Gaming Linux has game

The only thing's that's missing now is better Ati linux driver support and cedega just free instead of payment per month. If that happens microsoft can go crying like emo kids for lost market share

Nvidia is givin' you payback

 

Someone please cut through the BS and just tell me how I can have a desktop with an icon that I click and run a game like UT2k4 or HL2 without any command line.

I know that setting up linux will take time and configuration, especially on a distro like Gentoo, but I've seen a lot of informative articles that never really tell me HOW to do it.
Does each game require me to write some sort of script or something so that Wine or Cedega is run first?

I probably should know how this kind of thing works as I cut my teeth on DOS 5 and Win 3.1, but I've been spoiled by everything since win 98.

The only thing stopping me from switching to linux completely has always been games.

Bah! Once this laptop isn't my only computer (and it isn't essential for finishing my thesis) I'll have a play with linux.

 

id like to plug hardocp.com's "30 days with Ubuntu" article.. very very good review of linux OS as a whole...(even prompted me to go dual boot it!) that said, after reading it I don't think I'd consider Linux a good choice for gaming at the moment.. with hardware support its just not there IMHO and WINE and other extra layers of hardware communication can cause problems 'n whatnot

 

I've 'played' with a few linux distributions in the past and gaming wasn't a priority but I played my fair share of Wolfenstein Enemy Territory on it. I never knew there was a free flight simulator for linux - a great write up.

 

Glider: I'm actually thinking of trying it now having gone back and re-read the article. Considering my Slackware box is now offline I may dual boot (if I can find a spare SATA HDD hanging around).
What distro would you recommend for use as a gaming/desktop distro?
I'm guessing Ubuntu but I would rather have you opinion on it

::edit:: cleaned up some erroneous spacings and spellings.

 

Well, a hardware raid controller makes life easy. Mostly their drivers are in kernel (the ones I played around with anyways). In Linux all devices are listed under /dev, and the raid array was listed under /dev/cciss/c0d0p# so just another way of addressing them.

Well, download a Ubuntu Live CD and see for yourself... It has Icons, just as Windows does...

Well, WINE and Cedega run in userspace, not kernelspace. So not a lot can go wrong at all. Either it works or it doesn't, and offers a great deal of security. Being userland and run as non priviledged user few things can go wrong. So don't fear too much problems.

Hardware support isn't that bad in my experience, but then again I don't have 500€ to invest into a graphic card.

 

It's not just the lack of good games, it's also the HUGE amount of work you have to do just to get them to run.

No-one is saying Linux has games, it's just that none of them are really worth it compared to some Windows games (Crysis, HL2, CNC3).

 

Hmm, not sure what you mean. I'll give an example. Cedega is installed and configured in 5 minutes, Then you just install the game you want inside Cedega (point and click interface), and games like HL2, CNC3,... just run (through shortcuts in the Cedega interface, point and click). If you call that a HUGE amount of work, then we have different definitions of huge.

 

Read the WIKI for Cube.
Quality: turn on anti-aliasing...and look at the maps with the new textures.
Widescreen: no other game allows you the control over resolution that sauer provides with the -w and -h commands.
Mouse: I believe that mousesensitivity is a command as well (3 is default, if my memory serves correctly).
Sound:That library is needed for sound mixing. If your hardware sucks (or its support for SDL or FMOD sucks), then your sound will crackle.

Quite honestly, you shouldn't complain that you can't get the game configured to your liking when you aren't even trying. There is very little Sauerbraten cannot do, given a bit of patience.

 

Thanks for the game links Glider. Good article I'll have to try that flying game.

However, for the cost of a year's subscription from Transgaming I can buy an OEM copy of XP and save myself a lot of hassle trying to get the latest game to work (as well as have almost guaranteed driver support.

 

Woah, stop right there dude. If you're using an on-board RAID controller, chances are it's what the Linux world calls 'fakeraid'.

It's not real RAID (which doesn't require a 'driver' as such -- it spoofs the drive as just another single volume), and it's not quite a simple drive controller -- the 'RAID' you get with on-board motherboards is quite-simply, software RAID on a multiport controller.. Implemented with a ROM menu and supported by a Windows driver.

