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Could Linux be a better gaming OS than Windows?

farbeyondtheedgeofreason.blogs… — I believe that from an architectural point of view, Windows is not the best platform for gaming. I know that many devoted PC gamers will spend a lot of time, money and effort building a PC designed to get the absolute best performance out of the components. To me, it then seems an incredible waste to then install Windows (especially Vista)

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  • ktxxx, on 07/09/2008, -19/+311Who knows. They won't make games for it.
    • MattBD, on 07/09/2008, -8/+55They don't now. Doesn't mean they never will.
      • reichg, on 07/10/2008, -26/+9it wont because all the hoops u have to jump though to get it to work
      • scy1192, on 07/10/2008, -25/+6it will never happen because the games would have to be open source before the majority of the Linux community even considers playing them.
      • czarr, on 07/10/2008, -3/+22@reichg: those hoops are there because you are trying to run games native to windows, on linux.
      • TheGuruStud, on 07/10/2008, -2/+16What are these hoops you speak of?

        I remember when the Unreal Tournaments came with a linux installer on disc. What happened Epic (especially with UT3, it sucks)?
      • werries, on 07/10/2008, -1/+10@scy1192, I doubt the gamers really care that much. I mean open source games are nice, and you see how they run that way and compile them yourself, but we'd still play a non-open source game if it was good. Kind of like how we still use Adobe's linux version of flash player. (cause frankly, gnash isn't ready yet =/)
      • Spuy767, on 07/10/2008, -0/+5They won't until Linux can start paying off game developers to use a DX workflow intstead of an Open workflow like OpenGL.
      • Spuy767, on 07/11/2008, -0/+1Obviously I meant that they can pay off developers like microsoft does.
    • ronocdh, on 07/09/2008, -11/+46Savage 2 has a Linux client. Quake 3 and 4 and Doom 3 also. Where have you been?
      • Ademan, on 07/09/2008, -2/+37I play a fair amount of games on linux (playing alot of tf2 using wine) but i feel like pointing out, you only mentioned 4 games, that's not very much, i mean there are a few more, notably ut99, ut2k4 and maybe one day ut3. But there still aren't many native linux games.
      • svensko, on 07/10/2008, -6/+27Let's not forget the free games that have native Linux clients...

        Alien Arena 08
        AssaultCube
        Cube
        Enemy Territory
        Nexuiz
        Sauerbraten
        Tremulous
        Urban Terror
        Warsow

        At least, that's my current collection...
        current impact on my wallet: 0%
      • KillsTheWeak, on 07/10/2008, -5/+8K how about Quake 1 and 2, Wolfestein, Doom 1 and 2, Enemy Territory, Ultima Online (using the Iris Client), Sim City, Eve Online, Neverwinter Nights, Vendetta Online, Wurm Online, etc etc, If people keep repeating there's no games on Linux, it doesn't keep it true, this aint the 90's anymore :P
      • thedez, on 07/10/2008, -1/+3In the present....
        But seeing as you're probably from 5 years ago....
        The Future!
      • muniak, on 07/10/2008, -17/+4Those were not made for linux... they use a program that pretends to be windows really well which negates pretty much all of the architectural advantages of using linux for games.
      • Kent767, on 07/10/2008, -0/+6Thats like saying you should use X webbrowser because its faster, and it can display google, msn and yahoo...

        it needs more than a few ports to become viable
      • AmaDaden, on 07/10/2008, -0/+7@muniak You are thinking of wine and no they don't (check wiki for any one of them).

        @Kent767 Most of those games use SDL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_DirectMedia_La ... SDL is like DirectX but only cross platform(including windows). Any game that is writen with SDL instead of DirectX would not be difficult to port to any other OS that can run SDL. With stuff like SDL Linux is viable it is however not seen as such. It's a catch 22.
      • mem2, on 07/10/2008, -2/+3@muniak - thats the most ignorant troll bait Ive seen in awhile. Kudos and being a Grade A Dick
      • AdmiralAcbar, on 07/10/2008, -0/+2Oblivion also runs seemlessly through Wine.
      • AdamFromMyspace, on 07/10/2008, -0/+2Someone just mentioned Urban Terror..! I'm , if you played the game seriously in its peak I'm sure you've heard of me [:
      • ktxxx, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1And you are correct on those games. However, I'd like to play more than 3 FPSs that I have beat repeatedly over and over again. :)
      • Origin415, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1And those go a long way to prove the articles point, many benchmarks show the native linux versions as running faster than windows.
    • LittleDas, on 07/10/2008, -7/+16That's because it's irresponsible for a developer to spend time on a linux version if it's not going to make them back a proportional amount of money. Some games are flexible enough that porting is easy and some of those get linux clients. Whining about the rest is just unreasonable since there are very obvious reasons as to why it is the case.
      • 1longtime, on 07/10/2008, -6/+13I disagree. I think any game properly ported to Linux would sell to a huge piece of the Linux market simply out of principle. We're starved for games.

        Remember, Linux and OSX are tied for second most popular OSes. There are quite a few non-Windows people around.
      • werries, on 07/10/2008, -2/+8You forget that a game made for linux, often runs easily for windows, you know, because windows can use OpenGL. So the transfer process from linux to windows, rather than windows to linux, is smoother.
      • known, on 07/10/2008, -2/+1Windows is easy to use but insecure by design.
        Linux is difficult to use but secure by design.
    • addicted68098, on 07/10/2008, -1/+12Apparently it's easy to port OpenGL games to Linux...OpenGL is very common in the non linux gaming world too.
      • CalcProgrammer1, on 07/10/2008, -2/+10This is because Linux has OpenGL built in (since OpenGL is...open source, it's already in Linux). DirectX is proprietary and made by Microsoft, so there's little hope of it ever getting out (now Wine has attempted to clone DirectX, but only for running Windows native apps in Linux, not for adding DirectX support to native Linux programs).
      • nmnnotmyname, on 07/10/2008, -0/+15DirectX is just an API like OpenGL. The hardware is all the same.

        Porting isn't that hard. Idealy a game should have a working OpenGL mode for at least ATI and NVidia if its a well made game with an API neutral graphics system.

        Now if only we could get OpenGL 3.0 already! WTF Khronos...
      • jo21, on 07/10/2008, -0/+3thanks to sony :)
      • Myztry, on 07/10/2008, -0/+13When accelerated 3D gaming got big it was thanks to OpenGL and cards like the Voodoo series. DirectX (which was just a Microsoft aquisition) was exposed as inadequate.
        You can bet a lot of 'under the table' Microsoft money changed hands to create the DirectX monopoly. Microsoft doesn't do well in a competitive environment, but reaps it in once the monopoly is established.
      • nielkie, on 07/10/2008, -0/+8It definitely helps that the PS3 and Wii(?) both use OpenGL instead of DirectX, so any game/engine that goes cross platform usually uses OpenGL.
    • Rosco, on 07/10/2008, -0/+18They used to! Some of my favorite games also were released for Linux. Quake II & Unreal Tournament just to name a couple. They used OpenGL, and I love OpenGL in games and try to use it when given a choice. Unfortunately they are locking into the DirectX thing now. If I could get Half-Life 2 and other source games, STALKER, Call of Duty, games like that, (yes, I like shooters) I would consider moving over.

      I'm not a Linux user, but I've tinkered with live cd's of Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Suse and I really like what I am seeing these days. I don't know diddly about the console, but its use fascinates me. Almost every other program I use has a Linux counterpart now, web, email, accounting, office apps, video (DVD) viewing, etc. etc. Games, specifically the newer titles, are the only thing keeping XP attached on my hard drive.
      • nmnnotmyname, on 07/10/2008, -0/+3Half-Life 2 and other source games were working OOB under wine a really long time ago... Man that was so awesome. I didn't do ***** and it just worked. I hope that sort of thing is going to become more common soon.
    • twigboy, on 07/10/2008, -20/+14Linux is a moving target.
      Theres just too many distros and releases.

      I'd imagine in the mind of a game developer, the feeling of Ubuntu 7 -> 8 being released is like the dread of XP -> Vista.

      Not to mention how much this will affect the development and testing budget.
      • TheGreatBelow, on 07/10/2008, -15/+4Well said.
      • werries, on 07/10/2008, -2/+22Oh come on, this is the biggest myth out there. Its all still linux, if it works on one distro, its basically gonna work on any other one. Its all at the base of linux kernels.
        Ubuntu 7.04 or 7.10 to 8.04 is NOT that big of a change.
        Just about everything is compatible with each other without large changes.
      • unifex, on 07/10/2008, -2/+12Linux isn't actually that much of a moving target.

        For one, don't develop for the distro, develop for the tech (OpenGL/SDL/ALSA/etc). The major distros will have that tech available and the ones that don't tend to be for the more technical crowd who would probably find it just as much fun grabbing the source for the tech and compiling it themselves. Two games for the price of one. :)

      • AmaDaden, on 07/10/2008, -1/+13You have it backwards. Most Linux apps work on all major distros. They do this by using standard interfaces. For games they use SDL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_DirectMedia_La ... In fact since all distros share most parts it would be hard to write software that is NOT cross platform. So many issues come up from one release of windows to the next because there is only one version of windows that counts at any given moment and all of it's interfaces change drastically from one version to the next. Linux has proper information hiding (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_hiding) with things like SDL so this does not happen.
      • shakin, on 07/10/2008, -3/+12That is so wrong. If you're that ignorant why bother to post?

