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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ashtonmartin - Monday, December 28, 2009 - link
Yes Linux may be free to download but the time you spend getting it to work right and the incompatibilities will offset the cost of Windows. The nice thing about Windows is that I haven't had to read a manual since Windows 3.1 when I first started using computers.If your time is valuable, Windows will be much cheaper in the long run.
kmmatney - Tuesday, December 29, 2009 - link
I agree. After several tries at Linux over the years, I gave up, and decided Windows was simply a better value to me (especially since my copy of Win7 was free, and another copy was only $49). I'm thinking my next fray into another operating system will be OSX.imaheadcase - Monday, December 28, 2009 - link
The steps involved won't ever appeal to anyone in the mainstream world.The fact is, people want to install a game and play fast. Consoles and windows make that possible. The setup for linux is the time waster.
The one thing linux can't do right, never has, was make things simple. Open source is the cause for the cluster of bad ideas in the linux community, so many projects, nothing ever is the end-all-be-all solution. While the idea of everyone making something better sounds like a utopia, with no actual direction it makes for total confusion the the people not involved.
If you want any evidence of that, take a look at when wal-mart tried to sell Linux computers, the returns on the was off the charts, some local stores reported everyone returns in my area. The leading problem? Could not get printer to work. lol
Linux based OS have a place, its business applications. Pure and simple.
All this is IMHO.
Captain Picard - Monday, December 28, 2009 - link
As Yahtzee would say, the short answer is no.The long answer is, noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
jmurbank - Monday, December 28, 2009 - link
Linux is here for gaming, but developers are not here because there are no OpenGL tools to help creating 3D objects. At this time, the only way to create 3D objects with OpenGL is through a trial-n-error process. Also there is no easy way to handle networks unless the developer does not mind using Qt from Trolltech. The one problem with Qt for the developer is the program have to be open sourced or else the developer have to pay $1000.lordmetroid - Monday, December 28, 2009 - link
Any games I got for my computer runs on a native Linux binary.I love Quake and Unreal and the latest software I got myself was World of Goo.
marc1000 - Monday, December 28, 2009 - link
congrats on the writing. the only thing I would like to say about the article is that you never explained what is "X" (the graphics manager), on the first page. I always had interest in linux but never got used to it, so I don't run any distro in my machines at home. Maybe I look to it with looking for simplicity in the first time, and even with the great recent advances, the experience overall is still a little hard... IMO.blowfish - Monday, December 28, 2009 - link
Who in their right mind would pay £40 per year for software that might allow a game to run significantly more slowly than it would on Windows?I'm no big fan of Windows, and would love to see more Linux use - but my dabblings with Linux have been wholly unsatisfactory. It seems like there's no alternative but to learn more than you should about Linux to get anything working - simple things like media players, for example.
The only real growth in Linux use will be in things like Expressgate, used by Asus on recent motherboards, as a quick way of booting up and getting online. Otherwise, it's just for Geeks with the time on their hands to fiddle around enough with it to get it working.
Shame on the Linux community for not coming up with something better suited to mainstream use. It's as if they suffer from the same snobbery against "noobs" as most online forums, which results in a very effective damper on mainstream adoption of Linux.
Jackattak - Monday, December 28, 2009 - link
Couldn't agree more, blowfish.Until the Linux community makes it easy for a layman to install apps and works severely on compatibility issues (and somehow gets all the software and hardware manufacturers of the world to start supporting Linux), there will never be widespread adoption from John Q. Public.
Based on the conversations I've had with Linux users, that suits them just fine when brought up. However, they're also generally the first to start crying about how Microsoft stymies their attempts to get a bigger "marketshare".
Make it easy for John Q. Public to use, and you're in.
Until then, Linux will never be anything but a geek's OS used by less than 1% of the PC-using planet.
sammyF - Monday, December 28, 2009 - link
Just a note about "Until the Linux community makes it easy for a layman to install apps" : You mean, like .. I don't know.. one centralized package manager, in which you only have to enter what you want and it pukes out a list of possible software packages, which you only have to click to download AND install? Yeah .. maybe it should also check for new software versions automatically and update anything that needs updating instead of just the OS!! Wow! Now, THERE is an idea!(check "sarcasm" if you don't know about it yet)
About the hardware compatibility, it's really an individual case thing. I had plenty of notebooks and desktops which just ran perfectly out of the box after installing Linux, and required the manual download and installation of new drivers in windowsXP or Vista (can't say much about Win7, sorry). On the other hand I've seen the exact opposite phenomenon too (not running easily or at all in Linux, worked flawlessly in Windows after a reinstall). Globally, Hardware support in Linux has vastly improved from its state just one year ago though.