Cedega-4.0.1

From Unofficial TransGaming Wiki

Release Notes, August 10th, 2004.

1 Overview
2 New Features
- 2.1 Cedega 4.0.1
3 System Requirements
4 New CD Ejection system
5 Known Issues and Comments

Overview

TransGaming is pleased to announce the release of Cedega 4.0.1, dubbed Havarti, giving TransGamers access to more Windows games in Linux, with greater ease. TransGamers can now download Cedega in RPM, Debian and TGZ formats from the downloads section of TransGaming's website: http://www.transgaming.com/

Cedega 4.0.1 is primarily a bug fix release. Some of the more notable fixes are those for Steam, City of Heroes and ATI users.

Enjoy!

New Features

Cedega 4.0.1

TransGamers can now play DOOM 3. This title will only be supported until the native Linux version comes out.
The sticky mouse button issue and crashing after July 7th update issues are resolved for Steam.
City of Heroes problems with "rubberbanding" and clicks being interpreted as drags have been resolved.
ATI users will see a number of regressions resolved and should also be able to play City of Heroes and enjoy pretty water in Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.
The CD-ROM ejection improvements added in Cedega 4.0 are now off by default due to several driver bugs which could cause problems with compact flash cards. It can be enabled with the --monitor-cdrom-eject command line switch.
CD-ROM read ahead problems with copyprotection on the 2.6 kernel should be resolved. With previous revisions of Cedega, we suggested using hdparm to adjust CD-ROM read ahead settings on 2.6 based systems. This should no longer be required.
A number of other mouse and file system regressions have been resolved.

System Requirements

Operating System

Core requirements are:

Linux Kernel 2.2 or higher. Stock Kernels recommended over RedHat 7.x/8.x/9.x kernels. 2.6 kernels may have some scheduler issues.
XFree86 4.0 or higher (4.2 and above recommended)
glibc 2.2 or higher
Working hardware accelerated OpenGL video card

CPU Type and Speed

Recommended minimum hardware is

500 MHz or faster Pentium or Athlon CPU
64MB of memory; 128 MB or higher recommended
Several GB free hard disk space for games
Linux-supported 3D graphics card with 16MB of video RAM is required. nVidia GeForce-class GPU recommended. ATI Radeon 8500 or higher with working ATI FireGL drivers should work for many (though not all) games, but will not perform as well for the moment.

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

Pixel Shaders

Pixel Shaders are a DirectX 8 and higher feature that are used by many games for graphical effects. Cedega's Pixel Shaders are built on top of the OpenGL ARB_fragment_program extension. ARB_fragment_program is more powerful than Pixel Shaders versions 1.0-1.3, but is only supported on a higher class of graphics card. Thus, while Pixel Shaders are available on Windows systems starting with GeForce 3 or Radeon 8500, ARB_fragment_program is only available starting with GeForce FX and Radeon 9700 cards.

What this means is that a game which may have a minimum requirement of a GeForce 3 may actually be making the assumption that Pixel Shaders are available. In these siutations the game may not function correctly without them. For example, Battlefield Vietnam requires Pixel Shaders to play at higher detail levels. While a GeForce 3 is capable of playing the game on a Windows system, a GeForce FX is required to play the game under Linux, as only the FX series supports ARB_fragment_program on Linux.

Copy Protection and Linux Kernel 2.6.x

Late in the development cycle of Cedega 4.0, TransGaming determined that some users' systems may have problems running certain copy protected games. Some Linux systems using kernel version 2.6 and higher have the default CD readahead parameter set to 256. This can interfere with copy protection for some titles (such as Civilization 3) when running with an older CD-ROM or DVD drive. Systems using the ide-scsi system with CD-RW drives should not be affected.

To check the readahead value for your CD drive, use the 'hdparm' command while logged in as root. If the device for your drive is /dev/cdrom, for example, execute the following at the command line:

# hdparm /dev/cdrom

If the readahead value is over 32, you may wish to reset it to 8 using the following command:

 # hdparm -a 8 /dev/cdrom

This should be resolved in Cedega 4.0.1.

Prelink and Exec-Shield

Prelink is a new set of functionality, available in newer glibc versions and distributions such as Fedora Core 1, designed to reduce the startup time for applications which use dynamic libraries. The loading speed improvements are achieved by preassigning the addresses of various dynamic linked libraries that will be placed in memory. Thus, relocations will not have to be performed by the dynamic loader when loading the application. Unfortunately, more often than not, libraries are prelinked into addresses which are incompatible with Windows programs.

Windows programs generally use a trick, similar to Prelink, to reduce the size of the executable and improve start times. This trick assumes, quite rightly for a Windows program, that the address 0x400000 is always available. Thus when Cedega attempts to load the Windows executable into the starting address, and it's not available, Cedega will fail to start the program with an error message mentioning "stripped relocation records" and "address 0x400000 not available".