        I can run the original Unreal Tournament on a current Ubuntu system. It's as easy as running the Linux installer. UT came out five years before Ubuntu's first release. Linux compatibility is pretty easy because you can have multiple library versions installed at once or programs can statically compile to whatever libraries they need. It's really simple.
    • bwdd, on 07/10/2008, -13/+8The thing is, people smart enough to install linux are also smart enough to pirate a game.
      I'm willing to bet that that's what they're worried about.
      I'd pay for a linux game...
      • unifex, on 07/10/2008, -0/+4As would I. Hell... I have paid for linux games.

        This argument isn't really valid though. Pirating the game only takes one person. Downloading and using the pirated game is pretty easy regardless of platform.
      • werries, on 07/10/2008, -0/+16it doesn't take brains to pirate.
        but linux users are actually known to be the people less likely to pirate. We don't pirate photoshop, because we have GIMP, we don't pirate microsoft office, because we have OpenOffice.

        and we'd probably pay for games, cause we're desperately wanting them and would support the companies who make them for us.
      • AmaDaden, on 07/10/2008, -0/+10I think the steam model would work wonders on Linux. Steam makes it more convenient to buy games then to try to steal them. Also remember you don't need to GPL software that runs on Linux. So a closed source game is possible. Closing the source would make pirating just as hard as it is on windows (not that it's very hard...).
      • MattBD, on 07/10/2008, -0/+2AmaDaden: Or something like CNR might work too.
      • wiresjr, on 07/10/2008, -0/+3I buy games that run on Linux using all that extra cash I didn't spend on Windows and MS Office...
      • nielkie, on 07/10/2008, -0/+2Yup, instead of Vista, I could buy 10 games.
    • brundlefly76, on 07/10/2008, -4/+4Windows is the only reason we even *have* the computer gaming market we have today.

      Back when DirectX was announced, everyone scoffed and said Windows could never run games like DOS. But Microsoft took supporting game developers and third-party hardware manufacturers dead seriously and worked closely with them to develop HALs, APIs and tools to not only make great games on Windows, but to also make them easier to develop, deploy, and run on disparate hardware.

      Anyone who has taken any significant time to install and run major commercial 3d games on Linux can agree that it can be a nightmare and there are usually some 'gotchas' you have to live with.

      I can knock Microsoft for a lot of stuff, but I will hand the computer gaming prize over directly to them, because Microsoft took an active interest in what needed to be done and was very successful.

      These are the types of necessary partnerships that even Apple admits it is not very good at, and the Linux community is simply abysmal at.

      Neither Apple nor Linux could support major modern commercial game development financially. the game makers make the games for Windows, make their profit there, and Apple and Linux get hacks & ports for trivial additional revenue.
  • nwoolls, on 07/09/2008, -36/+18No.
    • gettophilosophr, on 07/10/2008, -6/+7Why the hell does blogspam like this make the front page?
      • Audacitor, on 07/10/2008, -4/+6Well, this particular piece of spam isn't actually spam. I see before me a well written article, thought provoking, yet balanced.
      • Amiga501, on 07/10/2008, -3/+0This ***** submitted his OWN blog to digg. What an *****.
  • StupotAce, on 07/09/2008, -18/+13Technically DOS COULD be a better gaming OS than Windows, but it'll never happen. I hope that Linux gaming improves immensely, but even if Linux could run every game Windows can, you'd still be hard pressed to show which OS is "better".
    • dinostabOMG, on 07/10/2008, -1/+5Are you kidding me? Ultima VI ftw!
  • joeanon, on 07/09/2008, -36/+54Yea, technically, a monolithic kernel like DOS (but updated to 32 or 64 bits)has performance advantages over the more modern cores. However, at some point monolithic is just too much to ask for while also asking for versatility because of development overhead. Monolithic has less running overhead, but more development overhead. In a for profit market driven world, development time is by far the more important feature.

    In the end it's all really about hardware and software support, including development tools and drivers.

    Windows wins easily here. From what I can see Linux doesn't have a vast performance edge to leverage against Windows, so it's a long shot to get better than windows performance.

    Linux does have a pretty big latency edge against windows so the edge it should go for is probably sound and video along with of course server roles.

    Windows also seems to run better on dying hardware than Linux. I guess that's the drivers.

    They used to say Linux is more demanding so sometimes it won't run on dying hardware that Windows will. I personally think that is BS, but it's what the Linux community used to say.

    When it comes down to it, I'm not impressed by any of the current operating systems. I find myself constantly think of obvious improvement that's are overlooked for dumb features like high res icons and 3D GUI effects or such.

    • Xmister, on 07/09/2008, -1/+21It might be true that sometimes Linux won't run on dying hardware, but my experience is the opposite.
      My neighbour has an old and lot used pc, he was using windows 2000, but after a while it was getting acting weird, and reinstalling didn't solved this. Now windows can't be installed on it, so he is using Ubuntu.
      • CalcProgrammer1, on 07/10/2008, -2/+17Well, in my opinion, NEW Linux distros (Ubuntu, Fedora, SuSE, etc) run better on "dated" hardware than NEW Windows (Vista). I can run Ubuntu 8.04 very well on my older Pentium 3 850MHz laptop and it is still very useful as a Web browsing client, YouTube and media player, DVD player, office/email PC, etc. However, Vista would crawl baby steps slower than dirt on such a PC. On the other hand, Windows XP works on a good variety of hardware. XP also runs well on said Pentium 3 laptop, providing the same set of features as Linux (obviously gaming is out on either OS), but not being free. In the end, the only difference is that Linux is free.

        However, on OLD PC's (Pentium 1 era), Windows is a clear winner. Even though it's only Windows 95 or in some cases 98, it still has a quick, responsive GUI and drivers for all or most of the PC's hardware. I can listen to MP3's well in Windows 95 on my ancient Pentium 133MHz computers and still have a nice GUI while running the lightest of Linux distros (DSL, Fluxbox, Puppy Linux, etc) still has a laggy and often unresponsive interface.

        On NEW PC's, Vista is the clear winner. Sorry to all you who insult Vista (and sorry to my former self 3 months ago, who also insulted Vista), but Vista runs great on new hardware. I just got a new T9300 2.5GHz Core 2 Duo laptop with 8600M GS and Vista runs very well. The thing burns through tough apps and provides great gaming performance (at least in Source engine games). It even does play Crysis, albeit at low to medium settings. I also run Linux on this system, and graphics with nVidia's good drivers are still awesome, but there aren't many games (Come on, Valve, port the Source engine!!!!). HL2 Deathmatch ran in Wine, but not as well as it did in Vista.
      • shakin, on 07/10/2008, -0/+3I have also found that Linux runs much better on broken hardware. In the past I have run it with bad RAM and it didn't have nearly the problems Windows did, which included blue screening constantly. I also have a notebook right now that Windows refuses to run on (blue screens at first boot after install) because motherboard took a power surge and it fried one of the USB ports. Linux has been running on it for over a year with no problems.
      • thedude42, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1It's been my experience that though linux is picky about installing on dying hardware, it will run just fine on dying and dead components, with periodic rebooting issues (you don't notice the hardware is starting to die because you never reboot). The same can be said for Windows 2000/xp for the most part.
    • noogymmij, on 07/10/2008, -3/+22What? Windows runs better on low end devices? Linux is more demanding? Linux doesn't have performance benefits?

      Hell, I use Vista for gaming now, but used ubuntu for 2 years. First, ubuntu will never be a gaming platform, but sir, your claims are completely unsupported and completely untrue. I have 3 different junker PCs that have run 98, XP and Linux at some point in their life and I am happy to say that Linux beat windows on each of them.

      Try getting xp to load on a homemade digital picture frame, with no cd, no network, (no floppy, but sorta), no usb boot capabilities, 64mb memory, 64mb of storage capacity and no persistence.
      • werries, on 07/10/2008, -1/+2i think he means on...failing hardware? faulty stuff?
        heck if i know, otherwise his claims are false.
      • Fubarepublic, on 07/10/2008, -1/+1Kernel Panic! (Your ram is piece of ***** m8!)
      • Fergy, on 07/10/2008, -1/+2Why couldn't Ubuntu be a gaming platform? It uses the whole of linux as a base that thousands of businesses and developers are working on and keep improving and expanding it. Even with sub par support from hardware vendors linux often performs better than Vista or Winxp. Imagine what would happen if Linux would get the same level of support and get easier to use as a game machine than windows(which is easy to imagine).
        Imagine a 300 dollar pc like the eee box or desktop wind with a decent onboard gpu like AMD780 and Nvidia GF8200 where you can buy and download games with one click and they just run. It is still a normal pc with a webbrowser and office suite but it is easier to use than Vista and doesn't need virusscanners and constantly manually updating everything.
    • philhatesyou, on 07/10/2008, -4/+18You, sir, have no clue what you're talking about:

      http://www.phoronix.com/data/img/results/897/03.pn ...
      • Biznarie, on 07/10/2008, -1/+5Thats a huge boost just for changing OS's, then again its comparing to vista I'd rather see how it compared to xp.
      • twiztidsinz, on 07/10/2008, -0/+8The lack of information in that picture astounds me.
      • nmnnotmyname, on 07/10/2008, -2/+2It may lack information, but it's just a simple notion about how Linux performs in comparison (Not always worse, in fact not worse a lot of times). Not extensive nor conclusive.
      • Temo1, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1Hey I can make graphs up to support my claims too. It means nothing without documented methodology.
      • Amiga501, on 07/10/2008, -3/+0The Linux version was running with some features disabled, or the driver was using a lower quality rendering mode. I've seen garbage like this faked before.
      • XiiXii, on 07/10/2008, -0/+3http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item ...

