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Linux+Games=??? What do you think(Windows users too please)

B

BenSkywalker

Diamond Member
I'm currently researching gaming and Linux and am looking for the general perception on gaming in general using Linux.

Any thoughts, concerns, questions, whatever. Perceptions, and the reality if any Linux gurus care to offer their views/experiences. I am in no way trying to start any sort of argument or flame fest or any sort of MS vs Linux thread, I simply wondering about what common perceptions/misconceptions are concerning Linux as a gaming platform(solely).

Hardware, software, performance etc. Please, anyone who has any thoughts, or if you haven't thought of it before the first thing that pops into your head. I'm not looking for facts, though anyone please post them if you have them, but the perception of it(please don't flame people for thinking something "foolish" or "ignorant" as I'm sure most people, myself included, are ignorant on the subject).

Thanks for any and all replies in advance🙂
 
UT runs pretty well on my 8 meg velocity 100. Sound is not up to snuff in any game I've played in Linux and the xfree 4.0 DRI interface is still a little rough around the edges.

DX will make porting games hard. If they're not based on OpenGL or Glide, it will be a fair amount of work.

Since Linux uses the same hardware as the Windows based machines, with the right drivers visual quality should be the same.

Michael

ps - in general, game companies have spent the most time making Linux servers for their games. The Linux community is very Internet-centric with access to fat pipes. There have been more and more complaints recently in the Linux community that they want more than a server and a lame port of the original game.
 
I had UT working great in Linux, and it was all worth it when you seen the little penguin on the UT Splash Screen. 🙂 That was with my good-ol V33k
 
Im hoping Linux will be able to at least co exist with winblows.
Games is what's really lacking with Linux, that and a good browser.
But something Linux really needs is an easier driver model, I mean honestly, installing drivers for your GFX card in Linux is a pain in the ass :|
 
Euh.... yeah.. the Netscape in Linux just SSSSSUUUUUUUCCKKKKSSSSS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For browsing and games I use winblows as you say... for mp3 an wasting my time I use Linux ! LOL 🙂

 
I think it would be great if it was a little easier. I'm no linux guru, I have redhat linux 6.2 installed on a Celeron400@530, Asus P2B, 128 meg pc133 ram,matrox G-400 (supposed to be the best card for linux). The operating sistem runs great, I love it for graphics editing, audio, and even surfing the web; it even runs faster than windows 98 on my PIII 733. Speed is good for games, I thought it would be awesome for games. Theoretically it should run games much better than windows because the way the linux kernel manages memory. I am after all a gamer, so I had to try and get a game running. I'll tell you this: It's not for the light hearted or the impatient. It is not like windows where you just insert a game cd, click install, and your playing in 5 minutes, you have to do quite a bit of setting up even before you copile the game, well after a long hard struggle I finnaly got quake 3 arena for linux running it was a linux version I don't think there is a patch for it and it was about 20 dollars more than the win98 version running. I was dissapointed, i don't know what I did wrong, I could turn all the otions on and run it at 1024*768 and it ran, but I was going at like 12 FPS, all the different resolutions played exactly the same, Itried every single setting and nothing changed the way it ran. In the same system I run quake 3 at 38 FPS at 10*7 hight quality. Well maybe I was doing something wrong but nonetheless I gave up gaming on linux. Other people I have seen on forums have had problems as well, I have yet to see anyone say that they can run any game better on linux than on win98. There is still hope for the open source community,, we just have to wait and watch it evolve and maybe someday linux will replace windows.
 
Isn't UT supposed to be faster under Linux? I was going to get it for Linux but I decided to leave all my gaming for Windows98. That's the only reason that poor excuse of an OS is still in my box.
 
For gaming under Linux, nVidia cards are the best, their OpenGL drivers are neck to neck with their windows drivers.
 
Games that I've gotten to work natively: Quake, Quake II, Quake3 Arena, Unreal Tournament
Games that I've gotten to work with WINE: Starcraft
Other games that are supposed to work: Unreal, Myth I & II, Half-Life, Ultima Online

In general, the popular OpenGL games work great in Linux, and perform very well. DirectX games will always be a different story, but some (such as Starcraft) will work well with WINE if you have a lot of patience. Linux gaming might get better support now that XFree86 4.0 DRI drivers are out, which provide a more stable platform to do 3D graphics. Improved commitment from NVidia to their Linux drivers is also a bonus. But despite these advances, I doubt that broad, active development for Linux as a gaming platform will ever really see the light of day. Linux gaming will probably remain relegated to the latest ID game, plus a few other popular OpenGL titles.

