LINUX: Where is now, and gaming?

[LotharJade]

I have been contemplating the transition to Linux for one of my computers. I am wondering where Linux is with the gaming issue. Can we play games on there yet?

Specifically BATTLEFIELD 1942.😀 If I can play that on it, IM THERE!

Last I looked into Linux was a year ago. So some newbieness with my question.😱

 

[chsh1ca]

It really depends on the game. Certain titles have great linux support (Quake III, Neverwinter Nights, Unreal Tournament 2003, etc), some have server support only (quite common among FPSes), and others have no support whatsoever (Warcraft III, Diablo II, The Sims, etc).

As a percentage of overall major titles supporting linux, I would say about less than ten percent at the moment. Hopefully Id's, Epic's, and Bioware's approach to multiplatform support will continue to grow, but at the moment, if you guaranteedly have to be able to play a certain game, you'll still need that Windows partition.

 

[cleverhandle]

Battlefield 1942 works on WineX, though I haven't played it so I can't say how well.

Note that the majority of games take a significant amount of effort to get working really well, even Linux native ones. That's mostly a consequence of all the variation in kernels, libraries, video drivers, window managers and other components. If you are at all impatient, this is not the route for you.

 

[chsh1ca]

Originally posted by: cleverhandle
Note that the majority of games take a significant amount of effort to get working really well, even Linux native ones. That's mostly a consequence of all the variation in kernels, libraries, video drivers, window managers and other components. If you are at all impatient, this is not the route for you.

I've not had any problem with various distributions running Quake III, NWN, Unreal Tournament, etc.. In fact, the opposite should be true given that the binaries should be statically linked, eliminating the variance in libraries. The remainder of what you list is largely irrelevant, excepting video drivers and kernel versions, which could represent a big difference in performance.

 

[cleverhandle]

Hmm... different experiences, I guess. I have no experience with Quake 3, though I had always heard that ones runs well. I had also heard, perhaps unreliably, that NWN worked but was rather fussy to install. The base UT2003 install mostly works, but getting the expansion packs installed was rather tedious and required a lot of interpretation of sparse online docs. Of the 6-8 WineX games I've played, all but Half-Life and Starcraft were at least a minor pain in the butt, even when they were supposedly "working perfectly".

The problems are not a huge deal if you already know the system. But I see a lot of people on the Transgaming boards get frustrated because they jump in and try to get games working 30 minutes after installing Mandrake or Red Hat, and find they have no clue what people are talking about.

As for relevance of components, I have to disagree. For libraries, the pthreads implementation in some systems caused WineX problems for a while, and various conflicts (mostly minor packaging ones) do crop up between the X11 GL libs and proprietary drivers. And I had ongoing battles with Sawfish over full-screen and focus handling, though Openbox 3 looks to be a solid resolution now.

I'm not trying to say that Linux is terrible for gaming - I don't think that's true anymore. Just warning the OP not to expect a gaming environment that "just works."

 

[drag]

My gaming is mostly limited to quake3 and it's mods. Right now I play True Combat mostly. Using winex I've installed Diablo 2, Black and White, War Craft 3.

Unlike Quake3 these games run at a performance penalty compared to Windows due to the Wine emulation, but with my OC'd 1700+, 256 megs of RAM, and Geforce2 GTS-v these games run just fine at high quality settings, even with a whole Gnome desktop churning away at the background. Diablo 2 does slow down with lots of transparences in caves and stuff, but it's not usually realy that noticable.

BF1942 is purported to work, but since it's a full-fledged 3-d combat stuff you'd probably want good hardware to run it on in Linux.

To install WineX on Linux, you pay the 30 bucks or whatever it costs at transgamer's website and download the correct Point2Point binary package for your OS. You install the package and then run it. Then you use the Point2Point stuff to log in and install Winex for your user. There are good directions about it.

Other games like Quake3 that run natively in Linux the performance is comparable with windows. Sometimes a bit faster, sometimes a bit slower. Pretty much similar performance on similar hardware.

There are also some lower budget places like www.garagegames.com that make games for linux and are quite fun.

If your looking for linux to be a good gaming platform, it is not. If your a hardcore type gamer it probably be a mistake to drop windows, If you play games 50% of the time or something like that, it'd probably be a good idea to have a win98 on a partition and then just dual boot then use Linux for everything else.

It's a pitty too. Linux would make a very good gaming platform.

edit: linux games website Linux games tome

 

[eklass]

i believe q3 is officially supported by id. all you need is the .pk3 file and opengl does it's magic

the whole problem is the microsoft directx thing. that's what need the emulation. as long as you have the proper drivers installed, you shoul dhave hardware 3d support through opengl

 

[LotharJade]

First off I was most curious about BF42, but learned much besides that.
Secondly, most of my friends are advanced computer users. They can build systems, trouble shoot, and have good knowledge of at least windows computers. A few have tinkered with Linux. They are not at the programmer level though (they do tinker w/ programming too). The census is that if Linux gets it so it can play games well (and games people have heard of), then they are SOOOOO there. My self included. We do have the patience to see things through so that is not a problem. So if I were the linux programmers, I would seriously look at trying to get the gaming thing going really well.
Regardless, I think I will install Linux on an older machine and start learing the system. Thanks for the help.

 

[drag]

hehe. If they are into computers you just have to change your perceptions of what "games" are. Kinda like the difference between playing a board game or nitendo vs playing "cops and robbers" or hide-n-go seek when you were little kids.

Maybe I am a geek, but computers are my hobby and I eventually used my skills to land a job.

Here's what you do, set up computers and services. Or take a old unpatched w2k box and bring it over to your friends house and see how long it takes them to crash it or break into it. Something stupid like that. (as long as you use your brain and don't do anything illegal.)

Or just screw around with them, play with the computers themselves instead of just playing games ON them. After all PC's were originally created for hobbyists and enthusiests.

It's kinda interesting to go and find "proofs" to exploits and then modifying them into simple stupid programs that you can use to break things. It's cool when you read about a exploit, but it's a big difference to set up a box that you actually break into using them.

(just don't ever ever become a script kiddie)

After all playing games all the time is fun, but screwing around with computers like other people screw around with cars (making hotrods and stuff) is something you can actually apply to real life ($).

 

[LotharJade]

Well I am sure you enjoy doing all that other stuff, but I think I will stick to mainstream gaming. I really enjoy being able to play say BF42 with friends in Alaska, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and other places. With the lesser know Linux games I am not able to do that as of yet. I will check them out though. 😀