        Although his posting of a single image was fairly useless, it wasn't that hard to search the site for the corresponding article.

        edit: Nowhere does it mention lower quality, Amiga501, stop your garbage.
    • JonLatane, on 07/10/2008, -1/+9Um... What? Yes, DOS/Win9x is a monolithic kernel, but so is Linux (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel ). The NT kernel is actually a "hybrid kernel" which - at least as far as I can tell - means that it's a monolithic kernel written with less coupling (e.g., there are servers but they're within the kernel itself) to improve stability. The only microkernel in any widespread use is Mach/XNU, the Mac OS X kernel.
    • MasterFunk, on 07/10/2008, -0/+5Wow, it is great to see an old school linux user, but I think you still in the 1998's view of linux. While I don't think linux is the most feasible of OSs for gaming, just because of OpenGL VS. DX, and would be very surprised if linux was able to win over the gaming community within the next 5 years. Linux, while still having some driver gaps, is far more complete then it used to be. Also there are now quite a few distros that are still trying to minimize the required specs, so you are able to run linux on some i486, 64mb computers.

      Now I remember, vaguely, a time when you needed more memory for linux then you needed for Windows, but I want to say that they recommended you have 64mb compared to Windows 98's 24mb. And with all the kernal updates and changes Linux has gone through, it is very commendable that they have the programing neat.
    • nmnnotmyname, on 07/10/2008, -5/+1Versitile because you can compile it any which way you like.

      Though I think it's a bad design - I'd try to do better (think Proof of Concept, though) but it would take a programmer like me for ***** ever just to get the thing to boot up properly (don't even get me started on drivers and usermode stuff...) and then it would still just be a little hello world toy... Starting a new OS is something nice to do as a hobby, if you have that sort of stamina... by which i mean 5+ years worth of it... to do so.
    • ospsp, on 07/10/2008, -0/+3Just a heads up for you for the future:
      look in to stuff before you say it or you will get owned by us geeks :D
    • harmil, on 07/10/2008, -3/+2A long shot to get better-than-Windows performance from Linux? Where have you been?

      Try running World of Warcraft under Linux/Wine and under Vista. You'll find a sizable framerate improvement, but the most important aspect is that Vista's horrible performance when presented with multiprocessing load is radically better under Linux. Just try kicking off a file reading process (like a virus scan) under Vista while running a video game. Now, try the same under Linux. There's a performance hit under both OSes, to be sure, but Linux is the clear winner, here.

    • Stonekeeper, on 07/10/2008, -0/+10"Windows also seems to run better on dying hardware than Linux. I guess that's the drivers."

      Say WHAT!?!?!
    • meed, on 07/10/2008, -0/+3I remember gaming on DOS in the 80's and early 90's. Compaired to my experiences gaming with windows over the last 10+ years, it was like using a pair of tweezers to remove a beard instead of razor. The addition of sound cards, advanced joysticks, and etc. turned installing and configuring a game into a major operation that was only amplified by Media type that games came on (sets fo floppy disks).
      • crash331, on 07/10/2008, -0/+2And multiple boot disks to get that ever-elusive 10k of conventional memory that you needed.
    • zwaldowski, on 07/10/2008, -2/+2That's total *****. Want to make DOS modern? Okay, let's rewrite the kernel to be 64-bit. Now we need a new driver stack. Now we need a new graphics system. Hell, why don't we put in a GUI, too? Let's make it shiny. Oh, look... Vista's here.
      • pdusen, on 07/10/2008, -1/+2Vista uses the NT kernel, not DOS. You fail again.
      • zwaldowski, on 07/11/2008, -0/+1@pdusen: To assume makes... no, you're just an ass. I know very well that Vista is the sixth major revision of the NT kernel. Windows ME was the last of the DOS line. If you actually read my ***** comment, you'd notice that I made no conjecture for this. I said that a polished, modern, time-assured version of DOS would be... oh, hey, NT.
    • Meekus, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1If I had a crappy machine, Linux was almost always able to install. Back in the old days, it was trying to get X to work that drove me the most nuts.
    • abdiviklas, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1I murdered my motherboard a few years back while stupidly trying to force some RAM in the wrong direction. Windows XP wouldn't load or work at all. Ubuntu, on the other hand, worked nearly perfectly. So if this is what you mean by "dying hardware" at least it's not true in every case.

      On a side note a linux hater friend of mine told me it was proof that linux was no good. He said that Windows is so excellent that it won't run on broken machines - it's that good.
    • Lanlost, on 07/10/2008, -0/+2Really? I always think of Linux first for dying hardware. My old roommate got a cheap Celery 300A (Oh yes, you know I overclocked it. My favorite processor ever) and I installed Mint on it and used xfce. Worked fine.

      There is always ONE THING that keeps me from having Windows on at least a dual-boot option. It used to be that I would use Linux and.. not much would work, so I would work at it and voila -- I would get everything except for sound. Eventually it would annoy me and I would back to Windows.

      Then I would try it a year later and almost everything would work out of the box except networking and sound. I would get sound to work this time, but networking wouldn't work for me (switched to wifi). Annoyed me after and after a LONGER time went back to Windows.

      This happened over and over, each time I would use the distro a little bit longer. When I say it 'annoyed' me, I mean that in the saddest way. I actually liked using Linux, it was ANNOYING that one thing would always keep me from using it.

      So what is it now? I've been using Mint (greatest distro ever, first one to be viable for desktop market IMO (Ubuntu derivative)) for quite some time and it's actually been good enough all around to use predominately. EVERY peice of hardware works out of the box.

      Except one thing, that works.. but has a huge bug.

      My problem with Linux these days is video drivers. I install Mint and out of the box Compiz works PERFECTLY. I use it for a few weeks and everything is smooth sailing until I run glxgears and get a moving gears window running correctly. I then proceed to move the window and get a 'ghost' image of the old window contents. It didn't have the border or anything, just the gears part. I could do this multiple times. Think a window locking up in Windows where it will just redraw forever.. but in this case without the border. Not only that but whatever is being drawn by GL ALWAYS DRAWS ON TOP. Again, without the border window. This means that if I run glxgears, move the window from it's default location to the center and then maximize firefox over it I get a 'ghost' window where the window used to be and then get firefox up on the screen maximized with a glxgears running without the window border in the center of my firefox window. Ugghh.

      Turns out that the ATI drivers (I bought an ATI because they are 'supposed' to have better support for Linux than nVidia) don't support some drawing method needed to compose graphics draws on top of other instances of graphics draws.

      I can switch to the newest ATI drivers and get GL the way it's supposed to be. Fixs the bugs, but then compiz is RIDICULOUSLY slow. I switch the feature off, everything works fine except any external to compiz GL application.

      I can live without this, this just means that I have to either a) not use compiz or b) not use anything besides compiz that uses opengl or suffer the above consequences.

      My nvidia card didn't have this problem. I broke it and got an ATI for Linux support. The good thing is that ATI has their driver source released now so I'm expecting a bug fix eventually.

      Oh and on the nature of GL vs. DX. OpenlGL 2.0+ can do anything D3d can do and it's open source. Just look at Mr. Carmack's 3d API of choice.
      Doom 3 used Direct X for OTHER aspects besides the 3d rendering however. I'm not sure if Linux has any good APIs to replace the other features of DX that aren't rendering related.
      OpenGL for 3d is perfectly capable of doing anything D3D does.

      Ok, so that was long. I use Mint 99.5% of the time. The only time I ever switch into Windows is for the few things I use specifically there. DX games or applications and iTunes for it's iTunes store Podcast directory.
    • unitedatheism, on 07/11/2008, -0/+1Take a look on all the above trplies, they tell you all but the same
      You're full of ***** :^P

      And come on, linux don't have a large advantage on hardware?
      I'm sorry, are you high?
      Do you know virtual memory? My Linux don't..... I don't need it.
      Swapfile = /dev/null, pretty close to the 2-to-4 gigs of Windows' swappy....
  • Ademan, on 07/09/2008, -6/+172The author clearly doesn't know jack nor ***** about OpenGL, it provides every feature Direct3D does, including features seen in D3D10. (Astute readers will note that these are available only through extensions, however, even more astute readers know that these are EXT extensions, meaning they are supported on both Nvidia and amd hardware (assuming recent enough drivers) furthermore, extensions are how ALL advanced functionality is exposed in OpenGL, it's just a design difference, although it's one alot of people don't care much for...)

