Gaming on linux, worth the trouble?

[BabySeal]

I use fedora on my server and laptop but i still have XP on my gaming machine since i do from time to time enjoy a bit of action! But XP isnt fun like linux, tweaking is fairly limited, and well windows is just, boring lol... So here are my questions!

how do games run on your linux machine compared to XP (performance wise)?
Are there any annoyances are common bugs?
How do you feel about gaming with an ATI x700 on linux?

Im running a GB of ddr400 and an ati x700 with a 3200+ athlon if anyone is curious.... So what do you guys think, should i give linux gaming a try??? I play the following games a lot:
Master of Orion 2
Mechwarrior 4
MechCommander
StarSiege tribes 2
Starwars Battle front 2
The battlefield series
Freespace 1 and 2
Civilzation 3/4

Thanks! andy

[pparks1]

Personally, for gaming, keep a Windows box around. At least a dual boot. I don't think you will find the gaming acceptable on Linux....or worth the effort to get it installed using tools like Cedega and Wine.

[iamroot]

Firstly, 99% of games will not work natively on GNU/Linux. Other than the few native games such as UT Doom3 and Quake4, you will have to use software such as Cedega or WINE to sort-of "emulate" a Windows environment. Not many games work well using these methods.

It's still best to stick to Windows for gaming.

[rappermas]

Linux itself is much higher performance if a game is written natively for it. It has much better memory management and raw power overall, despite what others may say. The sad this is, most games are written for windows because people like to click click click finish more than they like to type rpm -iv. But that's the way it is. Linux games are great and there are some amazing ones on the way, like Surge. For now, however, Windows just has more games for it than Linux does.

[bob]

To me, gaming consoles are the way to go for gaming. I refuse to spend the big bucks to make my computer into a gaming console, especially with my performance in the games. A wonderful alternative is when my neighbors and family buy the gaming consoles, invite me over and provide the beer. I am a very gracious loser if you supply the brew!

[jimwalt]

I've tried several hours to get certain games to play on Linux. It can be done (with a lot of tweaking with Wine, kernels and modules), but the end result it usually not worth the while. Basically, I came to this conclusion:

Dual Boot System-- WINXP for gaming, Linux for everything else

[mcds99]

I use a laptop with Linux and I have a gaming machine.

I just spent about $1600 on a new gaming rig this past spring, I had hopes of running
FC6 and CoD2 but that will not happen as CoD2 doesn't work with Wine and Cedega, I
have googled and found no joy for CoD2 and Linux of any distro. I'll dual boot the machine soon to do some CoD2 server testing (why they don't have a client I don't know).

I'm a member of a CoD2 clan and would love to have the whole clan use Linux. It's to
bad the folks who write the software are not able to come to terms with using tools that
are much better then the MonopolySoft tools.

I'm sure MonopolySoft has some very nice spiffs for these companies when they visit.
"Hey you'd like to have windows free right?!!!" "how about some mice and keyboards!"
"what's that, free computers? we don't build computers."
"why not?" Well then we would have to support our OS's."

"Oops, I didn't say that out loud did I".

[glussier]

Microsoft doesn't have to give nothing to companies for them to write games for the windows platform.

92% of users are on windows, out of that 92% there are probably 60% which are not gamers, so 36% of that 92% are gamers of which there are only 25% for your type of games, so you are left with 6% of which 50% are using bootleg copies so your real market is 3% of windows users buying your games, which might still be a viable market Apply the same reasoning to linux, which has roughly 3% market share and you are left with almost nothing. So who do you think companies should write games for?

As for the best gaming platform, if you are an ati user you get the best performance out of windows, for nvidia, native games usually play a little better under linux, but not because linux is better, it's because nvidia as better opengl drivers under linux than under windows.

[JohnBailey]

Just out of curiosity, where do you get your statistics? I've heard anything from 85% to 95% of users are using Windows, but then I have heard also that Apple make up another 12-25%, and widely differing figures from 3-20% for Linux. Given that people who buy both Mac and Windows pre installed on their computers can if they wish, install Linux, and that many dual or even triple boot with the above software, and that there is no way of counting the number of re purposed or home built systems, so sales of any OS are wildly inaccurate as far as market share is concerned. I seriously doubt anybody actually knows the actual penetration of Linux.

Even with download statistics from each distro, there can't be anything resembling accuracy. With FC6 I attempted 4 times to download before I got a working copy. And then there is the question of my being counted as a new user or an upgrader from FC5, or did I come from a different distro of Linux? Assuming that anybody was keeping count, and that they were able to figure bit torrent downloads into the total.

Even if local demographics or email survey data is used, then that is only relevant for the given location. America is reputed to have quite a small Linux user base, but it is much more popular in Germany.

Quite a quandary.. I very much doubt that there are any reliable accurate figures for the actual market share of any of the competing systems.

But to get back on topic..

On the subject of games for Linux, I'm not so sure there are as many obstacles as you think. True, Linux doesn't have the raw numbers of users that Windows does, but how many sales does a company need to make it a viable exercise?
I'm not suggesting that a company should develop a Linux only game, so the majority of the money is already spent on marketing, development and design for the Windows and console versions. I'm talking about a port of the existing game to get a bit of extra cash, or to build up a market that doesn't already exist.

I would imagine that Nvidia and ATI would be quite interested in selling more powerful video cards to the Linux users too, as they already see a big enough market to be worth supporting. And gamers upgrade their gear much faster than the average person who just does a bit of word processing and web surfing.

NWN1 and the ID games like Doom etc are proof that the technical side is not the obstacle. We are in the early stages of Linux still, so things like standardization and broader acceptance from the mainstream developers will be patchy. In time though, I think they will see there is an untapped market in Linux.

