Would you abandon Windows in favor of Linux for gaming?

bledd. said:
this..

Microsoft should really release a 'Gamer Edition' of windows
Click to expand...

But how? There's no market for it, because very few people use their PCs just for games. If they were to release one, it'd be a marketing nightmare. If it was the same price as, say, Home Premium, people would probably rather get HP because it's got more features. If it cost more, people would rather get HP because it's cheaper, and if it cost less, you might find people buying "Gamer Edition" over HP to save money when they really should be getting HP.

Besides, do we really need yet another version of Windows? :p

I can't really imagine what benefit a gaming edition would have anyway, other than slightly reduced overheads. For a gaming PC with a good CPU and plenty of RAM, those overheads are negligible anyway.

The only people that would buy a Gamer Edition are hardcore gamers and people paying too much money for Alienware PCs. It'd also give the impression that the other versions of Windows are no good for games. MS is far better off making Windows more gamer-friendly in general, rather than splitting it up.
 
It doesnt need another new version of windows, but I think it does need a "Game Mode" that can be activated that shuts down all the un-neccesary stuff.
 
Maybe.

I like free software and nearly everything on the computer is free and pref open source.
But linux is still harder to use and no where near as nice as windows. Although the gap has closed a lot in the last two years.
All depends on pricing say linux natively supported all games by 2011 andwin8 was £200 then I would reluctantly move to linux. If like with win7 it ws £45 I would stick with windows.
Windows is an amazing refined and stable os. But more importantly easy to use and familiar. Which is linux 2nd biggest problem after gaming. A windows power user on linux is like a n00b.
 
xxalxx said:
It doesnt need another new version of windows, but I think it does need a "Game Mode" that can be activated that shuts down all the un-neccesary stuff.
Click to expand...

why? you might get an extra 2fps. It would be totally pointless and no more useful than benchmarking for willy waving.
 
So at this stage would it be fair to say that there is not really a deep seated resentment against windows nor a deep desire for gamers to abandon windows at the first possible chance?
 
For a while I did game on Gentoo (using Wine/Cedega) and it actually out-performed Windows for most of the games.

I prefer Linux over Windows in general. I have greater control and I don't have anywhere near as much bloat and crap I don't want/need. Infact I have nothing I don't want on here :p

I'm also a big anti-Microsoft (as a corporation) person, and as a software developer myself, Microsoft have clearly made some very questionable decisions with regards to the functionality and usability of their software.
 
Dj_Jestar said:
For a while I did game on Gentoo (using Wine/Cedega) and it actually out-performed Windows for most of the games.

I prefer Linux over Windows in general. I have greater control and I don't have anywhere near as much bloat and crap I don't want/need. Infact I have nothing I don't want on here :p

I'm also a big anti-Microsoft (as a corporation) person, and as a software developer myself, Microsoft have clearly made some very questionable decisions with regards to the functionality and usability of their software.
Click to expand...

Is this something that you see them continuing with or are you seeing a change? I for one was extremely ****ed at MS when they released the 'new' standard of MS Office docs i.e. DOCX and XLSX etc. All of a sudden my entirely companies Office suites were semi redundant. That was a kick in the teeth if ever I saw one. Still there are lots of signs at the moment that MS are listening to the end user - if not from a gaming perspective then at least from an OS perspective.
 
Use linux for my day to day pc, don't run any games on it. Want games, just use windows, want a decent OS for everything else, use linux. Job done 0 hassles.
 
Would I? Depends.

I like full control and Linux would give me that more than Windows does.

I don't have an affinity for windows, I prefer some products in a Windows environment but I am sure there are equal and/or better products for Linux.

I have a superior system hardware wise to a friend who runs Linux on his lesser system. He can out load me on games by a shocking margin.
 
rsatd said:
Use linux for my day to day pc, don't run any games on it. Want games, just use windows, want a decent OS for everything else, use linux. Job done 0 hassles.
Click to expand...

Do you use anything like a Photoshop like application or any power apps or are you a web browser and e-mailer? Would you consider yourself a power user?
 
The main problem with Linux is that the libraries it comes with are not designed for binary compatibility. When you download Linux binaries for games, they will either be open source (haha yeah, I can see EA releasing source code) or pre-built binaries linked to specific libraries.

Some libraries don't change over time, but some are updated fairly often. And unlike DLLs on Windows, the libraries on Linux don't maintain backwards compatibility. This is why you'll see things like libc6 - the six means this library isn't binary compatible with lib5, or lib4, etc.