    Another issue the author doesn't touch on is DirectX is an entire collection of APIs, wheras OpenGL is only for graphics, and therefore only analagous to Direct3d. This is an important distinction not only because it shows the author has a very limited understanding of the subject, but because this one-stop-shop that DirectX provides is often cited as one of the biggest factors contributing to Direct3D's dominance over OpenGL (In games, OpenGL has always been king outside of games)

    One point that the author unintentionally brings up is winelib. winelib is provided by wine, and it (theoretically) allows someone to build a windows application on a wine-supported platform like linux, and the result is a native executable. This is an interesting approach, and it would be exciting to see major games using this, as it doesn't require much work overall to do.
    • daengbo, on 07/10/2008, -2/+21I agree with your points, but would like to add something for clarity. The "G" in OpenGL stands for "graphics," which is the reason it onlu handles graphics. Audio is handled by an analogous library, OpenAL. OpenGL + OpenAL ~= DirectX. The missing fuctionality is not really a big deal.

      In fact, a developer can avoid cross-platform / DirectX / OpenGL problems by using Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL) libraries.
      • solarwind24, on 07/10/2008, -1/+10Windows has OpenGL as well so technically OpenGL IS cross-platform.
      • homercles337, on 07/10/2008, -9/+2Doom III was OpenGL on Windows. Thats the last OpenGL windows game that i played. At the time it played like ***** relative to similar games of the time.
      • veilrap, on 07/10/2008, -0/+2And DirectX also has networking, IO, media, and other. Therefore Direct X is stil > OpenGL+OpenAL
    • elektronjunge, on 07/10/2008, -0/+2The EXT extensions run on anything with hardware support but with the same requirements for DX, but they will run with out the support in software mode.
    • JustinPM, on 07/10/2008, -0/+2I'd prefer everything to go back to Glide! :)
    • nmnnotmyname, on 07/10/2008, -0/+3Go NVidia G80 extensions!

      But where is OpenGL 3.0 Khronos?
    • sarchosis, on 07/10/2008, -0/+12It's just unfortunate that PC gaming is married to proprietary APIs (Direct3D). If OpenGL had been favored instead, maybe PC Games today would be OS neutral. Hopefully engines like id Tech 5 might push towards something like that.
      • zeebo, on 07/10/2008, -0/+2Blizzards games are all OpenGL native with an alternate directX windows-only backend. They even have an internal linux version of many of their games. However management at vivendi has refused to allow the release of linux versions, even though they know that this alienates a potential market of millions of users. If I were Blizzard, I'd be re-releasing starcraft, and diablo 2 with new interface and resolution options designed for the MID market, and aiming a port of WoW at machines like the EEE 901. Its not like it would cost much, the code is already cross platform, and those devices have sold millions in recent years.

        Sure they run fine in Wine, but having to run the windows clients for games which I know could be easily ported always leaves a sour taste in my mouth, especially on low-end devices where the overhead of the api wrapper is more costly, particularly when thinking about power consumption.
    • RayTracer85, on 07/10/2008, -6/+1The Direct3D API is just superb to work with
      • Magnes, on 07/10/2008, -0/+4You really think so? I used Direct3D and in my opinion it's just crap with long stupid function names, to many parameters in functions...
      • zeebo, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1Especially when Microsoft gives you a few hundred thousand or million for exclusivity, and will make point releases specifically to make this game run better than that one. Of course if they like the game enough they'll just buy you and tie you to their platform, which could make the owners of your company fabulously wealthy which serves to really taint the industry right now.
      • Lanlost, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1Have you EVER used Direct3d?!

        Better yet, have you ever seen DirectX code mixed with Windows API code/MFC? Jesus christ.

      • Lanlost, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1I forgot to mention this, this makes me nealy shed a tear to think about and I assume you will as well.

        I actually got my girlfriend (who is not 300Lbs and/or nerdy, ugly or stupid) to... get this, .. make a program in Qbasic that Psets a set number of pixels.

        I know it doesn't sound like much but the point is that she was very easily able to understand the syntax of Basic and had the ability to write a program (with only limited assistance on my part to get a random number) to do the above.

        She was tired of seeing me basically get a bigger boner from reading good C/++ code and was curious why I love something that appears so boring.

        Needless to say, I don't think that would have happened in a million years with C++ and MFC and DirectX. If you go C++ instead of C it's not THAT big of a learning curve in itself from something like QBasic.

        I kissed my girlfriend and got all giddy. Yeah, I get reduced to a weeping mess at the idea of my girlfriend typing REM and hitting run. Sad.

        It's not the fact that she was able to write a QBasic program. It's the fact that she was easily able to understand simple things like pixel drawing, line drawing,.. you know graphics routines that didn't require 500 letters to comply to a naming convention.

        I guarantee you that D3d code would be unreadable to her.. since it tends to look like spaghetti code to me, someone who has programmed with GL for years.
    • Lanlost, on 07/10/2008, -0/+3You deserve some more praise sir.

      In the comment above yours I replied (droned on forever really...) to note a few problems I've had with ATI cards in Linux and to mention that GL can do anything that D3D can do and be cross-platform AND have much 'prettier' code. I also mentioned the fact that D3D is just one piece of the DirectX api.

      But, you got to it first, and much better than I did. It's really nice to see that there is a small but growing number of people on the internet who .. you know.. ACTUALLY know even a tiny amount about what they are talking about?

      Thank you.
  • derubermensch, on 07/09/2008, -25/+108I can't imagine compiling Crysis
    • paradexes, on 07/10/2008, -15/+19Unless you are running some hardcore OS there is not even a need for that any more. Ubuntu makes it easy so does fedora and SuSe as well as Mandriva. Synaptic or the gnome-app (a literal add/remove programs where you add AND remove programs unlike windows where you only use it to remove)

      SuSe has Zen which in OpenSuse 11 their package management has gotten really good. and fast.

      So before saying that you have to "compile" do your homework. Buried...

      While I know how to. I have not had to compile software on my home ubuntu box in nearly a year. I just add a software source (using the GUI) and install the apps I want (Also Using a nice GUI). All of which is very easy to do.
      • alexanEmpire, on 07/10/2008, -9/+9Calm down, you angry nerd.
      • twiztidsinz, on 07/10/2008, -5/+12I will call you on that... How about you do YOUR homework.
        While you are correct that the Add/Remove (Synaptic, Apt-get, Zen, etc) removes the need for compiling, someone still has to maintain the packages. If no one updates a package for a week (like the most current versions of Firefox 3 when it was in beta/RC stage) then you dont get it for a week without compiling it.
      • diemunkiesdie, on 07/10/2008, -1/+4That's not the point. Obviously you did not read the article carefully enough, if at all.

        The article mentions that compiling software on your machine will make it run faster because it can be complied to suit your hardware. The joke was being made that Crysis is so huge and complex, it would be a pain to compile it for that so called performance boost that you could gain.

        Just for your information, When using Synaptic Package Manager, some things are compiled on your machine when you install them. Click on that little "view details" triangle while it is installing something. The triangle will turn to the right and the point will be facing downwards. A terminal box will appear and you will be able to see the commands that the package manger is running to install everything. Sometimes you will notice it compile different packages.
      • javaroast, on 07/10/2008, -1/+6The install for Firefox was:
        1.) Download at getfirefox.com
        2.) Untar archive to desired directory
        3.) Run firefox

        No compiling necessary.
    • ordago, on 07/10/2008, -11/+3You compile the OS. You don't have Crysis' code.
    • KillerJ59J, on 07/10/2008, -0/+29paradexesparadexes, I believe he was joking...
    • homercles337, on 07/10/2008, -0/+3I dont know if you know but Valve built special software that will distribute compiling to idle CPUs in house. Its like having their own cluster. Im sure Crytek has something similar.
    • phatboye, on 07/10/2008, -2/+5...Unless Crytek releases the source code for Crysis (which will never happen) you won't ever have to worry about compiling that game. Buried.
  • trogdoor, on 07/09/2008, -16/+39http://linuxhaters.blogspot.com/2008/06/nitty-grit ...

    I like Linux, and use it almost exclusively, but it's the truth.
    • pedepy, on 07/10/2008, -3/+21yea good point .. i use linux exclusively on my laptop too, and some of these things are still a bitch.

      there as been, however, incredible progress in the past 12-18 months. there's no denying that, either.

    • agimat, on 07/10/2008, -1/+9Dugg down because we can't handle the truth.
    • Stonekeeper, on 07/10/2008, -1/+4I bet you don't.
    • veilrap, on 07/10/2008, -1/+1Thanks for the blog trogdoor, it's much better than this dugg one!
  • matthekc, on 07/09/2008, -5/+4I don't expect linux to get every game right now but how about some of the big titles. There are millions of Linux users if you tap into ten percent of the linux market you might get close to a million or more sales. I would like to see some of the top games of the year come to linux. I personally want Need for Speed Carbon, the new GTA, and a fps with a story line. Not to say open source does not have good fps games but they don't have a story and as for the first two there is no open source equivalent and the first two don't run in wine. Otherwise I'll probably get a ps3 when a black thursday puts them near 300 even or less.
    • Mononuclear, on 07/10/2008, -2/+10How many linux users are there that don't dual boot? How many linux users are there that won't buy a game because it's windows only? How many of those would buy a game if it did come out on linux?

