Ask Slashdot: What Video Games Keep You From Using Linux? 951
skade88 writes "Everyone knows content is king. Many of us use Windows or OS X at home instead of Linux because the games we love just are not available on Linux. With Steam moving forward for a Linux launch, I would like to hear from the Slashdot community on this topic. What are the game(s) you cannot live without? If they were available in Linux would you be happy to run Linux instead of Windows or OS X?"
Guild Wars 2 (Score:5, Interesting)
Not a game (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Not a game (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, but you demote Windows from an operating system to a mere application running in a window. Don't tell me that's not an improvement.
Re: (Score:3)
My take is less about the big titles, I fully expect that if linux (or mac) gets enough market share any of the half a million plus sales games will make ports for the other platforms. I suspect the cutoff is that you'd need to sell 50 or 60k extra copies for it to be worthwhile. Stuff like Guildwars, Skyrim WoW, those will have a linux version the moment the think they can break even on it.
The problem is all of the marginal games that might only break 50 or 60k copies total. Niche stuff, grand strategy
Re:Guild Wars 2 (Score:4, Insightful)
The most important development that will push games to Linux isn't Linux adoption by gamers, but lower costs of porting.
Increasingly, cross-platform development is a necessity. And if you're already being careful about not using platform-specific stuff (which you are if you're developing for Windows, consoles and OSX already), it becomes a simple question of middleware support. More and more engines support Linux these days, and Valve is committed to it. It will happen.
Meanwhile, I'm happy with Crossover and emulators/retrogames.
Re: (Score:3)
On the other hand, a developer can hit the vast majority of the market by targeting the Windows platforms alone, and do the least amount of port work... if they use DirectX.
I would like more Linux games, and I won't buy Windows games any more and I do occasionally spend money on Linux games, because I am not happy with Crossover.
Re:Guild Wars 2 (Score:5, Funny)
Nethack-x11.
Re:Guild Wars 2 (Score:4, Interesting)
All I play is nethack and slashem (console mode) ;-)
Re:Guild Wars 2 (Score:4, Funny)
1. Nethack already runs on Linux & most other toasters :)
2. Nethack, after you've played it a handful of times, is more of an obsessive compulsive disorder, rather than a game
3. Nethack is to 'real' gamers what Excel is to real programmers
Re: (Score:3)
Nethack was fun, but it hasn't been developed in almost a decade. There are far better roguelikes out there today.
Re: (Score:3)
Please name a few. Thanks.
Re:Guild Wars 2 (Score:4, Insightful)
FTL if you're looking for a roguelike that takes place in space instead of a dungeon.
Re:Guild Wars 2 (Score:5, Funny)
Well, my personal fave text adventure game on Linux was xorg.conf. Spent hours on it. Way ahead of its time it was also the only text game I can think of with dual monitor support. Or not, as they case may be.
Re: (Score:3)
Dual monitor support is an unlockable.
Roguelikes (Score:5, Interesting)
Vanilla NetHack hasn't had a release since 2003 but there have been several forks of it, one I did myself (look at my sig).
Considering the "far better roguelikes" that's something just asking for a flame war but I guess he thinks about ToME4 [te4.org] or Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup [develz.org].
ToME4's root go back a long time, originally an Angband variant but the 4th version separated completely from that heritage and created vast amounts of original content that makes Skyrim look like a coffee-break activity.
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is sort of an Anti-NetHack, trying to avoid many of the design mistake NetHack had. Like the needs for spoilers, that different races play the same in the long run, grinding, or that the game doesn't stay challenging after a certain point.
DCSS and ToME4 are big games but in the last years there has been a trend to develop smaller roguelikes. Like DoomRL [chaosforge.org] which is exactly what its title says or roguelikes for mobile devices like 100Rogues [100rogues.com] and POWDER [zincland.com].
This is a loaded question (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is a loaded question (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
How about Half-Life 2: Episode 3?
Re:This is a loaded question (Score:5, Insightful)
The silly idea that any one particular game would prevent a transition to Linux is just that silly. It is a whole library of games collected over years that keeps "DUAL BOOT" going. Windows the toy operating system for fun and games and Linux for business.
Re:This is a loaded question (Score:5, Interesting)
Not really, no. As Virtual Machine support becomes better and host machines become faster, it's *new* games that are a showstopper, not older games from 2+ years ago which can be run in a VM. But so far there's no VM that can properly run Borderlands 2, for example.
