linux for gaming

[ledheadtaylor]

are there any advanteges in gaming if your using linux? i know that most things arent compatable but would a linux computer compete with a windows computer in gaming? im just curious becuase i am a big time gamer.

[Cabhan]

It's been debated about, performancewise. There's a thread on here somewhere. I seem to recall that in the few games that exist on both Linux and Windows, Linux tended to be perceived as faster (no actual benchmarks were done), and this was generally attributed to the fewer amounts of extraneous crap. You can try to find that thread somewhere in the Coffee Lounge.

Having said that, most major games are _not_ available for Linux. There are notable exceptions: Doom 3, Neverwinter Nights, and assorted others. However, most Linux games tend to be smaller, generally open-source / community-developed projects.

If you're going to want to play major market games, you have two main options: try to get them running under Cedega (a fork of WINE that focuses on gaming: it is subscription-based, but as a result, does officially support many popular games), or dual-boot with Windows (where you keep Windows installed alongside Linux, and choose which to boot into at startup). The latter may be recommended, as Windows is certainly the best platform on which to run Windows programs.

I hope that helps.