Gaming with Linux? Questions.

[Pyroflea]

When it comes to Linux, what are the limiting factors as to which games you can play? First things first, specs:

Intel Core2Duo e6750 @ 2.66gHz
Asus P5K-WiFi/AP (Might be getting replaced soon)
2gb Crucial Ballistix PC2-8500 (Might be upping to 4gb soon)
Corsair 520w PSU
320gb Seagate Barracuda (Probably install Linux on seperate drive)

I have read that you need to find drivers for you video card. Problem solved: http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_display_amd64_173.14.09.html .

So that leads to my questions.

1) What are the limiting factors for gaming on Linux?

2) Are all games compatible on Linux? Or do only select games work?

Thanks in advance for the help. I'm thinking of possibly trying to move away from Windoze a little (Not altogether however) and this is one of the things stopping me.

-Jesse

 

[Zorak]

Well, it all depends on what you mean by "compatible on linux". There are basically 3 categories of game for linux: Games that have a native version, games that will run to some degree via wine or cedega, and games that do neither. As far as I am aware, the last category is a pretty small one now as a lot of games for windows will run on wine. To see if a game has a native linux version, i'd suggest you look at the wikipedia entry for the game over on the right hand side where it lists the platforms the games were realeased on. If you want to know which games will work on cedega look here: http://www.cedega.com/gamesdb/ and for wine look here: http://appdb.winehq.org/.

The limiting factors, aside from whether or not the game will run acceptably are, indeed the graphics drivers. Nvidia drivers are pretty good, but AMD is starting to give them a run for their money. Who knows, maybe one day Linux drivers will be just as good if not BETTER than windows drivers (in terms of gfx)

If you are a fan of shooters, pretty much EVERY game that id has made will run on linux (they are linux fans ), a lot of games by epic work (we are still waiting on the UT3 port though), and valve may be porting source to linux since postal 3 runs on the source engine and will be released for linux. Aside from that there are a bunch of open source games like nexuiz, warsow, sauerbraten &c.

If you are a fan of RPGs I think there is a native game called "Battle for Westnoth" that is supposed to be pretty good. You may want to ask Linux_0 more about what they have since he likes RPGs more than I do.


Also, what distribution are you using? In ubuntu or debian it is really easy to install the nvidia driver (as in click and you are finished) if you use a program called "Envy". It is a program written in python that a guy developed to facilitate installing AMD and NVIDIA drivers, so if you are on one of those two, check it out. If you are on a Red Hat derivative (like Fedora) or if you are on Gentoo like me, the methods are different. If you are on fedora you'll have to install it using their script from the site, and if you are on gentoo you probably don't need me to tell you what to do ;D

Good luck.

-Zorak

 

[Pyroflea]

Well I havn't fully decided which distro I'm using. I'm gonna grab one of my old hard drives and install half a dozen or so, just to try them out. I have both Fedora and Ubuntu install discs, and have tried both.

So for clarification, MOST games that I will be playing on my Wind0ze will most likely not work with Linux? I will do some research via Wiki.

 

[Zorak]

Ok allow me to clarify: If it is a windows game (and it doesn't have a native linux installer) it WILL NOT WORK on linux without either WINE or cedega installed first. I will give 2 examples: With starcraft, you can't just install the game and play it unless you have WINE or cedega installed first because it is a windows only game. Quake 3 arena on the other hand, you can take your windows disk, download the linux installer, and use both to install the native version of quake 3 in your linux environment. Get it?

By the way, i have tried both Fedora and Ubuntu and they are both pretty good. I liked Fedora better just because it was my first distro and because it gave me a lot of control as to what packages it installed at install time. I haven't used it since version 6 though, so i dont' know what its like now. Ubuntu is pretty easy to use and there is TONS of community support, which is good if you are unfamiliar with Linux (to be fair Fedora has good support too). There are other distros that are pretty good too PCLinuxOS and Zenwalk are aimed at new convertees from windows (tries to look very similar to the windows setup) and also OpenSUSE is supposed to be a pretty good distro according to some (I have spent like 5 minutes using it so i have no idea). My suggestion is that you try several either on virtual machines or set up multi boot or try several liveCDs and see which one you feel most at home with.

-Zorak

 

[Pyroflea]

Ahh! Alright. Thanks for the clarification . Wine and/or Cadega must be installed seperately, correct? They do not come with the OS?

For now, I have made a list of 5 distros I want to try out. I am going to install them on a hard drive when I get home, and see which I'm most fond of. Once I make a decision, I'll start playing around with this more.

