Linux Gaming: Are We There Yet?
by Christopher Rice on December 28, 2009 2:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Linux
Closing Thoughts (for now)
What's the answer to the initial question, "Is Linux ready for gaming?" As you probably expected, the answer is both yes and no. If you're looking for an out-of-box solution for running older games, Linux is a decent alternative to Windows. The longer a game has been around, and the more popular the game, the better the odds that someone has already taken the time to get it working properly under one of the Wine projects. Naturally, that means the reverse is true: newer titles are less likely to work without some extra effort (and sometimes not even then). Even if you do manage to get a new release running, you should expect to see anything from graphical glitches to completely unplayable gameplay.
By now you're probably asking which of the three projects we recommend. Personally, I would use Crossover Games and Wine. We selected Wine because it's not only free, but if you're savvy enough you have a better chance of getting a new release game working right away. Since the Wine project is open source and extremely active in development, you can find patches around the net created on the fly for supporting specific games long before Crossover/Cedega come out with anything. We can then supplement Wine with Crossover Games when all else fails with installing or playing specific games.
Crossover Games provides a decent GUI and the ability to run additional games that Wine cannot. We have also found in many cases that Crossover Games will provide higher frame rates and a better gaming experience. Between both Wine and Crossover Games you should be able to get the majority of your games working with a reasonable amount of effort. If you're looking for the most functionality out of your Linux desktop and don't mind spending the extra money, then I would suggest getting all three. Having all three will give you the best possible chance to ensure all of your games are covered.
In an ideal world, Linux would be supported natively by games. Unfortunately, few developers are willing to take on that task. Eve Online used to have a native Linux client, but development was shut down this past year (in part because performance under Wine was more than acceptable). There was talk of a native UT3 client but it has yet to materialize. Some smaller projects (i.e. Penny Arcade Adventures and other indie titles) have been released with Linux clients, but for the most part major publishers are ignoring the platform.
One of the real problems we encountered is something we're going to address in a separate article. Our test system, if you notice, uses an NVIDIA GPU. We tried to be hardware agnostic, but the problems experienced with our test ATI HD 5770 and Wine eventually got the best of us. We could get the card to work with native Linux games, but Wine support at present was an absolute disaster. Part of the problem undoubtedly stems from the newness of the hardware, but we didn't have any alternative ATI GPUs available right now. The future of ATI GPUs on Linux isn't nearly so bleak, however, with some exciting developments coming from the open source driver. As stated, we'll be looking into that in a future article.
We have some other Linux articles in the pipeline as well. In retrospect, we should have started with something a little less daunting, as gaming and Linux was plagued by more problems than other aspects of the OS. In the meantime, we welcome your comments and thoughts on other Linux areas you'd like to see us investigate.
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rainyday - Thursday, December 31, 2009 - link
in my opinion linux is not yet ready for mass market use.linux still has inferior file management to windows. still no native file icon support in executable, icon association is annoying too. explorer is still superior than natilus/thunar in feature and presentation/interface.
uninstalling and upgrading programs in linux is still annoying and complicated. there are many ways to install a program (synaptic, rpm/deb, tarball, bin, subversion etc) and at least some of them are still annoying. these are pretty big issue for gaming.
file sharing and networking can still be unnecessarily complicated and there is still no user friendly driver installation procedure like windows.
devices in linux still work at generic mode, but windows users are used to having drivers tailors to their hardwares with all features enabled and usually have better presentation and interface.
in my opinion linux can be used as windows alternative only in computers having routine and specific duties. like checking counters at shopping malls, in cyber-cafes, children's school class room etc.
boltronics - Sunday, May 9, 2010 - link
> linux still has inferior file management to windows.Dreaming. Spoken like a real Windows user who has no understanding of anything else. Why are you in the "Linux" section?
> still no native file icon support in executable,
Thanks for the laugh. Funniest thing I've read all day. :)
> explorer is still superior than natilus
That's funny too (and I don't just mean your incorrect spelling). Last I checked, Explorer didn't support tabs. Nautilus also includes built-in support for all kinds of protocols too, such as SFTP. I can't think of a single way Nautilus loses to Windows Explorer.
