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Thursday, October 6, 2011

New Codeweavers CrossOver discount dealcode coupons avaliable

The folks over at CodeWeavers have given us two new dealcodes. :) A dealcode is coupon code that can be used in their online store. The two new promo codes are "TOM23" this promo code is good for a 20% discount on CrossOver or CrossOver Games for Mac and Linux. The second promo code is "TOM23" and it will get you a 20% discount on any product in their store.

They also have a promotion going on for Power BibleCD users, this isn't a dealcode but a promotion. You will need to go to this page and purchase CrossOver with a 20% discount just for Power BibleCD users.

Here is some other Theological Applications that are known to work with CrossOver for Mac and Linux.
  • Bible Illustrator for Windows
  • BibleWorks
  • e-Sword
  • Online Bible
  • PC Bible Atlas
  • Quickverse
  • SwordSearcher
  • Watchtower Library
  • And many more...
So if you need to run a business application, bible study application or just need a break and want to play your favorite game, use one of these dealcodes and enjoy a nice discount on CrossOver and CrossOver Games.

Mac Review Crossover Games 10

Once upon a time, Mac was a happy little gaming platform, with such breakout releases as Puzzle, Through the Looking Glass and Myst. But then a tragedy fell upon the world of Mac, their arch-nemesis Microsoft created an evil potion called Direct X, and Microsoft slipped this poison into the drinks of game developers. Upon consuming this poison, the developers turned into mindless slaves, to be controlled by the evil Microsoft, and at Microsofts bidding, the developers stole games away from their Mac homesteads.

For years upon years, nobody heard Mac’s plight to have these games returned to them, but eventually a hero heard the cries of help from distressed Macs everywhere, and this brave hero, who we shall call Jeremy White (or Jer, for short), banded together a
gaggleplethoraschooltable of brave knights and knightesses, whom he called CodeWeavers.

Together, the CodeWeavers found a way for both Mac and PC to share games (and not just games, but other software) together, but over all the years a lot of games had fallen victim to stockholm syndrome, and so the CodeWeavers had to find a way to trick these games into playing with their Mac parents and siblings, and so they created a Direct X anti-venom, which they dubbed “Cross-over Games”.
And everyone lived happily ever after etc etc.
So after that little bit of non-explanation, for the last fortnight I have been testing/ stressing and torturing a little piece of software called Cross-over games, and this is my blog/ review about my experiences with the software that has been very lovingly nurtured all these years, just waiting for me to come along and tell it Santa Claus isn’t real.

My game of choice to test out Cross-over was RIFT, and my base to test against was an ACER 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo machine, with 4GB DDR3 RAM and 1GB NVIDIA graphics of some description (I can’t be expected to remember all the ins and outs) running Windows 7, with Cross-over running on my Mac, which is a 2.8GHz Intel Core i5 with 4GB DDR3 RAM and 1GB some kind of graphics card running Snow Leopard 10.6.8

For the sake of this blog, I only downloaded the trial version of cross-over games, which gave me a two week trial basis of the software. I cannot say with any certainty if the trial version is perhaps limited in its abilities compared to the full version or not, but from what I can tell, it looks like it is offering as much as what you would expect from a full version of the software.
I had a bit of a bumpy start installing cross-over, and an even bumpier road ahead when trying to install RIFT, as I wasn’t sure if I was meant to download RIFT then open the .exe using Cross-over as the launch tool, or if I was to just open Cross-over and choose RIFT as an installation option, however, after some mucking around I finally had something happen and next thing I knew I was waiting 6 hours for RIFT to download a patch.

After that was done, I jumped into the game to test how well a native Microsoft game was going to run on my Mac with the assistance of Cross-over Games. Now bear in mind that the people of CodeWeavers give the games that they work on ratings, these ratings basically go Bronze, Silver and Gold, which in short means won’t work, will work but has issues, and works as well as it does on its native lands. RIFT had a silver rating so I was expecting some bugs.
I unfortunately stumbled across one of the worst bugs you could have the misfortune of running in to… LAG!

I started the graphics and detail on as high as they could go (I can run WoW in a windowed box with full detail and have no latency issues… well except when in Orgrimmar), and it took me a few minutes to run about 50 metres in the game, so I progressively stepped down the level of detail until I was at low settings for everything, and then I had a good, consistent level of latency so I could run around and play the game. On the ACER, I had the game running on medium settings before latency kicked in, and the MAC is by far a superior machine when compared technical spec for technical spec.
I played the game for a while with just Cross-over/RIFT running to see how well it handled, and despite the fact I needed my graphic settings lower, the game ran surprisingly well, in fact, if I wasn’t aware of Cross-over games and had seen a friend running RIFT on their Mac, I would’ve asked with all sincerity and excitement, “Have Trion Worlds got off their asses and released RIFT for Mac?”
So… Cross-over passed test one, it would in fact run RIFT on my machine, so bring on test 2. I know my Mac can handle doing a lot, so it was time to start using my cores. When I normally game, I tend to have music playing, I will have twitter running, normally a few websites, plus I tend to not actually quit previous things I may have been doing previously, just minimise them, such as pages or iPhoto. So I opened them all up and hopped back into RIFT, often command+tabbing out to check other things.