      Making a game run on linux may get a few more people to buy it but 99.9% of the people who buy it will buy it regardless of whether or not it runs on linux.
      • caltheos, on 07/10/2008, -1/+3But if they could reduce the system specs for the game by running it on linux, might not a significant number of people with older machines that don't want or can't afford to upgrade might decide to buy the game since it runs on their hardware?
      • parax, on 07/10/2008, -1/+3Those are unanswerable questions, but the number of Linux user who don't dual boot is probably fairly significant I'd wager. And the gaming market on Linux I think is larger than many would guess.

        I buy games for Xbox 360 or games which have a native Linux client. I won't buy a game if it's Windows only, and I'm not going to buy and use Windows just to play a game. I played Windows games back when I used Windows. Now that I don't use Windows, I don't play Windows-only games. If a PC game company wants me to play their game, they'll produce a Linux client, otherwise Xbox 360 satisfies my gaming needs.
      • xNIBx, on 07/10/2008, -0/+2Making games for linux wont mean that those games will have lower requirements. The most important requirement for a game is the gpu. Cpu is irrelevant 99% of the time(almost no games are cpu dependent). Ram is dirt cheap too. So any advantage that linux has over windows(which means lower ram/cpu requirements) will also be irrelevant.

        What gpu you have and what drivers you have are the most important performance factors. Since the gpu will be the same for both linux and windows but drivers will often be better for windows, games will run faster on windows.
    • nigh7dagger, on 07/10/2008, -5/+1I don't think many Linux users are going to put something on their hard drive that isn't open source
  • pedepy, on 07/10/2008, -1/+8there was some article I had read a while ago about some Sony developed gaming engine, that was supposed to be cross-platform and based on OpenGl or something .. meaning it could in theory run on ps3, xbox, osx, linux, and windows, making porting games between those platform a breeze.

    what ever happened to that ?
    • tobikow, on 07/10/2008, -5/+28Sony.
      • philhatesyou, on 07/10/2008, -8/+14Of course a totally ignorant reply made with absolutely no reference to fact gets dugg up... The engine is called PhyreEngine, and it's currently being used by devs. It's not available to the public yet.
      • werries, on 07/10/2008, -3/+5@philhatesyou.
        Woah, thanks for the info. Thats awesome, I'm excited, do this right Sony.
  • sdfguy, on 07/10/2008, -21/+5Ubuntu's footprint is enormous compared to a mildly configured XP setup.

    You can download stripped-down XP distributions that are amazing for gaming and have like a 74mb footprint.
    My personal setup comes up at about 120mb.

    • mooninite, on 07/10/2008, -5/+10... and have what? Only a start menu? Genius.
      • TotalHalibut, on 07/10/2008, -3/+7And what else do you need if all you're doing is gaming?
      • sdfguy, on 07/10/2008, -0/+0No dude, you have every stupid little agent program you can have installed up and running, so they each eat up a large portion of your memory, BUT AT LEAST THEY START UP REALLY FAST LOL.
    • FairDinkumMate, on 07/10/2008, -0/+12I think that maybe people are talking about LEGAL, legitimate OS's. I'm sure it won't be long(if not already) that you'll be able to get a stripped down version of Vista from The Pirate Bay either, but this type of thing is hardly 'mainstream' or legitimate now is it.

      So with that, tell me which OS(Ubuntu or Windows XP) an average gamer could more easily configure with a smaller footprint? Removing overhead & footprint via Synaptic(or starting with an Ubuntu server install & just adding what you want) is much easier than trying to rip stuff out of any Windows distro.
    • trogdor282, on 07/10/2008, -1/+8Sure, XP, but try stripping the encrypted DRM pathways (major CPU hog) out of Vista and get back to us.
    • sirhomer, on 07/10/2008, -1/+8There are Linux distros that come with a full desktop that are under 100 MB. Puppy Linux is only ~80MB (and comes with an office suite and games), and DSL is about 50MB. In fact, there are Linux distros that fit on a floppy disc - 1.44MB. Windows XP can not even touch Linux when it comes down to it.
    • manitoba98xp, on 07/10/2008, -1/+8If you wanted to, you could build a Linux distro with X11, OpenGL and your games, and nothing else. You could eliminate desktop managers altogether, and have it present you a simple list of games, then those would be practically the only running processes. Linux is far more flexible than Windows is, if that's the argument you're making.

      Ubuntu, like XP, is designed as a desktop OS. I should also point out that it includes many things that Microsoft ships as separate products, so comparing their footprints is somewhat slanted.

      That said, I don't see Linux dominating as a gaming OS anytime in the near future, though I do see technologies such as Wine and CrossOver's Cider (which they could conceivably port to Linux) making it easier for gamers to use Linux if they so choose.
    • parax, on 07/10/2008, -1/+5Why would you compare the footprint of a full Ubuntu install to a stripped-down Windows XP install? if you're going to be stripping things down, then make the comparison to Damn Small Linux.
    • JustinPM, on 07/10/2008, -1/+4Well, you can download Linux distros that are FAR less than 74mb. So much so that some fit in the flash of network routers. Ubuntu does not equal Linux.
  • Someprogr, on 07/10/2008, -19/+7Short answer: Yes
    Long answer: Yes
  • Dylson, on 07/10/2008, -27/+20No.
  • lukas88, on 07/10/2008, -40/+58Wow, blind windows hate, how cliche.

    "I admit I don't know much about DirectX"

    Not exactly a credible source.

    Most people, even linux users, don't want to use linux as a gaming OS. That is why it will never happen.
    • dinostabOMG, on 07/10/2008, -2/+36Don't want to? I dunno about that - I would love to, if it were to happen.
    • bratterscain, on 07/10/2008, -3/+26Where do you get "most users"? I'd be on it full time if it weren't for games on Windows.
    • wastedfluid, on 07/10/2008, -4/+18Wow.

      I play all of my games via Linux.. with WINE.

      I get even higher FPS's.. in some FPS games, I get lowered FPS than in Windows when there is a ***** on the screen.

      I play: All of the Warhammers, every single Red Alert, Kane's edition, WOW, Counter Strike CS, and TF2 ALL on Linux at 60+ fps with marginal hardware.
      • ArgonTime, on 07/10/2008, -0/+4I would love you know your WINE settings. I have a Q6600, 8800GTS, and 4 GB of RAM and I still get 40 FPS in CS:S under WINE. Compare that to 170 in Windows and I think we see the winner. I would LOVE to move to Linux, I actually just tried Ubuntu out again the other day, but I just couldn't get the games running as well as they run in Windows.
    • solarwind24, on 07/10/2008, -2/+27"Most people, even linux users, don't want to use linux as a gaming OS. That is why it will never happen."

      What kind of stupid statement is that? Any Linux user would, if he could.
    • amenic, on 07/10/2008, -1/+10I'd love to run games on Linux. It's just tighter and cleaner and you don't have a billion different apps all running services and all trying to check for updates etc etc. bogging down your system.

      I'm constantly getting frame rate dips in my games because of background processes from the OS. Do some research to see how compounded this issue is with Vista.

      There's really no better time to switch than now - it's just too bad we are in the early stagse of cross platform development and setting up wireless encrypted networks on linux = headache!

    • parax, on 07/10/2008, -1/+12It's short-sighted to say Linux will never be a gaming OS. Linux will be whatever people have the time, imagination, and drive to make it become. It can be an ATM machine, a media center, an environmental control system, a kitchen appliance coordinator, a pocket calculator, and it can be a gaming system.

      It's terribly presumptuous to claim to know what Linux will and won't become. Even in creating it, Linus Torvalds had no idea what it would become.
    • voodoo123x, on 07/10/2008, -0/+3Wow dude, if I could play all my games on Linux I can promise you I wouldn't be sitting here on Windows right now. Games are by far the ONLY reason that I even still own and continue to use Windows on my personal computers.

      Also, the way it seems Ubuntu has started to become slightly mainstream, there is no idea how big Linux may become in the future. A free operating system that is reliable and user friendly is much preferred, at least in my opinion, over a $300 operating system that is flawed and slows down my computer. I know Vista isn't the worst thing in the world, but it could have been so much better. But who is to say that five or ten years in the future, Linux won't have 20% of the operating system market share? It's completely possible. If more "popular" applications were to become easily compatible with Linux such as games (aside from the few that have already and aside from using wine) and other corporate applications, Linux would easily grab up more users.
    • neotrantor, on 07/10/2008, -0/+2i do use linux for games actually, i get consistantly better fps on linux than windows, espeically in opengl based games where the amount of function wrapping is minimal and wine/cedega run everything just fine
    • zeebo, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1I play games these days only on linux and the consoles that I own, I don't even own a copy of Windows anymore. If I can't play a game natively on linux or know that it runs perfect in Wine I don't get it, so all those windows only PC game companies miss out on my money, and unlike a vast number of windows users who pirate everything, I actually spend quite a bit annually on gaming.