Dual boot allows you to run only one operating system at a time, that doesn't work for me. With Windows as host OS and Linux as guest OS, I can suspend the guest and be gaming in 20 seconds. Compared to shutdown+restart+boot_the_other_OS procedure, it takes 1/20th of the time.
Using dual-boot for gaming is like sex with an inflatable doll: by the time you finish inflating it, your boner turned into a wiener for a while already, you're tired and your mood is shitty.
Re: (Score:3)
Works great on macs. VMWare has gotten good enough to play Skyrim on a 3-year old mac config in a VM.
Re:This is a loaded question (Score:4, Informative)
There's that, and then there's the fact that Windows 7 has gotten a much better UI than previous versions of Windows... and to a real extent, to current versions of Linux.
I've been using Linux since early 1999, started on Debian and switched to Ubuntu in late 2005. None of the current desktop environments or window managers have the same "get the hell out of the way and let me run my programs" feel of Win7, likewise discoverability. I quite liked GNOME 2 paired with Compiz Fusion, but that's gone away unless I want to stick with an old distro[1], and MATE just isn't the same without Compiz and a good suite of supporting programs.
Then there's fucking PulseAudio and its refusal to run 100% reliably, with all features running, on my sound hardware (Asus Xonar DX). Part of this is undoubtedly Asus' fault for not releasing proper drivers to enable Dolby et al, but part of it is just fucking PulseAudio. Fucking PulseAudio.
Last is that it's been IME a huge pain in the ass to get multi-monitor support running properly compared to the epsilon effort on Windows. Again, a deal of this is going to be drivers, and I've had negative experiences with Intel and AMD video (haven't had an Nvidia card lately), but it really should be easier to get full-resolution dual-monitor 3D acceleration going. On Win7 you install the driver (often not requiring a reboot these days) and visit a single control panel to set resolution and screen position, done.
[1] Ubuntu 10.04 with the window buttons moved back to the right is IMO about the high-water mark for Linux UIs right now.
Re:This is a loaded question (Score:4, Informative)
Interesting fact: Sam Lantinga and Ryan C. Gordon, who now work with Steam on Linux, also ported the original Alpha Centauri game for Loki. Apparently it had some extremely hairy self-modifying assembly code to make the modular units crawl on hills correctly. I'd say those guys are very qualified.
Re:This is a loaded question (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree. I've been able to get a lot of Windows games to run under Wine however it's always a PITA! There is Crossover but it still has it's issues as well. Frankly if they could get Halo or Borderlands to work well under Android, it wouldn't be much of a leap to get it on a Linux Distro.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So why not run Windows and use Linux as a virtual guest. That way you can play Windows games AND use whatever flavour of Linux you prefer.
Re:This is a loaded question (Score:4, Funny)
So I should cut off my arms and legs and use prosthetics just cause I need to use pliers every now and then?
Re: (Score:3)
License costs, hatred towards Microsoft, I-am-1337 feeling, lack of RAM, habit to name a few. Also it makes little sense to spend 95% of your time in a guest OS if the bulk of your work is done there. Not to mention that if you run some heavy stuff on your Linux-based OS (e.g a large DB or e-mail server) it makes really no sense to have a 16 GB RAM machine with Windows and ru n a 15 GB Linux guest on it.
Re: (Score:3)
You can also go the other way if you are willing to use Xen. You can run native (well, Dom0) linux and then run a Windows VM with a VGA-passthrough video card to it. It's non-trivial to setup but, I've played at least a dozen Windows big release games at max graphics on my linux workstation using this method.
Hint: You will also need to get a PCI USB controller and a KVM to do this. (And, oddly, ATI cards are what you want for the passthrough card).
Re:This is a loaded question (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, these days, hardware support is a big one. I don't use Windows myself, but I had to help some friends reinstall Windows on an infected machine. It wouldn't even find drivers for the network card without network access and manual selection! When I popped in an Ubuntu memory stick, it detected everything. Even the fricking webcam was functional during the installation process.
It's really amazing, considering that 7 years ago it was totally the other way around, you couldn't count on e.g. wireless cards working.
That's one of the factors keeping me on Linux, I suppose. I bet if I tried to build a Windows gaming rig, I would be stuck in driver hell and/or end up with a half-broken, underperforming system.
Re: (Score:3)
Well, that's something you have to know. On Ubuntu, you don't have to know a thing.
