World of Warships on Mac OS X with CodeWeavers CrossOver

It's no longer a secret that we've been doing work for Wargaming, Inc., the makers of the hugely popular World of Tanks, World of Warplanes, and the forthcoming World of Warships (which is currently in open beta). We're doing the Mac port of World of Warships, and we've gotten to the point where it's in good enough shape that it needs some serious testing. And who better to do some serious testing than a naval historian who's written a book on the Battle of Midway, and who is an adjunct lecturer for the U.S. Naval War College, and given talks at Pearl Harbor, the National WWII Museum, the Nimitz Museum, and blah blah blah? Yeah, ummm, I guess that'd be me.

Splash screen for World of Warships, running on my Mac. Late-war Nagato-class battleship, so pretty...

So, first things first: from a purely technical standpoint, our Mac port is going to be great. I've played the game extensively on Windows and on my Macbook Pro, and there's no perceptible difference in game play. None. If anything, with my Mac's SSD drive, it plays better on the Mac than at home on Windows. No graphical glitches, no performance issues, nothing. It works very, very well. When my ship sinks on my Mac, it sinks exactly the way it ought to on Windows: broken, capsizing, and in flames. And that's not just hype.

Me, sinking: broken, capsizing and in flames... but at least I killed the pesky destroyer that killed me...

So is the game fun? Yeah, sadly, it really is. And I say "sadly," because, believe me, I need a good game to chew up my time like I need a hole in the head. (I am, after all, working on my next book.) But Wargaming has done a really good job injecting a sense of realism while tempering it with game balance as well. This is, after all, a game, and it's meant to be fun. Having done play-testing on some "hyper-realistic" games (including 360 Pacific's horrifically bad Gulf War simulation "Patriot"), I can tell you that games are supposed to be fun, first and foremost. "Realism" is nice, but "fun" is nicer. And this is a great mix of both.

So, for instance, if you're a hardcore Imperial Japanese Navy fan (which I most certainly am), you'll see a mixture of the perennial favs (battleship Fuso, heavy cruiser Mogami, and of course the mighty Yamato) mixed in with a bunch of never-built oddities. And you might be tempted to say, "The cruiser Zao? The carrier Hakuryu? What the hell were those?!?" Really, what those are, are conveniently vague placeholders that give Wargaming the wiggle-room it needs to make sure that things are reasonably well-balanced between tiers of warships.

Come to me, my prey... just a little bit closer...

The equipment, likewise, "feels" realistic, even though it kinda isn't. So, yeah, if you're playing a battleship, you'll notice that your main armament has a much flatter trajectory at medium range than, say, a cruiser's armament (which is fair enough). But then again, if you take a look at the range of Yamato's main guns, 26.6km, you'll see that that's about 60% of their real-life maximum. All the weapon ranges are downscaled in this way. Likewise, ship speeds (and certainly acceleration) are all scaled up, so that players feel like they have mobility around the battlefield. In real life naval gunnery, encounters often felt as if they were being waged in slow motion, although some of the encounters in places like the Solomons could be comparatively fast-moving and short range. However, even a real-life brawl like the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, which was very fast to develop, and about the nearest thing to a knife-fight we got into in the Solomons, lasted for nearly 45 minutes. World of Warships encounters are all brawls of this type, but they typically take about 15-20 minutes apiece. That's a nice chunk of time: long enough to be interesting, but not so long that your wife will yell at you for being an hour late to dinner.

There's a lot more terrain on World of Warships ocean than there was in most real-world naval encounters as well. Most of the games I've played seem to be fought over the remains of some ancient, sunken volcanic calderas. (I had no idea that that many ancient sunken volcanic calderas even existed in the world.) In the game, you routinely use small islands to shield your maneuvers, or to sneak up on your opponent, or to get the hell out of the way before that enemy battleship over there unloads on you. That's "fun," but it ain't very realistic. In fact, no naval officer in his/her right mind would be willing to drive a ship into any of these horribly constricted maps festooned with toothy rocks and volcanic peaks. But then again, such maps are fun as hell, and it's a hoot to drive your Kuma-class T4 cruiser through there like a Porsche taking the curves on Hwy 1. What's not to like?

Notice the terrain all around me? Yeah, there's a lot of that.

I also appreciated the fairly realistic tradeoffs being made between the various nationalities that reflected their "feel." So, you like torpedoes and speedy warships? Then go with the Japanese all the way, but don't expect to have super great survivability. You're into gunnery and protection? U.S. Navy, baby, but you have to get used to the fact that your plodding South Carolina is going to take a lot longer to get into the fight than my zippy little Kuma.

This brings up another point: the individual types of ships also feel and play differently. And this is good, too. So, for instance, with a battleship, you really have to think ahead to what you're going to be doing a minute or two from now, because your ship is slow, your turrets are very slow to train to new bearings, and your reload time is slow as well. So, you have to look down the road and think to yourself, "Yeah, he's going to be around there, and I need to be facing this way in order to unleash a broadside, but, oh, wait, there's going to be that island in my way, so I'd better adjust my course now." This is why I primarily play cruisers, not battleships. "Yep, everything's goin' great... mhmmm... my 6" guns are nibbling that guy to death… oh crap, torpedoes! Turn around NOW and run like hell!!!"

Anyway, the game is a hoot. I'll be playing more of it, and can't wait to see it released. If you're a naval history fan, whether you're running Mac or Linux, I think you'll really enjoy it. And if you see "JonnyKaigun" out on the servers, you know who he is now...

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winetricks 20150810 was released today for Mac OSX and Linux

WineTricks 20150810 was released today for use with Wine from WineHQ and runs on Apple Mac OSX and Linux operating systems, the change log and download links are provided below.

 WineTricks Change log - August 10, 2015

• version bump - 20150810
• dxdiag: Use native DirectMusic DLLs and gm.dls
• Many bug fixes

WineTricks Downloads :

Source code (zip)
Source code (tar.gz)

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Wine 1.7.49 for Mac OSX and Linux has been Released

The Wine development release 1.7.49 is now available.

What's new in this release:

• DirectWrite is now good enough for rendering text in Steam.
• A number of Direct2D improvements.
• Some more OpenMP functions.
• Support for namespaces in the IDL compiler.
• Various bug fixes.

The source is available now. Binary packages are in the process of being built, and will appear soon at their respective download locations.

