Good news for gamers.

[barrydrake]

Hi ... While I was manning an Ubuntu stand at OpenSource Expo last week, I was talking to a couple of Ubuntu users. They are regular gamers and can run nearly all the games they want to using Wine (the Windows emulator). Ubuntu does not supply Wine as part of the installation because there are many Windows apps that either don run or don't fully work under Wine ... but for those that do, it sounds good. There's also a commercial Wine based offering called Crossover. They offer a huge compatibility list on the website. Might be worth taking a look.
Regards, Barry.
--
Barry Drake is a member of the the Ubuntu Advertising team.
http://ubuntuadverts.org/

 

[Gorman]

Wine is good but you do end up paying an overhead to it as opposed to the performance from running natively. Rumour had it that it caused a few bans from wow too as the warden sees it as a third party program trying to hack the game!

 

[candtalan]

You might be interested to see this:
('How it Works')
http://linux.about.com/od/softorther/a/softotherwine.htm

extract:
==============================
The goal of the Wine project is to develop a "translation layer" for Linux and other POSIX compatible operating systems that enables users to run native Microsoft Windows applications on those operating systems.

This translation layer is a software package that "emulates" the Microsoft Windows API (Application Programming Interface), but the developers emphasize that it is not an emulator in the sense that it adds an extra software layer on top of the native operating system, which would add memory and computation overhead and negatively affect performance.

Instead Wine provides alternative DDLs (Dynamic Link Libraries) that are needed to run the applications. These are native software components that, depending on their implementation, can be just as efficient or more efficient than their Windows counterparts.
==============================

 

[barrydrake]

Instead Wine provides alternative DDLs (Dynamic Link Libraries) that are needed to run the applications. These are native software components that, depending on their implementation, can be just as efficient or more efficient than their Windows counterparts.
==============================

That's what I understood. The gamer I was talking to at OpenSource Expo said he had not noticed any speed overhead - he actually found that the games ran faster under Wine than on a Windows box. (As you'd expect, really ;-)

 

[Gorman]

You might be interested to see this:
('How it Works')
http://linux.about.com/od/softorther/a/softotherwine.htm

extract:
==============================
The goal of the Wine project is to develop a "translation layer" for Linux and other POSIX compatible operating systems that enables users to run native Microsoft Windows applications on those operating systems.

This translation layer is a software package that "emulates" the Microsoft Windows API (Application Programming Interface), but the developers emphasize that it is not an emulator in the sense that it adds an extra software layer on top of the native operating system, which would add memory and computation overhead and negatively affect performance.

Instead Wine provides alternative DDLs (Dynamic Link Libraries) that are needed to run the applications. These are native software components that, depending on their implementation, can be just as efficient or more efficient than their Windows counterparts.
==============================

That's what I understood. The gamer I was talking to at OpenSource Expo said he had not noticed any speed overhead - he actually found that the games ran faster under Wine than on a Windows box. (As you'd expect, really ;-)

No matter what the marketing speel is, my real world experience of wine is: fine for office, massive overhead for games.

If there were any truth in it running games faster than windows, thats exactly what everyone would do, fact is it doesnt.

 

[Tom DWC]

I can't see gaming ever taking off on Linux unless it can offer native support. I'm afraid Wine just doesn't cut it - useful tool it may be.

 

[candtalan]

No matter what the marketing speel is, my real world experience of wine is: fine for office, massive overhead for games.

Have you an example please?

If there were any truth in it running games faster than windows, thats exactly what everyone would do, fact is it doesnt.

Well you said yourself that WOW users were frowned on by wardens.

 

[candtalan]

I can't see gaming ever taking off on Linux unless it can offer native support. I'm afraid Wine just doesn't cut it - useful tool it may be.

An example would be really useful.
I have to say that I am not a gamer, but I do use Ubuntu a lot and I notice that it runs - on the same machines - faster than Windows. So if you are correct about an overhead for use of Wine, the supposed overhead would be offset by the GNU/Linux speedup wouldn't it? It is also difficult to see quite where the overhead would come from, seeing how wine works.

However, I do not believe that gamers will bother to change OS if it was the same speed or even if it was a bit or even a lot faster. Most Windows users are heavily committed to what they have, and are tuned in to retail advertising where there is quite a buzz, particularly with gaming. There is no retail buzz at all with GNU/Linux not least because there is no advertising budget.

 

[Tom DWC]

Most Windows users are heavily committed to what they have, and are tuned in to retail advertising where there is quite a buzz, particularly with gaming.

I wouldn't say it has anything to do with advertising to be honest. I've used Windows and Linux - I prefer Windows. That was a decision I reached myself. Linux has come a long way (Ubuntu in particular) but for me it will always be relegated to the spare PC that I'm not prepared to shell out on a Windows license for. There are a million reasons why I chose Windows but I'll keep it relevant to gaming.

Without wanting to stereotype, Most PC gamers like their tech. That's why they game on a PC and not a console (I happen to use both). I love the social element of console gaming and I generally use it for multiplayer titles. On console, graphics and performance don't really bother me all that much. I don't have high expectations. As for the single player titles on PC - well it's a different story there.

Me and many other PC gamers will fine tune our rigs to obtain every last frame. If Wine drops 10fps on a certain game then that's a major issue. Windows also has native support which means it's going to work, all of the time. There's just no reason to game on anything but Windows. I wouldn't game on Linux the same as I wouldn't game on a Mac.

 

[Gorman]

An example, sure why not.

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManag...Applications&sOrderBy=appName&bAscending=true

Ok so lets put my favourite game of the moment in, supreme commander 2 and see what it says:

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=11162

Some highlights

Default wine settings work, but artifacts are present

Anyone else getting invisible units making it unplayable?

UI flickering a lot.. I'm seeing black most of the time but the flickering froze up as I took the screenshot.

Yesterday I installed the game and then had to run the audio fix and the NVIDIA artifacts fix to get it to work properly, then it ran just fine. I then went through the first two levels of the tutorial.

Today, I load up the game and the UI and everything works just fine, but when it gets into the game the screen is completely black... except the UI

What works
singleplayer


What does not
-


What was not tested
multiplayer


Additional Comments

the game is a lot slower than in Windows XP; tested on Athlon64 x2 4200+, GeForce 6600

 

[Phoenix]

I remember reading a review of the various Linux software available for running games compared with Windows (can't remember which website it was) and they all scored 20+ frames per second less than windows.

 

[candtalan]

The example and the greater detail - very useful , thanks