies can suffer from stutter. Battlefield Vietnam ------------------- * The game requires the availablity of pixel shaders. If you do not have a card which supports ARB_fragement_program in OpenGL, you will have graphics problems if you go higher than low detail video. A GeForce FX series card is recommended for this game. * The animated background of the main menu does not work. * Using Punkbuster enabled servers may cause problems. * With AIC on 2.6 kernels the intro movies can suffer from stutter. * This title will crash on exit. Bink Movies ----------- * A number of titles use Bink to play their movies and cut scenes. In some cases, when AIC is enabled, movie display may be choppy due to Linux scheduler limitations. To work around this, turn Accelerated Interprocess Communication off or skip the movies. TransGaming expects to have a workaround for this in future releases. Black & White ------------- * Playing in low texture mode will lead to crashing. You may not be able to get back to the configuration screen to return to normal detail. Call of Duty ------------ * Copy protection for this title does not presently work. * The installer for this game will fail when trying to switch back to the first CD-ROM from the second CD-ROM. To work around this problem select cancel when it asks for the second CD-ROM and say NO to the question concerning reversing the changes. Once stopped, insert and mount the second cd and copy the files in Setup/Data/Main to the main directory inside the installed Call of Duty. Additionally some registry entries will not be automatically added. If you wish to play multiplayer, you will need to add the following to your system.reg file in order to be able to upgrade your version: [SOFTWARE\\Activision\\Call of Duty] "InstallDrive"="D:" "InstallPath"="C:\\Program Files\\Call Of Duty" "Language"="1" "Version"="1.1" * The game may hang upon quitting. City of Heroes -------------- * Mouse clicks do not always register when attempting to bring up menus etc. * To receive a proper cursor in City of Heroes you must have XFree 4.3 installed and run in win2k mode (default). With versions of X prior to 4.3 a large black box will surround the cursor. * HTML does not render thus the EULA is not visible. See the specific section about HTML above. * Pop up dialogue boxes in the installer appear behind the main window. It is recommended that you install in desktop mode. * The installer may crash at the end. It will not affect game play. * nVidia users may find that the patcher crashes when finished. Simply try to enter the game again. Civilization III ---------------- * There are several sound problems with this application. * Occasionally the game will crash when building the first city. * Earlier patch levels will not pass copyprotection. v1.29f is recommended. * The game will crash if sound is being used by another device. Command and Conquer: Generals ----------------------------- * Copy protection for this title does not presently work. * Game play may be slow in 16 bit, 24 bit is recommended. Counter Strike: Condition Zero ------------------------------ * Pushing the tab key may crash the game in single player mode. Dark Age of Camelot ------------------- * Users whose graphics cards only have 2 texture units (GF2MX,GF2 & GF4MX) will notice graphical incorrectness such as a non-textured floor. * The sound in the installer and login screens is not good. Dungeon Siege ------------- * The sound in the installer may be incorrect. * On non-NPTL systems, DS will lock up as soon as you move the mouse when using nVidia 4496 and later drivers. Downgrading drivers is the only reliable way to solve this problem. * More recent drivers have fixed this problem on NPTL systems. * Even with older nVidia drivers, this game may not work on some systems. * Some setups may experience deadlocks before the main menu. Running with any debug channels on generally works as a remedy. * The water does not flow in the game. * Multiplayer support is not yet available due to the use of DirectPlay 8 in the game. Far Cry ------- * Copy protection is not supported for this title. * Movies play with incorrect aspect ratio. * Main menu background movie is slow, we suggest disabling it in options. * Terrain and water render incorrectly without pixel shaders. * Water renders incorrectly with pixel shaders. * Higher detail levels are incorrect. * Users may experience a significant reduction in performance. * Running in OpenGL mode is recommended. To run in OpenGL mode, change system.cfg as follows: r_Driver = "OpenGL", r_TexResolution = "0", i_direct_input = "0" Then in your Cedega config, set AGPVertexRam to 0. You must run the game at the same resolution as your desktop. Grand Theft Auto 3 ------------------ * The opening videos for Grand Theft Auto 3 work quite slowly under Cedega. The movies may be skipped by pressing the space bar twice. * Users playing this game with a 2.6 kernel may notice significant pauses while playing this game. Disable