Cedega 5.2.7 Release Notes

Cedega 5.2.7 Release Notes

Released October 29th, 2006.

Overview

TransGaming is pleased to announce the release of Cedega 5.2.7, dubbed Triggerfish, giving TransGamers access to more Windows games in Linux with greater ease. TransGamers are able to download Cedega in RPM, Debian and TGZ formats from the downloads section of TransGaming's website: http://www.transgaming.com/

Cedega 5.2.7 is a bug fix release to correct some recent World of Warcraft issues.

New Features

Cedega 5.2.7

System Requirements

Operating System

Core requirements:

Additional Dependencies:

CPU Type and Speed

Recommended minimum hardware is

Please note: individual requirements may be higher for certain games.

64-bit Linux distributions

Since Cedega is intended to run standard 32-bit Windows games, it is by nature a 32-bit application. When running Cedega on a 64-bit Linux system, an appropriate 32-bit compatibility environment must be available. Please see the documentation for your Linux distribution to learn more about running 32-bit applications on your system.

Additionally the following items may be of note:

Linux 2.6.9, 2.6.10 Kernels and Copy Protection

There is ptrace bug in the Linux 2.6.9 and 2.6.10 kernels that may cause copy protection to fail. This bug has been resolved in the 2.6.11 kernel. TransGaming recommends avoiding the use of 2.6.9 and 2.6.10 kernels.

Exec-Shield

Exec-shield's non-executable stack feature is disabled for legacy applications on most distributions. This is preferable, as Cedega (like many other pieces of software) is treated as a legacy application with respect to this feature, yet needs an executable stack. However, in both Fedora Core 4 and Fedora Core 5 the non-executable stack feature is enabled for legacy applications, and this can cause issues when running Cedega. Users may experience a wide range of behaviour from texture and geometry corruption to games failing to execute entirely.

The release of kernels 2111_FC4 and 2122_FC5 has resolved this issue and TransGaming recommends all users upgrade to these kernels when using Fedora Core. To test for this issue, run in a terminal window:

$ cat /proc/sys/kernel/exec-shield

Values of 2, 3, 6, 7, 10 or 11 will cause issues in legacy applications including Cedega.

SELinux

The 'targeted' profile for SELinux in Fedora Core 5, the default on this distribution, has been modified so that it now targets user mode applications. You must set SELinux to permissive mode by opening a shell as root and typing:

$ setenforce 0

Prelink and VA Layout

As of Cedega 4.3, there are no longer any compatability issues between prelink, the new VA layout and Cedega. These features can be left enabled and will work seamlessly with Cedega.

Exec (error = 21)

The version of mount that comes with some distributions now run with the noexec option unless otherwise specified. Running games from a partition mounted with noexec can cause an error = 21 message. This error can also be caused by trying to run games from FAT32 or NTFS partitions.

To fix this issue, edit the /etc/fstab and modify the partition line by removing the noexec option and adding the exec switch to the mount options. It is highly recommended that you do not run games from Windows partitions (such as FAT32 and NTFS).

For example:

change

/dev/hda1 / ext3 errors=remount-ro,no-exec,defaults 0 1

to

/dev/hda1 / ext3 errors=remount-ro,exec,defaults 0 1

If neither exec nor no-exec appears in the line it is recommended that you add exec to ensure that the partition can be used by Cedega.

To remount the partition run:

mount -o remount /

SuSE 9.3/10 and Multi-disc Installers

For most titles, Cedega no longer requires that static mount points be enabled on SuSE 9.3 and SuSE 10. However, there remain a few titles which do not properly automount with SuSE 9.3. Titles that do not properly automount in SuSE 9.3 include, but are not limited to; WarCraft III, Diablo II, World of Warcraft, and any other title which uses a hybrid Mac/Windows disc. In order for these titles to work, subfs must be completely disabled, and the discs must be manually mounted. We recommend that TransGamers upgrade to SuSE 10 or later which do not have this issue.