(But actually, Ubuntu's install media are not updated very often, as exemplified by the huge list of updates you have to download during install/first run.)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You could also flip the question around and ask what Linux stuff is keeping you from using Windows?
That would be many many items on my list.
First of all would be KDE.
Then all the stuff where Windows sucks ass. For example with my Globe G3 stick: in Linux I plug the stick in and in 3 seconds I can connect using the network manager in KDE. In Windows I have first to wait until this stupid Globe Application have started, which takes about 20 seconds. Then it needs to discover the stick which takes another 20 seconds. Now I can connect.
SSH in Linux is just plain simple: just enter ssh-add anywhere in a termi
Re:This is a loaded question (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only does my Linux installation boot in under 30 seconds (SSD drives are great for that)
So, you compare Linux on an SSD to Windows on a mechanical drive -- seriously?
I should have just voted you down for spouting something so stupid, but you touched on something interesting without realizing it:
Most of the programs I use in Linux have functional Windows equivalents, but using Windows feels like trying to run in a dream.
This is more meaningful, but not for the reason you think.
Your problem, like all Linux users who try Windows, is that you don't follow the rule that "When in Rome, do as the Romans do".
Almost certainly, you tried some replica of your Linux toolchain: Cygwin, Bash, Perl, Python, PHP, or whatever, and you were "not surprised" that "Windows was slow" running software... designed for Linux. Meanwhile, Windows runs just fine running software designed for its architecture, but you probably never gave any of that a serious try. Visual Studio starts in a fraction of a second for me, complies practically instantly, and I've seen IIS put out 1100 dynamic web pages per second on my laptop, so I don't think it's all that slow. I've heard people complain that MS Word is "bloated", but it takes 200ms of CPU time to start. Bloated? I think not.
There are many subtle architectural reasons for this. Things like: "new process" is cheap on Linux, and used for what most programmers would call "threading", but on Windows it is a heavyweight activity that's not intended to be fast. Instead, "new thread" is the fast operation. Software has to be written to start few processes and many threads to perform well on Windows. It's only very recently that Linux got good support for high performance threads, so practically no Linux software is written like this. Every damned thing starts a new process for everything. Linux scripts treat "new process" as if it was lightweight enough to replace "call procedure". Meanwhile, Windows PowerShell starts a single process which calls functions directly from dynamically linked DLLs. That's because it's designed for Windows, unlike Bash.
Please, just shut up, and try Windows 7 x64 on a real machine with an SSD, run software on it designed for it, and only then come back and tell me that's it is slow.
Re: (Score:3)
Not only does my Linux installation boot in under 30 seconds (SSD drives are great for that)
So, you compare Linux on an SSD to Windows on a mechanical drive -- seriously?
I should have just voted you down for spouting something so stupid, but you touched on something interesting without realizing it:
Most of the programs I use in Linux have functional Windows equivalents, but using Windows feels like trying to run in a dream.
This is more meaningful, but not for the reason you think.
Your problem, like all Linux users who try Windows, is that you don't follow the rule that "When in Rome, do as the Romans do".
Almost certainly, you tried some replica of your Linux toolchain: Cygwin, Bash, Perl, Python, PHP, or whatever, and you were "not surprised" that "Windows was slow" running software... designed for Linux. Meanwhile, Windows runs just fine running software designed for its architecture, but you probably never gave any of that a serious try. Visual Studio starts in a fraction of a second for me, complies practically instantly, and I've seen IIS put out 1100 dynamic web pages per second on my laptop, so I don't think it's all that slow. I've heard people complain that MS Word is "bloated", but it takes 200ms of CPU time to start. Bloated? I think not.
There are many subtle architectural reasons for this. Things like: "new process" is cheap on Linux, and used for what most programmers would call "threading", but on Windows it is a heavyweight activity that's not intended to be fast. Instead, "new thread" is the fast operation. Software has to be written to start few processes and many threads to perform well on Windows. It's only very recently that Linux got good support for high performance threads, so practically no Linux software is written like this. Every damned thing starts a new process for everything. Linux scripts treat "new process" as if it was lightweight enough to replace "call procedure". Meanwhile, Windows PowerShell starts a single process which calls functions directly from dynamically linked DLLs. That's because it's designed for Windows, unlike Bash.
Please, just shut up, and try Windows 7 x64 on a real machine with an SSD, run software on it designed for it, and only then come back and tell me that's it is slow.
See, it's a jump to conclusions mat... there's a mat with conclusion on it that you can jump to.
