Linux Gaming: Are We There Yet?
by Christopher Rice on December 28, 2009 2:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Linux
The Good the Bad and the Ugly
What was supposed to be a few weeks project on reviewing Linux and gaming turned into an intense month long affair. To be fair, most of the issues that were encountered stemmed from attempting to benchmark multiple games across three different Wine projects. The problem with attempting that task was that each Wine project has different functionality with different games. For example where we could get a game to work in Wine, the game then in turn didn't work with Cedega and vice versa. We were able to get newer releases like Dragon Age Origins and Far Cry 2 to work in some of the different Wine projects, but none of the new releases would work in all projects. This lead us to regress to some older but still actively used releases in order to provide a more detailed report across the three projects.
The results on this page are a quick overview of recent titles and how they fared under the three Wine projects. Without a FRAPS-like utility, we are also left to reporting the overall experience without discrete frame rates.
Dragon Age: Origins
After many hours of research, patching, and game installations we finally managed to get DAO to a functional state using Wine. Once the game could functionally load and play we found we were still missing movies and there were a large number of graphical glitches, so at present we would call this "mostly unacceptable". Cedega is in a worse state at present as we could not get the game or installer to function under Cedega. The good news is that DAO is now working properly under Crossover after the latest patches. A hardware failure at this point (unrelated to the testing - we have a dead PSU and mobo now) halted our testing while we await replacement parts.
Far Cry 2
The installation of Far Cry 2 was extremely tricky under Wine, but eventually we were able to get the installation and game to function. In the end we had to change some registry settings, download a NoCD patch, unplug our network cable, and then play with the in-game video settings in order to make the game playable. We experienced some graphical glitches that make some things look quite odd (i.e. the tree leaves). The overall playability of the game was poor even after tweaking the video settings, so for now this is another of those titles I would skip on Wine. Cedega and Crossover Games are even worse, as we were unable to install or play the game at present.
Grand Theft Auto IV
Here we have our first complete failure to work under Linux. Regardless of Wine project, we were unable to install or run GTA IV at present.
While 3DMark06 isn't a game, we thought it would be interesting to include results. Windows easily outscored our Wine projects with 3DMark06. Cedega was unable to run half of the tests and thus there are no results to report. Both Wine and Crossover ran the benchmark flawlessly.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
126 Comments
View All Comments
tomaccogoats - Monday, December 28, 2009 - link
The only real reason i use windows over linux is because of it's game support. I'd totally switch to linux 24/7 if they could make a game play the same in Windows, and in Linuxmindcloud - Monday, January 4, 2010 - link
I completely agree. Games is the only thing I use windows for.rs1 - Monday, December 28, 2009 - link
I wouldn't. Linux has too many usability shortcomings that have never been adequately addressed. Everything from connecting to a wireless network (and woe unto you if you need to switch between networks frequently, or between DHCP and static IP connections) to getting the networked printer to work still requires more effort, and more user knowledge, than it should.tracyanne - Wednesday, December 30, 2009 - link
What a load of rubbish. I use Linux (Currently Ubuntu), and Windows on the same laptop.I can move from network to network, Wireless and Cable, and be connected to multiple networks, Multiple wireless plus cable. Every time I switch networks on Windows I have to restart the network daemon, or run repair. Linux just switches transparently.
Typically I suspend the machine, then travel to whereever I'm going then wake the machine up. Every time I do Windows has trouble connecting to the new network, and I have to run repair or restart the daemon.
Linux just display a message saying I'm disconnected, then after a few seconds the network icon changes and a message saying that I'm connected appears.
As far as printers are concerned, I have no problems their either. I typically work on a Windows network, which has several printers on it. All of the printers appear and can be aquired, and for all but one the drivers were installed automatically, all I had to do was click OK the initiate the the install after the system offered to download and install them. The one machine that didn't I had to go to the manufacturers site for the drivers, which had to be installed manually.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, December 30, 2009 - link
Sounds more like a wireless driver problem than a Windows problem, as I routinely travel between various locations and never have issues with my laptop connecting/reconnecting. What WiFi card and drivers are you running, Ralink? I've had reasonable success with Atheros, Intel has never given me problems, but the few times I've tested a Ralink chipset I've been disappointed at best.Amiga500 - Monday, December 28, 2009 - link
Try a modern version of ubuntu.You'll be very surprised.
I had MUCH less issues getting my wireless network on ubuntu 9.10 than I did on Win7.
MamiyaOtaru - Wednesday, December 30, 2009 - link
Ubuntu gets worse with each release.rs1 - Monday, December 28, 2009 - link
I did that, not too long ago. I found I had more issues with Ubuntu than I did with earlier versions of SUSE and Red Hat. Maybe my laptop is just not the most ideal platform for Linux, but I've never once gotten the "it just works" feeling from Linux that I get from Windows.quiksilvr - Monday, December 28, 2009 - link
If this was Windows Vista I would totally agree. However with Window 7 out (and for only $30 for students), there is little incentive to switch to Linux just yet. Office 2007 is vastly superior to OpenOffice, the Flash video support on Windows runs MUCH better, and with Windows 7 out, the interface is much cleaner and much more stable. Furthermore, there is far FAR more compatibility.Ubuntu 9 has come a really far way in its OS. You spend much less time in Terminal and there is a lot more software. However, for only $30, I still would prefer Windows 7.
Penti - Thursday, December 31, 2009 - link
Well for business (there's no commercial consumer linux distros any how) it doesn't matter as you just stream (from a Citrix/remote desktop/terminal server/virtual XP) your Office 2007 applications to your Linux and OS X desktops. Same with all the rest of the win apps. You can stream Linux/OS X apps to windows too.For consumers there's really no reason to run Linux, your computer already has a legit copy of Windows or OS X. Community distros lack (free) legal support for patent video codecs and a lot of finish. Sure you can run homebrew codecs such as FFMpeg/libavcodec (as ffdshow, vlc etc uses) just as you do on Windows for your warez, but nobody can ship that as an official part of a distro no less can a computer OEM ship computers with it.
There's no drop in replacements for apps such as MS Office, Office 2008 for mac doesn't cut it in a corporate environment even. If MS can't do it you shouldn't expect any one else to be able to do it either. But that said, that doesn't mean you can't create an alternative word processor, spreadsheets, document management (others than SharePoint) or email client environment. Certainly companies like IBM do try where possible. But it's no replacement, if you need Office then run office, the same exact office as the ones you work against. If you need a word processor/office productivity app just for your internal corporate environment you might get away with a lot of other solutions. If you just need the ability to open and write basic doc/docx files even Google Docs or OS X internal TextEdit does that.
Of course multimedia means == Windows, even over OS X in a lot of aspects especially the one you mentioned Adobe Flash. For professional use or like creating multimedia/video OS X might be or fit better. Depending on preferences of course. But for consuming it's MS Windows hands down. But for gaming, well all the Windows computers (new too) aren't up to gaming at all, laptops or small form factor PCs with weak integrated graphics etc can't do it. So I don't see how not why not to just run a separate gaming machine with Windows regardless if you run a Linux, Windows or OS X laptop, Linux or OS X low end PC, mid-end work computer as your main machine. There's no reason to do everything on the same machine. Everyone aren't even Windows gamers now days. That's not why you have computers today it was like in the 80's and early 90's, but today is another world. Use what you need, that might be something other then Windows, it might not. There's really no reason to run a unified environment today mixed does fine for a lot of things.