the Accelerated Interprocess Communication to reduce the number of pauses received. Downgrade to a 2.4 kernel to remove the issue. Grand Theft Auto Vice City -------------------------- * Occasionally textures may display incorrectly. * The opening videos for Grand Theft Auto Vice City work quite slowly under Cedega. The movies may be skipped by pressing the space bar twice. * Users playing this game with a 2.6 kernel may notice significant pauses while playing this game. Disable the Accelerated Interprocess Communication to reduce the number of pauses received. Downgrade to a 2.4 kernel to remove the issue. Hitman: Contracts ----------------- * Using alt-tab in game will cause a crash. * The movies do not resize correctly. As a concequence the game will not start if in 640x480 mode and cut scenes may leave artifacts around the edge. Homeworld 2 ----------- * The game may not work unless patched to at least version 1.1. * Multiplayer support is not yet available due to the use of DirectPlay 8 in the game. Max Payne 2 ----------- * Pixel Shaders do not work for this title, they are disabled by default. Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault ------------------------------ * A defect in the game software, which should be fixed in the latest Spearhead expansion patch, causes the game to crash under Cedega. The Cedega team has provided a workaround. Both Point2Play and the cedega start script are set up so that this game will work out of the box. Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault Spearhead and Breakthrough --------------------------------------------------------- * Copyprotection for these titles do not presently work. Morrowind: Elder Scrolls III ---------------------------- * The intro videos can freeze if they fall behind the play frame rate due to a coding problem with the application. * The game will crash if sound is being used by another device. Need For Speed: Underground --------------------------- * The installer presently does not work due to its use of flash. One can work around this by killing the EReg.exe process when the installation appears to hang. Additionally you need to use the --use-dos-cwd option pointing to your CD-ROM drive. * Copyprotection for this title does not presently work. * The auto patcher for earlier versions of this title will not work and you will have to manually download and patch. * To play multiplayer online, you will need to manually register the game on EA's website. * Pixel Shaders are not supported in this game due to assumptions on the availablility of non power of two textures. They are disabled by default. * Car reflection update rate need to be set to the lowest setting to play this title. Raising this value will cause the game to crash. SimCity 4 --------- * To install the game, you must insert and mount the CD-ROM, and use the following command line: $ cedega -use-dos-cwd f:/ -- f:/autorun.exe In Point2Play use the Run Directory check box If the installer asks you to install a new version of DCOM, say "no". * The game has small graphical glitches when scrolling with the hardware renderer. Use of the software renderer is recommended and is automatic as of WineX 3.2. * Use of the "?" to get information can cause graphical corruption. Scrolling the window will clear this up. Star Wars Galaxies ------------------ * HTML does not render thus the EULA is not visible. See the specific section about HTML above. * Desktop icons created for launching may not be correct if using the command line. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic -------------------------------------- * The game will crash on exit. * The online patcher does not fully work. Follow the patcher instructions for downloading the manual patch. * Unless upgraded to at least 1.03 you may experience double cursors. * The game may not go fullscreen automatically unless upgraded to 1.03. * The mouse will not be usable unless you disable "Hardware Mouse" from the launcher configure screen. Steam ----- * Window manager decorations are visible in several managers when they should not be. Warcraft III The Frozen Throne ------------------------------ * The desktop icon (shortcut) for Warcraft III will not function correctly if installed with WineX 3.1, or earlier, due to the way the previous WineX versions changed the command line. Either edit the shortcut to start "Warcraft III.exe", rather than "War3.exe", add the -classic parameter, or reinstall both Warcraft III and Frozen Throne. World of WarCraft ----------------- * The World of WarCraft downloader, powered by bittorrent, is not currently supported in Cedega. * The beta version of this game has been tested and is fully working up to the 06/15/04 patch. As this title is still in beta future changes may break Cedega compatibility. Let the Games Begin ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This document is Copyright(c) 2002-2004, TransGaming Technologies Inc. Redistribution is permitted for non-commercial use only.