General questions concerning gaming in (arch)linux

zenlord · 2011-09-27 09:42:40

Hi,

I've searched the forums, and I found a lot of howto's that sometimes worked, and sometimes didn't. I'm not a gamer, but have been a longtime linux-user.

I have talked a lot of people into using linux, and almost all of them are happy with there new OS, but my brother (my latest convert) is a gamer 'pure sang'. He's not to happy with the switch to Ubuntu:
* Enemy Territory works, but punkbuster keeps kicking him off the servers
* WoW: he was used to getting rocksolid 80+ FPS in windows, now he gets 50FPS with drops to below 20FPS
* Mumble: giving problems

Yesterday I have found a link to a solution for punkbuster - maybe I can solve that one myself. Is it normal that you have a significant amount lower FPS in linux than in windows? I thought the nvidia-blob was about 'on par' with the windows-driver? I have set WoW to OpenGL and applied several tweaks that I have found around the interwebs...

Should I give archlinux for him a try (I only chose Ubuntu to make it easier for him to update)? Since punkbuster is 32bit-only, should I install 32bit linux for him? Or should I advise him to buy a 'windows 7'-licence key?

PS: Is the Archlinux gaming repo still alive? It looks as if no updates have made since early 2010 and only 1 of the 3 mirrors mentioned in the wiki is still up...

THX!

stqn · 2011-09-27 12:58:38

A friend who's kind of a "hardcore gamer" (FPS and RPGs mostly) keeps Windows to run games... Even though he prefers BSD (he switched from Linux a couple months ago.) If your brother only plays those two games then maybe you can find fixes to his problems, but if he also likes to play every new game it's probably wise to keep a copy of Windows installed!

Not everyone is ready for Linux unfortunately (especially not *my* brother... sigh... )

Last edited by stqn (2011-09-27 13:00:37)

zenlord · 2011-09-27 13:33:13

THX! I think I have seen new games lying around on his desk, but he only asked me to install those two.

Damn, I really thought that it would be possible to even convert him (as a gamer) to linux.

Other opinions welcome of course

kokoko3k · 2011-09-27 13:37:23

zenlord wrote:

* WoW: he was used to getting rocksolid 80+ FPS in windows, now he gets 50FPS with drops to below 20FPS
[..]
Yesterday I have found a link to a solution for punkbuster - maybe I can solve that one myself. Is it normal that you have a significant amount lower FPS in linux than in windows? I thought the nvidia-blob was about 'on par' with the windows-driver? I have set WoW to OpenGL and applied several tweaks that I have found around the interwebs...

Starting from 270.X, nvidia drivers are known to have some issue with opengl code, this happens in linux and windows 7, the issue is being worked on by nvidia devsm but no fix has been released yet.
maybe you can try to use 260.19.44 drivers, but they require an older kernel, and probably an older xorg too.

In the past i compared opengl performance between windows(opengl) and linux+wine with lightsmark benchmark and i had the same speed, so maybe you're facing the driver bug.

jpsimard · 2011-09-27 14:46:39

I am a pretty much a gamer, less so in recent years but... I have found that Linux does not offer the same gaming possibilities as Windows. To this day, I am still dual-booting because of gaming, and I doubt that will change in the near future. I have ran things like Half-life2 and Stracraft 2 in Linux with statisfying results, but with generally fewer frame rates than Windows. As for gaming performance, recent test ran by Phoronix suggest that BSD is faster than Linux, but that's not your question. For myself, I doubt you would find a distro with a significant performance boost for gaming, as they all share the same drivers and all share Xorg to produce graphics. The only reserve is that other test ran by Phoronix suggest that "compositing" as used in Ubuntu's Unity or Gnome 3 has some negative effect on 3D gaming performance, so if you switch to Arch, you might want to consider the "less cute" desktops, like XFCE or LXDE and the like, without compositing. Also, I should mention that using 64 bit Linux to run 32 bit windows games tends to make things a little more difficult. If gaming under Linux with Wine is a must, consider staying under a 32 bit version of the distro of your choice.

As for Windows games, you might want to look at Crossover ( http://www.codeweavers.com/ ) which offers an interface to Wine and better support. There is a "gaming edition" of crossover which might help. Check their DB to see which games are supported, but there's a full-featured demo mode anyway, so try before you buy. Also, you might try playonlinux ( http://www.playonlinux.com/ ) wich offers an interfaces that manages Wine installations for you with "recepies" in the background that are known to offer the best results. If you want the "free" option, playonlinux is the way to go if you want the best chances at running your games, if supported.

Lastly, I would suggest looking at http://www.penguspy.com/ to find Linux native games. Of course, that might not satisfy your brother if he wants specific games.

Last edited by jpsimard (2011-09-27 14:50:16)

lucke · 2011-09-27 15:39:31

Make sure that "unredirect fullscreen windows" is set in ccsm.

Last edited by lucke (2011-09-28 03:05:40)

Darksoul71 · 2011-09-28 08:19:05

Hi there,

here are my two cents as being both an avid gamer but also a Linux user by heart.
While Linux might be great for a lot of people doing daily work, unfortunately it is (and possibly never will) be a good OS for playing the latest games (= Windows).

If you like to play older game (e.g. Quake with enhanced engine, UT99, UT2k4) plus some games from smaller Indy companies then you can get along with Linux nicely.
As soon as you want to play a more recent Windows game (with copy protection at worst) you are in trouble (possibly).

The stability of your game under WINE is bound to several variables such as GPU driver, WINE version, Game version, Xorg and so on.

The playability of a game under WINE can vary greatly. Just check out Borderlands for example:
http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.p … &iId=10539

It can easily change from "platinum" (= playable without stress) to "garbarge" (= game will not even start) simply by an update to WINE / the game itself.

Using a stabelized version of WINE (crossover games) or installation helpers (winetricks & playonlinux) make things easier but do not solve every problem.

Plus you are dealing sometimes with a big performance penalty when using WINE.

If one is using his OS for the pure purpose of gaming (Window games of course), then you should not even think about using WINE for a second if you value your time.
For the time being a WinXP SP3 license plus a small HDD is available for below 60€. Dual-booting to Windows provides the most contiously stable platform for Windows games (who would have thought that :-))

If you like to tinker around and can live with games being broken now and then WINE provides a perfect playground

The worst thing that can happen to Linux are Windows gamer which install Ubuntu for example and then ask "Here I am...how do I install my favourite Windows game XXX here ?"

-D$

Awebb · 2011-09-28 09:08:07

For the Punkbuster problem: He ought to stop cheating, that's all.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-09-27 09:42:40

General questions concerning gaming in (arch)linux

#2 2011-09-27 12:58:38

Re: General questions concerning gaming in (arch)linux

#3 2011-09-27 13:33:13

Re: General questions concerning gaming in (arch)linux

#4 2011-09-27 13:37:23

Re: General questions concerning gaming in (arch)linux

#5 2011-09-27 14:46:39

Re: General questions concerning gaming in (arch)linux

#6 2011-09-27 15:39:31

Re: General questions concerning gaming in (arch)linux

#7 2011-09-28 08:19:05

Re: General questions concerning gaming in (arch)linux

#8 2011-09-28 09:08:07

Re: General questions concerning gaming in (arch)linux

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