 Bugs fixed in 1.7.49 (total 31):

   8277  Windows Sysinternals Process Explorer and other tools show zero thread start address (NtQueryInformationThread with ThreadQuerySetWin32StartAddress info class)
  17044  Microsoft OneNote 2007 "Insert Audio Recording" doesn't work
  20521  Nocturnal Illusion crashes
  22206  Mig Alley Flight Simulator (1999) crashes due to unimplemented msvcirt.dll.??0ios@@IAE@XZ
  23407  Death to Spies Moment of Truth: character bodies (player and NPCs) are invisible
  26379  Multiple games crash on unimplemented function d3dx9_36.dll.D3DXComputeNormals (Gamestudio Venice, Nvidia hdr demo, Fritz 11, XCOM, Cities XL)
  27145  Weapons Translucent Like Glass in FEAR 1 and 2.
  28916  Spellforce 2 Gold - wrong drawing order of surfaces
  31051  HttpQueryInfo() erroneously ignores lpdwIndex argument for some info levels
  31374  Steam text invisible with dwrite.dll enabled
  31640  hugin's enfuse.exe crashes without native vcomp100.dll (purist)
  32637  Some VST plugins that used to work with dssi-vst now fail
  33165  Star Conflict crash at startup
  33724  Aliwangwang needs unimplemented function atl100.dll.AtlAxCreateControlLicEx
  36087  SpinTires crashes when applying settings in windowed mode
  36915  Among the Sleep crashes when starting a new game (Oculusplugin.dll needs to be disabled)
  37583  Trion's Glyph MMO manager crashes on unimplemented function msvcr110.dll.?_GetConcurrency@details@Concurrency@@YAIXZ
  38004  Multiple games crashes with unimplemented function x3daudio1_7.dll.X3DAudioInitialize
  38197  Singles 2 crash at start
  38262  Warframe Update Fails!
  38508  Multiple applications need 'HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Cryptography\MachineGuid' registry key present (Wizard 101 UK downloader)
  38613  Multiple games (Witcher3 Wild Hunt, Schein, The Emptiness) need vcomp110.dll
  38828  Cerbero PE Insider 1.0.2 crashes on unimplemented function dbghelp.dll.UnDecorateSymbolNameW when viewing export directory
  38861  Carbon Poker crashes at startup
  38935  CocosStudio1.6 (.NET 4.0 app) crashes when starting (needs 'Win32_DesktopMonitor' WMI class with 'PixelsPerXLogicalInch' property)
  38947  Cities XL Platinum crashes while loading to the menu, needs vcomp.dll._vcomp_for_dynamic_init
  38949  Free Falcon 5.x/6.x configuration editor segfaults on start (loader must take invalid IMAGE_LOAD_CONFIG_DIRECTORY values into account)
  38989  ShowShifter (obsoleted A/V application) fails to start with built-in msvcp60
  39008  Trion Worlds 'Trove' (Voxel MMO) crashes on startup (missing UTC timezone information)
  39015  Steam crashes shortly after login when DirectWrite is enabled
  39017  64-bit Lexmark X2670 All-in-One printer driver installation fails (missing pragma pack directive in 'digitalv.h' causes structure layout mismatch between 'MCI_DGV_OPEN_PARMSW' and 'MCI_OPEN_PARMSW')

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CodeWeavers CrossOver 15 status update Office 2013 Steam and Wargaming fixes just to name a few

 The last two and a half weeks of testing were heavily occupied with attention to World of Tanks and World of Warships.

With World of Tanks we began by triaging a crash that started with the 9.9 update. We fixed the issue quickly and sent a new build to Wargaming. We followed this with a fix for a severe drop in frame-rates with the 9.9 update. A fix for the frame-rate issue and a mouse offset issue is on it's way to Wargaming now. We continue work on a rendering issue that lights up the garage as though it were decorated with blue LED lights on Intel based systems.

For World of Warships we spent a majority of the time working with the black screen a user would be met with upon login. The problem is related to Wine Bug number 35397. With more testing and development, we hope to send the fix upstream. This means we fixed it easily for Wargaming but to ensure we don't break other applications in Wine, we need to complete the patch by adding tests and additional cases.

Following that, our normal cycle of testing did not reveal new regressions with the latest version of Wine.

We reproduced a crash reported in our forums with El Capitan and CrossOver 14.1.4. We confirmed the crash in our development branch and opened a bug report with Apple regarding the crash. This crash is caused by an exception in code that only occurs when using El Capitan.

We confirmed that Apple fixed a rendering issue with the release of El Capitan that affects Banished.

We reviewed Wine bug number 34041; we confirmed that Skyrim continues to hang on exit both with CrossOver and the latest version of Wine, 1.7.47.

For CrossOver 14, we tested fixes with Microsoft Office 2010's behavior on dual screen systems. This includes full-screen maximize/minimize behavior of primary and secondary screens on Gnome Classic and Gnome Shell with Metacity and Debian 7. Additional testing was performed on Debian 8 with dual screen systems. This work will be included in CrossOver 15 and any future updates of CrossOver 14. We also retested the behavior of inserting Word and Excel objects in PowerPoint 2007.

For CrossOver 15

• We confirmed a fix for Microsoft Office 2007 & 2010 installs where the contents and control panel would scan forever and never load.
• We confirmed a fix for a bad case on bottle renaming where pressing ESC would rename the bottle in the GUI but not the system. Pressing ESC now completely cancels the bottle renaming process.
• We confirmed a fix for a bad behavior when CrossOver was minimized to the OSX dock. It now maximizes with a single click, the same behavior as native applications.
• We confirmed a fix where CrossOver could not download specific files based on a feature in the Mac frameworks via the user agent string. CrossOver on OSX now uses the same method as Linux for downloads.
• We confirmed a fix for PokeXGames where a proper username is now used in the registry setting so the game can rely on it.

Dwrite has been completely merged into Wine with this update, this means that more people can now contribute to the work that still needs to be done for implementation. It also means that we changed how the development of branch of CrossOver is handled. We now build with dwrite for the first time in a long time. Unfortunately some titles break with this configuration, namely Steam. However, the work to make Steam functional is ongoing and we have confirmed that if Steam is not functional by the time CrossOver 15 is released, we can adjust this setting specifically for Steam.

Direct2D implementation was also merged into Wine this week. More people can now contribute to the work that still needs to be done.

As dwrite and direct2d were submitted to Wine, we performed a series of tests to ensure that Office 2013 applications remained as functional as they have been in the past weeks. This means that each application launches in the very least. In some cases that success is short lived as the application crashes quickly. Our developers have a sense of humor with this:

With extreme caution, testing of Office 2013 can now take place with Wine and with development builds of CrossOver. Many installers do not yet work, patience.  

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Wine 1.7.48 for Mac OSX and Linux has been Released

The Wine development release 1.7.48 is now available.
What's new in this release:

• Fleshed out OpenMP implementation.
• I/O stream support in the MSVCIRT C++ runtime.
• Support for pixel snapping in DirectWrite.
• More support for OpenGL core contexts.
• Various bug fixes.

The source is available now. Binary packages are in the process of being built, and will appear soon at their respective download locations.

Bugs fixed in 1.7.48 (total 39):