> uninstalling and upgrading programs in linux is still annoying and complicated.
What? Learn the package manager GUI and never worry about installing or removing again too hard for you? Give me a break. You think manually installing from a CD or manually searching a website for an installer in Windows is easier? Windows doesn't even have a single consistent installation procedure - every program requires different steps and uses a different wizard. And how do you update those Windows programs? You open every single program and run the "Check for Updates" option or visit all the websites you downloaded the programs from to see if there's something new? No thanks - I've got more interesting things to spend my time on.
On the off chance I actually wanted to compile a program on GNU/Linux that wasn't in a package management system, it's almost always configure, make, make install. I wouldn't have the faintest idea how to do it under Windows. I'm pretty sure it would involve manually installing a compiler... and if you don't compile code under Windows, why would you mention installing software by compiling it under GNU/Linux?
> file sharing and networking can still be unnecessarily complicated
That has been the exact opposite of my experience.
> and there is still no user friendly driver installation procedure like windows.
That's because it is just so rare to ever need to install a driver. Drivers should be included as a module that came with your kernel, and as such should work automatically. The only main exceptions are ATI and nVidia proprietary graphics card drivers which are required for running some proprietary games, and even here a growing number of distributions have these available for installation through your package management system. Generally, you won't ever need to do a thing. As such, GNU/Linux clearly dominates in this area too.
> devices in linux still work at generic mode, but windows users are used to having drivers tailors to
> their hardwares with all features enabled and usually have better presentation and interface.
When it comes to ease of use, consistency is more important than having some unique interface. eg, I can tweak the settings of any installed printer using the CUPS web interface, and can also do this in the same way on basically any modern distribution. On Windows you likely have a different utility to change settings for every printer. How is that a benefit to the end user? It's just confusing and annoying. Unnecessary clutter.
As you might imagine, I fully disagree with your opinion. After all, I'm typing this in Firefox on GNU/Linux.
Headfoot - Wednesday, December 30, 2009 - link
Linux is only free if your time has no value.DominionSeraph - Wednesday, December 30, 2009 - link
Drop the GNU. Let Microsoft incorporate DirectX with copyright protections.Not rocket science.
marraco - Wednesday, December 30, 2009 - link
I have lots of games from before Windows XP, like some tomb raiders, and need for speed 4.They no more run on windows. No support. No compatibility. (and don't even try to run a game with a 16 bit installer on a 64 bit windows).
At that older times, nI never had a top video card to run them on all his full glory, and I was somewat disapointed. I just wish to run NFS4 with full antialiasing, and on his full glory.
I hope they run on Linux. That way linux can add more games that windows.
shangshang - Thursday, December 31, 2009 - link
while you're at it, why not go back further to make DOS games run under linux too, that way even more games will run under linux.Penti - Thursday, December 31, 2009 - link
Lol already done, but DOXBox/Dosemu works in windows too.Gonemad - Monday, November 8, 2010 - link
In fact, reading through the Dosbox "boot" and readme's you stumble on a lot of things seen in a Linux boot, suggesting the thing was first released to Linux, than ported BACK to Windows, which adds to the irony.Windows doesn´t support DOS games, but Linux does. How absurd.
Some games even play better on Dosbox than on native DOS, because of the 640kB memory thingy that was a real pain in the neck back then.
Schugy - Wednesday, December 30, 2009 - link
In theory wine/cedega has to be slower but as long as it is playable it is ok.Other competition is free Intel Linux graphics driver vs. Intel Windows graphics driver or AMD Catalyst Windows vs Catalyst Linux vs open Radeon or Radeon HD driver.
This article was rather disappointing
flywheeldk - Tuesday, December 29, 2009 - link
This article is utter B.S. - unless you do another article focusing on running native Linux games on Windows - then it would just be completely pointless.Regards
Peter