Running games on Linux

[Nick]

I've been interested in Linux for a while now but still haven't taken the plunge. One of my primary reasons for this is my gaming habit. From my fairly limited knowledge the two possible ways of playing games on Linux seem to be: use software such as Wine or dualboot Linux and Windows. I presume dualbooting is more reliable for playing the games however I was wondering are there any advantages to using Wine?

Thanks in advance.

 

[sammjj]

I've been interested in Linux for a while now but still haven't taken the plunge. One of my primary reasons for this is my gaming habit. From my fairly limited knowledge the two possible ways of playing games on Linux seem to be: use software such as Wine or dualboot Linux and Windows. I presume dualbooting is more reliable for playing the games however I was wondering are there any advantages to using Wine?

Thanks in advance.

Wine just lets you install and run .EXE apps (programs, games and such designed for windows).

So yes it would be good to use wine then you only have to use one OS, but there are other reasons why people dual boot vista + linux

i have recently dual booted ubuntu and vista HP 64bit (with the ubuntu boot loader), but had to use the HDD with ubuntu on for an emergency backup.

in future will be tri-booting vistaHP64+xpPE32+ubuntu32

 

[Bungral]

Is Ubuntu hard to setup dual boot with Vista 64?

 

[Nick]

Wine just lets you install and run .EXE apps (programs, games and such designed for windows).

So yes it would be good to use wine then you only have to use one OS, but there are other reasons why people dual boot vista + linux

i have recently dual booted ubuntu and vista HP 64bit (with the ubuntu boot loader), but had to use the HDD with ubuntu on for an emergency backup.

in future will be tri-booting vistaHP64+xpPE32+ubuntu32

Using Wine does seem the way to go for me when I finally get around to installing Linux. From an amateur's point of view it seems like less of a fuss and, at least off the top of my head, I can't think of any reason to keep Windows as well. Thanks for the help.

I'm curious as to what the other reasons you mentioned for dual booting are?

 

[sammjj]

I'm curious as to what the other reasons you mentioned for dual booting are?

some people like the look, feel of linux, but some prefer to keep vista too so it would better suit some of the games/programs they may have.

 

[qisback]

I used to use Linux as the only OS on my machine. I've changed to using 2 machines now rather than dual boot because I require Linux as my workstation.

When I used Linux for gaming I used Cedega to play most games, however most games had minor glitches or ran at a segnificantly reduced FPS, there also fidly to sort out in most cases. I have run games under wine but it's just not a stable or suitible as using Cedega.

I eventually came to the conclusion that windows is for gaming linux is for working. Although I wouldn't discourige you from trying Linux with wine or Cedega because you may only play a few games that work great under emulation, I however didn't.

-={Q}=-

 

[Pseudonym]

You could also try http://www.virtualbox.org. It works really well for programs, but I'm not sure how fantastic it would be for gaming.

 

[qisback]

iirc it doesn't allow for direct access to the graphics card which would mean it won't work for gaming.

playonlinux.com is something else you could look at although I havn't personally used it.

-={Q}=-

 

[sjek]

yeh, directX support isnt great but generally GL works better.

Unfortunatly, you missed out on a free giveaway by Crossover which works pretty well, a little better than cedega in my opinion.

virtualisation os a decent option but you do take a fair performance hit - so maybe not crysis but its the best option if you dont want to reboot to kill some time on CS or whatever.