Both OSes on SSDs, the home (Users) partition on a mechanical drive or both OSes on mechanical drives; it makes no difference. Win7 x64 pegs the HD light on for several minutes during which I am helpless. The longest phase of the Linux boot is the POST process.
I have never used Cygwin, Bash, Perl, or PHP on Windows. When I say "functional equivalents" I mean, for example, Corel Aftershot which is a cross-platform
Re:This is a loaded question (Score:5, Interesting)
I had a comp setup for Lord of the Rings Online for my granddaughter to play on, and the latest release broke it. Turned out there was a bug in WINE that was found and fixed the next day, based on my report and others. However, the WINE developers were extremely arrogant, and accused me of slacking because I didn't have a full development environment and couldn't get the compiles to work correctly. Turned out to be an issue with multi-architecture setup under the current Ubuntu 64-bit release, trying to compile Wine for 32-bit use, which was required for LOTRO to work correctly. This was not a 10-minute fix. It took several days of work trying to get the Ubuntu system working under multi-arch, and I finally just gave up. How many days can you go telling a small child she can't play her game? So I installed Win8 and she's happy again. My office comp still runs Linux, but I refuse to recommend it for less-than-knowledgeable users.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So I installed Win8 and she's happy again. My office comp still runs Linux, but I refuse to recommend it for less-than-knowledgeable users.
This assumes most users are quite knowledgeable about Windows already.
You may consider me a troll here, but I've just got exposed to Windows again, and not having used it for over a decade (Win 98 was the last one I really used) I can say I'm quite inexperienced and unknowledgeable about Windows, while being quite knowledgeable about Linux and it's quirks and shortcomings.
A week or two ago I bought a netbook, with Win7 starter on it. Oh my, what an experience. It was like my first steps in Linux, really, I
Re:This is a loaded question (Score:5, Interesting)
If this is a concern, I would suggest paying the $35 or so a year to buy Crossover Linux [codeweavers.com] which is exactly that.
Codeweavers repackages WINE (they actually actively support WINE development - several WINE developers are actively employed at Codeweavers) to make it really simple to have specific environments for specific apps, and because you're paying for support, they're damn friendly as well.
Had you used it, they probably would've got LOTRO working pretty damn fast with packages available easily.
Yes, you can get WINE for free (and Codeweavers puts all their WINE changes back into the tree), but Codeweavers has made it really easy and simple to use.
Not an employee, just someone who uses it and while apt-get'ing wine is easy and cheap, sometimes it helps to pay. And you're helping fund open-source development as well, never a bad thing. Even the WINE guys recommend them if you want paid support.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This is a loaded question (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, I have a docking station for my Lenovo X201. When I put my laptop on the docking station, it should automatically switch to the external display - at the correct resolution. When I open my laptop lid, it should activate both. When I boot up while docked and lid closed, only external display should come on at the correct resolution. About an year ago (which is when I tested last), it didn't do any of these things perfectly, It kept forgetting the resolution of the external display, and I had to keep readjusting it. Opening and closing the lid was a slow and unbearable affair.
This is apart from the fact that the graphics are pretty sluggish, with occasional tearing etc. Scrolling and panning were also fairly slow. Intel drivers are correctly installed. The UI just doesn't have the polish and smoothness that Android, Windows and OS X do. The fonts are also pretty ugly by default, The buttons and layouts look squished or otherwise disproportionate. There are many many similar hiccups as the ones outlined above. As a point of comparison, I'll point out that I started using Mac OS X only recently, and have found it instantly more pleasant and intuitive to use, although I still find Windows to provide the most flexibility, especially when it comes to multi-monitor support.
Android is a testament to the fact that fluid and beautiful desktops on Linux are entirely possible, on a range of hardware. I think KDE (my favourite) and Gnome just need to stop worrying about new features, and just polish their existing experience. Alternatively, maybe the trick to finally having Linux on the Desktop, is to have Android on the Desktop.
Pretty much all of them (Score:5, Insightful)
Aside from a couple of great indie games, the majority of the games I've enjoyed in the past few months are not available for Linux.
The opposite question would have a much shorter answer.
Re:Pretty much all of them (Score:5, Interesting)
Aside from a couple of great indie games, the majority of the games I've enjoyed in the past few months are not available for Linux.
Actually, I feel the reverse... all of the games I have bought recently have been through the Humble Bundle which are all indie and all work on Linux. The few games that have not been through the Humble Bundle have been through GOG.com and work on wine.
