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General discussionLinux Gamer's - How do you play?(15 posts)(15 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted January 16, 2015
As I see it there are three different "setups" for gaming as a Linux user:

1.) Dual boot. Run Linux for Linux games, and Windows for Windows games. (This doesn't preclude using WINE for Windows games in Linux.

2.) Linux + WINE. No dual boot, but use WINE for Windows games on Linux.

3.) Linux only. Only play Linux native, or Linux playable (ie. Dosbox, SCUMMVM, Arx-Libertatis etc.) games.

I've gone full circle once. I started out as a Dual-Boot, then I dropped Windows, and then in the pre-1.0 days, WINE pissed me off so much, I dropped WINE too, and just ran Linux games. Then I added WINE back in, and now I dual-boot again. I'm about to drop Windows again though - I haven't booted into windows in monthes, so I'm going to reclaim that hard drive space for Linux, and just run Linux + WINE.

If you're a Linux user, how do you play your games?
Posted January 16, 2015
Unfortunately I'm at number one atm. I'll try to play (heh) around with number two since I've got a upgrade, but still a long way to go.

Patiently waiting (or more like hoping) I could finally switch to number 3. M$ is arse.
Posted January 16, 2015
I do not use a Windows partition any more.

I stay with a full Linux system with the help of Wine and Q4wine (I use KDE as desktop) and obviously DOSBox and SCUMMVM when needed.

But for a very few games, I use a Windows VM. For Trails in the Sky, the game crashed on the very end: the video credits doesn't work, so I couldn't save for a post-endgame. I tried many things but the only which worked was to use a VM, and to transfer the previous save to the Windows VM, play the video ending, to save there, and to transfer in the other way around to Linux. I don't know if new patches resolved that though.
Post edited January 16, 2015 by Huinehtar
Posted January 16, 2015
Mainly Number 3 but I do use Wine from time to time if I need to extract games from Windows-Steam or play some old crpg games(though very rare).

Never-ever dual booted, been using linux computer side by side my windows 98 computer(had to use it for dail-up windows only modems ugh) from 2007-2009 then exclusively linux from 2010-now.
Posted January 16, 2015
1) Dual boot.

Windows games run faster when they are in native environment, no overhead. This is important for old/slow computers.
I'm not a fan of WINE, to be honest (overhead!).
Posted January 17, 2015
I went from Windows-only to Linux-only, and never went back. Though at the time I imagined I will, as it wasn't really how I planned to transition. Happy accident, all in all.

I do use WINE, I imagine I wouldn't be here if I didn't. Or at least I wouldn't have registered back in 2010. Or perhaps it's the other way around, I wouldn't be using WINE if I hadn't somehow discovered this little site called Good Old Games that was legally selling Arcanum for a measly $6.

However, I recently tried to count all the native games I've purchased over the years, and the result was around 160 games, while my GOG library is around 60 (though the number would be lower if I excluded the supported WINE games, games with source ports, engine reimplementations, and DOSBox games). Although having a greater number of native games doesn't necessarily mean I play them more, I'd say that is the case. I've played three WINE games last year (Fallout, Baldur's Gate, Clive Barker's Undying), but dozens of native ones.
Post edited January 17, 2015 by hyperagathon
Posted January 17, 2015
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vsr: 1) Dual boot.

Windows games run faster when they are in native environment, no overhead. This is important for old/slow computers.
I'm not a fan of WINE, to be honest (overhead!).
I've heard people claim that some games can actually run faster in Linux+WINE than windows. The only thing I can see that might allow this to happen is that a minimal Linux system + WINE could actually wind up being lower overhead than windows alone - I dunno though, I don't generally run games in both. I also tend not to play the latest and greatest games, and the games I am running, I'm using a relatively beefy laptop. Since buying this laptop I haven't a single game that I've been disappointed with the performance.