Exec-shield is a kernel level solution (http://people.redhat.com/mingo/exec-shield/ANNOUNCE-exec-shield) which remaps executable code to a lower memory address with the intention of eliminating ASCII based code overflow attacks. The new location of the executable has the potential of conflicting with the required windows range which will result in the same error message as with Prelink.

The solution to the problems these two new technologies create is to disable them so that they don't affect any Cedega libraries or executable code.

To disable automatic prelinking in the future, edit /etc/sysconfig/prelink and set PRELINKING to no by making sure the following line is present: PRELINKING=no Then execute the cron job, most likely /etc/cron.daily/prelink, to reverse the Prelink for all of your libraries or manually run:

  $ prelink -ua

To disable exec-shield you can either use the boot time option "exec-shield=0" or it may be changed, before running Cedega, by typing either:

  $ echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/exec-shield

  $ sysctl -w kernel.exec-shield=0

New CD Ejection system

In the past, games that came on multiple CD-ROMs posed a problem for Cedega users, since the Linux OS would 'lock' the CD-ROM tray in some cases, preventing users from ejecting a disk and inserting the next disk.

Cedega 4.0 includes a new feature that eliminates this problem in many cases. Simply press the eject button on your CD-ROM drive, wait a few seconds (ejecting may take as long as 10 seconds), and the disk will be automatically ejected. Insert your new disk, perform any mounting step required by your Linux distribution, and you should be able to simply continue your install.

Beginning with Cedega 4.0.1 automatic monitoring of CD-ROM drive eject buttons is off by default due to reported problems with some hardware such as compact flash readers and certain CD-ROM drive brands. It can be manually enabled by passing --monitor-cdrom-eject on the command line. When using Point2Play, the eject monitoring feature is by default enabled while running installers, and disabled at other times to prevent in-game performance problems. It may be forced on or off in Point2Play by going into Configure -> CDROM Eject Monitoring and setting Always ON or Always OFF

When the monitoring option is active, it should work on most recent model CD-RW and DVD drives. With older drives, or with the monitoring option disabled you can still force the ejection of an otherwise in-use disc by using the Point2Play 'Unmount' button, or by manually sending a SIGUSR2 signal to the wineserver process using a command such as:

$ killall -USR2 wineserver

In all other respects, using the Point2Play unmount feature should act the same as hitting the drive's eject button. If you have other Wine based software running, such as CodeWeavers CrossOver Office product, you may wish to avoid the use of the unmount button or the killall command mentioned above, as they will cause any non Cedega 4.0 based Wine process to halt.

Some installers may require you to re-insert the first CD-ROM to complete your install. Depending on the title, this may not yet work successfully.

Please contact TransGaming support if you have any issues relating to CD-ROM eject support, so that we can continue to improve this feature.

Known Issues and Comments

ATI FireGL drivers

TransGaming has seen some game-stopping instability with ATI cards using FireGL and/or DRI running Cedega. Games of note with issues are Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City, Need for Speed Underground and Sacrifice. Battlefield 1942 and Vietnam have this issue, but there is a known work-around listed in their sections below.

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 improve support and we welcome all reports and your votes in the polls.

ATI cards and VBO

The graphical acceleration included in Cedega 4.0 is of an experimental nature. While it should work for most games, there are still a number of titles which seem to exhibit problems, both in terms of graphical corruption and performance. For these titles you can simply disable the VBO option.

HTML display of license agreements in on-line games

Cedega 4.0.1 may not support the display of HTML content in some on-line games. As a result, any license agreements displayed by these games may not be readable while running with Cedega. TransGaming Technologies Inc. will not be held liable for any failure or breach on your part of any 3rd party license agreement.

YOU ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ENSURING THAT YOU HAVE READ AND WILL ABIDE BY ANY THIRD PARTY LICENSE AGREEMENTS, REGARDLESS OF THE ABILITY OF THE CEDEGA SOFTWARE TO DISPLAY SUCH LICENSE AGREEMENTS ON A LINUX SYSTEM.

Baldur's Gate 2

The "Software Mirror BLT" option under the "2D 16 bit Color Depth" should be enabled if the character sprites appear garbled.
During the opening scene in the dungeon, occasionally the game will not advance after the sewer gollum has talked. Simply restart.