The only difference I noticed was a slight delay between command-tabbing in and out of the game, but apart from that, game play was unaffected and still was running just as well as if on a native machine. Actually, compared to the alt-tabbing I did on the ACER, the Mac actually had a better response time. I’m not sure if that was because of the Mac being a newer and superior machine or not, but either way, I’m giving points to Cross-over for that one.

My final test, run EVERYTHING on my machine, really make the cores on my machine work themselves out and flex their muscles, in the hope that maybe I would deviate much needed processor and graphic support away from the game and see if I could make Cross-over games shit itself and give up the ghost. By running everything, that also included other games on my machine (except my Steam account games, as it would only let me run one game at a time). I kinda figured that how well this test went was more dependant on my Mac than Cross-over games, but I wanted to get an indication comparing against the other games running on my machine, if Cross-over would be performing as well as the others or not.

This test just about killed my ACER, I had tab times of about 2 minutes as the machine struggled to jump from game to game. The Mac, while performing more admirably, still was having a little issue maintaining the previous command-tab time of less than 1 second, but was still keeping tab times under the 15 second mark.

So the grand verdict, well all of my games were lagging like I’ve never seen them lag before, although still playable, just no longer enjoyable… including… RIFT, which means that Cross-over was keeping up with the games that run natively on my Mac. I have to say, I am hugely impressed with this software.

Now this blog is starting to get a tad longer than what I normally prefer my blogs to be, but over the past 2 weeks I have corresponded via email with one of the members of CodeWeavers, also known as the COO (Chief Operating Officer), Jon Parshall. I also did some research into CodeWeavers, but maybe I’ll make this experience a two-parter and write about all of that next week.
In the meantime, if you are interested in getting your hands on Cross-over for your Mac (or Linux machine) then you get a trial version or purchase the full version.

You can also read up on some of the other great software available from Codeweavers by visiting their website.