  11059  Sid Meier's Railroads Demo crashes on startup
  16519  EssentialPIM: Bold text not rendering correctly
  17506  Achtung die Kurve: Game doesn't start
  18191  Notepad corrupts files saved as utf-8 without a byte order mark (BOM)
  19289  Gtk+/Pango based applications have ugly font rendering or crash on startup
  19666  Multiple applications start wrong executable if whitespace present in name ('ShellExecute' doesn't quote executable name)(FoxitReader 3.0, GTA2 Manager)
  22399  Quake III Arena installer: Text area is scrolled at the bottom, and all text is selected
  26439  Chernobyl terrorist attack demo crashes on start
  27238  Tesla: The Weather Man demo: movement keys not working (GetKeyState should fallback to GetAsyncKeyState for threads without message queue)
  31063  Crash bug after finishing conversion in FormatFactory
  31643  Multiple games and applications crash on unimplemented function vcomp.dll._vcomp_fork (Gothic 3 demo, NeXTA)
  31984  Multiple games need d3dx9_36.dll.D3DXComputeTangentFrameEx (Starlaxis, Chernobyl Terrorist Attack Demo, The Endless Forest 3)
  32227  P2kCommander v6.0.0 crashes on startup (Wine's ungif reports app .gif image as broken)
  33153  DirectX11 games need d3d11.dll.D3D11CreateDeviceAndSwapChain (ARMA III Alpha, Strike Suit Zero, Stalker CoP, Perspective)
  33989  iexplore.exe crash when logging in to www.roblox.com
  34356  Multiple applications fail to install or crash on startup due gdiplus enumeration/query failure for GIF encoder support (Magnus 2011 translation dictionaries, Collectorz.com Movie Collector v9.x)
  34939  Dragon NaturallySpeaking does not run in 64-bit version
  34947  Creo Elements/Direct Modeling Express 4.0 InstallShield based installer shows oversized "installation completed" setup wizard window
  35493  IMVU shows loading bar, but will not start.
  35534  Oblivion: very loud/distorted/horrible collision sounds
  36336  NaturallySpeaking doesn't work with alsa or pasuspender
  36966  Turkey - Europe/Istanbul timezone is not detected
  37129  Clang Static Analyzer: Buffer overflow
  37281  Lord of The Rings Online: Crashes
  37449  Lexware Quicken 2014 Deluxe reports error 0x0000054f on startup (Promon Shield DRM needs RtlDecompressBuffer with COMPRESSION_FORMAT_LZNT1 support)
  38027  HyperStudio 5 (.NET 4.0 app) fails to start, reports 'tiff_get_decode_info unhandled grayscale sample count 2'
  38697  wineconsole: Cannot enable or disable Insert Mode through user dialog
  38712  win-key press incorrectly recognized
  38735  Windows Performance Analyzer from Windows SDK 8.1 Windows Performance Toolkit crashes due to 'IDWriteFontFace::GetGdiCompatibleGlyphMetrics' stub
  38806  Starcraft Campaign Editor does not scroll to bottom after copying a trigger
  38848  valgrind shows several uninitialized values in dmime/tests/dmime.c:test_track()
  38895  Multiple applications fail to load or crash due to incorrect security cookie randomization by loader (IrfanView WebP plugin, Word Viewer 2007)
  38904  Ufo Aftermath launcher hangs on start (missing "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\OpenGLDrivers" registry key)
  38908  PlanetSide 2 v5.2.4.x launcher process exit causes wineserver crash
  38913  valgrind shows some definite leaks in d3drm/tests/d3drm.c:
  38914  valgrind shows uninitialized memory in dlls/dwrite/tests/layout.c
  38925  ipstats.c:1992 runtime error: index 32 out of bounds for type 'char [32]'
  38937  Bully: Scholarship Edition crashes on starting a new game (needs vcomp.dll._vcomp_for_static_simple_init implementation)
  38952  PDF-Xchange Viewer crashes when we launch OCR

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MacGourmet Deluxe 4.2 B2 from Mariner Software has been released

MacGourmet Deluxe 4.2 B2 from Mariner Software has now been released. You can use coupon code ( TOMW ) in the Mariner Software eStore and save 25% off new purchases and 5 pack bundles today!

MacGourmet Deluxe and MacGourmet are our two powerful recipe management applications that enable you to easily create, edit, organize, and share your recipes.

• Make notes about wine, beer, and cheese — like pairings, for example. You’ve got a Pinot Noir in your wine rack, should you pair it with Colby or Cheddar – or both? Is there a beer that goes well with apple pie?
• Search the pantry for ingredients and use the results to plan a meal
• Add Lists, Smart Lists, or sub-lists to categorize your recipes such as, Vegetarian, Gluten-fee, Low Fat, even “recipes from Grandmother”
• Create shopping lists. Print out a list and take it with you, or sync it to Gourmet (for iOS), the mobile version, and check off items while you walk through the store
• Flag the recipes that made you stand out at that dinner party

How to use the Windows version of Steam on Mac OS X

Learn how to install and play Windows Steam games on your mac without the need for bootcamp or dual-booting with CrossOver Mac.

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CodeWeavers CrossOver discount coupon and promo codes for 2015 and 2016

The following CodeWeavers CrossOver promo codes are available for discounts from 10% to 20% off CodeWeavers products for Linux and Mac users. You can share these coupon codes with your friends or post them on your website, social media accounts such as Google+, Facebook, Twitter, etc. etc.

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Two Weeks in CrossOver Microsoft Office 2013 installs and launches

It's been another busy two weeks in Testing Land:

We spent time reading through and updating our Fedora documentation to ensure we mention dnf instead of yum, where appropriate. During this review we consolidated some of our Linux sound troubleshooting pages and flagged out-of-date pages so they will no longer show up in Google searches.

Our bi-weekly testing cycle with Wine 1.7.46 did not reveal any new regressions within CrossOver.

We retested bugs with Excellerate and created a basic CrossTie for the application.

The developer of Virtual DJ Studio 7 stopped by our site to leave feedback:


His words inspired us to create a CrossTie of Virtual DJ Studio and try it out on El Capitan.


For CrossOver 15 development, we added the extension .cxlog to all log files collected on Linux systems. This has been in place on the Mac side for a long time, and has been a much-requested feature to implement on Linux by those who use both platforms. We also tested a new feature on CrossOver Linux that will allow users to clean out the cache of installer files CrossOver downloads. A request to add this feature to CrossOver Mac is now in place.

We retested and gave feedback on the design of our registration dialog. While working on this portion of the product, we reviewed all the old bugs in our tracker regarding the registration dialog and determined that it is more precise to say 'activation code' and 'unlock' rather than 'register' and 'serial code'. (And yes, we actually argue about these things, vigorously, at the lunch table.)

We verified the names that application windows receive on launch in CrossOver and outlined what still needs work. We identified steps that lead to an odd error message in CrossOver Linux and resolved that issue for CrossOver 15. During this testing, we identified conditions that make installation unusually slow in CrossOver and we're exploring ways to resolve the issue.

We confirmed the resolution of a crash during installation on Linux systems.

In rather major news, we ran our first successful tests of Microsoft Office 2013! The most interesting part is that this series of testing was done with Wine and not CrossOver. While the code that allows for this testing to be completed is not yet in Wine, our developers believe their patches are relatively clean and they are upstreaming each patch as soon as it is ready. The Wine community should see this work begin trickling into the main Wine tree on a daily and weekly basis. As our work is completed, Microsoft Office 2013 will come closer and closer to installing on Mac and Linux systems with mainstream Wine and its derivatives.

That said, we should note that not all Microsoft Office 2013 installers are functional. As with previous versions of Office, there are various flavors of the Office installer that will need work. This includes downloadable versions, cd installers, live updaters, and various distributors. We cannot possible test every installation version of Office 2013.

And now a breakdown of what we saw in each application this week:

Word 2013 launches but typing is invisible. The document portion of Word appears blank though text is being typed. (Marketing jokes that invisible text may not actually be all that big a deal; but Testing thinks that it is.)

Excel 2013 launches and hangs. This result was inconsistent, in that it was possible to launch Excel 2013 on some systems and do data entry, but not on others.

Access 2013 launches and is somewhat functional. This is the most functional application in Office 2013 thus far, which has surprised us. Access has not been exceptionally functional in Office 2007 or 2010, and flaws in its functionality have traditionally kept us from stating that Access was usable with CrossOver. The largest problem in our testing was that toolbars were slow to render.