Now I'm living proof that you can get Ubuntu (and probably other distributions) working on fakeraid arrays. It's FAR from simple though, and if you don't fancy piecing together the method of doing it from multiple Ubuntu Wiki articles and forum posts, I don't recommend even attempting. I had to use Ubuntu's Alternate Install CD for a start, and was continuously swapping out of the installer to a console to download and install the dmraid (et cetera) packages, and also configure grub manually.

Without Ubuntu's baseline package management it'd probably be nigh-on impossible, but thankfully it is do-able.

99.9% of experienced Linux users will say, 'Don't bother, use Linux's software RAID if you absolutely must', but for my own reasons I have had to. And it works quite well.

If you're serious about installing a Linux distro (Ubuntu's your best bet, especially when 7.04 'Feisty Fawn' is released on the 19th), then there's some essential reading (in order):

FakeRaidHowTo (written for Dapper, but describes the main beef of the procedure)
FakeRaidEdgy (updated for the latest 6.10 Edgy release; the grub confiig is weak though, refer to the original article for that)
Invaluable fakeraid thread (this really filled in the gaps present between BOTH articles for me -- I think someone's updated the wikis, but definitely read ALL of this)

Good luck

 

I'm sorry, the Wiki's awful. The README supplied with the game was pathetic, and that's all you get on the website too.

There was much more than AA missing from the maps, and yes, I'm running a 7800GS with the latest Nvidia driver (9755 as of writing). WoP actually included a way of specifying a custom widescreen resolution IN THE GAME -- it can't be particularly hard to implement simple options like this, especially when they're already implemented in Cube2.

I'm complaining because I shouldn't have to spend time configuring the game via a command-line to set up simple things like mouse sensitivity and resolution! It's pathetic! The game designers of Sauerbretan have a lot ot learn about creating games for the general public (as-opposed to CLI nerds).

The game has potential and the best part is it's free, but it's got a long way to go before looking down on its rivals.

 

I too have always had a fasination for linux for a long time now and it was only recently that i got my head arround the whole distro thing. The only thing that was stopping me at the time was gaming (at the time). However my needs have changed since i was younger. I need commercial software to be able to run on my machiene now-a-days such as AutoCAD and a program called Suunto Dive Manager.
Im currently on a hunt to see if those programs will work in WINE or the program fork of Cedega

 

I thought CrossOver Linux might be a bit better, but their support for AutoCAD looks a little lacklustre

 

Woah, interesting. I guess I didn't really know anything about the Linux gaming scene. The thing I don't get it is: if you want to play games, why not install and/or dual boot Windows? Why put yourself through the hassle of emulators and drivers just to play some BF2/HL2? Of course, Linux is much more suited to do other things than Windows, but my point is if your primary reason to build a PC is to play games, then the OS to install ain't Linux.

 

If I am not mistaken (unless they changed it) the CVS version of Cedega (while a bit harder to install) is free isn't it?

 

thanks for the check, its a bit annoying to say the least considering that AutoCAD used to provide a version for Mac and Linux in the past. That and the fact that the software isnt cheap by any means (read $3000 upwards).

Im still going to give linux a try later on especially when DX10 support comes out. I have no inteneition of migrating over to vista at this moment in time so itll be interesting to see how my opinions change in the future.

And as for why youd want to run linux to play games?....
COST of windows.

 

Yeah, true, CVS version is free, but I read somewhere that the CVS isn't the last version, and has limited functionality... I'll try to refind the article for you

EDIT:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedega#Licenses

 

Perhaps I don't know what I'm talking about.. however I point you to this

which makes me stop and say... hey, if I try to game on Linux to play the PC games that 90% of the world is out there playing it'll largely be a lot harder than if I just run it on windows [shrugs]

 

Running native Linux games are as easy as native Windows games... As I said in the article, the Wine or Cedega API adds an extra thing in the equation, but anybody with basic PC knowledge and the ability to type into a Google input box will get 99% of the games up and running in a short timespan.

But you are correct, it takes more effort to install Windows only games in Linux, but it isn't like in the article you linked to. And having a quick read through the article I get a *shrug* feeling... Appart from getting some facts plain wrong and highlighting all the negative things, the author didn't even take the effort to look to the reasons underlying the problems he encountered, like with his networking card. Linux isn't as foolproof as Windows, that is a known fact. Some HW manufacturers (like TI) just ignore the Linux users, making it a lot harder to offer up to date support. Don't blame the Linux community for that, blame the HW manufacturers.