Check out Linux Games for more info.
 
Thanks for the replies everyone🙂

Does anyone have any thoughts on key things that would make Linux better as a gaming platform?

So far I've seen better audio aupport, installer comparable to Windows, easier video driver support and better performance, does that about sum up the real world problems with gaming on Linux(besides the obvious title support)?
 
well for me, my problem with linux, was trying to figure out where to change important settings, and how to do it properly.

installing drivers, getting your modem to work, etc, those are the hardest things to do. they need better directions for things like that.

otherwise, we need GFX companies to give better drivers, more games to Run on Linux, and Linux to support more hardware!
 
I think working on Gaming for Linux would be a key move for them. Gaming is driving the computer industry right now. It's whats driving companies to keep producing better and better products. Do you really think all those word processor apps are pushing the computer makers to produce faster and better products? That and a lot of professional graphics and sound software is what's driving it.

Gaming on the Linux would really give it a huge boost.

I think Gaming has on Linux has the potential to be even better than on Windows. Linux is a much more stable operating system. With an Open Source community base you'd be looking at drivers and things tweaked of bugs regularly. Linux is better at handling resources meaning games would probably run a lot better.

Only thing I can see is that if/when it crashes it would crash a lot harder than on a Windows machine. But Linux's stability exceeds that of windows, and it is probably something that would rarely happen. At least less common than than Windows.

Like I said if Linux had gaming performance equal to or better than Windows it would be a great push for the Linux operating system. I for one know that this is 1 of a few reasons that some people don't make Linux their ONLY OS.

Of course to do this we need better drivers for everything.

But I would be all for playing games in Linux.
 
Thanks for the additional comments guys, nice to see some Windows users sharing their thoughts(hint, hint🙂 for anyone reading this, whatever you think, even if you don't know, write down a thought).
 
Ok, Ben I'll bite...

Speaking as someone who has spent a lot of time in the lab, on the phone, and on-site helping customers get their Windows games to work, I have to say I'm skeptical that the Linux gaming market will be anything more than a niche in the near future. My reasons are as follows:

Believe it or not, there are plenty of folks out there that have problems getting their games to run properly on a Windows 9x/DirectX platform. I'd estimate that 60% of time the problem is user error (you mean my ViRGE isn't enough to run Quake3?! But Compaq said it had a 3d accelerator!!!), with 25% going to shoddy software (IE a patch needs to be downloaded and installed) and the other 15% going to basic compatibility problems. Imagine same said customers at the # prompt trying to figure out just what the hell to do with that tar they just downloaded. Imagine (and this is a stretch here) they had the wherewithal to man tar and try and figure out how to extract it-not gonna happen.

DirectX, DirectX, DirectX. DirectX gives the programmers much more freedom to concentrate on writing their games rather than making it compatible with company X's video card in combination with company Y's soundcard. It also gives them the lion's share of their potential market. Would the extra time and effort spent developing a game for the Linux platform turn a profit?

Sure, I've setup a Linux partition on my PC. Q3A was pretty nice once I got the bloody thing to run, and the performance was certainly smoother than 9x. But it's been months since I've even booted into Linux, because I don't use it for anything else. With Win2K making stability a non-issue performance is really the only reason I would like to see more Linux games.

IMO Alex St. John said it best when he said <paraphrase>In order for Linux to be a good gaming platform, it will have to run DirectX. If you've got a few million dollars to spend, my company would be more than happy to port the kernel for you.</paraphrase>:disgust:
 
So far it seems that it breaks down like-

Plus- Performance and stability(latter being negated negated by Win2K)

Minus- The missing X(Direct😉) factor, availability and overall ease of use

Anything I'm missing here?
 
Uhm....why not add:

if you forget your root password, you're screwed.
if you type rm -rf /* AS root, you're screwed.
if you use AOL and know anything about your root password, you're screwed. 🙂
 
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