Outlook 2013 launches and hangs. We have tested this application many different ways but have not had great success with it yet.

Publisher 2013 launches and works to an extent. It is possible to draw a shape and complete some work. Eventually it crashes.

For the first time, we installed El Capitan on one of our Macs. This allowed us to confirm that CrossOver maintains functionality in the latest beta Mac operating system. Of course, this may change as updates come to El Capitan but as of today, CrossOver works. In addition, we did basic testing on some of our ported titles like Pirate101, Wizard101, World of Tanks, RootsMagic 7, and Electric Quilt 7.


Of course, we're also interested in testing reported problems and general functionality in our ported applications. Some of these included:

Electric Quilt 7 has been plagued by a keyboard layout issue. Few users are affected by this bug, but those who see it experience a crash. We are working with the developer to implement a proposed solution.

World of Warships has graphical issues on OSX with various GPUs. We are actively working to resolve the issues so the Mac beta of this title can go live.

World of Tanks has had numerous reports of the red and green flicker within the garage. We were able to identify the cause and fix it. In addition, we enabled the option to switch to the HD client. This build is staged, tested, and ready to go to Wargaming.

For Wizard101, we tested potential workarounds for the UK and US servers to live side-by-side on a single system. At the present time, users playing on both servers have to completely uninstall and reinstall the separate clients to gain access to the desired server.

For RootsMagic 7, we identified steps to reproduce a crash. Then we contacted customers who have reported a crash to compare their notes with our findings and ended up identifying an additional crash (because why settle for just one?) Both issues are now undergoing work by our development team.

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Microsoft Office 2013 Is the Most Requested App on CrossOver for Linux and Mac

Skyrim and Guild Wars 2 are among the most requested games

CodeWeavers, the developer of the commercial and cross-platform CrossOver application that lets Linux and Mac users run Windows apps and games, wants to know on which Windows programs they should concentrate their efforts.

The company published a list of Windows applications and games that are very popular among Linux and Mac users, so that you can vote your favorite ones. The programs with the most votes will have better support in the upcoming versions of CrossOver.

Among these apps, we can mention Microsoft Office 2013, Microsoft Office 365, VMware vSphere Client, Origin, Microsoft Visio Professional 2013, Quicken 2015, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5, Internet Explorer 11, Microsoft Outlook 2013, Microsoft Visio 2010, iTunes 11, DirectX 11, and Quicken 2014.

Moreover, the The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Guild Wars 2, World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Elite Dangerous, Diablo III, The Elder Scrolls Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Steam, World of Tanks, Final Fantasy XIV, and Fallout 3 are among the games that are on the list.

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Wine 1.7.47 Released

The Wine development release 1.7.47 is now available.
What's new in this release:

• Text drawing in Direct2D.
• Support for the new thread pool API.
• Toolbar state saving.
• Beginnings of an implementation for proper HID support.
• Support for file objects in device drivers.
• Various bug fixes.

The source is available now. Binary packages are in the process of being built, and will appear soon at their respective download locations.

 Bugs fixed in 1.7.47 (total 48):

   3077  WeatherScope: Right mouse button stuck
   6955  Multiple games need software vertex blending implementation (NOLF2, Divinity 2, Dark Age of Camelot, Warhammer Online, PSU:AOTI)
   9210  3DMark06 doesn't recognize Pixel Shaders 2.0
  11499  sound effects not played correctly Battlefield 1942
  15924  VT Trader freezes during login
  17402  Battlefield 2 runs unplayably slow (and mission loading takes longer) on ATi with GLSL
  17597  CharmTale2 crashes when releasing mshtml
  22384  DbgHelp doesn't support DWARF-2 on Mac OS X
  22579  Outlook Express does not show menu bar
  22782  Battlefield 1942: missing some textures inside vehicles
  24850  Explorer++ resets custom toolbar buttons on each startup
  25289  Civilization 4: fails with 'error loading shader libraries' unless native d3dx9_26 is used
  26262  No video output in Commandos - Behind Enemy lines
  27286  Source Insight: Crashes when jumping to function definition.
  28125  Microsoft 'ctfmon.exe' crashes on unimplemented function msctf.dll.TF_InitMlngInfo
  28875  NullDC 1.0.4 (Dreamcast emulator) crashes when starting system (shader 'register' keyword used at global scope)
  29326  Magicka crashes on audio init with winealsa.drv
  29636  QQ International crashes after login
  30686  Word 2010 Pro Plus adds spaces before umlauts
  31001  SecureCRT:  could not write to the host key database file
  31156  Skyrim does not work with ENB
  31391  anarchy online game crashing after login
  33907  Civilization 4: missing some sound (could not read file)
  34945  AppleWin 1.23.0: CPU usage is very high when should be minimal
  35192  Multiple Adobe applications crash on unimplemented function KERNEL32.dll.CreateThreadpool (Vista+ API)(Lightroom 5.x, Creative Cloud)
  35789  Morrowind random crashes during game play.
  36164  valgrind shows an unitialized variable in programs/cmd/tests/batch.c
  36171  valgrind shows several leaks in winmm/waveform.c
  36194  valgrind shows some possible leaks in mmdevapi/tests/dependency.c
  36236  valgrind shows a leak in comctl32/tests/propsheet.c
  36265  valgrind shows a couple leaks in dmband/tests/dmband.c
  36270  valgrind shows several leaks in dmcompos/tests/dmcompos.c
  36271  valgrind shows several leaks in dmime/tests/dmime.c
  36273  valgrind shows several leaks in dmstyle/tests/dmstyle.c
  36357  valgrind shows a leak in dswave/tests/dswave.c
  36364  valgrind shows a few leaks in ieframe/tests/intshcut.c
  36837  Steam fallout new vegas error
  37306  Multiple applications trying to use Vista+ Thread Pool Timer API crash on startup with Wine configured as Vista or higher ('CreateThreadpoolTimer')(64-bit ApexDC 1.6.0, Watchtower Library 2014)
  38474  Quake Live launcher fails to start
  38492  vcrun2008 does not install via Winetricks under Kubuntu 15.04.  Works in Kubuntu 14.04.
  38493  Steam steamwebhelper based on CEF 41.x crashes in Win7 mode (needs Kernel32.SetFileCompletionNotificationModes)
  38510  STDU (Scientific and Technical Documentation Utility) Viewer v1.6.375 crashes when opening PDF file (typelib information for marshaller from registry-free COM server)
  38660  NUMA Explorer crashes on unimplemented function KERNEL32.dll.GetNumaProcessorNode
  38714  64-bit ARM Windows applications from Windows SDK for Windows 10 crash in entry (loader needs to set/randomize security cookie for PE modules)
  38796  dwrite analyzer test crashes on my system
  38822  FotoSketcher Portable 3.00 reports 'Exception externe C06D007F' on startup when running as 'Windows Vista' or higher (wants UxTheme.dll 'DrawThemeTextEx')
  38832  Painting artifacts when moving a window that clips its children
  38864  Microsoft Lync Basic 2013 (MS Office 15.0) installer crashes

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CodeWeavers CrossOver Mac running on OS X El Capitan

CodeWeavers CrossOver Mac is now running on the beta release of Apples latest OS X El Capitan. With CrossOver Mac running on the early beta we should see support for the operating system update shortly after its official release. Later this year to early next year CodeWeavers will have support for Microsoft Office 2013, DirectX 10 and 11, Oculus Rift Virtual reality head sets and a host of other fixes and improvements for applications and games.