Besides, OpenGL is simply not as easy as DirectX to code in. Especially now that Microsoft have C# + XNA for both PC and 360 development.

While I love Linux for programming in Python and as a webserver, I don't think I would ever use it for gaming. Actually, the proof in that is that WoW is the only game I play at the moment and it works fine under WINE, and yet I stick to Windows. :)
 
andrewdodd13 said:
Besides, OpenGL is simply not as easy as DirectX to code in. Especially now that Microsoft have C# + XNA for both PC and 360 development.

While I love Linux for programming in Python and as a webserver, I don't think I would ever use it for gaming. Actually, the proof in that is that WoW is the only game I play at the moment and it works fine under WINE, and yet I stick to Windows. :)
Click to expand...

But the counter argument is that if a games house is developing for the PS3 (which is OpenGL not DX) then surely it's not that big a step to further port the games to Linux?
 
SteveOBHave said:
Do you use anything like a Photoshop like application or any power apps or are you a web browser and e-mailer? Would you consider yourself a power user?
Click to expand...

Nope, I use Gimp to mess around after my craptography sessions in a weak attempt to make photos where you can at least see something, as I suck at both :).

I use it for for everything outside games, backing up my dvd collection, watching dvd's as its outputting cloned desctop video output to my "TV", music, file sharing, web server, suprisingly runs well on the cheapest O2 package. And other random linux based toys, like setting up MythTV and using a N810 to control it, works pretty well, other then one bug so far :).

What are power apps? Never heard the term :p

Only thing my linux box can't do outside gaming, is flash videos so I have to turn on my so called "gaming" windows box to watch flash based videos. At least until I find out a way to cache and decompress the said flash videos so I can watch them on the box, its just a wee 1.2ghz VIA SOC, with 1gb ram, doesn't sound like much but handles Arch linux surprisingly well. Quiet honestly after using windows box at work I learned to appriciate how few resources some linux distros/packages need.
 
SteveOBHave said:
Do you use anything like a Photoshop like application or any power apps or are you a web browser and e-mailer? Would you consider yourself a power user?
Click to expand...

Linux has Gimp as an alternative to Photoshop - and GimpShop, which is a variant on Gimp with the UI designed with Photoshop users in mind. It runs PS plugins, looks like PS, does the same job, and it's free.

If you're wanting to do some security testing, dedicated server hosting, file server hosting, web server hosting, coding, scripting etc, then Linux is a much better choice than Windows. I'd consider Linux to be a much more 'power user' freindly OS :)
 
rsatd said:
Nope, I use Gimp to mess around after my craptography sessions in a weak attempt to make photos where you can at least see something, as I suck at both :).

I use it for for everything outside games, backing up my dvd collection, watching dvd's as its outputting cloned desctop video output to my "TV", music, file sharing, web server, suprisingly runs well on the cheapest O2 package.

What are power apps? Never heard the term :p

Only thing my linux box can't do outside gaming, is flash videos so I have to turn on my so called "gaming" windows box to watch flash based videos. At least until I find out a way to cache and decompress the said flash videos so I can watch them on the box, its just a wee 1.2ghz VIA SOC, with 1gb ram, doesn't sound like much but handles Arch linux surprisingly well. Quiet honestly after using windows box at work I learned to appriciate how few resources some linux distros/packages need.
Click to expand...

Ah no - you've answered my question. The impression I have so often gotten is that people pick up linux and use it in a fairly low end manner - i.e. jump on the web, check the weather, write some e-mails, watch a video on youtube etc. The problem arises in that few people actually give it the time to really form an opinion - myself included - so I am curious to know how it stands up under real solid use and how much fiddling it took to actually get it there.
 
SteveOBHave said:
But the counter argument is that if a games house is developing for the PS3 (which is OpenGL not DX) then surely it's not that big a step to further port the games to Linux?
Click to expand...
Probably not OpenGL-wise, but then, PS3 games are a nightmare to program, what with Sony having gone with a completely different approach than anyone else.

Again with the binary compatibility though. The PS3's System Software may get updated, but I would imagine the library calls remain the same.
 
arc@css said:
Good idea, would have thought it would make developers lives easier too, may even bridge the gap between console and PC gaming market. :)
Click to expand...

How though? All it'd succeed in doing is penalising people with normal versions of Windows for not having "Gamer Edition". That's not the way to do things.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom