Recently, I have felt like gaming. I have stacks of older games just laying around, so I decided to go through and see what I could make run in Wine. I was having limited success at first, but I discovered PlayonLinux which takes care of many things for you. One of the things it does that helps tremendously is create a separate Wine directory like wineprefixcreate. It gives you a nice gui to edit all of the normal settings. I highly recommend using it!
Another thing I have discovered is that many programs run better in an emulated Virtual Desktop. I am really surprised just how many games run. I am actually having as much luck with this as what I ever had with Cedega. I have been using PlayonLinux and choosing Install, Liveinstall and installing the Game. As I am doing a Liveinstall, I have to do the same when I want to add a patch or an addon. Unless the game you want to install is listed in their game scripts.
Using this method, I am also able to install DirectX and do DLL overrides. Looking at the WineappDB you can get advise on what you need to override, and do to make it run. It is much easier then I thought it would be. I have been able to get:
- Battlefield 1942 to run
- Battlefield 2142
- Gearhead Garage
- Simcity 4
- Europa 1400: The Guild
- The Guild 2
- World of Warcraft
- The Movies
- C&C Generals
- Rollercoaster Tycoon 2
- Hotrod American Street Drag
- 18 Wheels of Steel
- Hidden & Dangerous 2
and I am still playing. It is a lot of fun! I am having almost as much fun getting them to run as I am playing them!