Run Microsoft Windows Applications and Games on Mac, Linux or ChromeOS save up to 20% off  CodeWeavers CrossOver+ today.

Wine 1.7.46 Released

The Wine development release 1.7.46 is now available.
What's new in this release:

• Improvements in the BITS file transfer service.
• Still more progress on DirectWrite implementation.
• Support for shared user data on 64-bit.
• Various C++ runtime improvements.
• Some more support for the 64-bit ARM platform.
• Various bug fixes.

The source is available now. Binary packages are in the process of being built, and will appear soon at their respective download locations.

 Bugs fixed in 1.7.46 (total 67):

   6316  MYOB V13 prints a blank page
  15564  BlogJet: typing text and account signup don't work
  16196  Back and Forward buttons in Google Sketchup's 3D Warehouse do nothing
  16885  Yahoo Messenger 8/9 menu invisible, 'X' box hotspot in wrong place
  19648  Lotus Organizer 97 - No text on tabs
  19695  Gox Box window loses focus when list box is expanded
  20927  MYOB version 6 crashes when printing
  22085  Roller Coaster Tycoon can't change the screen resolution
  23148  Lotus Freelance Graphics 2.1 reports a C runtime error and exits
  24823  Miranda IM crashes with a modern contact list plugin
  26656  Cherry-SMS desktop app crashes / shows no country code
  26791  backtraces broken on gcc 4.7
  28148  Neuro Hunter: certain effects are invisible
  28189  regsvr32: No usage in wineconsole
  29929  Demo installer stuck at program folder selection
  30805  Graphical glitch in the menu of Medieval total war
  30873  BMFont crashes on visualise option or save bitmap font as
  31228  "A simple IOCP Server/Client Class" locks up in GetMessage
  31694  A ton of 'error loading char 255 - bad news!' errors when compiling wine with newer Freetype
  31757  Adobe Application Manager 6.x/7.x download fails with error code A12E5 (winhttp request headers missing byte range)
  32127  Oblivion Launcher crash on start
  32214  Shaiya Online (MMORPG, Aeria Games) crashes on startup
  32550  Points2Grid crashes on calculation
  33831  AliWangwang hangs before login
  33849  Multiple 64-bit kernel drivers crash on access to KI_USER_SHARED_DATA range (0xfffff78000000000) (Tages DRM, Comodo Backup)
  34112  Skilors Grooveshark Downloader installer crashes
  34357  TaxAct 2012 and 2013 crash on startup
  34406  Finale Notepad 2012 doesn't copy/create user files on program start
  34843  Garmin BaseCamp 4.1.2 fails due to unimplemented gdiplus.GdipCreateRegionRgnData
  35537  Easy Bridge version 4.0.2 installer crashes
  35540  Netgear Powerline 3.1: desktop shortcut blank
  35775  Multiple Realarcade installers crash on startup due to IFile::PutAttributes method stub
  35949  Starcraft Campaign Editor does not highlight links in triggers on hover
  36192  valgrind shows a definite leak in mmdevapi/tests/capture.c
  36235  valgrind shows 3 leaks in amstream/tests/amstream.c
  36318  valgrind shows a leak in quartz/tests/filtermapper.c
  36321  valgrind shows a possible leak in quartz/tests/referenceclock.c
  36324  valgrind shows a leak in rpcrt4/tests/ndr_marshall.c
  36555  valgrind shows a definite leak in amstream/tests/amstream.c
  36780  Tomb Raider III (steam) crashes
  36916  Command and Conquer Tiberium Wars Demo reports 'Please make sure you have DirectX 9.0 or higher installed.'
  36953  Galactic Civilizations II: stars not rendered
  37303  Change of paper size in print dialog do not update DEVMODE dmFormName member
  37307  Urban Assault black screen when using software renderer (incorrect device enumeration order)
  37403  Regedit: Wrong default registry key is selected
  37502  Naturosoft Pro fails on startup with 'Run-time error 445: Object doesn't support this action' (needs richedit:ITextRange_fnExpand method implementation)
  37767  IOCTL_DVD_READ_STRUCTURE expects the wrong size of output buffer for some requests
  38114  Steam client doesn't allow to install games in different locations (needs kernel32.GetVolumePathName implementation)
  38364  AutoPatcher Updater 1.4.x needs IFileSystem3::GetSpecialFolder()
  38411  3DMark05 v1.30 crashes during system info scan (needs support for 'Win32_Process' WMI class 'WorkingSetSize' property)
  38470  __chkstk not implemented on ARM
  38517  Winhttprequest doesn't keep user logged in
  38525  Winhttprequest follows redirects to wrong url
  38624  jre-8u45-windows-i586.exe installer exits silently (needs advapi32.dll GetWindowsAccountDomainSid stub)
  38638  Bad text encoding output in regsvr32 console output
  38645  QQ 6.x crashes after open the qqzone tab (webkit crash)
  38691  Dia Portable 0.97 crashes on startup in libcairo-2
  38695  valgrind shows uninitialized memory in dlls/gdi32/freetype.c:WineEngInit() (win64)
  38713  Link failure due to use of libunwind in ntdll
  38719  64-bit ARM Windows applications from Windows SDK for Windows 10 crash when accessing TEB/PEB members (AArch64 platform specific register X18 must be reserved for TEB)
  38739  valgrind shows a possible leak in ole32/tests/usrmarshal.c
  38747  msvcrt.dll does not implement _getwch, _getwche, and _ungetwch
  38752  Foobar2000 UPnP/DLNA media server hangs on exit
  38758  SlingPlayer 1.x installers fail
  38764  Improper device request/IRP handling causes heap corruption in wineserver
  38769  Additional AES algorithms in schannel break wine build
  38783  64bit msys32 crashes on unimplemented RtlCopyMemory

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World of Tanks for Mac OS

CodeWeavers, with support from Wargaming, has developed a software solution that allows Mac OS X users to join the ranks of World of Tanks and battle!

If you're interested, you'll need to do the following:

1. Download CodeWeavers Mac Wrapper
2. Launch the downloaded file
3. Move the World of Tanks icon to the ‘Applications’ folder
4. After installation, start the launcher to begin to download and install the World of Tanks client

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winetricks 20150706 was released today for Mac OSX and Linux

WineTricks 20150706 was released today for use with Wine from WineHQ and runs on Apple Mac OSX and Linux operating systems, the change log and download links are provided below.

 WineTricks Change log - July 6, 2015

• version bump - 20150706
• Many bug fixes

WineTricks Downloads :

Source code (zip)
Source code (tar.gz)

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Как я искал новый “Play On Linux”

 Я хотел бы поблагодарить моего друга Чашка Петри для этого обзора

При переходе с Windows на Linux ОС, пожалуй, у всех возникают трудности с заменой привычных Win- приложений на аналогичные в Linux. Иногда их просто нет. И для решения этих мелких проблем существует Wine, но в силу своей сложности в настройке, голый он не всем подходит. Поэтому в народе используют так называемые надстройки.
Выбор надстроек для Wine небольшой. Среди них PlayOnLinux (POL), CrossOver и Cedega. Cedega я не рассматривал, из-за низкой обновляемости проекта.