Battlefield 1942

The game must be patched to at least version 1.3 in order to fix problems that will prevent it from starting the game engine properly.
The [d3dgl] 'ClipSpaceFix' option no longer needs to be disabled. This has been left off by default in the config file for backwards compatibility.
We recommend the use of 22 kHz sound for best performance, especially with the movies and cutscenes. 44 kHz sound is known to cause performance degradation. Reducing the number of sound channels is also suggested.
Use of 24-bit color is recommended if shadow effects are enabled.
The animated background of the main menu does not work.
Using Punkbuster enabled servers may cause problems.
With AIC on 2.6 kernels the intro movies can suffer from stutter.
ATI users should add '+restart 1' to their command line to skip the intro movies, thus avoiding an X error in the ATI FireGL drivers
ATI users should be sure to disable VBO for this title

Battlefield Vietnam

The game requires the availablity of pixel shaders. If you do not have a card which supports ARB_fragment_program in OpenGL, you will have graphics problems if you go higher than low detail video. A GeForce FX series card is recommended for this game.
The animated background of the main menu does not work.
Using Punkbuster enabled servers may cause problems.
With AIC on 2.6 kernels the intro movies can suffer from stutter.
This title will crash on exit.
ATI users should add '+restart 1' to their command line to skip the intro movies, thus avoiding an X error in the ATI FireGL drivers
ATI users should be sure to disable VBO for this title
ATI users may have performance issues with this title

Bink Movies

A number of titles use Bink to play their movies and cut scenes. In some cases, when AIC is enabled, movie display may be choppy due to Linux scheduler limitations. To work around this, turn Accelerated Interprocess Communication off or skip the movies. TransGaming expects to have a workaround for this in future releases.

Black & White

Playing in low texture mode will lead to crashing. You may not be able to get back to the configuration screen to return to normal detail.

Call of Duty

Copy protection for this title does not presently work.
The installer for this game will fail when trying to switch back to the first CD-ROM from the second CD-ROM. To work around this problem select cancel when it asks for the second CD-ROM and say NO to the question concerning reversing the changes. Once stopped, insert and mount the second cd and copy the files in Setup/Data/Main to the main directory inside the installed Call of Duty. Additionally some registry entries will not be automatically added. If you wish to play multiplayer, you will need to add the following to your system.reg file in order to be able to upgrade your version:

   [SOFTWARE\\Activision\\Call of Duty]
    "InstallDrive"="D:"
    "InstallPath"="C:\\Program Files\\Call Of Duty"
    "Language"="1"
    "Version"="1.1"

The game may hang upon quitting.

City of Heroes

To receive a proper cursor in City of Heroes you must have XFree 4.3 installed and run in win2k mode (default). With versions of X prior to 4.3 a large black box will surround the cursor.
HTML does not render thus the EULA is not visible. See the specific section about HTML above.
Pop up dialogue boxes in the installer appear behind the main window. It is recommended that you install in desktop mode.
The installer may crash at the end. It should not affect game play.
nVidia users may find that the patcher crashes when finished. Simply try to enter the game again.

Civilization III

There are several sound problems with this application.
Occasionally the game will crash when building the first city.
Earlier patch levels will not pass copyprotection. v1.29f is recommended.
The game will crash if sound is being used by another device.

Command and Conquer: Generals

Copy protection for this title does not presently work.
Game play may be slow in 16 bit, 24 bit is recommended.

Counter Strike: Condition Zero

Pushing the tab key may crash the game in single player mode.

Dark Age of Camelot

Users whose graphics cards only have 2 texture units (GF2MX,GF2 & GF4MX)will notice graphical incorrectness such as a non-textured floor.
The sound in the installer and login screens is not good.
On startup you may receive a richedit error. Usually trying a few times will get you past the problem.
This game may cause a video driver lock for ATI users.

Doom 3

Installing with winver win2k may not work. Ignore the warning about installing with win98 if you are using the default setup.
The game may crash, or hang, on exit.
ATI users may experience graphical corruption in game. Changing the ingame render path may help. To do so ctrl-alt-~ brings up the console and then type gfxinfo and verify that you are not using the ARB2 path. If you are change to one of the other support paths using, for example, r_render R200

Dungeon Siege

The sound in the installer may be incorrect.
On non-NPTL systems, DS will lock up as soon as you move the mouse when using nVidia 4496 and later drivers. Downgrading drivers is the only reliable way to solve this problem.
More recent drivers have fixed this problem on NPTL systems.
Even with older nVidia drivers, this game may not work on some systems.
Some setups may experience deadlocks before the main menu. Running with any debug channels on generally works as a remedy.
The water does not flow in the game.
Multiplayer support is not yet available due to the use of DirectPlay 8 in the game.

Far Cry

Copy protection is not supported for this title.
Movies play with incorrect aspect ratio.
Main menu background movie is slow, we suggest disabling it in options.
Terrain and water render incorrectly without pixel shaders.
Water renders incorrectly with pixel shaders.
Higher detail levels are incorrect.
Users may experience a significant reduction in performance.
Running in OpenGL mode is recommended. To run in OpenGL mode, change system.cfg as follows:

  r_Driver = "OpenGL", r_TexResolution = "0", i_direct_input = "0"

Then in your Cedega config, set AGPVertexRam to 0. You must run the game at the same resolution as your desktop.

