Civ 4 and Linux?

[haTem]

I used to play civ 3 all the time on windows but havn't been able to ever since I switched to linux . It's possible through pseudo-emulation with products such as wine [www.winehq.com] and cedega [www.transgaming.com] but it does not always work (for example, I can't get my civ 3 complete working with it).

There seems to be a Mac port of civ 3, so if they are going to go through the trouble of making that they might as well make a linux version . AFAIK mac os is based on some form of the BSD operating system which isn't much different than linux.

So has anyone heard about the prospect of a native linux version for civ 4?

My apologies if this has been discussed before.

- haTem

 

[Padma]

The prospect of a native Linux port is, to the best of my knowledge, very poor. Slim to none.

You will note that they never ported anything but Vanilla Civ3 to Mac - PTW and C3C were left out. And Firaxis has said they intend to stick with DirectX as the graphics tool - meaning no compatability with anything but Windows....

 

[haTem]

Bah . Perhaps fireaxis could collaborate with the transgaming people to ease their supporting of the game? Yeah, that's probably as likely as a native linux port .

Well, I guess all I can do now is hope that transgaming manages to support it. They seem to be more occupied with first person shooters like Half Life 2 though .

Oh well, thanks for the quick reply .

 

[microbe]

Have you tried vmware? Or something similar (like Xen) that can run Windows in a virtual machine on Linux? I think it works better than wines (EDIT: sorry, I meant WINE. Played too much civ..).

 

[haTem]

Yeah vmware works with civ 3, but it is a pain to use... The sound is laggy and it takes a long time for windows to boot up. AFAIK, Xen does not support windows yet... but when it does it would be a great solution.The problem is that civ 4 will be 3D, and I believe vmware emulates an 8mb video card .

I just read the sticky and noticed this:

Civilization IV will be using NDL’s Gamebryo 3D graphics engine. Firaxis’ PC hit, Sid Meier’s Pirates! also uses it

I've been playing Pirates on linux using cedega ever since it came out, so civ 4 shouldn't be too hard to get working in linux .

 

[Padma]

Here's hoping you're right.