The last big studio release I have bought was C&C 3. After that I just felt that DRM became too restrictive. (A big reason for buying humble bundle and GOG games.)
I did buy one indie game about a year ago that did not work on Linux, and that was Torchlight. (which I recently was released under Linux through the humble bundle.) I actually ran Torchlight in a virtual machine.
As suggested by the article, because I have not been beholden to windows only games, I have not used windows since XP.
Shall I list the reasons again? (Score:4, Informative)
Drivers, installed base, drivers, familiar windows interface, drivers, most users can barely power their machine on much less install linux, drivers, forget installing linux software...see comment before the last comment, drivers, lack of vendor support, and drivers.
Oh did I mention drivers?
Re:Shall I list the reasons again? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The question wasn't "are you personally missing drivers for Linux", "do you feel that normal people could install Linux", or "is it important for all operating systems to have the familiar Windows interface". The question was which games would need to be available for Linux in order for you to switch to Linux. Or, if you prefer, if the games you need were available for Linux, would you run Linux instead of Mac OS X or Windows.
Re:Shall I list the reasons again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Drivers, installed base, drivers, familiar windows interface, drivers, most users can barely power their machine on much less install linux, drivers, forget installing linux software...see comment before the last comment, drivers, lack of vendor support, and drivers.
Oh did I mention drivers?
You play weird video games. Personally, I like playing the "my computer works already, I didn't have to hunt down twenty drivers from twenty different sites and make sure I kept them all up to date individually" game, that's why I already use Linux (and have for nearly a decade).
Re: (Score:3)
Drivers, installed base, drivers, familiar windows interface, drivers, most users can barely power their machine on much less install Linux...
In other words, what is needed is the OEM system bundle.
The balanced and tested bundle of hardware of hardware and software backed by a warranty and sold under a recognizable brand name through familiar and trusted retail outlets.
The retail shopper doesn't give a damn about FOSS.
He will give a damn if he can't install Skype, play his favorite Internet radio stations, flash based games or instant Netflix videos.
He will give a damn if he discovers --- far too late --- has to jump through hoops before he i
Re: (Score:3)
for post radeon 5000 series, all i have to do is 'emerge -v ati-drivers'. for radeon 5000 and before, the 'radeon' driver of xorg works just fine.
Re: (Score:3)
how is Gentoo these days? sometimes i think of bootstrapping again and ditching Ubuntu.. but haven't the motivation yet.
Re: (Score:3)
Pretty good, it is even more stable than Fedora, rarely do things break, and even if they do there will be announcement on how to prevent/fix it. Still, setting up my own DE is a pain, for example I still can't do tethering with my Android phone without some magical configuration.
Re: (Score:3)
That said, most users of PCs buy one pre-made, either from a manufacturer or PC shop. Gamers, however, like to upgrade their own kit. It's been my person
Microsoft Office (Score:4, Insightful)
To be honest - Microsoft Office. Most of the people I communicate with use MsOffice products, and yes, I have heard of OpenOffice and LibreOffice, however, their cross-compatibility is not perfect. This is a no-go - when I send a customer an important document - I have to be sure everything is looking good / professional and that the other side has no issues with what I sent them. When I receive a document from a client - I have to be sure I get exactly what the customer sent. Sometime PDF is not a valid solution. LibreOffice does not promise it to me, yet (in my current opinion).
Re:Microsoft Office (Score:4, Interesting)
The only superiority that I personally have found in Office is in Power Point, and, again this is my personal opinion, Power Point presentations should be illegal. They might just be the pretties, most inefficient way to present real information.
With the exception of large spread sheets, PDF is always the way to go. You can open them in browsers now a days and if I want it presented in a very specific way, I usually don't want anyone to edit it along the way.
Re:Microsoft Office (Score:4, Informative)
Word is not a good format for exchanging documents that need to look the same between computers. Word formatting changes between versions and, worse, between default printers (depending on settings). Powerpoint is OK most of the time, provided you have the correct fonts and are running the same version. The entire Office suite gives you no way to easily tell what version the file originated with, or even if it came from a Mac or PC. These details make a big difference in layout.
Point is, you should probably be insisting on PDFs for "important documents".
Re:Microsoft Office (Score:5, Funny)
Then what format should one use for "important documents" that are intended to be editable?
(La)TeX
Re:Microsoft Office (Score:5, Insightful)
Then what format should one use for "important documents" that are intended to be editable?