Since 2006, the only time I've generally run a game in windows is if I can't get it working in Linux. And, really, I'm discovering that I almost never play those Windows only games because I would have to reboot, and I've got enough games that work in Linux, that I pretty much never to choose to reboot.
Posted January 17, 2015
I'm doing option 2, I use Wine for games that don't have native ports or user-made native engines. I gave up Windows after XP, even switched my elderly Mother to Linux and she has less problems using it than the newer versions of Windows. Windows makes me grumpy.
Posted January 17, 2015
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hummer010: I've heard people claim that some games can actually run faster in Linux+WINE than windows. The only thing I can see that might allow this to happen is that a minimal Linux system + WINE could actually wind up being lower overhead than windows alone - I dunno though, I don't generally run games in both.
Actually this might be true if special conditions were met, i think. Especially if you use Windows Vista, 7, 8 and higher. But Windows XP is very fast. I know it is insecure, but it is fast.
I have no plans of opting in any future version of windows in my next PC though. I don't like where M$ is heading (Apple-way infrastructure).
Posted January 17, 2015
Still on dual boot, as I'm an avid flight sim player , and things like DCS World wont work under linux, I think thats the only thing installed on my windows Partition.

Flight sims are a niche product , and a flight sim in linux is a niche in itself... only commercial one I'm aware of , x-plane.

Other than that I run wine whenever possible with mostly good results (il2 1946 runs great, although I dont use head tracking , that setup could be a bit of work...)
I have a nvidia card that still somehow is able to display 16 bit depth stuff in older windows games without breaking (I was using an Radeon/AMD card before , they have no 16 bit support, not even dithering, so black screen is what you get, dont know about the open source driver)

Also basing my personal dosbox configs on gog installer provided ones and didn't ran into any major issues yet.

The major downside in booting into Windows is that you instantly have to apply some updates that you missed because you didnt boot into it for 2 weeks :)

Also new games that get released and dont even bother with any form of linux client are becoming more and more unattractive to buy.
Posted January 17, 2015
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Harr-Nuta: Still on dual boot, as I'm an avid flight sim player , and things like DCS World wont work under linux, I think thats the only thing installed on my windows Partition.

Flight sims are a niche product , and a flight sim in linux is a niche in itself... only commercial one I'm aware of , x-plane.

Other than that I run wine whenever possible with mostly good results (il2 1946 runs great, although I dont use head tracking , that setup could be a bit of work...)
I have a nvidia card that still somehow is able to display 16 bit depth stuff in older windows games without breaking (I was using an Radeon/AMD card before , they have no 16 bit support, not even dithering, so black screen is what you get, dont know about the open source driver)

Also basing my personal dosbox configs on gog installer provided ones and didn't ran into any major issues yet.

The major downside in booting into Windows is that you instantly have to apply some updates that you missed because you didnt boot into it for 2 weeks :)

Also new games that get released and dont even bother with any form of linux client are becoming more and more unattractive to buy.
Back in my Linux only days, I used to play quite a bit of FlightGear. It was a pretty good flight sim back then. I'm not sure what state it's in now.
Posted January 17, 2015
I play on my main linux installation, which is openSuse. I maintain a second linux installation of Ubuntu, since games tend to be more compatible with it.

As I own a license for any Windows version (via Microsoft DreamSpark), I don't use wine. This won't last forever though!
Posted January 17, 2015
2) Linux + WINE

I started Linux by dual booting, had 2 hard disks, 1 for each OS but in less than a month I kept booting less and less in Windows, to a point where I felt comfortable enough in Linux to no longer need Windows and have removed it completely, that has been about 5 months ago now.

I don't really like WINE, the only use I make of it is to play Guild Wars 2. The other games I play are either Linux native or Dosbox. I did try a few games in WINE to see how it performs and it's not as bad as I thought, it has come a long way from how I remember it (about 5-7 years ago).

I can't see myself going back to Windows. Win8/8.1 is married to a tablet, Win10 is a cross bred Win7+8 surely it's an improvement but it's still an abomination. To me officially, Windows 7 is the last good OS by MS. And gaming aside, Linux is still superior to all that.
Posted January 17, 2015
Only Linux, but use Wine for quite a few games here on GOG, and a few on Steam.
Been fully using it since around 2009. Messed around with it for a few years before then started dual booting... until I accidentally fully switched to Linux (who knew re-installing windows 7 would be so hard, just removed that partition and resized my Fedora partition). Its been great :D
Posted January 17, 2015
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hummer010: Back in my Linux only days, I used to play quite a bit of FlightGear. It was a pretty good flight sim back then. I'm not sure what state it's in now.
I think FlightGear did progress a bit (using openstreetmap data for roads and better weather modeling over the years), but still looks like crap compared to even xplane 9.

Flightmodel of helicopters within flightgear feels ok, but It cant scratch that combat itch :*(
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General discussionLinux Gamer's - How do you play?(15 posts)(15 posts)
(15 posts)