Linux & Gaming

[libronix]

Hey guys, so I'm pretty new to the forum, and new to linux. I've grown tired of windows and I'm looking for a good linux distro that would support a few gaming specific things. I've got a usb xbox controller, and steam as well as my games obviously. So what's a good distro to run for gaming?

[GNU-Fan]

Hi,

honestly, I think you should keep Windows for a little bit longer.
There are many areas where GNU/Linux excels, but Gaming is certainly not among them.

[libronix]

Why is that? I've always been told that linux is no good for gaming but I've never understood why.

[GNU-Fan]

Software architecture, driver support and a small market mainly.
Take for example the video system of a typical distribution, which would be X Window.
This system wasn't really designed to give fast direct access to the display, sound or game controllers.

While it is possible to get a game to run "fullscreen", you would need to "grab" the input in order to receive the signals in a timely manner. This means all keyboard, mouse and controller input is directly routed to the application. But as a result, for as long as the application doesn't give that control back, you are no longer capable to interact with the operating system. An obvious consequence is that you can't "alt+tab" or "ctrl+alt+del" to look for new mail, switch channel in Teamspeak, etc.

Essentially you are surrendering multitasking when you play a fullscreen game in GNU/Linux.
That is of course only a technical issue, which could be resolved if enough interest was there.

I am not saying there are no good games here. Some are quite fun.
But somehow the Linux community at large has never craved commercial games very much. After all, nearly every such game would be proprietary. And many GNU/Linux users stay clear of Windows because they don't like such software too much.

My conclusion:
If you don't mind running proprietary software, you also don't mind that Windows is proprietary software.
As Window is also a better platform for games as far as performance is concerned, I see little reason to compete here.

[Irithori]

In short: linux is not windows.
Programs need to be compiled for an operating system.
And nearly all commercial games are made for windows.

Linux is NOT Windows

[coopstah13]

most games are designed for windows only (they use directx), and since they are closed source we can't compile them on our platform

however, games that were built for both windows and mac should be able to run reasonably well in wine, since mac uses opengl which is what linux uses as its primary graphics library

that being said, you can still try to run some games in wine, but there is no guarantee whether or not it works

you're best off sticking with a windows install to play those windows games

[tigerfx7]

I agree with the advice of GNU. I am not too much expert in this field but GNU said very well here.

[wall0thet]

WoW for Linux...

Just do it xD lol

[retired1af]

Not going to happen. First of all, the player base for World of Warcraft is primarily Windows based. There is no financial incentive for a company to rewrite a game for a third OS, when very few users would use that option.

[undermind]

In the case of World of Warcraft, it's actually somewhat easy to get working well on WINE (in comparison to some other games), but i'd also stay with windows if i were you. Steam support in linux is, as far as i know, non-existant