      Windows only game companies need to stop bitching about piracy and start supporting users that they're totally ignoring rather than trying to punish their already paying customers.
    • lukas88, on 07/10/2008, -0/+3Apparently a lot of people do want to see gaming on linux, I was wrong.
  • barnacle999, on 07/10/2008, -15/+8What's linux? ;)
    • Acglaphotis, on 07/10/2008, -0/+3Death and destruction.
      • Atomic1fire, on 07/10/2008, -1/+2An open source kernal for operating systems
        its also a collection of operating systems that use the kernal more so known as gnu/linux
        but its easier to explain linux then guh new with a silent G
        gnu is the collection of parts that make the rest of the operating system work
      • CalcProgrammer1, on 07/10/2008, -3/+1to those evil companies like Microsoft who attempt to fool users into paying ridiculous prices for their shiny but unsecure software. Also death and destruction to viruses and spyware, as they are not an issue in Linux.
      • twiztidsinz, on 07/10/2008, -2/+1Virus and Spyware are not an issue to Linux because Linux is not an issue when it comes to global distribution.
    • nigh7dagger, on 07/10/2008, -1/+2Obvious troll is obvious
  • jillcal, on 07/10/2008, -9/+1Linux (should) beat all other os's hands down. We just need a few more fans like this to get take some market share from mac and win...
    http://digg.com/people/The_New_Linux_Poster_Girl_S ...
    • TotalHalibut, on 07/10/2008, -1/+4We? Do you think you belong to some kind of club?
    • wobegon, on 07/10/2008, -1/+4Linux is more in a competitive alliance with Mac OS X against Windows. Unfortunately, Linux devs only seem interested in cloning Windows, rather than surpassing it in ease of use. I want Linux devs to try harder because Linux's existence is very important in ending Microsoft's monopolistic position that stifles a lot of competition and progress in the state of the art of technology.
  • jamestwisleton, on 07/10/2008, -1/+5Windows is the established, mainstream platform that most consumers use. However capable Linux is, until it becomes a larger market it's not going to most games. Same goes for Mac, but it's a platform taking market share at a much higher rate so you do see big game developers making games for it (even if it's still not many yet).
    • thevoiceless, on 07/10/2008, -1/+6As much as I hate to admit it, you're totally right. Things won't really improve unless we get more people using Linux.

      That's all there is to it.
    • daftman, on 07/10/2008, -0/+4How is Linux different from PS3 or XBox 360? Those are new platforms that consumers takes up extremely well.
      It has nothing to do with established and everything to do with marketing. Under the hood of a PS3 is OpenGL variant, the same technology as any Linux will use.
      PC gaming is a declining trend. Most kids these days will go for the consoles without having to worry about hardware issues. Yes there are still games being released for PC, but the majority of the gaming economy relies mainly on the console.
      Linux platform might allow PC developers to extend their market.
      • Slackdragon, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1The PS3 and Xbox are not open source and do not have a user-base clamoring for total transparency when it comes to code. The gaming industry is very competitive and profit driven. Trade secrets abound. Which is why a lot of developers find developing for consoles so appealing.

        The only way real gaming on Linux would really work is for its user base to suffer the existence of a closed-source, for-profit segment of the Linux community. And I don't really see that happening any time soon.

        But, if they did, it would kinda be like the way Red China suffers the existence of capitalist Hong Kong.
  • Xolom, on 07/10/2008, -12/+10No.
  • lordtyros, on 07/10/2008, -3/+71"I admit I don't know much about DirectX, so much of what I've just written is pure speculation."

    You should have written this at the beginning and saved me a lot of reading.
  • legoalert33, on 07/10/2008, -4/+68Could: yes
    Is: no
    • culbeda, on 07/10/2008, -2/+3I would argue that it can't without some significant changes and some pretty serious API development. Windows was the first OS to popularize hardware abstraction and they've taken that a step first with the functionality of DirectX. Linux is just starting to catch up on the hardware abstraction and it has a great deal longer before it will compete with DirectX. But as long as developers are more concerned with putting wobbling windows and 3D cubes on the front-end, it's never going to happen.
      • philhatesyou, on 07/10/2008, -3/+2http://www.phoronix.com/data/img/results/897/03.pn ...

        Look and then politely shut the ***** up.
      • zeebo, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1"Linux is just starting to catch up on the hardware abstraction and it has a great deal longer before it will compete with DirectX."

        I guess you don't know that OpenGL has been around for decades, with SDL being nearly a decade old itself. The Wii, the PS3, the PS2, the DS, and the PSP are all built on many of the same libraries that you find on linux. These are mature technologies for game development, and there are far more of them in circulation than there are modern gaming PCs capable of using recent versions of directX.
    • DefaultGen, on 07/10/2008, -5/+1Will ever be: No.
  • scy1192, on 07/10/2008, -5/+6to Microsoft: please allow us to do a "minimal" install of Windows, without all the unneeded components and services, for those of us that wish to do gaming or have old hardware.
    • secmil, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1scy, lookup nLite for Windows XP, and vLite for Windows Vista...

      I don't bother installing windows anymore without first making my own installation disks with service packs/updates/drivers/starter software all rolled in and taking out all the random crapware BS.

      As for Gaming on Linux, I use linux probably 90% of the time and I use Vista for my media center and for gps navigation on the UMPC so I'd say I'm pretty committed. That said, the only times I've ever had a pleasurable experience playing games in linux was on a distribution specifically made to play games on. If Canonical decided it was going to release an Ubuntu distribution that would turn your computer into a dedicated Linux gaming console, I'm sure you'd have a much easier time convincing people that Linux could be a better gaming platform, but for the time being I want my fancy desktop effects and nifty usability mods and stable drivers that all don't work so well with games...

      (Edit: misspelled stuff)
  • elstevo, on 07/10/2008, -3/+56"I admit I don't know much about DirectX, so much of what I've just written is pure speculation."

    This is the reason why blogs are terrible.
    • solarwind24, on 07/10/2008, -1/+5Well at least he admitted it and didn't pretend like he knew. I don't see anything wrong with that.
  • dildobaggins, on 07/10/2008, -10/+1Linux? Gaming? Blow me!
  • burjzyntski, on 07/10/2008, -9/+4Cedega costs money.
    wine isn't fast enough.
    a virtual machine running games through windows? doesn't that basically answer the question itself? no, linux will (very likely) not ever be a gaming machine.

    however, thanks to the recent increase in linux (read: ubuntu :( ), I foresee a number of gaming-related improvements coming our way.
    • wastedfluid, on 07/10/2008, -1/+6Uh.

      Cedega = Wine.

      Just more gaming support, but a HUGE waste of money. Cedega IS wine. Just go to WINE's APPDB and look up everything you need to get ANY game going. All of the tips are there.
      • daftman, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1I don't know how Cedega is doing though as its source split off from an extremely old wine code.
        I would trust wine code over cedega code.
  • pookkake, on 07/10/2008, -5/+6perhaps if there was a unified open source equivalent to directx that was cross platform it would be more likely.
    knowing the open source community though, if such a thing were done it would branch off into 3 million different ***** spinoffs that are all mutually compatible out of the box
    • trogdoor, on 07/10/2008, -3/+10You mean like OpenGL?
      • Jorg, on 07/10/2008, -1/+5um... when did OpenGL add network, controller, and sound support?

        You can only compare OpenGL to Direct3D, not DirectX as a whole.

        DirectX provides a lot more than just 3d graphics support.
    • philhatesyou, on 07/10/2008, -2/+11It's called SDL. Turns out you also don't know ***** about anything!
    • CalcProgrammer1, on 07/10/2008, -5/+2"unified open source equivalent to directx that was cross platform..."

      .........OpenGL!
  • anandpopat, on 07/10/2008, -0/+0idk, most likely, i think it uses the system more efficiently than windows does, so probably yes. but they never make any games!
  • flinx, on 07/10/2008, -0/+7I appreciate the authors sentiment...but his reasoning makes no sense.

    To be successful, games have to sell. A lot. A whole lot.

    The market of gamers who can customise linux and compile programs (2 of his criteria) is miniscule compared to the market of people who can call Dell or go to best buy and get a Vista PC. Nobody could sell enough to the compile-savvy market.

    Now...if someone made a very versatile, lean/mean bootable distro that was optimized for gaming...one size fits all. Something that was good at autodetecting common hardware....then you can get started. But that's a huge, huge effort. And it's a huge mountain to climb to get the one killer app that will make people adopt such a thing.
    • gcopenhaver, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1This may not fit all your requirements, but here's a Live Linux Gaming Distro: http://live.linux-gamers.net/
      If I ever get around to having a LAN Party again in the future, I'm gonna burn a bunch of copies of this distro for everyone to play with and check it out...some of the games look/are fun.
    • skinjester, on 07/10/2008, -0/+0PS3 runs Linux and runs games too. wot's the problem?
    • Kingoftherings, on 07/10/2008, -0/+2I think if Valve would port Steam, it'd make getting Linux games much easier. Instead of trying to find a binary for you distro you use steam to download the game in a Steam binary, which takes care of the rest for you.
      • MattBD, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1CNR also might make it a bit easier - there are quite a few commercial games on there.
  • paradexes, on 07/10/2008, -1/+6Linux has alot of advantages. It COULD be a better gaming OS. It COULD be the ultimate media center...BUT because the larger corporations are not properly attracting developers to linux and gaming and media companies are not leveraging it as a consumer OS yet, it is not gaining that traction....This where Microsoft PWNs. They just are hardcore about marketing. That is an area where Linux companies have yet to collaborate and excel in. They are too busy competing against each otehr to try to make a concerted effort to displace Microsoft. IF they did that they would quickly gain the market share needed for ALL linux distros to properly compete. Marketing collaboration (like development collaboration in the FOSS world) will enable Linux to get a real foothold in all aspects that Microsoft competes in.
    • InSeverance, on 07/10/2008, -3/+3Please. Get an education.

