BleepingComputer.com: Linux and gaming

I have searched and searched all over the internet for information on how to be able to run Linux and play games at the same time. I am mostly looking for compatibility with a specific game, Dark Age of Camelot. Which Linux distro would be best for this game and what piece of software should I use to emulate it? I've only heard of two pieces of software, one is Cedega and the other is Wine.

Linux is not good as a gaming operating system.

You can run Windows programs in wine, which is free but to my experience, not very effective.

Cedega would work with most games but its not free ($15 last I checked) and Wine is hit or miss on game play. You might try CrossOver Games ,yet again I dont think its free, but it's better than Wine for games and also produced by codeweavers (Developers or Wine). http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxgames/.


As for best chance Distro for playing games.... I'd say Linspire but with any of those 3 Compatibility layers it would most likely work with any distro if it worked on one.

xXAlphaXx, on Oct 27 2008, 08:29 AM, said:

Yes, Linux isn't really the gaming-type operating system.

I wouldn't recommend running that game through Wine, though, as it would run extremely slow. I tried to run Half Life 2 and it took forever to load. Wine is used mainly for the small applications that do simple things like Word, Notepad, a simple audio player, etc.

If you're going to be doing some major gaming on Linux, use Cedega. I've looked up your game Dark Age of Camelot on the Cedega games database, and as reported, the game runs fine under Cedega.

johnnyxxxcakes, on Oct 28 2008, 02:53 PM, said:

Thank you very much johnnyxxxcakes for the information. I know that linux isn't built for gaming but i wanna give it a try. Hopefully I'll be able to come across another hard drive somewhere so I can make my computer a duel boot for Windows XP and Linux. Just need to make sure that Linux will run my game ok so I don't wipe everything and have to start all over on XP if it doesn't work as told.

With a few programs and with the help of BC (If you can't do it your self.) You can partition the drive so you can have a Windows/Linux dual boot. You do not need a second hard drive just some free space.

Quote

That is just false. I play a ton of games on my Linux box and they
work very well.
America's Army
Doom 3
Unreal Tournament
RTCW - Enemy Territory w/TrueCombat mod
And a few more that are not ported from Win. They all run
natively and usually perform better then running under Win.
Sorry I didn't see this post yesterday as CodeWeavers gave
away "free" the popular Crossover Pro and Crossover Games for Linux.

America's Army, Doom 3, Unreal Tournament, and RTCW were all released for Linux, since they are native they work just fine. Some games might not work properly, especially the very new games or those with some of the stranger forms of DRM. Actually, I hope more games come out for Linux. It just seems to take a while for a port to be released. One of my favorite games, X3: Reunion, was released for Linux a few months after it's general release. Since I own the Windows version I see little point in getting the Linux one. With those games, I wish NVidia and ATI were to release better Linux drivers more frequently.

I understand what you're saying. I was just informing the OP that Linux
can be used for gaming. Just not for Windows games. But Codeweavers is
trying to bridge that gap with Crossover Games.
I too would like to see more games for Linux. One only has to look on:
http://whdb.com/2008/top-25-linux-games-for-2008/
And see there are cross platform games available.
I have always run Nvidia cards because (IMHO) they are way more Linux
friendly then ATI.

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