Gaming Distro?

By TheTerminator
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TheTerminator

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I recently became interested in ddual booting linux. But I also want to be able to use it throughout the day and not have to switch back to windows for certain things. The main things I use my pc for now is MSN, general net surfing, gaming and using photoshop. Im no PC noob, so dont be afriad to get technical here or whatever. I just wanna know what would be the best distro for me to try out based on these prequalifications?

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Grand Master

NienorGT

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Any will work.  You'll have to run photoshop and games through Cedega or Wine though.

586003075[/snapback]

What is that kjordan?
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Fred Derf Veteran

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What is that kjordan?

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I'd tell you that WINE was a Windows emulator but Wine Is Not an Emulator.

Cedega, likewise, allows you to run games that are not Linux-native.

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NienorGT

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:blink:

So I can run my Games on Linux?

CoD, NFSU2 or anyother?

any loss of performance?

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jooface

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DX9 games struggle, but anything lower is fine.

I guess if you have a more up to date compuater that it will be fine since TG officially endorses HL2/CS:S.

On my GeForce 4 Ti4200 (yea I know...) HL2 struggled where in windows it ran perfectly fine and CS:S wouldn't even run (it gave me some BS about an unavailable games, but it's reported to work). Jedi Academy ran perfectly though ;) .

I tried running NFSU:2 it was bearable but you can't increase the quality (car reflections) or it crashes so it looked like ass. I guess CoD would run fine from the reports but I haven't tried it.

Good Luck, and report back with your results =). Oh and any distro should be fine as long as you can get Cedega running.

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seethru

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DX9 games struggle, but anything lower is fine.

I guess if you have a more up to date compuater that it will be fine since TG officially endorses HL2/CS:S.

On my GeForce 4 Ti4200 (yea I know...) HL2 struggled where in windows it ran perfectly fine and CS:S wouldn't even run (it gave me some BS about an unavailable games, but it's reported to work).  Jedi Academy ran perfectly though  ;) .

I tried running NFSU:2 it was bearable but you can't increase the quality (car reflections) or it crashes so it looked like ass.  I guess CoD would run fine from the reports but I haven't tried it.

Good Luck, and report back with your results =).  Oh and any distro should be fine as long as you can get Cedega running.

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This is what I'm worried about, cause a lot of the games I play are dx9.

AMD 2500+

1GB RAM

BFG GeForce 6800GT OC

I really feel like I want to make the switch, from windows to linux on my main pc (I've had an older box running *nix before), is my pc going to struggle with newer games using Cedega?

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markwolfe Veteran

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Perhaps this isn't a post worthy of a 100% Linux user at home, an Open Source advocate (where it makes sense), and a Linux moderator here on Neowin, but my opinion:

Use Windows for general to serious gaming. Be it on a separate box, or dual-boot your existing box. Much less hassle, plus pretty much guaranteed compatibility.

That said, I am not a gamer. I own one non-free game: UT2004. I purchased the boxed set because I enjoyed the free demo, and they support Linux by providing an installer right on the CD. (Y)

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Miuku.

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Perhaps this isn't a post worthy of a 100% Linux user at home, an Open Source advocate (where it makes sense), and a Linux moderator here on Neowin, but my opinion:

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There's nothing with being a realist, a very insignificant portion of games get Linux ports and graphics card support is pretty dismal.

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seethru

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There's nothing with being a realist, a very insignificant portion of games get Linux ports and graphics card support is pretty dismal.

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which is actually kind of sad, because I love linux, but I love gaming more :/

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raid517

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Sure it can. I don't know what all these guys are bitching about. Use Google and search for cedega. As for video card support being abysmal, this isn't true at all - as all the major vendors, ATI, Nvidia, Matrox etc supply their own propriatory drivers. The only 'abysmal' part of the equation is the extent of some people's knowledge - which leads them to often conclude that these drivers are in some way difficult or complicated to install.

GJ

Edited by raid517
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Miuku.

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The only 'abysmal' part of the equation is the extent of some people's knowledge - which leads them to often conclude that these drivers are in some way difficult or complicated to install.

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No one here said anything about difficulty in the installation, I'm talking about raw performance which on Linux side for the majority of games is dismal compared to the Windows world.

10-20% slower than Windows or even worse? Unacceptable.

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ichi

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No one here said anything about difficulty in the installation, I'm talking about raw performance which on Linux side for the majority of games is dismal compared to the Windows world.

10-20% slower than Windows or even worse? Unacceptable.

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...the majority of games that don't run natively. Those that do run almost the same, sometimes better.