Grand Theft Auto 3

The opening videos for Grand Theft Auto 3 work quite slowly under Cedega. The movies may be skipped by pressing the space bar twice.
Users playing this game with a 2.6 kernel may notice significant pauses while playing this game. Disable the Accelerated Interprocess Communication to reduce the number of pauses received. Downgrade to a 2.4 kernel to remove the issue.
This title is not working with ATI video cards.

Grand Theft Auto Vice City

Occasionally textures may display incorrectly.
The opening videos for Grand Theft Auto Vice City work quite slowly under Cedega. The movies may be skipped by pressing the space bar twice.
Users playing this game with a 2.6 kernel may notice significant pauses while playing this game. Disable the Accelerated Interprocess Communication to reduce the number of pauses received. Downgrade to a 2.4 kernel to remove the issue.
This title is not working with ATI video cards.

Hitman: Contracts

Using alt-tab in game will cause a crash.
The movies do not resize correctly. As a concequence the game will not start if in 640x480 mode and cut scenes may leave artifacts around the edge.
ATI users may experience graphical corruption.

Homeworld 2

The game may not work unless patched to at least version 1.1.
Multiplayer support is not yet available due to the use of DirectPlay 8 in the game.
This game may not work with the 3.11.1 fglrx drivers for ATI.

Max Payne 2

Pixel Shaders do not work for this title, they are disabled by default.
Users may experience problems with this title on ATI cards.

Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault

A defect in the game software, which should be fixed in the latest Spearhead expansion patch, causes the game to crash under Cedega. The Cedega team has provided a workaround. Both Point2Play and the cedega start script are set up so that this game will work out of the box.
The latest nVidia drivers (6106) will cause MOH:AA to crash on startup.

Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault Spearhead and Breakthrough

Copyprotection for these titles do not presently work.

Morrowind: Elder Scrolls III

The intro videos can freeze if they fall behind the play frame rate due to a coding problem with the application.
The game will crash if sound is being used by another device.

Need For Speed: Underground

The installer presently does not work due to its use of flash. You can work around this by killing the EReg.exe process when the installation appears to hang. Additionally you need to use the --use-dos-cwd option pointing to your CD-ROM drive.
Copyprotection for this title does not presently work.
The auto patcher for earlier versions of this title will not work and you will have to manually download and patch.
To play multiplayer online, you will need to manually register the game on EA's website.
Pixel Shaders are not supported in this game due to assumptions on the availablility of non power of two textures. They are disabled by default.
Car reflection update rate need to be set to the lowest setting to play this title. Raising this value will cause the game to crash.

SimCity 4

To install the game, you must insert and mount the CD-ROM, and use the following command line:

  $ cedega -use-dos-cwd f:/ -- f:/autorun.exe

In Point2Play use the Run Directory check box If the installer asks you to install a new version of DCOM, say "no".

The game has small graphical glitches when scrolling with the hardware renderer. Use of the software renderer is recommended and is automatic as of WineX 3.2.
Use of the "<var?</var>" to get information can cause graphical corruption. Scrolling the window will clear this up.

Star Wars Galaxies

HTML does not render thus the EULA is not visible. See the specific section about HTML above.
Desktop icons created for launching may not be correct if using the command line.

Star Wars: Jedi Academy

This game may hang when loading a level on ATI cards.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

The game will crash on exit.
The online patcher does not fully work. Follow the patcher instructions for downloading the manual patch.
Unless upgraded to at least 1.03 you may experience double cursors.
The game may not go fullscreen automatically unless upgraded to 1.03.
The mouse will not be usable unless you disable "Hardware Mouse" from the launcher configure screen.

Steam

Window manager decorations are visible in several managers when they should not be.
Steam may crash at 27% for non pthread nvidia users when trying to update. Just install with '-use-pthreads on' to bypass the problem. Reinstalling may also resolve the situation.

Warcraft III The Frozen Throne

The desktop icon (shortcut) for Warcraft III will not function correctly if installed with WineX 3.1, or earlier, due to the way the previous WineX versions changed the command line. Either edit the shortcut to start "Warcraft III.exe", rather than "War3.exe", add the -classic parameter, or reinstall both Warcraft III and Frozen Throne.

World of WarCraft

The World of WarCraft installer is not currently supported in Cedega.
The beta version of this game has been tested and is fully working up to the 06/15/04 patch. As this title is still in beta future changes may break Cedega compatibility.

Let the Games Begin

Retrieved from "http://cedegawiki.sweetleafstudios.com/wiki/Cedega-4.0.1"

Category: Release Notes