      Stay at school. Please never attempt to talk about Business, Marketing and importantly Computing. Why? Because you blatantly understand ***** all about the such.
      • elektronjunge, on 07/10/2008, -0/+2He's right, that's the reason the Microsoft is the market leader; a large market effort over the past 25 years.
      • arcticblue, on 07/10/2008, -0/+2So, instead of insulting him, how about helping him out? I also don't know alot about business and I would be very interested to hear your enlightening thoughts on the subject.
    • xNIBx, on 07/10/2008, -2/+1Linux and media center? Roflmao. You cant even play blurays on linux. And you know why? Because linux doesnt have all that "evil" drm that windows have. You can blaim microsoft all you want about the drm but fact remains. If microsoft didnt implement those drm mechanics, windows users wouldnt be able to watch movies. Hell, linux doesnt even play dvds out of the box.
    • rickyjones, on 07/11/2008, -0/+0I agree that if the various Linux distributions collaborated more and made a joint effort then they could gain more marketshare.
  • connorf, on 07/10/2008, -1/+23If you walk outside and look around the graphics look amazing.
  • benburned, on 07/10/2008, -2/+5Of course Linux can do gaming--and it does. I had the greatest time playing Kbounce the other day.
  • SwabTheDeck, on 07/10/2008, -0/+19I think this guy is confusing DirectX with Direct3D as he chooses to compare DirectX to OpenGL. OpenGL is only a set of accelerated graphics APIs, whereas DirectX is a whole suite of APIs (one of which is Direct3D) that ease the development of writing the video, audio, I/O, etc. components that all games require. This is where the fractured nature of GNU/Linux as an OS really starts to become a disadvantage. For example, Linux has two major sound APIs (OSS and ALSA) which means developers either have to choose one or the other, write the audio components twice, or write wrappers around the different APIs. This is only one of many elements that have multiple implementations in Linux. Additionally, you can't necessarily count on a lot of these software packages to even be installed by default on any of the bazillion distros that exist. This requires a lot of technical mucking about by the user, and the average gamer would probably be unwilling to jump through all the hoops required to get things to run perfectly.

    Somewhat related is the fact that at this point, Windows graphics drivers are very highly developed and optimized. Both nVidia's Forceware and ATIs Catalyst drivers have had a lot of effort put into them to run as fast as possible on the 32-bit Windows platform. This is why in a lot of cases, 64-bit Windows games run slower than the 32-bit versions. Linux basically takes a back seat when it comes to getting attention from the GPU vendors for driver development.

    The biggest advantage that Windows gives developers is that they know what they're getting. They have a huge install base to target and they are basically assured that the end user is going to be able to get their software up and running without a fuss. Trust me, I hate Windows as much as the next guy, but gaming on Linux is just not a reality and I don't see anything coming down the pipeline that looks like it'll change that.

    P.S. That stuff he says about Gentoo letting you optimize everything is greatly exaggerated. I use and love Gentoo, but if you think you're going to get more than 2% performance gain over a binary-based distro, you're living in dreamland.
    • trogdoor, on 07/10/2008, -0/+4Wouldn't somebody making a game with OpenGL also use OpenAL rather than alsa / oss directly?
    • estvir, on 07/10/2008, -3/+3The guy who wrote that entry knows next to nothing about everything he discussed, he's simply heard slight things about a couple of things and assumes the rest and also assumes that the Internet is full of intelligent people.

      One of the worst problems about Linux which you briefly touched upon with the 2 major sound APIs is that there seems to be a million different implementations of everything; every distro seems to have it's own package manager, own way of installing, etc and people in open source are obsessed with forks.

      So, not only is it a major problem with the software, but it's a major problem with the developers, the way so many OSS people work, etc.
    • zeebo, on 07/10/2008, -0/+4SDL (input) + OpenGL (graphics) + OpenAL (audio)

      Its not that hard. There isn't serious competition. These are the cross-platform standards. There is no fracturing when it comes to these. The main difference is that there is no group willing to give gaming companies money for platform exclusivity for Linux like there is Windows.
    • Thoku, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1I completely agree with the Gentoo coment, you only really get 2% max.
  • lolwtfhaha, on 07/10/2008, -0/+10I'll be playing UrbanTerror until I die, so Linux works fine for me as a gaming platform...
  • Feldon, on 07/10/2008, -4/+3I Run my games on Wine i get more out of them in Linux then i do in windows it runs MUSH smoother
    • elektronjunge, on 07/10/2008, -4/+4use XP it may help, wine is a ~10% performance hit.
    • unitedatheism, on 07/11/2008, -0/+1actually there are games that run better on wine than on Windows...
      not all, I know, but also not just one or two
      but still, often it's easier to buy a ram stick or something than to learn a brand new OS...
  • khoa1708, on 07/10/2008, -3/+1it could be better once the "basic requirements", listed outside the box, has linux as one of the supported OS
    • thevoiceless, on 07/10/2008, -0/+7That's kind of...you know...the entire point here.
  • elektronjunge, on 07/10/2008, -8/+3Three reasons why this guy is totally wrong:
    1. There is no unified linux installer, one barrier to pc games is the installing people want to buy the game pop it in and play it.
    2. DirectX is better then openGL, dx is a one stop shop for all the api's you need, and openGL may have more features but your not guaranteed support on the graphics card, this means that things with out hard ware support will run significantly slower.
    3. Market share widows ~90% linux ~5%

    That being said he is right about linux being a lighter OS, which is good. But windows (especially vista) closes most background processes when you are in a game.
    • nixfu, on 07/10/2008, -2/+71) Sure there is.....lots of companies make cross platform GUI install packagers http://bitrock.com/products.html

      I have seen lots of commercial windows and linux software use the exact same installers. And all the games that run on linux today including all the commercial ID Games have zero problems. Installing games is EASY on Linux, it juts gets put into /usr/local/games.


      2) OpenGL + OpenAL/SDL == DirectX and BONUS...your stuff is already ported to about 4 other platforms for the same effort you would have used for using directx and be stuck with one crappy OS for all your effort.

      Economically speaking...DirectX is a WASTE of money and resources. You could get an end product that you could market to a much wider audience for no more costs if you avoid DirectX.

      Only Microsoft nubes or fanboys don't see DirectX as a totally bad idea for a software development tool when perfectly good alternatives exist to provide more potential revenue for the same work.

      3) 90% counts total marketshare including business computers which DONT RUN GAMES. SInce that 90% includes 99.999% of business computers, the HOME MARKET(where games are actually purchased) is probably closer to 20-25% NON-WINDOWS(maybe even higher for new sales with the current Mac trends) in order to bring the overall marketshare down to 90. Eg: Business 99.999% + Home 25% = overall 90%.

      Wanna give up 1/5 to 1/4 of all your potential sales profits if your an investor in a game development?

      • JPong01, on 07/10/2008, -0/+0I don't quite think its 20-25% non-windows in the home. Of all the people I know, only about 3 have Linux installed at home and then its more of a toy because getting everything to work under Linux is a pain in the ass. I tried Ubuntu. Had to jump through flaming hoops to get it to install, thought it was neat and promptly installed Vista so I could do real stuff.
  • betacmag4u, on 07/10/2008, -1/+3Linux ubiquity will come it is as inevitable as the Sun rising. As computing is further commoditized price pressure will continue to push Linux further into the mainstream and the Linux community will adopt framework and standards and slowly become the new Microsoft. What then?
  • colincornaby, on 07/10/2008, -5/+5According to benchmarks by Blizzard (I was present for one they did at a live presentation), WoW has a higher FPS on the Mac than it does on Windows. Windows is hardly the best platform for games.

    It would be great if more companies shipped games for both the Mac and Linux.
    • Jorg, on 07/10/2008, -0/+4That is really strange. I have a 2nd gen MBP and WOW is noticeably faster in Bootcamp/XP than it is when running the OS X version. As far as I can tell it is 100% the ATI driver. Initial startup is faster too.
      • colincornaby, on 07/10/2008, -1/+2Really? The demo was for Leopards new OpenGL implementation. Are you running Leopard or Tiger?
    • Burn, on 07/10/2008, -1/+1I would be great if more companies shipped printer drivers for both the Mac and Linux.

      Yes, I'm bitter.
  • bipolarruledout, on 07/10/2008, -4/+2I really don't see the point. This is really just a linux fandom piece. Gamers tweek their systems becuase they LOVE to do it for bragging rights and not becuase they have to. If this was such a big deal then game makers could design their own runtime environment to boot into (perhaps linux) but they don't becuase software is hard enough to make and test as it is.

