Warhammer Online Cider/Crossover Discussion

[palebluedot]

Since its almost out I figure we should start the thread for Warhammer Online Cider port/Crossover Games discussion.

Does anyone have beta access? We can start trying to get this game ported to OS X ahead of its relaease if one of you does. Anyone with info who wants to be a part of this come in here and chat.

Questions so far:

1) Does WO use some kind of GameGuard of launcher agent? (this could be a problem with Cider and Crossover I believe)
2) Is the game DX9 or DX10?

Please don't post in here and say "BOOTCAMP IT" or "WTF WHY NOT PLAY ON BOOTCAMP This is for anyone who hates dual-booting and wants to play ported games natively (like you can with BF2, etc.)

 

[IanC]

Why not bootcamp it

Nah seriously, im interested in this too. Would love to play it on mac natively (or near as, ie Cider/Crossover) instead of having to restart all the time.

 

[palebluedot]

Why not bootcamp it

Nah seriously, im interested in this too. Would love to play it on mac natively (or near as, ie Cider/Crossover) instead of having to restart all the time.

If it has no launcher then CIDER using the latest Spore version may be a possibility. Otherwise we are going to have to focus on Crossover. It would be great if someone on here had beta access so we could get them to start testing.

 

[Cromulent]

Does anyone have beta access? We can start trying to get this game ported to OS X ahead of its relaease if one of you does. Anyone with info who wants to be a part of this come in here and chat.

So how are you planning on paying for the licensing fee to use Cider? You can't just use what Spore uses as it is just built and distributed for the game in question.

 

[kahine]

Been in closed beta since last summer - its just now convinced me worth buying and I'm a huge Warhammer fan

It runs well under bootcamp with the dual 3870's - just for those interested

It has a Mythic patcher if thats what you are asking and login screen there also - then goes into actual Warhammer character selection and so on

While its not AoC graphics level it's definitely going to require a lot more hardware than WoW -

Not knocking your attempts at all just giving a heads up I can't imagine performance is going to be very good at all with emulation/crossover as it uses a whole lot of the graphics card power as it is , my XPS gaming rig with a 4870 pushes it great but it definitely uses its power also -

trust me I'd love for a native OS X version but its not going to happen , and as I'm just a stickler for having no lag and graphics options pushed up and from what I've seen so far I can't see Crossover pushing it well enough to be playable - especially in the end game city sieges with hundreds on screen at once

 

[Cromulent]

I can't imagine performance is going to be very good at all with emulation/crossover

Crossover does not use emulation. It uses Wine which is the Windows APIs ported to Unix like operating systems.

 

[palebluedot]

Do you know if the game is DX10 or DX9. If it is DX10 can it downgrade to DX9? I assume it can since everyone will be playing it on XP SP3.

That will make a difference in terms of emulation. Thanks for the heads up. Of course Macbook users will not be able to push this (as they cant push anything due to integrated graphics) but anyone with a MBP with atleast 256 vram and a 2.4 up should be able to run the settings on atleast low via emulation.

The existence of the launcher presents a serious problem though. The Linux community usually developed their own launchers for games like this (i.e. the Play NC launcher system they made) so I'm assuming one will surface for as popular a game as WAR but it may take awhile :/

I agree with you about FPS and performance BUT an MMO is a huge time sink and I like to play in spurts in the middle of work. I dont want to have to loose all my open work, etc. windows to boot into XP to play an MMO then have to reboot. If I can get emulation working it will be heaven.

 

[Cromulent]

If I can get emulation working it will be heaven.

Did you fail to read my post? It is not emulated.

 

[kahine]

Crossover does not use emulation. It uses Wine which is the Windows APIs ported to Unix like operating systems.

Yes I understand the difference , and was just using the general idea , I still say Wine will not be able to run it either , between the launcher and the heavy , heavy hits on video cards it does the compatibility will likely be beyond what Wine/Crossover can/will do

Crossover has issues with games much easier and lighter in nature than this one , my point was I don't see it doing well with this one either

Also WAR will be using it's own version of a special punkbuster in game and that will present more problems past the launcher

 

[Cromulent]

Yes I understand the difference , and was just using the general idea , I still say Wine will not be able to run it either , between the launcher and the heavy , heavy hits on video cards it does the compatibility will likely be beyond what Wine/Crossover can/will do

Crossover has issues with games much easier and lighter in nature than this one , my point was I don't see it doing well with this one either

Also WAR will be using it's own version of a special punkbuster in game and that will present more problems past the launcher

The problem with that is likely due to graphics card drivers and not so much to do with Wine. If the Linux community could actually persuade Nvidia and ATI to release some real information about their hardware rather than just letting them put binary drivers in their distributions everyone in the open source community would benefit.

 

[palebluedot]

Did you fail to read my post? It is not emulated.

I'm fully aware its not emulation but its easier to say in forums. If you dont say emulation people in a lot of forum scratch their heads and say "huh.... are you talking about bootcamp?"

I hate to keep using an inaccurate term but i've found its easiest.

 

[palebluedot]

The problem with that is likely due to graphics card drivers and not so much to do with Wine. If the Linux community could actually persuade Nvidia and ATI to release some real information about their hardware rather than just letting them put binary drivers in their distributions everyone in the open source community would benefit.

Even that would be moot I think. Apples implementation, coding, and support of graphics drivers is the worst I have ever seen in my entire life. They are the case in point why Open GL isn't overtaking DX9 and its a shame.

 

[Cromulent]

They are the case in point why Open GL isn't overtaking DX9 and its a shame.

Not sure I follow your logic there. Yes Apples drivers are rather poor when it comes to graphics, but the reason OpenGL is not taking over has little to do with that. I think primarily it is because when you write a game using DirectX you get the Xbox 360 thrown in as well, thus making porting easier to that platform.

OpenGL is limited to the smallest subsection of computers at this time, with the Mac being the largest platform that makes use of it, but that still only has a 7% or so marketshare.

If Nvidia and ATI released information about their hardware, people would be able to write their own drivers for the cards making use of all the optimisations available unlike the current deal where they basically have to guess to get things working.

 

[palebluedot]

Not sure I follow your logic there. Yes Apples drivers are rather poor when it comes to graphics, but the reason OpenGL is not taking over has little to do with that. I think primarily it is because when you write a game using DirectX you get the Xbox 360 thrown in as well, thus making porting easier to that platform.

OpenGL is limited to the smallest subsection of computers at this time, with the Mac being the largest platform that makes use of it, but that still only has a 7% or so marketshare.

If Nvidia and ATI released information about their hardware, people would be able to write their own drivers for the cards making use of all the optimisations available unlike the current deal where they basically have to guess to get things working.

What I mean is Open GL is reliant on drivers more so then DX9. If they are written well, Open GL can sing. Apple's closed source/anti-open source mindset is antithesis to developing better drivers and thus the Open GL implementation is even more shoddy compared to Linux (just look at the GLSL issues with OS X versus Linux).

Anyways for the others reading the thread, turns out you can get open beta by preordering the game. Just FYI. I'm debating preordering or not

 

[palebluedot]

Looks like people in WINE are already working on it with some success.

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=13139

 

[pcorajr]

This is why I whish DX never existed. It makes a Compnay think twice before developing a cross platform Game. I guess ill keep playing WoW, at least they have a New Xpac coming out soon.