Под номером один PlayOnLinux. При использовании POL, у меня возник ряд мелких неудобств, после установки, например, одной из проблемных мест для POL стала крайне неудачно портированная консольная «ролевка» Dark Souls: Prepare To Die Edition, она содержит массу недочетов после установки даже в Windows и не имеет готового скрипта для установки. Установил я ее вручную, но настроить и заставить работать в полноэкранном режиме ее так и не смог.

Номер два - CrossOver. По материалам из Вики:  «…CrossOver создан компанией CodeWeavers на основе исходных кодов свободного аналога - Wine. При этом сам он является коммерческим продуктом. Разработчики CodeWeavers добавляют собственные заплатки, а также графические утилиты конфигурации. Кроме того, компания нанимает нескольких разработчиков Wine, а также возвращает многие свои наработки в свободный проект…»

Процесс установки CrossOver под Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Debian, Red Hat, Fedora и других описан на сайте разработчика. Так как у меня Debian 64-бит, загружаем последнюю версию *.deb с сайта https://www.codeweavers.com/ Открываем терминал, добавляем архитектуру i386:

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

Советовал бы использовать 32-битную ось, в силу ряда проблем с совместимостью. Приводим ось в актуальное состояние:

sudo aptitude update

Разработчик рекомендует устанавливать свой софт  с помощью gdebi на Debian подобных системах:
 
sudo gdebi crossover.deb

Или с помощью dpkg:

sudo dpkg -i crossover.deb

Устанавливаем, запускаем, клацаем Установить приложение Windows и выбираем Dark Souls: Prepare To Die Edition

Переходим в раздел «Установка через Steam»:

Все файлы хранятся в префиксе, или в бутылке, кому как удобно называть. Там внутри файлы диска C,  реестр, индивидуальные настройки и т.д.  Выбираем уже готовый или создаем новый бутль:

Нажимаем Установить и Устанавливаем дополнительный софт

Устанавливаем.NET 

Устанавливаем Steam

Готово.

Закрываем мастер, запускаем Steam и устанавливаем Dark Souls из Steam

Собственно, вот результат, Dark Souls в полноэкранном режиме

На мой взгляд, CrossOver более прост в управлении и надежен, но менее универсален, чем POL, например, нет возможности  выбирать различные версии Wine после установки, и так как проект коммерческий, вероятно, имеет хорошую техническую поддержку.

Пару слов добавлю о стоимости и о правах. Вы имеете право использовать демо версию бесплатно в течение 14 дней. Стоимость CrossOver Linux в России и Украине $ 20.95, для сравнения: цена в США и странах ЕС немного выше и составляет $59.95.

А если вы используете этот скидочный код ( TOM23 ) вы можете сэкономить дополнительные 20% от $20.95 цене.

Так что выбор за вами. Всем удачи!

 

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CodeWeavers CrossOver промо для России и Украины

Здравствуйте, я хотел бы поделиться нашим 20 % от промо код для Codeweavers CrossOver Linux или Mac. Это промо-код хорошо для России и Украины или любого русскоговорящего области.

Промо код ( TOM23 ) и действует до тех пор, 20 сентября 2016

Вы можете поделиться этой промо код с кем , или на ваших социальных счетов СМИ как Google+ , Twitter, FaceBook , и т.д. и т.п.

Чтобы использоватькод просто перейти по Codeweavers магазин и введите код и нажмите обновления. Вы увидите ваши мгновенные скидки.

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CodeWeavers CrossOver 14.1.4 for Linux and Mac has been released

I am delighted to announce that CodeWeavers has just released CrossOver 14.1.4 for both Mac OS X and Linux.  CrossOver 14.1.4 has important bug fixes for both Mac and Linux users.

Mac customers with active support entitlements will be upgraded to CrossOver 14.1.4 the next time they launch CrossOver. Linux users can download the latest version from http://www.codeweavers.com/.

Change Log For CrossOver Mac and Linux :

 14.1.4 CrossOver - June 25, 2015

• Application Support:
  • Fixed a Steam crash on launch for Win7 Bottles.
  • Fixed problems browsing and searching in the Steam game store.

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CrossOver и Wine скоро будут поддерживать DirectX11 в Linux

Все большее количество игр перестает поддерживать старые версии DirectX, поэтому их становится все сложнее запускать на эмуляторах. Разработчики в CodeWeavers пообещали, что скоро в Linux, благодаря CrossOver и Wine, появится поддержка DirectX 11.

CrossOver это платный эмулятор от CodeWeavers, базирующийся на бесплатном эмуляторе Wine с открытым исходным кодом. Некоторые доработки CrossOver со временем попадают в бесплатный Wine, что произойдет и в случае с поддержкой DirectX 11.

 

Работы в этом направлении ведутся уже около 7 месяцев, и поддержка DX 11 в CrossOver ожидается в конце 2015 года. Вместе с ней будет реализована улучшенная поддержка геймпадов и оптимизация производительности видеокарт.
Поддержка DirectX 11 в эмуляторах позволит не только с бубнами запускать Windows игры в Linux, но и упростит разработчикам портирование игр на эту платформу за счет использования DX11 кода CrossOver, который оставят открытым.

А если вы используете этот скидочный код ( TOM23 ) вы можете сэкономить дополнительные 20% от $20.95 цене.

Codeweavers On DX 11 in WINE, Steam Machines & Porting

Last week, following the announcement that Codeweavers would soon provide DirectX11 support for games and applications, I decided to get in touch with James Ramey, President of Codeweavers, in order to learn more about their plans and their progress on that front. He was kind enough to make himself available to answer some of our questions.

The recent news of WINE/Crossover supporting DX11 is significant, because up until now there were no FOSS solutions to get such support. Sure, the eON wrapper from Virtual Programming was one commercial option for game companies to develop ports for Linux, but it was not available for end users. With WINE supporting DX11, this opens up a whole new library of recent Windows games for the Linux platform.

 

James Ramey, President of Codeweavers

James was not too familiar with what Virtual Programming and their eON wrapper actually does and could not comment on their technology, but WINE/Crossover will surely become another option in the market of porting DX10-11 games, fairly soon. While the announcement of DX11 support is fairly new, they have actually been at work on it for quite a while.

James Ramey (JR): It has taken about 9 months to get to where we are today. We are about 4 months to having a framework for DirextX 11 in Crossover/WINE. We anticipated it was going to be a one man/year project. We’ve been working on this since the fall of 2014, and we anticipate sometime in November to have that framework in place.

Wait, a one man/year project. Do they literally mean a single contributor, or several people working on it part time ?

JR: It’s been one person actually. It’s high level, detailed work. Henri Verbeet is the person actually doing it. I am sure there are other people who contribute a little, but all is pretty much depending on the work that he does at this stage. Henri has been working on the WINE project for years. He is the foremost authority on Gaming and Graphics in the WINE community, he is considered to be an expert by most peers regarding his experience in this particular area of WINE. So for anything graphics related, it comes down to Henry. He is really at that rock-star level in what he does.

The announcement of DX11 support also hinted at better GPU performance – and that is apparently not going to be limited to DX11.

