On a scale of 1 to 10: How much headache am I gonne have...

...when I try to run Half-Life 2 in WINE under Ubuntu on a macbook pro?

Serious question, but I'm not sure if this is the right forum, if it's not, please move accordingly.

Has anyone tried something like this before? If yes, how did it turn out?

Please, I really like to see more than just random numbers here. I have a tough decision to make...

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First check out the mind cracking experience others have endured here.
It seems to run well on Buntu distros.
Haven't tried it myself with HalfLife but WINE can be used to play lot's of different MS OS based games.
Still, I have a Vista partition for games because of too many mind crunching issues with WINE<->games.

 

Stick with Mac if you want to play games. Linux kernel build is heavily emphasized on stability as server, not too much yet for personal purposes such as games. Even if you successfully make HL2 run, it will not be as smooth as in Windows or mac.

BTW, yes it is the right place to ask that kind of question

 

The whole reason he started this thread is because there's a game you can play in Windows, and Linux through Wine, but not on Mac.

Actually, I read an article a while back that said the Linux kernel provides better performance than the Windows kernel for gaming. I'll see if I can find it.

 

HL2 runs on Mac.

Not for HL2. I saw it in person, on two different os's (XP and Ubuntu 8.04) on the same machine.

 

Linux has just as much potential as a competing gaming platform to Windows as it does to become a serious desktop contender. Performance is not the issue; getting the support of hardware manufacturers to release Linux drivers and gaming developers to release multi-platform games (not just for Windows).

That said, I have gotten HL2 working under Wine in the past; the most difficult part is the sound. Steam should run without any issues with fonts (since Wine now comes with fonts).

More information is available here: http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=2890

 

Really? I didn't know there was a native mac version of HL2. Or do you mean through Parallels? If so, how does the preformance compare to wine?

And what about other, newer games, like CoD, Mass Effect, WaW, etc. which only have a Windows version available, how much headache am I gonna get here?

(I know it's obviously different from game to game, however, I'd like to get a general idea of what I have to expect when trying to game in linux on a mac...)

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Orly? Wikipedia says it only runs on Windows, Xbox, Xbox 360, & PS3.

You cannot compare a game running in Wine to a game running on its native OS. Though some games actually do run better in Wine than on Windows ;/

 

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We're talking about this particular game, HL2, aren't we?

 

It's easy to confuse things because folks are posting blogs out there saying that they're " Running Half-Life 2 natively on Mac OS X", and posting Youtube videos like the one you linked to. Trouble is, they're being inaccurate. They're not running Half Life 2 natively on OSX, they're running it through a product called Crossover Games, from code weavers, which is a commercial version of the Wine project, as described here. Bottom line is that it is a Windows application running through an API emulation layer on OSX. It's not running natively, but I can see how one could get that impression. I had to Google around a couple of times before I understood what they're talking about..

Good Luck..

 

Not to mention you can get the same program for Linux