(La)TeX
This should not be moded funny but insightful. If you ever work in the scientific academic domain, every important document is formatted in Latex, and they are all still editable whatever the bazillion versions of Office came in between.
Re:Microsoft Office (Score:5, Informative)
RTF. It has strong standardization, and so far as I know, it's universally readable.
Re:Microsoft Office (Score:4, Interesting)
Despite of all of the hype and gnashing of teeth, I have been able to do this with "other stuff" for over a decade. The idea that you can't use "other stuff" is just the same old mindless FUD we've been fed since the 80s.
What constitutes "other stuff" doesn't matter so much. It doesn't matter what the license is. The same Lemming fear mongering will be directed at it.
That's one of the most dissapointing aspects of using the monopoly product. All of that squandered potential.
Re:Microsoft Office (Score:4, Interesting)
Despite of all of the hype and gnashing of teeth, I have been able to do this with "other stuff" for over a decade. The idea that you can't use "other stuff" is just the same old mindless FUD we've been fed since the 80s.
Is it? It's admittedly been a while since I checked, but does Libre/OpenOffice now include a decent equation editor that can export to PDF without looking like it passed through a cheese grater? Does it have conditional formatting that allows for more than three formats? Can that conditional formatting automatically scan the range of the data its being applied to and highlight outliers?
Those are all essential tools for people doing serious work, and when I last checked OpenOffice (circa 2009), it had none of those features. Maybe they've made major strides over the past few years, in which please let me know so I can give them another try. But if not, then you need to learn that when users tell you that they need features X, Y, & Z, you should listen instead of dismissing their concerns as "mindless FUD".
Re: (Score:3)
It depends what you mean by "editable". If you want someone else to edit text or other content, then it doesn't really matter what program you use. Word's markup tools can be helpful here, but I find that few actually know how to use them.
If you care that both parties see the same formatting, then you CAN use MS Office, but you need to make sure that both parties have the same version of Office, the same OS, the same fonts, and are very careful about the program settings. In particular, Word can be set to b
Re: (Score:3)
www.codeweavers.com
If you're trying to save the cost of an Office license, then that's a different story.
Re: (Score:3)
If you really need Office, install it. The discussion was about which games people want. I have had Office running on all OSs and do not see what you are talking about. Codeweavers is better than wine for this but that is up to you as well. I no longer need or want the macros to run but when I did I would just install MSOffice on the Linux box. I switched to OSX and started to use Office for Mac but it is as bad as the Windows version. Now I prefer Pages but it does not matter because it is not releva
None (Score:4, Interesting)
I play a little (read: a lot of) Minecraft, which is available on Linux. The reason I started playing it in fact is because it was for Linux and that's all I had. I've also started accruing a library of games from Steam that I tend to not play, including a few games that I play online with friends. I suppose those games would keep me from switching back to Linux, all other things being equal.
But in all honesty, I haven't switched back to Linux since Windows 7 came out because I don't mind using Windows 7. If it sucked, I'd be on Linux and no game could pull me back. But, much to the chagrin of many, Windows 7 is a pretty good OS and I have no problem using it even though I almost never play really serious games on my computer.
Can't Game (Score:3, Insightful)
Disclaimer: it's really all the fault of Sid Meier's Civilization series.
Games are why I have a PS3 (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm really done with computer gaming. Now if you want to talk about how Netflix keeps me from using Linux, I'll be glad to talk.
Before the WINEing starts.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell, I like to make things run on WINE, that's a game in itself!, but untill Joe Sixpack can drop in DVD / Download-and-play-with-one-click, LINUX gaming will struggle. (Remember even WINDOWS gaming is too hard for a lot of people, with DX updates, various runtimes, licensing, etc,etc .. thus, IMHO, console sales)
Have cygwin (Score:2)
My last 2 computers had the obligatory Linux partition on the HDD, yet I never loaded Linux on either. Why? Cygwin. I can work in a *nix environment and game in a Windows environment.
So even though I first used Unix in '84, Linux in '94, and have written a handful of Linux device drivers, I don't see the need to run Linux at home.
None (Score:5, Interesting)
iRacing (Score:2)
iRacing is practically all I have time for, as it eats a LOT of time. But even if that didn't exist, practically every other game that exists is for Windows anyways. I'm fine sticking with Windows until every single game is available for Linux.
Xwing (Score:4, Interesting)
Any of those will do.
Diablo3, Borderlands2, League of Legends (Score:2)
I like having the option to play new games or whatever games I stumble upon.