JR: GPU improvements will be from DirectX 9 up, as well as the command stream. There will be improvements to a couple of different things. We expect games support to be better across the board and not just DirectX11.

ON PORTING TO LINUX

Crossover is a commercial WINE distribution (with additional tools bundled with it), but Codeweavers also generates revenues from other sources (such as porting and maintaining Linux ports for other companies). But how much revenues come from each side of the business?

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Another 2 Weeks, Another Wine Update

Two weeks ago we welcomed a new MacBook Pro into our mix. This dual GPU updates our spread of hardware for game testing and brings the AMD Radeon R9 370M to our capable hands and allows us to continue our testing on the Intel Iris. We said goodbye to our Nvidia GeForce GTX 750M and sent it live out its years with our Support Ninjas at the CodeWeavers HQ.

First we tested the general functionality of Power BibleCD. This included tests with installation, menus, data entry, and printing.

Then we turned our focus to World of Tanks and the bug reports of red and green flickers in the garage. We were able to reproduce this on most in-house Intel chips prior to an update from Wargaming. Since the update we haven't been able to reproduce the flicker and are working to confirm the bug has been resolved.

Our attention then turned to Terraria. Following reports that installation had gone awry, we put this title through a rigorous testing round on four Linux distributions and the last three versions of Mac OSX (Yosemite, Mavericks, and Mountain Lion). It passed all tests provided our CrossTie was used for installation.

We then tried to understand the differences in mounting network shares over ssh, samba, gvfs, and nfs. We were able to identify differences and offer solutions and workarounds for the issues we discovered. No third party bugs were filed for this issue.

For E3 customers, we tested and updated our information on several titles. We are continuing work with the developers of those games to bring them to Mac and Linux users.

We focused on confirming the bottle upgrade process from CrossOver 13.2, 14.0, 14.1 to each version and to our development branch for Office 2003. This was based on reports that Office 2003 did not upgrade properly and lost all associations during upgrade. We found that all combinations retained the associations as expected on both Mac and Linux systems.












We continued our testing of the new Linux GUI improvements. This included testing and confirming fixes for:

• The removal of the list of launchers in the Run Command Dialog
• Adjustment the drop shadow of the Welcome display mode
• Change to make the installation splash screen size static

At the request of our advocates, we reviewed the verbiage on the download page and removed the verbiage telling users that all links are only good for one session. CrossOver's download links are static and point at demo versions of the product that can be unlocked with credentials from a valid account.

At this point our regular two week testing is going well. We find that most of the applications running in Wine 1.7.45 continue to function as they do with CrossOver 14.1.3 and we have no regressions to report on this version of Wine. We are watching minor issues with Office 2010 and our developers are working to triage them as needed.

QuickBooks 2015 continues as a focus for the release of CrossOver 15. We retested a hang on launch on MacOS so no further Mac testing was completed. On Linux, we retested a hang on the open of the sample document and confirmed that our possible fixes mitigate the hang. We then tested dual screen usability with QuickBook 2015 and found that many portions of the application become dysfunctional in this setup. We tested crashes with payroll, registration, company creation and more. Unfortunately these issues persist.

We worked through reports of crashes with Steam and released CrossOver 14.1.4 with fixes for some of the crashes that were identified. This work is ongoing, there are several crashes that remain for Steam's interface.

And now we are preparing to test Office 2013 as our developers polish Wine. Screenshots of real rendering text versus magenta blobs mean that our focus will soon shift to what Microsoft Office 2013 can do in CrossOver.

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Hey gamers! DirectX 11 is coming to Linux thanks to CodeWeavers and Wine

The chains are loosening. DirectX still binds many PC games to Windows. Now, CodeWeavers expects CrossOver to support DirectX 11 by the end of the year, with Wine gaining compatibility shortly afterwards.

In other words, more Windows PC games will “just run” on Linux, and it’ll be easier for developers to package those games with compatibility code and officially support them on Linux.

CodeWeavers is bringing DirectX 11 to Linux

Wine already supports DirectX 9 very well, but many new games no longer support DirectX 9 and rely on newer versions of Microsoft’s graphics technology. Wine is an open-source compatibility layer that allows Windows applications to run on top of Linux, Mac OS X, and other non-Windows operating systems.

CodeWeavers offers a paid product, known as CrossOver, which is built on top of the open-source Wine code. It pays developers to add features, and those improvements inevitably end up back in the open-source Wine project. CrossOver also provides a convenient interface and more of a guarantee that certain applications will be officially supported and not break.

While the DirectX 11 support will make it into CodeWeavers’ product before it makes it to the open-source Wine project, the code will be open-source and submitted for inclusion into the Wine project. In other words, CodeWeavers helps fund and support the development of Wine.

During E3 2015, CodeWeavers’ James Ramey posted an update on the CodeWeavers blog:

“In the coming months, CodeWeavers will have support for DirectX 11; better controller support; and further improvements to overall GPU performance. While these incremental improvements for game support may seem small (at first), the cumulative improvements for game support will allow for many of these games to ‘just run’ when released.”

According to a post on Reddit, this code should be done by the end of 2015, and work has already been underway for seven months. The patches will of course be contributed to the open-source Wine project, too.

Why this matters

Microsoft’s DirectX graphics technology is only officially supported on Windows, Xbox, and other Microsoft platforms. The Wine project helps bridge this gap and already supports DirectX 9 very nicely.

Using CrossOver for Linux to play Skyrim.

The new underlying CrossOver technology will also allow developers to port DirectX 11 games to Linux more easily. Linux gamers tend to dislike this type of port and prefer a native game that doesn’t use any Windows compatibility layer, but hey, it’s still better than nothing.

In the past, John Carmack of id Software and now Oculus has even argued that “emulation of some sort is a proper technical direction for gaming on Linux.” The better that DirectX compatibility gets, the easier it will be to port Windows-first games to Linux. And, even if certain games aren’t officially supported, it’ll become easier to just run them without any modification. Big game engines are increasingly supporting Linux, but general Windows compatibility is still helpful.

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The 10 Things I learned at E3

This year, I was fortunate enough to attend E3 in Los Angeles. For those that do not know, E3 is the Electronic Entertainment Expo and spotlights the upcoming video games and other things electronic (mostly just video games) from all the top developers in the world. E3 is much like being at Las Vegas, if Las Vegas was on Red Bull and hadn't slept for 48 hours or so. And while it's hard to focus on any one thing in particular, I was able to learn quite a bit during my two days in California.

1.) Teaming is everything.
Games are moving away from the simple premise that it's you vs. the computer game. Now, it's you and your teammates vs.
people from around the world in a variety of combat situations / simulations. Games are more about 'team sport' and 'high performance' than about solving riddles or achieving simple goals. And gamers are taking this 'team thing' seriously as there is now a Professional Gaming League for most of these games. If your parents ever told you that you couldn't make a living playing video games, THEY LIED TO YOU. The top gamers now make six figure incomes playing games and are treated like 'rock stars' at these events.

2.) You can teach an old dog new tricks.
Just because Star Wars is almost 40 years old doesn't mean it's going softly into that good night. Let that sink in for a minute… Star Wars will turn 40 on May 25, 2017. FORTY!!! Even so, this year E3 featured four Star Wars themed games and all of them looked AWESOME! Maybe the best of the bunch is Star Wars Battlefront (20 vs. 20 multi-player combat game) as it provides you the opportunity to not only fight on the ground (alongside Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader) but also pilot various ships. I'm not sure how much cooler a game based on a 'worn out' 40 year old premise can get!

