Best Linux OS for gamers?

[Tsuwamono]

Here are all the games i play and will play. I will put a star beside the ones i forsure have to be able to run.

Americas Army
Battlefield 2
Battlefield 2142(I want to play this but its not a decision maker)
Battlefield Vietnam
COD
COD United Offense
CSS
FarCry
GTA San Andreas
Half life 2
Halo
Medal of Honor Allied Assault ******
MOH Breakthrough
Star Wars Battlefront
Jedi Academy
Republic Commando
Battle for Middle Earth 2
Oblivion
Hitman Blood Money
DoomsDay
Need for Speed Most Wanted(Not super important but im pretty into it so it would be nice)

Now i know MOHAA has a linux launcher but i dont know about the others. Those are the games i play, i know most of them wont work on linux but i dont care, i dont like Microsoft lol so any ideas what the best version would be?

Im downloading Ubuntu right now because a buddy said its good

 

[ts3433]

It's probably best just to dual-boot Windows and Linux, but if you want to run Windows-only games within Linux, you need to see if they work well in the WINE or Cedega emulators. (IIRC, VMware isn't intended for use with games.) The distribution itself won't really matter, but Ubuntu is good to start with.

 

[imported_LoKe]

I had no problems playing Starcraft in VMWare. Though, I'm sure it would be pretty intensive since you're running two operating systems. If you have something like Blackbox installed, I'd switch to that first.

 

[Tsuwamono]

So.. could someone give me a list of the emulators to google? im going to install the linux OS and these emulators when i build my new system. Im just trying to get some research done before hand

 

[Nothinman]

For games WINE is pretty much the only one and it's not an emulator. Cedega is a fork of WINE that aims for better game support. VMWare will work with old 2D games, but it doesn't support any hardware accelleration so any

 

[Canterwood]

I think you're in for a whole world of hurt trying to get that lot running under linux.

 

[Tsuwamono]

Originally posted by: Canterwood
I think you're in for a whole world of hurt trying to get that lot running under linux.

Why would it not run linux?

 

[thehstrybean]

Originally posted by: Tsuwamono

Originally posted by: Canterwood
I think you're in for a whole world of hurt trying to get that lot running under linux.

Why would it not run linux?

Umm...because software manufacturers don't recognize that people use linux...it's a pain to get games to work...

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Best gaming distro

- M4H

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire
Best gaming distro

- M4H

That was my first thought too, but then, if that is always the answer, then linux gaming will never improve.

and BTW: WINE Is Not an Emulator

 

[silverpig]

Wine
Is
Not an
Emulator



Cedega is the "good" version of wine specifically geared towards running games. Check out the cedega website for a list of supported games. Some that you listed may also have native linux ports, which of course are preferable. You should also probably sell/trade that ati card for an nvidia one as the nvidia drivers are far superior to the ati ones in linux.

VMWare is fine if you're going to run old games, but for anything new (ie, within say 3 years), I'd not use it.

As for distros... ubuntu is a good place to start although you should be able to get things working with any distribution you choose.

 

[yuchai]

I see that you have an ATI video card, which pretty much makes it about twice as difficult. There are plenty of games that have issues or simply won't run Cedega with an ATI card.

 

[SleepWalkerX]

There's one distro that comes prepackaged with a lot of games. Its a modified PCLinuxOS distro called SuperGamer -1.

But for the list you made, your easiest bet is using Cedega. Although, you could try to do everything with Wine.

 

[magomago]

if you really want to use linux...dual boot. otherwise if you are a rabit gamer you will probably be spending most of your time in windows anyways...

 

[cleverhandle]

If you care that much about games, using Linux is only going to frustrate you.

 

[drag]

Depends on all what you want if it will frustrate you or not.

If your 'hardcore' and care only about the newest games and the best performing computers and such then Linux isn't there yet.

But if you just want to play games there is plenty of that and there is no need for dual booting. In Free Software-land there are more and more interesting things to do and participate in as time goes on.

Making video games and participating and dealing with the game developers on a more personal basis may appeal to some people. There are a lot of different projects were people are looking for help with sound, graphics, story lines, and other things. It would make a nice hobby.

There are all sorts of things out there. WorldForge and Planescape are a couple fairly advanced role playing/MMORPG games. There are other ones in development.

A small handfull of racing games. A couple flight sims. There are a number of good quality FPS games like Nexuiz, Alien Arena, Warsow, Cube, and a few others I don't recall at the moment. (I remember tremulous.. that's kinda of a neat one)

It's just stuff to play around with and have fun with. Nothing to spectacular.

Aside from free software games there are some commercial games. And cedega works for some, Wine works well with others. (some games that don't work in Cedega will actually run fairly well in Wine)