CPU Speed

Laptop and portable computer users may experience some games running overspeed with characters moving too fast and time passing very quickly. This behavior is caused by the ACPI settings for your CPU which dynamically change the available CPU speed as required to save on power consumption. When a game starts the lower/power saving CPU speed is determined then when the game is playing the CPU is throttled to its highest speed causing strange behavior. To fix this behavior it is recommended that you set your CPU speed/frequency to its highest available before starting Cedega. The method for setting the CPU speed is different on each distribution.

In Fedora Core 4 and later this can be done by (as root):

In SuSE 9.3 and later this can be done by:

In many Debian based distributions such as Ubuntu this can be done by:

Some kernels also have a speed or frequency scaling option which can be disabled by executing a command similar to the following (as root):

$ echo -n performance /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor

Note that the exact location and command will be dependent on your processor and kernel options. Some useful relevant information can be found at http://lisa.cs.uni-potsdam.de/lxr/source/Documentation/cpu-freq/ .

Please check your distribution and/or kernel documentation for how to set the CPU Frequency and Speed for your computer.

Custom Kernels

When compiling custom kernels there are some options that can cause compatibility problems with Cedega and Wine-based products.

Memory Split

The Memory Split option under CPU type and features must be left at the default 3/1 setting. Changing this option will result in incompatibility with Cedega, WineHQ, CrossOver and other applications.

Graphics Cards

AGP Memory

It is important to ensure that your system is configured with enough AGP memory, and that Cedega is configured to use it appropriately. The amount of AGP memory available on your system is determined by the AGP Aperture Size setting in your system BIOS, as well as the amount of memory in your system. It is recommended that you set your AGP Aperture Size to at least 128MB. The amount of AGP memory that is used by Cedega is controlled by the AGP Memory Available option in the Cedega GUI. The Cedega GUI 'default' setting for the AGP Memory Available option automatically chooses 1/2 of the detected available AGP memory. If you choose to override this setting, it is important that this number be smaller than the total AGP memory because the system also uses AGP memory to transfer texture data. For example: if your AGP Aperture Size is 128MB you should configure Cedega to use 64MB of AGP memory for vertex data.

The AGP memory related settings are only relevant when using the NVidia VAR OpenGL extension for storing Vertex Data. If you have configured Cedega to use the VBO OpenGL extension, AGP memory will be managed automatically by OpenGL.

ATI FireGL drivers

TransGaming has seen some game-stopping instability with ATI cards using FireGL and/or DRI drivers running Cedega. Some games may not run at all, while others may require manual tweaks or experience graphical issues in-game.

Games which do not run at all include: Battlefield 2, Dungeon Siege II, Far Cry, Madden NFL 2005, Madden NFL 2006, Need for Speed Underground and Sacrifice.

The games Hitman Contracts, Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield Vietnam exhibit graphical corruption caused by a known issue in ARB_vertex_program.

TransGaming is continuing to work with ATI to improve support and we welcome all reports and your votes in the polls.

Known Issues and Comments

Scheduler

With the introduction of the 2.6 Linux kernel, drastic changes have been made in the behavior of process scheduling. Some distributions have taken advantage of this and optimized their schedulers to run certain applications better than others. Unfortunately, this means that some 2.6-based kernels may starve more 'aggressive' applications like Cedega at inopportune times, leading to stuttering movies, jerky framerate and/or random freezes.

Starting with Cedega 5.0, we include a user-mode scheduler to alleviate most of these problems by performing rescheduling of game processes manually. For most games, this will give users the performance they have come to expect with previous Linux kernels. Unfortunately, some games are not yet fully supported by this method. If you experience unusual behavior in any application, check the following section to see if the game has known conflicts with the Cedega scheduler. Additionally, some installers and patchers may run slower with the scheduler enabled. You can also disable the internal scheduler in the configuration profile for the title in question.

Also of note for those who have a multiprocessor or multicore system, the scheduler currently supports scheduling of only one CPU, so if you wish to use more than one core with Cedega, you will need to disable the scheduler completely. This is a known limitation which may be addressed in a future release.