3.) First person shooters games aren't going to be first for much longer.
Not every upcoming game is focused on killing your opponents (I'm looking at you, Nintendo). E3 featured a smackling of games like Yoshi's Wooly World, Splatoon, Rock Band 4, and Roy Mcllroy PGA Tour (albeit there's a lot of damage you can do with a 4 iron) amongst the otherwise violent staples. Interestingly enough, many of these 'tamer' games got very positive reviews and were very well received which goes to show that a well done game is a well done game and can be appreciated on its own merits.

4.) You can't polish a turd, but you can still roll it in glitter.
Batman: Arkham Knight for the PC is a beautiful but very broken game. Thousands of bad reviews won't 'patch' this game on the PC anytime soon.

5.) Sequels are good if you do them right.
If it worked once or twice or three times, you can most likely get another title out of it. Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Payday 2, XCOM 2, and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End are just a handful of the sequels coming out this fall. And if you liked playing these games the first time, you'll appreciate the opportunity of déjà vu all over again. Not sure we need a Street Fighter V, but I guess these franchises will live on (at least for another year).

6.) Twitch isn't just a short, sudden jerking movement.
Twitch is a real thing! I guess I'm shocked that an Internet channel dedicated to broadcasting professional league battles of various video games is a real thing. But at E3, it was Twitch that was broadcasting live from almost every booth just like a major network. Twitch has actual commentators, features professional gamers, and announces video game battles just like announcers would do for a professional sport. It was wild to hear commentary of in-game battles and have announcers describe the action. I'm pretty sure that they were making most of it up as they went along; BUT, they were making it up as they went along. I remember doing the same thing as a child when playing my favorite Atari 2600 games. Of course back then, my parents thought it was weird and had me quiet down. Today, I'd be a rock star with my own show.

7.) Behind every successful E3 visit is a fabulous pair of shoes.
E3 covers a lot of physical space. I averaged walking almost five miles a day to cover all the ground in both convention halls.
Honestly, I don't even like to drive five miles. Glad I brought a good pair of shoes.

8.) A man, a tan and a plan.
Okay well, maybe not a tan. It's hard to see everything at E3. As such, I planned what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go beforehand. Even with a plan in place, it was challenging to see all the exhibits and games I wanted to see. Worse yet, most games had a one to two hour wait in line. Heck, the wait to see the 12 minute movie for XCOM2 took nearly 50 minutes (a 50 minute line to see a movie about a game – smells of Disneyworld). But, I did get to play Witcher III, SMITE, Alekhine's Gun, Battlecry, Blood Bowl 2, and Pro Evolution Soccer 2016. Very cool games, but they all required a bit of planning and patience (and possibly pushing people out of the way) to experience.

9.) Every day is a fashion show and E3 is your runway.
I found it hard not to stare at people who were dressed up in elaborate costumes of their favorite video game characters. Boba Fett, check. Chun Li, check. Lara Croft, check. I'm not sure I'd ever take my love for video games to 'this level', but it was commendable to see others so dedicated to 'their game' (and honestly if you're going to walk around a convention hall in a Princess Leia bikini, you should be commended for your bravery).

10.) E3 is CodeWeavers oyster.
Not many Mac or Linux titles on the horizon. There was obviously 'some' titles coming to the other platforms, but it's still a predominately PC world. To this effect, I think CodeWeavers can help in supporting some of these titles for Mac or Linux users in CrossOver. We'll be looking to get Beta of many of the top games from E3 to work on support for the coming version of CrossOver. And while we might not get every game, I'm sure that there will be one or two or more games that will run very well in our technology.

Run Microsoft Windows Applications and Games on Mac, Linux or ChromeOS save up to 20% off  CodeWeavers CrossOver+ today.

Direct X 10 and 11 coming to Mac and Linux computers

Direct X 10 and 11 is on its way to Mac and Linux computers via Wine and CrossOver.

From the last paragraph of this post 

How do these games impact Mac and Linux users? Well, they don't. That's the rub in all of this. Most of these games are PC only. However, you might still be able to play these titles on your Mac or Linux computer when they are released later this year using CrossOver. In the coming months, CodeWeavers will have support for DirectX 11; better controller support; and further improvements to overall GPU performance. While these incremental improvements for game support may seem small (at first), the cumulative improvements for game support will allow for many of these games to 'just run' when released. And when more games 'just run' in CrossOver, it won't matter if you're battling against Thor or Apollo using a PC, a Mac, or a Linux computer.

Run Microsoft Windows Applications and Games on Mac, Linux or ChromeOS save up to 20% off  CodeWeavers CrossOver+ today.

Get New Wine Features Faster With Wine Staging

Wine Staging is a Wine version which provides bug fixes and features that aren't yet available in regular Wine versions.

Wine Staging (formerly known as Wine Compholio) was initially created for Pipelight, a project that brings Silverlight and other Windows-only plugins to Linux web browsers. The project has evolved and some Linux distributions, like Fedora, provide it in the official repositories instead of the regular Wine version.

The latest Wine Staging provides the following extra features and bug fixes:

• CSMT (Commandstream multithreading) for better graphic performance
• CUDA / PhysX / NVENC Support for NVIDIA graphic cards
• DXVA2 GPU video decoding (experimental)
• EAX 1 support
• Fixes for various upstream regressions
• Job Object support
• Loading of .NET CLI images without entry point
• Named Pipe message mode support (Linux kernel >= 3.4 only)
• Performance improvements for IO-heavy programs and memory allocation functions
• S3 texture compression (DXTn) support
• Threadpool API support
• Various improvements to d3dx9
• Various speed improvements (shared memory, RT priority)
• Windows ACL support
• Wine PulseAudio driver

For a complete list, see the Wine Staging GitHub page.

Some of these features are optional and they can enabled or disabled via Wine Configuration, on the Staging tab:

Install Wine Staging in Ubuntu or Linux Mint

Wine Staging is available in the Pipelight PPA for Ubuntu, Linux Mint and derivatives. To add the PPA and install Wine Staging, use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pipelight/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install --install-recommends wine-staging

If you're on 64bit and want to use the 64bit Wine version, also install 'wine-staging-amd64':

sudo apt-get install wine-staging-amd64

The Wine Staging executables aren't installed in /usr/bin (and aren't available in your PATH by default), but under /opt/wine-staging/bin/. Thanks to this, you can continue using the regular Wine version as well as Wine Staging - to run any Wine Staging executable, simply add "/opt/wine-staging/bin/" in front of the executable, like this:

/opt/wine-staging/bin/wine
/opt/wine-staging/bin/winecfg

... and so on.

However, if you don't want to type the full path each time you want to use Wine Staging, you can install a package which provides compatibility symlinks (but you won't be able to use the regular Wine version any more):

sudo apt-get install wine-staging-compat

For more information, see the Wine Staging Usage page.

The Wine Staging developers provide binaries for Arch Linux, Debian, Gentoo, Mageia and OpenSUSE - for installation instructions, see THIS page.

Run Microsoft Windows Applications and Games on Mac, Linux or ChromeOS save up to 20% off  CodeWeavers CrossOver+ today.