Linux for a gamer?

March 22nd, 2009, 11:50 am

Hi All,

I'm new to linux but not windows so please bear with me.

Im primarily a gamer and I hear so many people talk about performance gains by using linux as the operating system. Until now I have been on the theory that if linux was so good for gaming why don't more developers' support linux?

Anyway I have had a read around and downloaded the latest version of Ubuntu (8.10) and WINE to use for the emulator for my windows based games. Namely that those on STEAM such as UT3 and CS and also for IL2 Sturmovik that doesn't use STEAM.

I have a Intel Quad Core processor, 4GB RAM and 4780 capable of DX10. I want to take advantage of all the benefits of the hardware, I currently use XP32bit so that doesn't use the quad core 'efficiently' nor does it use a full 4GB RAM only (3.2GB) nor can I run DX10 on XP except by using a hotfix that doesn't work on my system.

In your opinions what is the better OS to use for max performance gains?

I have the Windows 7 Beta, Linux or WinVista64 Ultimate to choose from. I don't mind* using Linux as long as it can use the hardware to its maximum.

Thanks for any comments and I look forward to your views.

March 22nd, 2009, 2:57 pm

I don't see Linux as an OS for gamers at all. I think any Windows is better for that.

[spork]

March 24th, 2009, 10:27 am

If most of your games are for Windows, then run them on Windows. DirectX is a Microsoft product and you'll be going through more trouble than it's worth trying to get everything to run on a Linux machine.

If you plan to take advantage of your graphics card's DX10 capabilities, you'll need to be using Vista or Windows 7. XP doesn't support DX10.

[joebert]

March 24th, 2009, 12:11 pm

Quote:

Until now I have been on the theory that if linux was so good for gaming why don't more developers' support linux?

"developers" do in fact support Linux. There's quite a few "developers" actively developing things for Linux and gaming.

The issue is a sort of "chicken or the egg" problem where players don't want to use Linux if there's no games for it, and companies who create the games don't want to support an operating system if the number of players using that OS isn't enough to justify the resources used to support that separate OS.

Eve Online, a game with 30K players online at any given time is an example of a MMO game who tried to officially support Linux, and just recently dropped support because there wasn't enough players using Linux to justify the cost of maintaining the Linux client in the new release.

Stay away from Linux for gaming. Support is spotty at best and just when you think you've found something good it gets discontinued a month or two later.

March 28th, 2009, 11:29 pm

Linux is great for many things. Gaming is not one of them.

April 28th, 2009, 1:38 am

Linux is not the best OS for gaming. Most of the games use DirectX for their graphics where Linux uses OpenGL. This does not mean that DirectX is better than OpenGL, it just means it is more used cause of 'monopoly' of Microsoft.

WINE, as you are using now, is a option to play games under but it's not the best and for a load of games it will be a pain in the ass to get the game working at all.

So if you really wanna play games like Crysis for example it'd be better to setup a dualboot system with Windows.
Note that it's not as easy as it sounds now, cause when installing Windows it will overwrite the master boot record. Of course there's a way around it (google)

May 10th, 2009, 2:41 pm

Mars wrote:

Linux is great for many things. Gaming is not one of them.

exactly. lol

moniqu wrote:

So if you really wanna play games like Crysis for example it'd be better to setup a dualboot system with Windows.
Note that it's not as easy as it sounds now, cause when installing Windows it will overwrite the master boot record. Of course there's a way around it (google)

the dual boot option isn't a bad idea at all, aside from rebooting to use linux gets old.
also, as long as windows is installed first you dont have to worry about it overwriting the mbr.

of the options you listed i would go for vista 64 ultimate. that's what i'm running on my laptop & it does the job surprisingly well >.>

June 28th, 2009, 10:03 am

Don't shoot Linux in the Foot. It has more games than you can shake a stick at. It may not have the ones people want to play or are playing, but to make people think Linux is no good at playing games is a definite misconception. It may be taking longer to get it up to speed with Windows, but that is not the fault of Linux. The blame belongs on the Vendors shoulder.