Emu of Doom
21st October 2006, 03:22 AM
I'm putting this here because the only possible vista programs I'd like to be able to run on linux will be games; however it could just as easily be something else I suppose. (DISCLAIMER: I'm not that knowledgable about what I'm talking about, read my sources yourselves and if you draw different conclusions or think I made mistakes please post!) Here's my rant/query/musing:
As most of us know, Wine emulates the windows api as a sort of compatibility layer. I believe Cedega and other such programs do the same sort of thing. More info here (http://www.winehq.com/site/wine_features). It's a work in progress but it's a big help in breaking the m$ monopoly (in my opinion). Vista introduces something new, though. I've been reading this article (http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9003898) that details the WPF, the new graphical subsystem, as it will be implemented in Vista. Here's the quote from this article that prompted this thread:
With WPF, developers can do 2-D, 3-D, animation, imaging, video, audio, special effects and text rendering using a single API that works consistently no matter what type of object the developer is working with. This greatly simplifies user interface programming, resulting in more robust applications that are delivered to market faster than ever.
It would seem that Vista is doing things a little differently by centralizing tasks using WPF. Now I'm not a developer by any means, but it seems to me that maybe this centralization will be very helpful to emulation projects like Wine. Here's yet another quote from the aforementioned computerworld.com article:
Before WPF, developers had to work with a rather alarming number of technologies and application programming interfaces (API). For example, to draw a simple 2-D shape, they called on the Graphics Device Interface (GDI); for 3-D objects, they used Direct3D or OpenGL; for media objects, they used DirectShow; and for user interface objects, they used USER32 or Windows Forms, to name just a few.
If this has all been replaced by a single API, then compatibility using Wine ought to (theoretically) become much easier. And hopefully this will lead to much better overall compatibility with programs making use of this technology.
However, as I mentioned, I'm not a developer. I don't know that much about API or WPF or how Wine or Cedega actually work. So I ask the rest of you, what do you think about this? Is it a possibility that we'll actually see Halo 2 (a Vista-only program) running in Linux under emulation? Or do I not know at all what I'm talking about?
As most of us know, Wine emulates the windows api as a sort of compatibility layer. I believe Cedega and other such programs do the same sort of thing. More info here (http://www.winehq.com/site/wine_features). It's a work in progress but it's a big help in breaking the m$ monopoly (in my opinion). Vista introduces something new, though. I've been reading this article (http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9003898) that details the WPF, the new graphical subsystem, as it will be implemented in Vista. Here's the quote from this article that prompted this thread:
With WPF, developers can do 2-D, 3-D, animation, imaging, video, audio, special effects and text rendering using a single API that works consistently no matter what type of object the developer is working with. This greatly simplifies user interface programming, resulting in more robust applications that are delivered to market faster than ever.
It would seem that Vista is doing things a little differently by centralizing tasks using WPF. Now I'm not a developer by any means, but it seems to me that maybe this centralization will be very helpful to emulation projects like Wine. Here's yet another quote from the aforementioned computerworld.com article:
Before WPF, developers had to work with a rather alarming number of technologies and application programming interfaces (API). For example, to draw a simple 2-D shape, they called on the Graphics Device Interface (GDI); for 3-D objects, they used Direct3D or OpenGL; for media objects, they used DirectShow; and for user interface objects, they used USER32 or Windows Forms, to name just a few.
If this has all been replaced by a single API, then compatibility using Wine ought to (theoretically) become much easier. And hopefully this will lead to much better overall compatibility with programs making use of this technology.
However, as I mentioned, I'm not a developer. I don't know that much about API or WPF or how Wine or Cedega actually work. So I ask the rest of you, what do you think about this? Is it a possibility that we'll actually see Halo 2 (a Vista-only program) running in Linux under emulation? Or do I not know at all what I'm talking about?