 

[Zorak]

Neither of them come with linux distros so far as I am aware (although I could be wrong and there may be one that has it included by default). Anyways they are not hard to install. Be for warned though, cedega is commercial software and requires a monthly payment to use. Check out their site for more info. WINE, on the other had, is freely downloadable.

-Zorak

 

[linux_0]

But you can yum or apt-get them easily

yum install wine

apt-get install wine

GL

 

[linux_0]

Cedega has to be installed manually after you purchase it but it's not that hard.

I think it's $5 per month or $55 per year.

 

[audiovoodoo]

Why the hell would you pay that for a system that offers less support for applications and games than a native copy of XP? I know there is a convenience factor in not having to dual boot but that seems very pricy by comparison to an OEM copy of XP.

 

[Zorak]

Heh. Personally I haven't bothered with Cedega, and if I did i'd probably go with their 1 year up front plan and then just continue using the program without further updates (provided that is how it works, but I don't know if they let you do that). In any case, have either of you (linux_0 or audiovoodoo) seen what the difference is in terms of game performance between WINE and Cedega? I will admit that I have had somewhat limited success getting starcraft to work properly under WINE (first it ran too slowly and now that that problem is fixed it keeps dropping from battle.net after about 5 minutes of being connected), and I haven't really tried other games that are more graphically demanding. Most of the time when I want to play Half-Life 2 I boot into windows (but I may not have to anymore after they port the source engine to Linux for Postal III ). Fortunately for me, the other shooters that I like - Tribes 2, Quake 3, and Nexuiz - all have native Linux versions so I don't have to boot windows much anymore.

-Zorak

 

[audiovoodoo]

Sorry Zorak but I don't touch games. If I did I'd just get a console and avoid all the grief... but that's just me.

 

[bmouring]

Sorry Zorak but I don't touch games. If I did I'd just get a console and avoid all the grief... but that's just me.

Ahem... Red ring of death?

 

[Pyroflea]

Ahem... Red ring of death?

Or you could be like me and get a PS3! Wait... Topic irelevence! Haha. Oh well, what do I care

 

[Zorak]

Oh god, don't even get me started on Sony. Its the only company I know that somehow manages to survive despite numerous disasters due to its own incompetence. Rootkits, anyone?

Yeah I am not a big console fan mainly because of the arrogance displayed by the console makers. They really don't know their place, so they keep saying stupid things like 'PC gaming is dead' and 'We don't need PCs anymore', which of course is a big load of **** because no matter what, some games - RTSes and FPSes - just don't translate well to consoles. In fairness, there are some games that make more sense on a console such as racing games or Street Fighter-esque games. Anyways the last console that I really thought was cool (and I still prefer it to the newer ones to this day) is the n64. That was a nice little system with fun games (as opposed to the gamecube, which i didn't like). The only other console that I liked as much as the n64 would probably be the SNES although I never owned one.

As much as I like nintendo - its what I grew up with after the commodore 64 and vic 20 - and I really like that they are royally kicking sony's ass with the wii (what a horrible name ) , I support the efforts that MS has made to establish a viable alternative in an otherwise fairly limited and stagnant hardware scene. I'd much rather that SEGA still be alive and making hardware to further encourage choice, but unfortunately they threw in the towel ages ago.

Anyways I always have and always will be a PC gamer and I will continue to look for ways to make my favorite windows-only games run on Linux, so if you have any other Linux gaming questions, I'd be happy to share with you whatever I've learned.

-Zorak

 

[audiovoodoo]

Ahem... Red ring of death?

That's a rather personal question. Actually the curry was not that hot....

 

[linux_0]

I'm a PC gamer myself and prefer PCs over consoles any day.

PCs have a much better ROI

 

[Pyroflea]

I'm a PC gamer myself and prefer PCs over consoles any day.

PCs have a much better ROI

I like both. For PC, RPGs, RTSs, and FPSs are generally the best, while with consoles Sports games and some specific FPSs (Resistance: Fall of Man ) are better, imo. Not sure how this is relevent

 

[Zorak]

Haha, good to see that I have a couple of like minded buddies here on this forum

Long live PC games!

By the way, if any of you happen to like Tribes/Tribes2, they are coming out with a new Tribes-esque game that you play on your browser (although it is windows only ) and it seems to be pretty fun. You guys should check it out at www.instantaction.com. The name of the game is "Fallen Empire: Legions".

-Zorak