    It's also the case that linux users tend to be out of touch with the windows world and vice versa. The writer has never heard of vLite.
  • waydee, on 07/10/2008, -0/+5Still got my Loki Q3A arena linux cd somewhere, theres absolutely no reason why Linux can't be a great gaming platform it just unfortunately doesn't have a big enough userbase to make releasing most games for it worthwhile.

    I hope things change, there are a fair number of games you can play on Linux but I believe the stiffest competition it faces isn't from Windows - its from the consoles.
  • PullingTeeth, on 07/10/2008, -0/+6The author was not suited to writing this article. If he needed a colleague to tell him that FPSs run best on PC, then he doesn't know much about gaming.
    • unitedatheism, on 07/11/2008, -0/+1And you need to be a better reader
      It's a question of preference if you rather play in a joystick or keyb/mouse, still it's known that a mouse/keyb combo will give you better accuracy and less predictionable moves than a joystick tho.

      So it's like saying "you like radiohead, so you're wrong".
  • wshwe, on 07/10/2008, -11/+3Dream on Linux fanboys! Right now Linux is in 3rd place behind Windows and Macintosh.
  • alexanEmpire, on 07/10/2008, -7/+1GO LINUX! TAKE THAT RICHARD STALLMAN!
  • MadOgre, on 07/10/2008, -13/+8When Oblivion, COD 4, GTA IV, and Diablo III comes out native on Linux - then you can talk to me about gaming on Linux. Until then, STFU.
    • askantik, on 07/10/2008, -4/+1Ah, yes... Diablo III. Makes me want to skeet real hard just thinking about it.
    • mvent2, on 07/10/2008, -0/+4You didn't get the point of this article at all.
    • b04rdr1d3r, on 07/10/2008, -0/+7point is : Windows does not offer a clear advantage over Linux as a gaming platform from a technical standpoint...
      Quake 4 runs on both platform
      Q3 Arena as well
      RTCW: Enemy territory
      NeverWinter Nights has a Linux client
      and each of those is as good on linux as it is on windows...

    • tripzero, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1Don't forget StarCraft II.

      Lately Blizzard has been really good at keeping their games "wine" compatible. WoW, diablo II, and starcraft+broodwar run great on Linux under wine.
  • finn, on 07/10/2008, -1/+3irrelevent, despite how the core of any (other) OS maybe better for games than Windows, the simple fact remains that almost all PC-platform games are written FOR Windows and require it, so the article's point(s) are purely academic.
  • yoda17, on 07/10/2008, -0/+4Could, yes.
    Distributors could release their game built upon a live customized and optimized dvd linux release. You'd have to put the dvd in and reboot to play, but you wouldn't have to worry about version and distribution incompatibilities.
    • estvir, on 07/10/2008, -4/+3Yeah, because having to reboot to play a videogame is FREAKING AWESOME.

      Linux, where you convince yourself banging your head against a wall is somehow better for you.
      • Aleksej, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1I imagine that it may be not a very big problem for the non-casual gamers, i.e. those who buy games on discs often.
    • nixfu, on 07/10/2008, -1/+5Seems like this would be a great idea...its just a matter of time commercial software tries this.

      Its already happening with a number of free games.


      Most people would just pop the CD, reboot and not even CARE what the OS was.

    • Aleksej, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1When I hear about gaming Live CDs, I wonder: what is their performance?

      Though I guess most big games don't need to load stuff from disc often, what about their RAM requirements and swapping, especially for games with large maps (is Warzone 2100 like that?)?
    • JPong01, on 07/10/2008, -0/+0Why not just get a console at that point?
  • scottperezfox, on 07/10/2008, -1/+5Could [blank] be a better [blank] OS than Windows? Yes, and it usually is. But since Windows is installed on 90% of computers, Windows is the de facto platform for most things.
    • nixfu, on 07/10/2008, -1/+2Not 90% of HOME computers.. its more like 75-80%.

      The near monopoly 99.99% on the business marketshare hides the fact that the home market (aka gamer market) is much different. When you average them all out the 90% could actually represent a huge home computer non-windows community.

      How many non-windows home PC's would it take to bring the 99.9999% marketshare windows has in the business world down to 90% total?



    • rlbond86, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1Actually, X-windows has no memory mapper, so inevitably games would run slower.
      That is, unless you have the (non-free) nVidia drivers, which gut the bottom half of X and replace it with proprietary code.
  • FMVorenkamp, on 07/10/2008, -15/+3Please shut the ***** up about Linux.

    I swear, I would pay for someone to make a firefox plugin that would just filter out all digg linux stories.

    Buried for linux.
    • inditech, on 07/10/2008, -1/+4Many thanks for your informative and eloquent post, I can see that you have weighed up both sides of the argument, and provided a balanced and unbiased opinion.
  • FyberOptic, on 07/10/2008, -10/+6The day Linux has the vast driver support of Windows, loses the bloat factor (yes, a usable Linux is bloated, go ahead and digg me down for not wanting to accept it), and gets some sense of conformity that can attract users without confusing them with limitless choices, then Linux will never be "the" gaming platform.

    Of course the very nature of Linux, being a free, open-source environment, with most developers relying on layer upon layer of everyone elses code and libraries instead of optimizing functions of their own, and coming with a dozen tools pre-installed to accomplish the same tasks, this will never happen. So don't hold your breaths.
    • 4321234, on 07/10/2008, -3/+8Wrong, wrong, and wrong.
    • clubby, on 07/10/2008, -1/+1Um, bloated how? Where's the bloat? And why does a perfectly usable XFCE setup use 80% less memory than XP if it's so damned bloated? Just because you accuse someone (or everyone, in this case) of being unwilling to accept your lies, does not mean that your lies are an appropriate thing to believe.

      Where do you get your lies? Because they're pretty funny. Open-source developers can't optimize code? lol Relying upon "layer upon layer of everyone else's code." lol. Like what? Which "layers" do you speak of?

      Your ignorance is staggering.
    • tripzero, on 07/10/2008, -1/+1Wow, your ignorance amazes me.
  • wobegon, on 07/10/2008, -8/+2PC gaming is dying, who cares? :b
  • mpwoodruff, on 07/10/2008, -0/+9One thing the author obviously doesn't realize is that... who cares? Honestly, if you're a PC gamer, does it really matter what the platform is as long as you can play the game?

    So, if gamers don't care, and people who don't play games don't care, then who cares?
    • Kingoftherings, on 07/10/2008, -2/+1I'd much rather play in Linux. But you're kinda right, it doesn't matter which is better, because either way I'm stuck using Windows for gaming.
    • thedude42, on 07/10/2008, -0/+4The "who cares?" question is without a doubt the most important question on this issue. It has been PC games that drove development of the GPU which was actually driving lower level development of FPU technologies, which has given rise to a huge push in simulation development for research in sciences you'd normally not relate to computer science and computer architectural advances.

      Anyway, if gaming starts to target the Linux platform, then it's up to hardware vendors to make or break that motion. Mostly we're talking about video card manufacturers because that is where the hardware manufacturer/operating system developer relationship really comes through in the end product. Unfortunately there can be some unforeseen circumstances, like when the OS developer provides guaranteed memory addresses for a video card vendor to hard code and guarantee some value in the driver. In this case, if the motherboard manufacturer doesn't know anything about this, and it reacts to some unexpected behavior in the video card (like accessing this particular memory address, hypothetically speaking) then we might have a problem bigger than if a game will run or not.

      The result of trying to actively support multiple platforms by all game developers might actually be a step backwards in performance. We see a lot of performance right now from games based on the poor extensibility of the architectural interface the hardware presents to the OS, though this interface meets certain requirements an OS needs, and if this OS has the lions share of the install base, well, that's the winning design. We may find out that if the hardware is built right and the games are cross platform, we don't get the experience we expect (for a short time).

      And I don't want to get in to semantics here, but the only real popular modular kernal running systems today is BSD. Yes, DOS is 100% monolithic, but Linux, Darwin and NT, though they have modular capabilities, for the most part are monolithic. But that discussion is kinda pointless in this forum, and kinda forgets to mention that there really isn't a clear definition for what "operating system" is.
      • unitedatheism, on 07/11/2008, -0/+1I thought the discussion was about people who DON'T have firepower to run games, not people who actually DO have firepower to do so.

        Understood?
    • tripzero, on 07/10/2008, -0/+4If my game can run 50% better on Linux YES I do care what OS it runs on. I want the fastest frame-rates possible. I want to jack my AA up all the way on the highest resolution possible and have awesome sound too.

      If I can do all that and it looks/sounds better on Linux, then yes, as a gamer, I will use Linux.
      • unitedatheism, on 07/11/2008, -0/+1You can achieve better performance, specially if you're low on memory, but you'll have to learn how to configurate it properly.... There's a VAST memory gain on Linux and some processing power also, but I'm not sure if isn't it a better deal just to buy some more hardware...
  • Jamesuknow59, on 07/10/2008, -2/+2Honestly, What does windows have over Linux ? name one good thing ..

    Pwnt nothing Linux for the win !

    for gaming dont matter of operating system really matters of hardware though
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