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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niva - Monday, January 4, 2010 - link
This is not true. Most games these days are designed for windows almost from the ground up. Most graphic engines, to speak of your argument, are optimized for dx and d3d which is Windows. The opengl branches get very little attention because of the smaller user base. Look, even id software seems to be dropping opengl in the future, at least I heard rumors of this.Windows has won the gaming front hard. They don't seem to be paying much attention to it so there is a chance new platforms like the iPhone could take over at some point with different apis.
CastleFox - Friday, April 9, 2010 - link
I have been searching all around the internet for linux gaming coverage. I have had success with WINE myself but I know for the higher end games it can be more of a struggle. I hope to see more Linux coverage soonSetsunayaki - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - link
I've done linux gaming for many years...The reason I switched to Linux years ago for some gaming was because I was part of a highly oppresive shooter community. The community was small and used everything from IP tracing tools to disrupt your privacy and threaten you over MSN. These people also attempted to create modifications that would scan your computer in search of any modifications your were working on, along with a lot of information being transmitted.
Linux allowed me to control the access levels a lot closer, and it also helped me make a better gaming server using Wine due to how Windows XP was an OS from 2001, while the Linux version I was using was far more reliable and its netcoding was a lot better.
The key thing to Linux is Nvidia Cards. Forget ATI. Sure, ATI may have the performance crown due to the price crown...but when you factor in the best video card for cross-OS performance you will find that Nvidia Cards win in Linux, Mac and for the most part challenge ATI cards well on Windows as well....making Nvidia the leader it truly is (as much as I love ATI/AMD)...
Once I had Linux setup, I found myself that although my framerate was lower than Windows PC Gaming, I still had over 60 FPS which is one really needs and some overhead in my favorite games and due to the netcoding, I had lower ping in every game I played vs Windows based PCs possibly due to the fact Linux is about networking and its netcoding and processor scheduling was far better.
olbrannon - Friday, September 17, 2010 - link
http://www.playonlinux.com/en/SniperSlap - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - link
First off, I didn't see anything about World of Warcraft or any other games running in OpenGL mode. Let's keep in mind that the difference in performance between WINE and Windows is mostly due to the fact that WINE will always be playing catch-up to DirectX. When games are run using their OpenGL renderers, I've noticed a bold increase in performance when running under Linux. This is largely due to the fact that Linux makes use of internal resources more effectively, conducts HDD access more efficiently and overall is much leaner.Second, I'd really like to see the comparison between nvidia and AMD video drivers soon. On top of that, in the same review, I'd like some looks at how AMD is planning on improving support and performance in Linux.
My understanding is that they've made some pushes in this regard somewhat recently, but still have a long way to go. The biggest concerns with AMD drivers that I have isn't strictly about performance. It's also over the quality of the drivers and userspace utilities. In the past, I've seen far too many obscure quirks when using AMD/ATI video cards under Linux. From full-screen rendering literally being upside-down when output over digital DVI (but right-side-up on analog dsub!), right the way to inexplicably poor performance.
AMD needs to iron out all these quirks and strange situations which will have people going and disabling this, or tweaking that in their WINE settings. They need to take a page from nvidia and rally around the standards and smooth out the architecture and lifecycle of their drivers.
Which brings me to my third "hope"... I'd like to see any review of nvidia and AMD drivers also look at how the drivers get themselves into the system. Compare the different ways the drivers are modeled. A kernel module? Or is it DRI? What userspace garbage will nvidia or AMD pollute our systems with, and how bad is the interface?
I recently got an AMD video card and am thoroughly impressed with it. But I'm using it on a Windows system and don't have high hopes that my life will ever be as easy under Linux with AMD as it is with nvidia.
Any review of linux drivers and 3D will have to be quite comprehensive. We're talking a 10+ page article! ;)
Yfrwlf - Wednesday, January 19, 2011 - link
"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."Gaming and Linux? WINDOWS gaming INSIDE of Linux. The fact that you can do that is AMAZING. Can you play Linux games inside Windows?? lol
Then the title: "Linux Gaming: Are We There Yet?" Wow. Just, wow. That's the most deceptive article title ever.
Windows gaming in Linux: Are We There Yet?
Answer: No, and never will be, as playing perpetual catch-up to Microsoft and DirectX will be just that, perpetual.
Linux Gaming: Are We There Yet?
Answer: Mostly, since games made for Linux mostly work on Linux, barring some games that aren't packaged well and don't include everything in the archive/installer. In that case, you can run into dependency hell. This is largely the fault of Linux STILL not having a good open standard (cross-distro, otherwise not a standard) for Linux programs. However, things which are packaged right and contain everything within the archive are fine.
The number of Linux game titles has been increasing at a faster rate recently due to the increase in adoption, but of course Linux is behind Mac, and both are way behind Windows in quantity. That being said, most anything that is made for Mac as well as Windows should run perfectly in Wine, because usually the Mac version is simply the Windows binary wrapped in a Wine (or Cider, as it is known on Mac) wrapper. (Mac IS Unix after all, too, specifically BSD, so it's basically the same thing as Linux anyway.)
So, message to AnandTech: How about write up some fair articles about Linux gaming. Some things in this were good, and Linux definitely has problems and sore areas still, but the way you presented this article, like gaming on Linux WAS running Windows games, is stupid as it is always going to be more difficult and a bit silly for anyone to be trying to run one platform's games on a different platform. The best you'll be able to ever hope for, more than likely, is to be able to flawlessly run older programs. Wine is excellent for that, as using Linux + Wine it allows you to run some old Windows programs which aren't based on DOS (otherwise, you can use DOSbox). Some of those programs won't even run on modern Windows machines any more, so Wine can give you a lot of flexibility in running old Windows programs while still running a modern OS. THAT is what Wine is mainly good for, running WoW, and Diablo II, and other games especially those that are OpenGL-compliant and/or have Mac versions, but Wine being the solution for Windows gaming? That is, and will always be, laughable. Microsoft will help ensure that's always the case for as long as they're big enough.
The best solution for Linux gamers is more Linux games, not more Windows games in Linux. That's what your articles should be focusing on, the biggest games coming, and which have already come, to Linux.