Answers from Nvidia for top 5 this week.

[BenSkywalker]

Retract your false claim please. Windows is not required to use Wine/Crossover games.

Windows is not required to run some older DirectX games.

Furthermore, Wine isn’t an emulator.

Windows Emulator. Wine is not a hardware emulator, it most certainly is a software emulator, pretty much textbook definition of one, well, forget the pretty much-

3. Computer Science To imitate the function of (another system), as by modifications to hardware or software that allow the imitating system to accept the same data, execute the same programs, and achieve the same results as the imitated system.

Emphasis mine. Wine is absolutely an emulator.

We aren’t talking about game publishers, we’re talking about the unit counts of systems in the world than have DirectX installed on them.

My apologies, I was limiting it to systems that could be used for gaming or make use of D3D in general. I see your standards are comparing a $200 netbook that struggles with Q3 to modern gaming hardware to bolster your point. In that context, you are absolutely right.

 

[BFG10K]

Windows is not required to run some older DirectX games.

Great, so I guess we’re in agreement that no licensing is required to be paid to Microsoft to run DirectX on other platforms, given not even a Windows OS is required for Wine.

As for older games, Wine runs the same level of DirectX as Windows XP does, which incidentally is the most popular operating system in the world. Are you also going to claim Windows XP doesn’t support DirectX?

Windows Emulator. Wine is not a hardware emulator, it most certainly is a software emulator, pretty much textbook definition of one, well, forget the pretty much-

That abbreviation is absolutely wrong. Let’s go the horse’s mouth to settle this, shall we?

http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#head-c9e6502ad636315e905d07f7e44594757a6738e3

There is a lot of confusion about this, particularly caused by people getting Wine's name wrong and calling it WINdows Emulator.

Wow, they addressed your inaccuracy straight up. I guess they must get a lot of that, heh.

Now let’s move on (bold added by me):

When users think of an emulator, they tend to think of things like game console emulators or virtualization software. This is the wrong way to think about Wine – Wine runs Windows applications in essentially the same way Windows does. Wine is just a native Unix substitute for the components of Windows; there is no inherent loss of speed due to "emulation" when using Wine, nor is there a need to open Wine before running your application.

That said, Wine can be thought of as a Windows emulator in much the same way that Windows Vista can be thought of as a Windows XP emulator; both allow you to run the same applications by translating system calls in much the same way. Setting Wine to mimic Windows XP is not much different from setting Vista to launch an application in XP compatibility mode.

There are a few things that makes wine more than just an emulator.

Sections of Wine can be used on Windows. Some virtual machines use Wine's OpenGL-based implementation of Direct3D on Windows rather than truly emulate 3D hardware.

Winelib can be used for porting windows application source code to other operating systems that Wine supports to run on any processor - even processes that neither Windows nor the Emulator bit of Wine supports.

"Wine is not just an emulator" would be a more correct name. Thinking of Wine as just an emulator is really forgetting about the other things it is. Wine's "emulator" is really just a binary loader that allows Windows applications to interface with the Wine API replacement.

Again, if you consider Wine an emulator then you’d also consider Windows Vista/7 as an emulator for XP applications, and every 64 bit version of Windows is an emulator when it runs 32 bit code.

 

[Idontcare]

Quote: Windows Emulator. Wine is not a hardware emulator, it most certainly is a software emulator, pretty much textbook definition of one, well, forget the pretty much- That abbreviation is absolutely wrong. Let’s go the horse’s mouth to settle this, shall we? http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#head-c9e6...4594757a6738e3 Quote: There is a lot of confusion about this, particularly caused by people getting Wine's name wrong and calling it WINdows Emulator. Wow, they addressed your inaccuracy straight up. I guess they must get a lot of that, heh.

heh, I remember 10yrs ago having this same debate with a colleague of mine, I seem to recall at that time the consensus was that WINE stood for "Wine Is Not an Emulator"...

At any rate, so WINE != Windows Emulator...then what the heck does WINE stand for? (other than for lowering the legal drinking age of course, lets not get WINE's political stance involved here)

 

[BenSkywalker]

Again, if you consider Wine an emulator then you’d also consider Windows Vista/7 as an emulator for XP applications, and every 64 bit version of Windows is an emulator when it runs 32 bit code.

And Win9x mode too, absolutely it is emulating, look at the definition of the word. It is running non native code and getting identical results.

As for older games, Wine runs the same level of DirectX as Windows XP does

Some of them, it doesn't fully support DirectX9.

Great, so I guess we’re in agreement that no licensing is required to be paid to Microsoft to run DirectX on other platforms, given not even a Windows OS is required for Wine.

Legally I'm pretty sure MS wouldn't have any trouble shutting them down, read the licensing agreement- DX is being reverse engineered to enable functionality on another platform. Currenty MS is allowing it to happen, I would bet heavily they wouldn't allow Sony to get away with it. On a legal basis they have the right to stop it.

 

[BFG10K]

And Win9x mode too, absolutely it is emulating, look at the definition of the word. It is running non native code and getting identical results.

By that metric you’d consider compilers and device drivers as emulators? Both run non-native code and achieve identical results as native code by translating to machine language of the target hardware.

I’m afraid the way you apply your definition is simply wrong. Since the only truly native code is machine code of the host platform, everything running at higher level is an emulator by that metric.

That means every current wrapper, API, mediator, framework and template is emulation. Heck, by that definition all device drivers are emulators too since they translate high-level APIs into machine code for the target device. Also you’d have to classify compilers as emulators too since they translate high-level code into machine code.

Some of them, it doesn't fully support DirectX9.

This in no way changes my statement that DirectX is currently available non-MS platforms without licensing or restriction.

Legally I'm pretty sure MS wouldn't have any trouble shutting them down, read the licensing agreement- DX is being reverse engineered to enable functionality on another platform. Currenty MS is allowing it to happen, I would bet heavily they wouldn't allow Sony to get away with it. On a legal basis they have the right to stop it.

That’s great an all, but it doesn’t change current reality of DirectX running without a license or permission from Microsoft on Linux.

It also doesn’t change the fact that Sony can become an IHV and implement Direct3D device drivers for their hardware on Windows without licensing or restriction from Microsoft.

Neither of those scenarios apply to PhysX because it isn’t as open as DirectX.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Both run non-native code and achieve identical results as native code by translating to machine language of the target hardware.

They run for their target system, that is why they are not emulating.

That’s great an all, but it doesn’t change current reality of DirectX running without a license or permission from Microsoft on Linux.

Illegally.

 

[BFG10K]

They run for their target system, that is why they are not emulating.

So does Wine's back-end.

Now, if you’re claiming Wine is an emulator because it translates instructions at the front-end, then compilers and device drivers are also emulators because they do exactly the same thing.

The fact is, your generic definition is sloppy and simply can’t be applied like you’re trying to do. There’s a big difference between emulation and something like a wrapper.

Illegally.

A technicality that doesn't change current reality. Also implementing a D3D hardware accelerated driver for Windows isn’t illegal, nor does it require permission from Microsoft to do so.