Would you abandon Windows in favor of Linux for gaming?

SteveOBHave · 16 Jul 2009 at 08:42

I've been involved in a discussion with another chap on a forum where the topic of discussion is 'should the gaming industry do more to support linux as a viable gaming platform?'.

My personal perspective is that I find Windows to be a pretty good OS that has only just gotten better with the arrival of Windows 7 and I have no real desire to stop using it as my gaming platform of preference.

He made the statement "It's no secret there is a deep sentiment among PC gamers to ditch Windows every chance they can get..."

What I'm wondering is - Does this actually bear any creedance? Am I out of touch with the general climate of feeling toward Microsoft and it as a gaming platform?

SteveOBHave · 16 Jul 2009 at 08:52

orderoftheflame said:
No. I find Linux overcomplicated for simple tasks.

This is my argument as well however I'd have to admit that I haven't made use of any of the linux distros recently so I couldn't make an educated observation. Have you recently used it or is this just a sentiment gained from an intial exposure to an earlier version and carried susequently over?

SteveOBHave · 16 Jul 2009 at 08:53

veggiemanuk said:
In an instant, if only ATI and NVidia could sort our their Drivers. Although it has been a while since I tried messing with Fedora 5 or so.

OpenGL gaming ***

Can I ask why? Is it an anti Microsoft thing or more an issue with Windows itself?

SteveOBHave · 16 Jul 2009 at 09:08

PoD said:
TBH this 'discussion' smells like some college student who thinks he knows a bit about computing trying show off by saying he knows lots about Linux etc

Perhaps - but it doesn't make the arguement any less interesting or relevant. His motivations may be flawed but the question is still there and I am curious as to the general sentiment.

SteveOBHave · 16 Jul 2009 at 09:12

Oxy said:
Linux has imrpoved 10 fold since I first started using it in 2004. The only "issue" I have is gaming. If games natively ran on linux and ran well then I would take a free OS over a paying one every day of the week.

You guys that haven't tried linux in a few years should really download the latest version of your preferred distro, ubuntu, opensuse etc etc have come on leaps and bounds.

See I'm kind of on the other side of the fense - I like Windows as an OS and have just recently pre-ordered Windows 7. Granted there were some teething problems especially with Vista and we were constantly getting ripped off with the pricing. This has been addressed with a more than resonable pricing structure and any previous doubts I had about buying another OS are gone.

But you're right I need to DL the latest Ubuntu and throw it on a virtual box to see what it's like.

SteveOBHave · 16 Jul 2009 at 10:03

As a user experience is Linux better than Windows? Even if all games worked on both and both were free, would you abandon Windows for Linux?

SteveOBHave · 16 Jul 2009 at 10:47

AcidHell2 said:
why? you might get an extra 2fps. It would be totally pointless and no more useful than benchmarking for willy waving.

LOL because that never goes on here does it

SteveOBHave · 16 Jul 2009 at 10:49

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?

SteveOBHave · 16 Jul 2009 at 10:59

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

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.

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.

SteveOBHave · 16 Jul 2009 at 11:09

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.

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?

SteveOBHave · 16 Jul 2009 at 11:12

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.

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 · 16 Jul 2009 at 11:26

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

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.

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 · 16 Jul 2009 at 11:33

uv said:
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

Ah no I have quite a bit of experience with that sort of thing, in fact I use SLES (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server) every day at work but these are pre-packaged and custom made applications - they are designed to be part of the OS and the control is all through YAST! which makes life quite easy. Having not tried to do the same on a home machine I don't know how similar or dissimilar it is.

SteveOBHave · 16 Jul 2009 at 12:20

Keto said:
I would, but I use Linux primarily anyway.

I think the talk of Linux being far more complicated than Windows to use is exaggerated quite a lot, there are certain distros which are just as easy to set up as a Windows install, and offer a GUI driven experience also.

People are mostly brought up on Windows, that's what they learn first and switching to anything different is going to be a bit of a challenge at first, it's the same with most things.

I agree to a certain extent - changing the way you are used to doing things, especially if they work for you already seems frivoulous. I'd change if it were an improvement over the process and I guess the question then is, is the Linux way of things actually better and easier than the current Windows way?

Keto said:
Would it be nice to have proper Linux game support? Sure, it would be good for Windows users too since there would be a (slightly) greater PC market for game developers to aim at and that can only be a good thing.

But as it is now just having to reboot into Windows to play a modern game isn't much of a problem in my opinion, and I can't see it happening anytime soon either as long as companies like EA are still around.

So from a gaming perspective you can't see Linux taking hold nor being overly attractive to the big games houses (let along the small ones) because it's too much effort for too little reward? Doesn't this then translate to the OS as a whole? If there is no real financial opportunity for software houses then surely it doesn't bode well for the home user Linux distros?

SteveOBHave · 16 Jul 2009 at 12:24

Dj_Jestar said:
That's old school, and frankly, completely non-viable. As a developer you should appreciate the need to keep a common interface for hardware.

More so because it would then be down to the developer to continuously update the game everytime some new hardware came out. They're pretty average at patching games at the best of times...

SteveOBHave · 16 Jul 2009 at 14:07

Dj_Jestar said:
You won't find developers more devoted to their projects than you will on Linux/BSD. These guys live and breathe their projects, not just do it for a profession

And what they have produced is remarkable - where Linux is now is so far removed from where it used to be even a couple of years ago - It's the getting of commercial interest that is the difficult thing.

SteveOBHave · 21 Jul 2009 at 13:12

randal24 said:
Not sure I follow you with how Linux gaming would damage PC gaming? Surely opening it up to other OSs would give a wider target audience, and ultimately more money which is what the greedy "piracy is killing us" coffers are moaning about in the first place?

Whilst I agree that it would be a 'wider' audience I think the main problem would be that the financial return would not justify the outlay of resources and money. It's down to a share numbers game IMO and Linux just doesn't have the market penetration when compared to PS3, Xbox, PC and Wii.

Back to iD though...

From here: http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=302231&cid=20671657

So, the effort to make it physically happen appears to be "down to just one interested developer" and the bulk of it is going to be down to the case for opening up the market (or inertia as Carmack calls it). Given that piracy is financially strangling the industry I'd be inclined to think it's a case of when rather than if.

The real issue is finding someone with a worthwhile product that is willing to take the financial risk. In these current times there will not be any of the big games houses ready to do that IMO.

SteveOBHave · 22 Jul 2009 at 12:52

The Mad Rapper said:
With respect, you clearly have a crap generic wireless adapter than. I have never had an issue using quality branded adapters. Even the Intel versions built into laptop motherboards have worked flawlessly.

I do remember that a French chap has a web site where he makes drivers he has written for generic wireless adapters available for free d/l. I can't recall the address, but I read about it in an issue of Linux Format, perhaps Google may help?

Surely to a certain extent it does highlight the ongoing nature of Linux. That being one of a decentralised and 'hobby-ist' support structure. At least with a commercial OS there is the centralised support point (however lacklustre it seems to be at times...)