Hello, I have heard of wine which allows you to run windows based games on a linux environment. Is this correct?

I was wondering if it was possible to run these games as gameservers.

For example, I was wondering if I could run HALO Dedicated Server on RedHat :).

If this is possible, I'd appreciate some help in setting this up, because I have no experience with wine and have no clue how to further have it running in a server environment. Thank You very much!

I have learned that running wine is very resource hungry.

Not what I'd like.

I guess wine is not the best tool to use.
Could someone recommend something else?

You have to understand exactly what you're doing. You're running an entire layer underneath the game that wraps all library calls into this massive web of telephone-like cross-connects.

Do not run windows games on a linux server -- it's not a smart way to function. Many games have linux server versions of the game. Other than that -- get a windows box.

Would you know if there exists a place that allows you to download binaries or files that would allow games like halo and farcry to work in a linux environment.

there are a handfull of games that work with linux that are only windows compatible. However, you'll need the original cd which needs to be uploaded to the linux machine. Then a custom runner will need to be scripted for linux to execute it correctly.

Well, it is understandable that you'll need the original cd filed. I am interested in those "custom runner"s that you are talking about. Can you assist me with this? How do I go about achieving this?

Usually if you visit gamespy's site for the game (ie planetunreal.com for unreal, planethalfife.com for halflife etc) they will have the linux dedicated servers listed in the files section. You can also check out fileplanet.com

If they dont list it there, then it most likely doesnt exist, and you are sol.

I had counter-strike 1.5 running under wine on RedHat, ran very nicely. The problem with wine is that it requires a lot of config changes to get everything set up properly to run, including changing your color settings to 16 bit and not 24 bit. You'll find that most games will not run under wine. Try googling the game you want to install and wine together, you may get lucky and find a tutorial on getting it to work.

Well, the 2 games that I want to have running, at the moment, are HALO and FarCry.

If you can help me get these up, that would be great! It would also teach me to setup games with wine on my own! :)