I don't think we'll get the same performance on (all) games running through Wine/Cedega until they finish implementing the directx API, but that will happen sometime in the not-so-far future.

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Miuku.

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...the majority of games that don't run natively. Those that do run almost the same, sometimes better.

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Right, I see you've never had to fight with the ATi driver for Linux, because it took them over 3 months to even get basic 3D support for the X800 series after launch.

So spare me the "but it's native!!!1111" crap, because it won't make a damn difference here - the driver support is still laughable.

I won't even touch the subject of SLI cards in Linux, because that's another can of worms you don't want to get into.

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rezza Veteran

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No one here said anything about difficulty in the installation, I'm talking about raw performance which on Linux side for the majority of games is dismal compared to the Windows world.

10-20% slower than Windows or even worse? Unacceptable.

586008870[/snapback]

My experience of games which provide native versions for both windows and linux:

Neverwinter nights: 10-20% faster in linux.

Doom3: 10-20% faster in windows

UT2003/4: no noticable difference.

That's pretty much all the cross-platform games I've compared.

Then again, I'm using an nvidia card, and as everybody knows, nvidia > ati in linux.

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Fred Derf Veteran

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I won't even touch the subject of SLI cards in Linux, because that's another can of worms you don't want to get into.

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Let's not even pretend to suggest that Linux is a professional gaming solution. Is anyone even suggesting that?

The point is that there are some native games for Linux and a fair bit of other titles will work through an emulation-type layer with varying degress of success.

If someone is looking for a free and flexible operating system to run Open Office, surf the web and play a few, but not necessarily all, games then Linux makes a decent choice.

It gets even better when you want to use a few server-like functions.

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raid517

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@daPhoenix, it seems to me that you are blaming Linux for things (in your view) ATI/Nvidia didn't do right. If you really have a gripe with regard to performance, complain to ATI - or Nvidia, or whoever. And the 20% performance hit you mentioned has been quoted as a figure for games played under cedega. Which is fair enough, considering that they had to backwards reinvent their own implimentation of directX (using a very small team) in the space of maybe 1 or two years. As, rezza said, give them time and they will get there.

There are others who claimed to have noticed a 20% hit on other native games - but I often notice that these reviews are written by relative n00bs on non optimised systems running for example Suse and Fedora and so on - which are both notoriously slower (you could even say 20% slower) than a lot of the competition and which often seem to sacrifice speed for compatability and stability. On a properly optimised system (whith a properly optimised kernel and properly compiled applications - even if these are Fedora or Suse systems) you can see this 'performance hit' pretty much dissapear, or in many cases (again as rezza said) it can even be significantly reversed.

Also you complain about SLI (and other things) as though you imagine that Linux had a technical department (and maybe even a complaints department) who's sole responsibility was to ensure that every new fad or minor feature enhancement was immediately implimented. However clearly this is just not possible. Linux as I'm sure really you must be aware, is still very much a community based project, staffed by a huge number of volunteers who make contributions in their own time as and when their resources permit this. Many of these people (particularly those working on the kernel AGP support) many not have SLI systems, so concequentally developing for such systems might really be very hard.

More than that perhaps they feel that there is a need to prioritise and that SLI may or may not be a long lasting feature. Perhaps too they feel (like me) that the performance gains obtained through using SLI (between 6 and 11% on many systems) is simply not significant enough to warrant the major investment in time and manpower that this would represent in order to include it as a feature. Perhaps they are supicious aswell (again like me) that SLI may just be another cheap way for Nvidia to try to hoodwink the public into always buying two of their products instead of one - for very little realtime benefit to their customers.

It seems to me that your frustrations are very much misdirected. You either have to accept Linux for what it is - or you don't. And if you can't accept it, then why not help out to try to impliment those changes that you feel are most needed? It is after all your OS - and you can change, improve and alter it in any way you see fit. In Linux I'm afraid the truth is that you very much are your own complaints department - because the typical response (and I think a valid one) to complaints like these is, 'if you don't like it, then change it.'

It really is that simple. You simply have to come to terms with it. Otherwise you will just end up shouting at the empty air.

GJ

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pixated

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My experience of games which provide native versions for both windows and linux:

Neverwinter nights: 10-20% faster in linux.

Doom3: 10-20% faster in windows

UT2003/4: no noticable difference.

That's pretty much all the cross-platform games I've compared.

Then again, I'm using an nvidia card, and as everybody knows, nvidia > ati in linux.

586009367[/snapback]

Hmm there is NWN for linux? I was thinking about buying the pack with both expansions in it. Is there some special version for linux or does it come together with the normal one or? :unsure:

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