I do not know "what games I cannot live without" but in the last few months I have been playing:
Borderlands2
Diablo3
League of Legends
Cockatrice (free online magic the gathering program)
Terraria
And I have FTL and XCOM Enemy Unkonwn installed and ready to check out when I have free time.
Think we can get the developer to port this? (Score:5, Funny)
Games list (Score:3)
Instead of complaining about this and that, ill do as the summary asks and actually list the games I currently cant do without:
- EVE Online
- Most of the DCS series ( A-10 Warthog, Black Shark )
- MS Flight Sim X
- Civilization V
- ARMA II
- PKR
Already using Linux instead of Windows or OS X (Score:3, Interesting)
Currently? (Score:5, Interesting)
Xcom 2012, Civ 5, Elemental Fallen Enchantress, Fallout New Vegas, Battlefield 3, and Medieval 2 Total War. Those are the games I've installed and play as the mood strikes me. However they aren't the only ones, I have a list of other games I own but haven't the time to play yet. More or less I want all of the games. I love games, and I own a ton.
Games aren't the only things though, I'd also need Cakewalk Sonar (and affiliated plugins), or something very much like it, Native Instruments Kontakt and EastWest Play.
I'd also need support for my hardware, some of which is a bit esoteric (like a MCU Pro).
If I had a good DAW, good VIs, and all the games, I suppose I could consider switching. Of course I'd still need to be sold on a reason as to why, since personally I find Linux more frustrating to use.
However it isn't as simple as one or two games. I want all of the games I have, and all the new ones that spark my fancy.
The silent majority (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
I'd vote for civ, but I have to finish one more turn first.
See also: XCom.
Less and Less (Score:3)
I mostly play indie games nowadays, and the ones I like tend to release Linux clients. Other games I really like (read Warsow) are already for Linux. On the RTS front, I really only play Supreme Commander, and with the success of the Planetary Annihilation Kickstarter, it won't be long until my RTS itch is taken care of. On the RPG front, there are rumors that The Witcher 2 is being considered for a Linux release, and if that's true, we can expect CDP's future games to be on Linux too. I do really like the Evochron series, but as much as I bug Starwraith about it, they just don't have the resources to port it over, so I guess that would be a major reason.
So right now is essentially a transition period to using Linux on my main, gaming desktop for good. All my other computers already run Linux.
Klondike Soliaire (Score:3)
I spend a lot of time playing solitaire instead of doing something useful. Yeah, it's the Linux version but I don't consider playing Solitaire to be "using Linux."
Cheers,
Dave
Not the games - the effort (Score:5, Informative)
To be honest, I'm relatively happy with the combination of FOSS games, indie games like in the Humble Bundles, and older commercial games like Doom 3 and Wolf-ET such that gaming solely in Linux wouldn't be an issue for me. The problem, however, is a question of effort. Let me list one example:
- Doom 3 -
Windows:
* Install game
* Patch
* Play
Linux: .pak files from the game's CDs to where the binary is installed, because the official installer won't do it automatically (though it's possible someone's written a script to do this by now).
* Install using the latest Linux installer using the text interface (which was only supposed to be a backup in case the GUI works, which it doesn't anymore because it was built to use the GTK1.2 libraries which don't work properly/aren't available with modern distributions).
* Copy the required
* Run, then find out there's no sound because OSS was deprecated in modern Linux distributions. Spend an hour googling and trying different options until you find out the correct method to launch D3 with sound:
doom3 +set s_alsa_pcm plughw:0 +set s_driver alsa
* Create a .desktop file/link because the installer fails to do so properly, otherwise you don't get a shortcut in your DE of choice.
* Play, then discover you have massively jerky framerates because the Linux kernel changed to use a different method of timing (too complicated for me to understand) which affected how Doom 3 determines timing. Fixed using this additional variable during launch
set com_fixedtic 1
* Play and enjoy the same game that worked with far less effort in Windows.
Sure, half the problem was in iD not giving a crap at producing a good installer that would do most of the work for you (like copying required files) and not using static GTK libraries that would survive changes to distros. But things like the removal of OSS within the default builds of distros as well as the change to kernel timings, kinda do make a few problems for older games.
Newer stuff tends to works better, but often there are quirks even in newer Linux ports (I won't keep listing stuff but there are a number of complaints about bad Linux ports of a number of Humble Bundle games - look them up). For gaming, I get tired of messing about when things just fucking WORK in Windows. It's suppose to be entertainment and escapism after all.