[glussier]

Just out of curiosity, where do you get your statistics? I've heard anything from 85% to 95% of users are using Windows, but then I have heard also that Apple make up another 12-25%, and widely differing figures from 3-20% for Linux. Given that people who buy both Mac and Windows pre installed on their computers can if they wish, install Linux, and that many dual or even triple boot with the above software, and that there is no way of counting the number of re purposed or home built systems, so sales of any OS are wildly inaccurate as far as market share is concerned. I seriously doubt anybody actually knows the actual penetration of Linux.

I take my stats from Google finance when I check the quotes on intc (intel) amd, Microsoft and Apple. Apple is the 3rd or 4th biggest manufacturer of laptop and have about 15% of the laptop market, but if you include all of the laptops/desktops and workstations, Apple has less than 4% of the market. Linux has roughly about the same as Apple. Microsoft has more than 90% of the global market in these categories.

Most people buy computers from large oem manufacturers, and for those winxp in already included in the price (~$45.00US). There are a lot of people trying linux, but most of them quit after a few days or weeks. Probably the people who bashes the most, in linux forums, against the vole (Microsoft) are linux newbies who are the most hardcore windows users.

I never liked win9x/winme, but I've been using Slackware since 1997, Redhat/Fedora since 1998, Win2k since 1999, winxp since 2001 and I always have been happy with these 4 o/s.

[giulix]

Originally Posted by bob

To me, gaming consoles are the way to go for gaming.

Been thinking about it.... problem is: can you plug a keyboard into a console (yes, it's a serious question) ?

[JohnBailey]

Originally Posted by glussier

I take my stats from Google finance when I check the quotes on intc (intel) amd, Microsoft and Apple. Apple is the 3rd or 4th biggest manufacturer of laptop and have about 15% of the laptop market, but if you include all of the laptops/desktops and workstations, Apple has less than 4% of the market. Linux has roughly about the same as Apple. Microsoft has more than 90% of the global market in these categories.

Based on sales or shipping figures I assume. My point is that the life cycle of these computers is not tracked. I would imagine the figures are broadly correct, but not the full picture. And it seems that there are quite a few companies and local government departments taking a serious look at the idea of switching. I doubt the "year of Linux" will be any time soon, if it ever comes, but the numbers are creeping up slowly.

Most people buy computers from large oem manufacturers, and for those winxp in already included in the price (~$45.00US). There are a lot of people trying linux, but most of them quit after a few days or weeks. Probably the people who bashes the most, in linux forums, against the vole (Microsoft) are linux newbies who are the most hardcore windows users.

True enough. For their first computer at least. I've sent dozens of friends to small scale custom builders over the years.

I can see your point about the newbies being the most ardent MS bashers. And I'll freely admit to being a newbie myself. Some of the dramatic declarations of Windows being so shaky and unusable by people who must have been using the worst hardware on the market or exaggerating to heroic proportions do make me smile. Same thing happens in the Mac vs PC arguments I have seen. One of my PCs is on 24/7 for months at a time with no problems, and it runs XP. No doubt a Linux box doing the same job would be just as effective.

I do wonder about the numbers who try Linux for a few days and then leave. I have been in that position several times, but I can see the potential, so I keep coming back and trying again. Each time I get a bit further with Linux, and the distros keep getting easier to use. At the moment, I'm having fun solving problems one at a time, so at least some others must be having the same experience. I've been using FC5 for about 3 months or so this time with no hardship, while the best I managed previously was about a week on a dual boot without internet access.

Personally I don't have anything against Windows. I still have it on 2 of my 3 PCs. It is a good OS providing you take sensible security precautions, and stability isn't really an issue if the hardware is up to the job <games being the possible exception>. Not so keen on the WGA stuff though, and the apparent arrogance of MS doesn't really appeal to me either.

I never liked win9x/winme, but I've been using Slackware since 1997, Redhat/Fedora since 1998, Win2k since 1999, winxp since 2001 and I always have been happy with these 4 o/s.

My pedigree goes from Dos, to Win3.x, 95, 98SE, and finally XP and Linux. Linux is definitely the most fun for me, but XP is more functional until I get up to speed.

[glussier]

My pedigree goes from Dos, to Win3.x, 95, 98SE, and finally XP and Linux. Linux is definitely the most fun for me, but XP is more functional until I get up to speed.

Lol, I didn't talk about mine. I started back in 1970 as an assembler programmer on IBM mainframes 360 and 370. I started using micro computer in 79 with the trs80 model 1 with trsdos/ldos and then their model 3, 16 and 6000 (trs80 xenix). At the same time I was using msdos on ibm pcs. I must have used all versions of msdos except for 4.0. It's been a long time but computers are still fun.

[JohnBailey]

A touch more than me then My first computer was a ZX81. One of the early home computers on sale in Ireland. It was marketed by Timex in the US. http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/comp...mex/ts1000.htm Back when computer magazines had listings to type in for games, and you had to wait for next month's issue for the errata. Didn't have much in the way of an operating system and a whopping great ram pack clipped to the back in such a way that if anybody sneezed the thing would crash. None of these new fangled sims and such.. I can remember whole articles on how to stop the dreaded Ram Pack Wobble. Even more rewarding when I got to the last line of a hex listing and someone walked into the room . It had a whole 16K though, and there was even a chess program that ran in 1K Happy days.. My first PC was a second hand IBM PC. the original one with the green MDA monitor and a keyboard that doubled as a lethal weapon. came in handy for a COBOL course I was on at the time.

John

[PsychoTrauma]

Originally Posted by giulix

Been thinking about it.... problem is: can you plug a keyboard into a console (yes, it's a serious question) ?

I'm pretty sure xbox and xbox360 have keyboard support (not out of the box).