Pthread Stack Size

If available, the Cedega engine attempts to make use of the POSIX threading API (pthreads) to manage threads, instead of the Linux-specific LinuxThreads API. Some older Linux distributions which provide the pthreads APIs impose a fixed maximum stack size of 2MB. This can cause problems with some games which require larger stack sizes. Common symptoms of such problems include (but are not limited to) a crash to desktop when starting a game or when loading or saving a level. If this happens, you may be able to work around it by starting Cedega with pthreads disabled in some cases. Alternatively, you may wish to upgrade to a more recent Linux distribution that does not have a limit on thread stack sizes.

To disable pthreads when using the Cedega GUI, you can disable pthreads on the per-game configuration as necessary, or for all games by adding the following line to the [transgaming] section of the .cedegarc file.

 pthreads_forced=off

Games with known problems on 2MB stacks include (but are not limited to):

ATI cards and VBO

The OpenGL VBO and VAR extensions are used to speed up geometry data transfer to and from a video card. On NVIDIA cards, the VAR extension is preferred, though VBO is available. On ATI cards with the FireGL drivers, only VBO is available. While VBO should work on ATI cards for most games, there are still a number of titles which may exhibit problems, both in terms of graphical corruption and performance. For these titles you may simply disable the VBO option.

ATI and 64-bit distributions

A number of users with ATI video cards on 64 bit machines do not receive accelerated 3D graphics with Cedega or will only receive a grey screen when starting some games (such as Half-Life 2/Counter Strike: Source). This issue is caused by an error in the ATI driver setup in the 32-bit compatibility environment.

To get working 3D acceleration with Cedega you need to setup the correct path for the LIBGL_DRIVERS_PATH environment variable. To do so run in a terminal:

 $ export LIBGL_DRIVERS_PATH=/usr/lib32/modules/dri/:/usr/lib64/modules/dri

then launch Cedega from that terminal. To set this variable permanently, check your distribution documentation for the best method.

DRI

There is currently an incompatibility between the way DRI requires the OpenGL library to be loaded, and the present way that Cedega loads the OpenGL library, resulting in a fallback to indirect rendering. In order to work around this incompatibility it is necessary to preload the OpenGL library when using Cedega. This can be done by editing the

 ~/.cedega/.winex_ver/<version>/bin/winex3

file and adding following the line to it:

 export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libGL.so

(using the appropriate path for your actual libGL.so).

In-game license agreements & HTML

When used with the Mozilla ActiveX control, Cedega can display HTML content in some on-line games. Some games use HTML content to display license agreements when starting the title. Please ensure you have correctly installed and activated the Mozilla control using the Cedega GUI Setup Wizard in order to view this content.

Regardless of whether or not the license agreements are displayed by these games, 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 your system.

American McGee's Alice

Anarchy Online

Baldur's Gate 2

Battlefield 1942

Battlefield 2

Battlefield 2: Special Forces

Battlefield Vietnam

Black & White

Call of Duty

City of Heroes

City of Villains

Civilization III

Civilization IV

Command and Conquer: Generals

Counter Strike: Condition Zero

Counter Strike: Source

Dark Age of Camelot

Diablo II

Doom 3

Dungeon Siege

Dungeon Siege II

Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

EVE Online

EverQuest

Far Cry

FIFA 06

Grand Theft Auto 3

Grand Theft Auto Vice City

Guild Wars

Half-Life 2

Hitman: Contracts

Homeworld 2

Madden NFL 2005

Madden NFL 2006

Max Payne

Max Payne 2

Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault

Need For Speed: Most Wanted

Need For Speed: Underground

Painkiller

Punkbuster

Sid Meier's Pirates! Live the Life

SimCity 4

StarCraft

Star Wars Battlefront

Star Wars Galaxies

Star Wars: Jedi Academy

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords

Steam

Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne

World of Warcraft

Problems?

Please check the Cedega HOWTO for other common problems, installation procedures and additional information. The Cedega HOWTO is available from the TransGaming downloads area: http://www.transgaming.com/downloads.php

Let the Games Begin!