Some good news for Linux gamers

[stopper]

Not sure how important this is to most here but it is quite an interesting read never the less.
The dev of the gallium open source driver for AMD cards has found a way to allow Directx (windows) games, to interact directly with the GPU driver, eliminating the need for OpenGL conversion through Wine, which in turn will increase performance to the same level as running natively on Windows.

http://rootgamer.com/11403/news/directx-linux-gallium-driver

I personally consider this a major breakthrough as it could open up the entire back catalogue of Windows games for Linux. Pity it is still in very early stages though.

 

[stopper]

I'm sure MS lawyers will stop this.

They can't do a damn thing about some one writing open source software.
And he isn't even altering or copying any DX code, he is simply building his own API which alows DX to communicate with the hardware directly. Exactly the same as ATI's Mantle.
If any thing, Microsoft should be employing him.

 

[stopper]

Leaving out indy devs - who mostly do release on Linux - there are only a handful of games that support Linux. I wish there were more.

Being realistic tho, most gamers want to play a fair few of the AAA games released each year. A scenario that won't be possible on Linux for the forseable future.

Unreal Tournament
Darksiders 2
Witcher 2
Metro redux
EA's football manager
Borderlands
Warhammer
Team17 - Worms franchise
Cryengine
Project cars
Dice are interested
Blizzard are interested
Almost all of Valves back catalogue is already on Linux.

It was Gabe and Valve that turned Windows into a major gaming platform, now he has turned all his attention to Linux and brought Nvidia with him. Linux will be a major player much quicker than Windows ever managed it, the hard work is already done.

 

[stopper]

I also don't think Valve did that single-handedly

Maybe not "single" handedly, but he worked for Microsoft for 13 years, coding and producing Windows. He literally made Windows.
1 guy left to help create Quake, 2 guys left to create Half Life (and Valve), 2 out of 3 of the biggest landmarking games that turned Windows into a gaming platform.
So yeah, I would say that he pretty much created Windows gaming.