While Cedega supports a number of titles right out of the box some games, especially newer ones, take some tinkering and tweaking to work. Today I am going to go through some of the tips and tricks it can take to get an unsupported or new game working in Cedega.
The very first step is to see if someone else has done it before. The best way to do this is to hit the Unofficial Cedega Wiki and see if someone has already got it working. If the game is there but listed as not working don’t get discouraged it’s still worth a try. The original poster may not have have tried the game in a recent version of Cedega or may not have tried a full run of workarounds and tricks to get it going. A little persistence can have a big payoff. If you do get your game running or just learn anything the rest of the community should know about be a good member of the community and post it for everyone.
If the Unofficial Wiki doesn’t help I recommend that you hit up the Cedega IRC channel on irc.freenode.net - #cedega. There are Beta Team members, staff and Cedega enthusiasts here. Ask around, people can help.
Also check the Forums to see if anyone else has had any luck getting this gameworking. Don’t forget to try out your google-fu to see if someone has posted a solution in their own blog.
If the above sources haven’t gotten you playing then its time to knuckle down and start tinkering. I highly recommend that you launch Cedega from a terminal program such as x-term, Konsole or Gnome-Terminal. To do so run:
This is helpful because all output gets redirected to the terminal and you can get a better view of what’s happening. Are you crashing without an error window (Unhandled Exception), are you hitting a hang, are you exiting for some other reason? The output here can tell you that and more.
Installation
Right now installation for a number of games doesn’t work well in Cedega. We are currently overhauling our support for MSI installers, which should get a large number of games installing properly in the next release. But you don’t want to wait for that, you want to get your games going right now. If the installer is not working in Cedega here are some tips that can get things going right now:
- Try different winver settings to see if that helps.
- Play with the mozcontrol and scheduler settings.
- If you are having problems switching CD’s go to Tools -> CD/DVD Eject Monitoring and set this to Yes or No. Remember to put this back to Default when you’re done.
- Try installing in Wine or Windows and then copying the game files over. If you do this I recommend that you do a scan of the registry before and after the install, then save the changes and put them into your Cedega registry. We use an application called Active Registry Monitor (ARM) to do this on Windows and then import them into Cedega using any of the freely available registry tools out there.
Start Up
After you get the game installed, the next step where issues about is in starting the game up. The first thing I would do is determine if it’s a copy protection issue. Most games come with some form of copy protection. A number of copy protection schemes are supported by Cedega, but not all of them pass. The easiest way to see if its a copy protection issue is to try a no-cd patch; if the game works with a no-cd patch then your start up issue is copy protection. Unless you are in an area where a no-cd patch is illegal than I would just keep using the no-cd.
NOTE: I am not suggesting you should use pirated software or games. Only use a no-cd patch on a game you have purchased and if it is legal in your area to use one.
If copy protection isn’t the issue, the next step I would take is to capture a debug trace. To get the trace in Cedega go to File -> Debug. In the debug box use only +module (you can type it in if its not in the dropdown). Be sure you select to redirect the output to a file. Click Play and give it some time. Now go and check the file. Don’t worry, this looks much scarier than it really is. All you want to do is check the file for the word Failed. If you see some Failed lines then you may be missing some dlls the game is looking for. Depending on the dll there are a few solutions. If its a DirectX 9 dll then I suggest you grab the latest DirectX installer from the net and install it into the same Game Folder as the game0. Most new games will require DirectX 9 to be installed. Once again, make sure you read the license of anything you install and make sure you are using it legally. If its not a DirectX dll then search the web for the dll and put it in:
$HOME/.cedega/$GAME_FOLDER/c_drive/windows/system32
Repeat the above procedure until the game either starts or you get no more Failed messages.
If missing DLLs aren’t your problem then its time to start playing with Cedega options. Cedega has a myriad of options that can make a game fail to start. The big trick here is to try different combinations of options. The options that are most worthwhile are:
General
These options will help startup, speed and some font display issues
• Managed (Keyboard/Input problems)
• Mozilla Control
• Scheduler (and all sub-options)
• Free Type and XRender
Audio
Some games require access to the audio card to start up. This is also good for general sound issues with Cedega.
• Try setting up dmix as explained previously in The Den to see if that helps
Graphics
Playing with any graphics option can cause various behavior changes in Cedega. If you are having any problems getting a game running or with graphics issues play with this in all sorts of different combinations. You might be surprised by what works and doesn’t. Some specific things of note:
• AGP Vertex Data - Try setting various values from 0 on up. This can cause very strange behavior and possibly even lock ups so watch out.
• Pixel Shaders - Try both on and off and different values
• Vertex Shaders - Same as Pixel Shaders
• NV_VAR - Only affects NVIDIA cards. Try it on and off
• ARB_VBO (and sub options) - If using an NVIDIA card this will only have an effect if you turn off NV_VAR. Play with different combinations of this.
• GLSL - Needs to be on to use Shader Model 2.0
Okay so you’ve done all the tinkering and the game is still not working, What Now?
Join the Beta Team. On the beta team you will get access to the latest in Cedega development as well as have direct interaction with the Cedega development and production teams. If its an easy fix you might be able to get it slipped in. To join the Beta Team drop an email to betaleader@transgaming.com with the following information:
• Your Name
• Your Cedega Account Name
• The information for the Cedega System/Hardware Information Page (Cedega->Edit->System/Hardware Information)
Some games are going to require actual development within Cedega to get working, no amount of tinkering will get them going. If you have the chops you can take a crack at it yourself, I highly recommend joining #cedega to get started on that.
If you’re not a developer or just don’t have the time, then your best bet is to bring the game up for a vote in the TransGaming Technologies Polling Section. Create a new poll, be as descriptive as possible and let us know exactly what is broken. If enough people are interested, or the fix is easy, our developers will start working on it and make it an officially supported title. Don’t get discouraged if your game doesn’t do well the first time out. You can always bring it up for a new vote.
Also keep trying your game with new versions of Cedega. We are putting fixes in all the time and anyone of them may get your favorite game working.
Remember if you do get it working let people know about your success and how they can get the game working themselves. Post in the forums, the Unofficial Wiki, hit the Cedega groups at Facebook and MySpace and email TransGaming. The more people that are playing the game means it will get better support by TransGaming.