Putty for Mac
Putty for Mac
$15.00

https://winereviews.onfastspring.com/putty-for-mac


Friday, September 23, 2011

Wine 1.3.29 Released

The Wine development release 1.3.29 is now available.
What's new in this release:
  • Extensive support for VBScript.
  • Various improvements to the calendar common control.
  • A number of XRender fixes and optimizations.
  • Several new functions in the MSVCP runtime.
  • A number of audio fixes.
  • DirectDraw cleanups.
  • 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 1.3.29:
421 Implement a DIB engine
1348 RegisterHotKey and UnregisterHotKey are not implemented. (Affects e.g. Adobe Photoshop.)
7066 comctl32 monthcal does not display multiple calendar months
9412 FL Studio 7 installer fails to register Vorbis codec in system.ini
11621 putty.exe in telnet mode don't display anything
13313 Half life 2 hangs with a high cpu usage at a certain point in the game
14271 Inital size of scroll bar "thumb" incorrect
14847 UFO Extraterrestials: Problems with mouse cursor and textures.
15364 Build broken when CFLAGS="-Wall -Werror" is used
15460 blocky shadow-like model edges in Sid Meier's Pirates!
17021 CHM help menu only shows "Printer icons"
17582 Version/install test crashes on OpenSolaris
20043 uTorrent 1.8 does not start correctly
21138 cmd.exe cd command possible bug
21822 Creative Writer 2's interface is discolored unless running at 8-bit color depth
22608 EVE online planets and planetary interaction icons fail to render correctly
24478 Fallout 3 no background music
24745 Loki fails due to missing msvcp80.dll.?find@?$basic_string@DU? $char_traits@D@std@@V?$allocator@D@2@@std@@QBEIABV12@I@Z
24958 colormap? problem with internet maps in OziExplorer
25089 The characters in simple dialog (buttons and labels) are completely garbled ("$BODFM" instead of "Cancel")
25117 Antialising does not work in portal.
25150 Some effects are rendered upside down in source engine games
25364 Sacred 2 Fallen Angel needs msvcp80.dll.??4?$basic_string@_WU?$char_traits@_W@std@@V?$allocator@_W
@2@@std@@QAEAAV01@PB_W@Z
25629 Left 4 Dead 2 - Only a sound channel is heard in the Introduction.
26361 ExeFile.exe crashes on character creation
26961 Download Accelerator Plus: needs msvcp60.dll.?_Xran@std@@YAXXZ
27009 Fallout 3 Launcher crashes with builtin msvcp
27031 k-meleon needs msvcp71.dll.?substr@?$basic_string@DU?$char_traits@D@std@@V?$allocator@D@2@
@std@@QBE?AV12@II@Z
27054 Won't run Wix 3.6 (beta) installer
27076 Darkspore: Character customization screen is dark with fog
27480 [Assassin's Creed]Transparent Ground
27585 F.E.A.R.3 crashes once game starts
27645 MAKING HISTORY II: The War of the World Demo wants msvcp90.dll.?end@?$basic_string@_WU?$char_traits@_W@std@@V?$allocator@_W
@2@@std@@QAE?AV?$_String_iterator@_WU?$char_traits@_W@std@@V?$allocator@_W
@2@@2@XZ (purist)
27729 shell32/shlfolder.c test always fails on 32-bit gentoo
27780 Total Annihilation crashes on start, needs msvcp90.dll.?find@?$basic_string@DU?$char_traits@D@std@@V?$allocator@D@2@@std
@@QBEIABV12@I@Z
28008 RC Cars fails to start unless network option disabled
28040 handle_underrun=1 hack causes IMMDevice::Activate to fail with PulseAudio
28090 EA Origin's launcher: freezes after a couple seconds
28110 ThunderMiniInstall.exe crash: unimplemented function msvcp71.dll.??4?$basic_string@_WU?$char_traits@_W@std@@V?$allocator@_W@2@@std
@@QAEAAV01@PB_W@Z
28111 ThunderMiniInstall.exe crash: unimplemented function msvcp71.dll.?find@?$basic_string@DU?$char_traits@D@std@@V?$allocator@D@2@@std
@@QBEIPBDI@Z
28134 X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter: "Direct Input Create FAILED" regression
28145 TextPad crashes on exit
28181 Diablo III needs msvcp90.dll.?empty@?$basic_string@DU?$char_traits@D@std@@V?$allocator@D@2@
@std@@QBE_NXZ
28205 MSPY2010.exe crash on unimplemented function msvcp90.dll.??4?$basic_string@_WU?$char_traits@_W@std@@V?$allocator@_W@2@
@std@@QAEAAV01@PB_W@Z
28215 Nightly (x64) needs msvcp90.dll.??4?$basic_string@_WU?$char_traits@_W@std@@V?$allocator@_W@2@
@std@@QEAAAEAV01@PEB_W@Z
28222 Sid Meier's Civilization V - wine-1.3.27 not able to load - previous wine versions fine.
28227 Diablo II: Graphics in game and menu flicker
28280 Silent Hill V: Homecoming: brightness adjustment no longer works
28288 msctf/inputprocessor.ok test flaky
28302 nearly all wine tests show invalid reads/uninitialized values in dib engine
28308 Anarchy Online: Game crashes on startup after the launcher
28320 Echo context not restored properly when executing external cmd scripts without CALL
28327 Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.0 no longer installs in current ubuntu oneiric 64-bit
28329 Sony Vegas Pro 8.0c: MSI changes break installation
28331 Fortix: numerals replaced by capital letters
28337 The Polynomial v1.22 freezes after killing an enemy
28339 Loss of sound in winecfg
28354 Office 2007: browsing clip organizer produces error message
28364 Adobe Lightroom 3.3 installer quits unexpectedly
28366 The MSPY2010 installer exit silently
28380 Dawn of War Soulstorm demo does not start
28381 Word & Powerpoint 2007: window background is black
28392 Internet Explorer 4 crashes on adding a page to favorites
28400 Creative Writer 2 fails to install
28409 Hardwar launcher fails to start: 'Can't initialize DirectDraw object'
28417 Riven: screen transitions mess up the screen
28424 Space Funeral game crashes at startup
28429 Internet Explorer 3.02 crashes on startup - unimplemented function urlmon.dll.RegisterMediaTypes
28441 Conversations Network Levelator crashes on start
28443 MsiGetFileVersion fails when run on TrueType/OpenType font files
28455 JetAudio VX wants msvcp90.dll.??4?$basic_string@_WU?$char_traits@_W@std@@V?$allocator@_
W@2@@std@@QAEAAV01@PB_W@Z, aborting

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

Friday, September 9, 2011

Wine 1.3.28 Released

The Wine development release 1.3.28 is now available.
What's new in this release:
  • Initial version of the VBScript parser.
  • Automagic audio driver selection.
  • Support for volume information on UDF file systems.
  • The OpenGL renderer is now the default for DirectDraw.
  • Device configuration dialog in DirectInput.
  • SetDIBitsToDevice support in the DIB engine.
  • Several improvements in the cmd parser.
  • 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 1.3.28:

2700 Screen corruption in Afterlife
3254 Google Talk unable to connect
7143 Simant music and sound does not play
8924 Problem passing environment variables into php.exe
12520 Yoda Stories main window is too small
12689 Input messages lingering in server slowing down wine
13752 Kega Fusion: Direct 3D output does not fill window in windowed mode
14212 Winuae freeze as soon as you hit a key after starting the emulation.
14932 Spore Prototype CityMaze: Rendering issue
15553 Interstate 76: scrambled screen when running in d3d
15874 Dead Space doesn't start
16977 Enable Multisampling again
17030 uTorrent 1.8.1 final crashes when deleting files
17565 Half-Life 2 pauses after first key pressed
18586 Cannot build wine-1.1.22 on OpenSolaris snv_112 with GNU ld
19518 packet tracer 5.2 error on solaris
19833 the program hotkeynet.exe has encountered a serious problem and needs to close
20239 15mb VB6 applications desaparear after 2 minutes
20570 In vb6 drop down combo width cannot be altered
21077 AOEIII: Antialiasing crops display area
21301 Terragen 0.9.43: Right clicking on any field causes crash
21387 NetTerm locks up
21663 ElsterFormular fails to install update due to missing administrator rights
22434 Hype - The Time Quest crashes when the game should come up (looks like null pointer dereference to me)
22528 King's bounty armored princess really slow
22627 Emperor fails to switch from Windowed Mode to Full Screen
22955 Broken icon rendering in PeaZip
23671 Adobe Acrobat 9.0.0 Pro Extended Crashes On Startup from Fresh Install
24581 timeSetEvent(), a function of multimedia timer doesn't work after about 500 calls.
24746 Missing graphics in FBO OffscreenRenderingMode
24855 Kindle for PC 1.2.1 does not run
25022 GetImageListForDrawing error with MT5
25188 Femap: Cannot open help window
25722 Anti-aliasing option disabled in Mirror's Edge (with 'multisampling=enabled')
26151 Warnings in dlls/urlmon
26244 Commander: Conquest of the Americas demo slow d3d performance
26273 Sims 3 can't detect disc
26423 Wine should use MS-DOS (8.3) file names when interacting with Dosbox
26589 A Farewell to Dragons: game becomes slow during fights
26963 sysocmgr.exe required SETUPAPI.dll.pSetupMalloc
27089 Space Empires: Star Fury shows mostly black screen (unless orm=backbuffer)
27199 MS .Net Framework 1.x Service Pack installers crash in InstallFiles action (cabinet stream handling)
27298 The Witcher 2 Slow Performance on any setting.
27519 Silent Hill V: Homecoming: game freezes when in paused mode (Esc) for some minutes
27573 Firefox 5 crashes at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all.html
27728 Multimine crashes when closing the Join Server dialog after server closes
27743 Post Mortem hangs after starting
27761 different behaviour for "if" conditions check
27788 cmd misparses > redirection operators when directly preceded by a token ending in 1 or 2
27877 Portal 2: "5-minute crash"
27967 Sacred Underworld 2.28 with graphical issues
27989 Word and Powerpoint 2007: window background is striped
28010 No sound in Raptor: Call of the shadows
28025 CAJViewer 7.1 crash
28034 Powerpoint 2007/2010: color & resizing issues
28060 Lemmix: mouse pointer problem during gameplay
28065 Garshasp: The Monster Slayer installer bailing out: OS is very old and not supported
28076 altap salamander 2.54 does not start
28101 wininet ftp tests slow
28103 gdi32 font.ok fails if sun-java6-fonts installed, does nothing otherwise?
28122 unable to start Intl.cpl (Regional Settings properties) -- unimplemented function SETUPAPI.dll.pSetupMalloc
28157 Jedi Knight demo crashes after the opening sequence
28199 Installation of vcrun6 causes undefined function _set_printf_count_output
28207 Caesar III crashes in dsound
28214 Eurofighter Typhoon crashes after starting
28230 F.E.A.R. 3 crashes with unimplemented msvcp90.dll.?_Getcat@?$ctype@D@std@@SAIPAPBVfacet@locale@2@PBV42@@Z
28233 NeverWinter Nights 2 hangs on starting
28246 Dragon Age Origins fails to launch
28247 d3dx9_36/mesh.c compile broken on uclibc
28259 Jedi Knight demo crashes in ddraw
28287 Tropico 4: at startup, it crashes when calling function CertGetNameStringW from crypt32.dll
28303 Game Schnapsen crashes
28306 Bloxx It's launcher is displayed incorrectly
28313 Steam client installer (MSI) crashes at the end of installation

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