We know it's you (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, come on, Gabe, we know it's you. ;)
A lot (Score:4, Insightful)
Steam on Linux will be nice.
Mostly it's Battlefield 3 and the likes (new games with shiny graphics and DRM), they won't work well or at all.
It's not about games (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know the demographics, but it's really not games that's keeping me personally on Winders. I want Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Creative Suite (not freeware "alternatives", not fiddling around with Wine but those specific applications running natively on, hell, any Linux distro) and something reasonably like the full version of Nero. Give me those working well on Linux, and I will gladly leave Windows and never look back.
If it's about content, let's port the prime content creators.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Sound subsystem fragmentation (Score:5, Informative)
What sound system fragmentation? There's ALSA and there's ... ALSA.
Even if you're stuck using pulseaudio, nowadays you just use ALSA and it magically routes through PA. And then most games are going to be using SDL (Valve did kind of hire one of the libsdl guys), it hides all of that anyway.
Re: (Score:3)
The only part that a came programmer would have to deal with is ALSA. Alternatively, they could use the sound API of their choice. The fact that they chose differently than someone else wouldn't impact a thing.
Game developers are already taking care of business in this area. Your trolling is irrelevant as are your "anececdotes".
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Yeah this doesn't exist anymore. As others have said, the ALSA PCM plugin layer is flexible enough to allow pure ALSA programs to work while PulseAudio is running. Even for older games which only support OSS (which often isn't available out of the box in Linux) can be supported with alsa-oss which provides a simple wrapper around the program to redirect OSS sound to ALSA.
Re:Sound subsystem fragmentation (Score:5, Interesting)
Nonsense. What do you even mean? Who programs directly to the sound subsystem?
Using OpenAL goes a long way when it comes to support on Linux. We've managed to port our game to Linux with zero problems with sound. OpenAL is a requirement that Win, Mac, iOS, Android etc also support so this part of the porting process is bare minimum.
Video on the other hand, is a real bitch on Linux. Frameworks like Qt rely on platform specific backends (phonon) and there is no de facto standard of a video player on Linux, let alone that the phonon plugin is installed.
Setting aside technical issues, the real reason why Linux is not a target for game publishers, is that there is no market. People can rage all they want, but no...at the moment there is no market, at all. Kudos for Valve's efforts, but Linux adoption is non-existent, especially among gamers. Indie games might have a shot at Linux, but sadly it seems more of a donation driven effort to bring games to linux than a market demand.
yohan
Re: (Score:3)
And this story demonstrates another problem: most Linux gamers dual-boot anyway, so most Linux sales a publisher could get would probably cause an equivalent drop on the Windows side.
Maybe the 30% tax on the upcoming "Windows Marketplace" - assuming it kills third-party platforms - can change this equation, but I doubt it.
Re:Sound subsystem fragmentation (Score:4, Insightful)
Except, of course, none of it happened.
The configuration you are talking about, ALWAYS works in Ubuntu.
Re:None. (Score:5, Funny)
By a curious coincidence, none at all is exactly how much suspicion the ape-descendant Arthur Dent had that one of his closest friends was not descended from an ape, but was in fact from a small planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse and not from Guildford as he usually claimed.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:TF2 (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:none (Score:5, Insightful)
Can't speak for OP, but as someone in exactly the same situation, the answer is the same as "what do you do if a game isn't available for the particular console you own?" I don't play it. I can't even keep up with all the good games that are available for my console. I'm certainly not concerned about the ones that aren't.
Many years ago, I dual-booted Windows so I could play games there, but once I got my first console (a PS1), that became more effort than it was worth. I haven't used Windows since.
Of course, I do hear that its possible to play some PC games under Wine, but I really haven't bothered to try.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Dual Boot! (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can accomplish 100% of your task in Windows 7 and 80% in Linux, then why not just stay in Windows? **
**These numbers are from my own use. Debian partition on my own drive.
Re: (Score:3)
Not everyone believes that their PC should turn into a Wii any time they want to play a game. See my previous rants regarding the complaints directed at Linux fullscreen support.
Most games aren't that good enough to overcome the bother of dealing with Windows assuming that they don't have a lot of bother of their own. DRM in Windows games probably drives a lot of console sales.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:What Video Games Keep You From Using Linux? (Score:4, Insightful)
There's nothing solid about it. The emulation is garbage compared to the native clients.