Linux Gaming Experiences

quellthrix · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 09 May 2005 Posts: 111

As a former Windows user and pretty average gamer, I have many, many games lying around and because I'm low on money currently, I was thinking about attempting a couple of old games on my linux box. Now, I have a lot to choose amongst, from Jazz Jackrabbit to Myst III.

So, I would like to hear some experiences with some games all of you have tried out. I was thinking of giving Baldur's Gate 2 a shot, maybe Freespace 2. What games have worked well for you folks? In addition, please note whether you're using Wine or Cedega. I figure since I'll be loading on some slightly older games I'll be going for Wine most likely.

On a different note, I'm also using an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, so my framerates will probably be pretty abysmal if I try some of my newer games. A quick thought... I also have a GeForce 4200Ti lying around here somewhere, how would these two stack up performance-wise against each other on Linux? It runs very decently on my exra testing box with UT2004 demo most of the time.

Thanks for all help offered.
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wesw02 · Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 5:05 am Post subject:

First off i'm a die hard nvidia fan, and setting up openGL with nvidia is quite easy, gaming isn't too bad. More and More software compaines are starting to release linux ports, Thats probably in large part due to ID Software, speaking of which Quake4 Comes out next week and I have every intention of buying it. From what i've been reading a linux port comes right on the cd. Stick with linux, its an amazing thing.

sirdilznik · l33t Joined: 28 Apr 2005 Posts: 731

I've never tried an ATI card with linux as I love my nvidia cards. Nvidia cards are easy to set up and their commercial linux drivers are far more mature than the ATI equivalents(nvidia-kernel/glx-1.0.7676 kicks <donkey>). Here's a link to a list of games and how well they work with cedega:

http://transgaming.org/gamesdb/

In my experiances cedega has always worked better for games and wine better for other apps, but with older games, wine may well be worth a shot.

timonator · n00b Joined: 01 Jun 2005 Posts: 50 Location: Germany, NRW

with dosbox i emulate Jazz the Jackrabbit, works very nice. it also plays the whole commander keen series

Freespace 2 has a native linux port which also works very good

(i think its even in portage? dunno, not sure)
i got a GeForce 3 ti 200 (overclocked a little since yesterday, woot) and UT2004 runs relatively smooth (on 800x600 with medium/low details) and im playing it a lot... YMMV but if i were you i'd try the nvidia card first... seems like ati cards are really hard to set up

ChristyMcJesus · Apprentice Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 184

I refuse to use Wine for anything other than the trivial (eg running the installer to extract the data files). Partly because it's bad for Linux gaming, but mostly because it's frickin impossible to get anything to work right/at all!

drwook · Veteran Joined: 30 Mar 2005 Posts: 1324 Location: London

I don't know, I've used wine to run a few old windows games I have laying around.

It's only bad for linux gaming if you buy a windows game to run over wine/cedega, & I haven't bought any windows games for years (literally I don't think this millenium) - if you already own a game then what the heck, may as well get whatever milage out of it that you can without dual booting windows.....

quellthrix · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 09 May 2005 Posts: 111

Alrighty then, well, as far as the video card goes, I of course have my ATI card set up with direct rendering and such, it's just that I'm curious as to whether or not I'm losing a major amount of performance by using it and not my GeForce 4200. Maybe I'm just hooked up on the fact that I think my Radeon is better because I bought it more recently, are the two cards really comparable?

Anyway, thanks for the suggestions... I love Commander Keen, and I have a ton of old CD's with some DOS classics on them... I think I'll emerge dosbox and give my old stand-bys a go.

I've tried to use the Freespace 2 installer without much success, but who knows, maybe I'll try again. (Freespace 2 == one of the greatest games of all time.)

Anybody else have a portfolio of good games that they've gotten to run excellently on linux?
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satanskin · Guru Joined: 25 Apr 2005 Posts: 353

ATI cards generally outperform Nvidia cards in Windows. However, with Linux it is a very different story! Nvidia cards tend to outperform ATI cards quite a bit in Linux. Mainly due to superior drivers and much better support. Nvidia cards are a cinch to setup in linux and have MUCH MUCH better drivers than ATI. So your nvidia card would probably give you somewhere close to the same performance as your ati card. But since you have the ati setup and working already, you may go ahead and just stick with it.

Or, i'd suggest you sell both the cards and use the money to buy a newer Nvidia card and it will outperform them both.

sirdilznik · l33t Joined: 28 Apr 2005 Posts: 731

Archangel1 · Veteran Joined: 21 Apr 2004 Posts: 1212 Location: Work

UT2003/4 and Doom3 have worked great for me. If anything Doom3 was quicker than Windows, UT was similar but both felt so much more responsive when loading/bringing up menus/quitting.
Had FarCry going under Wine at point - was very successful actually, performance was very comparable to Windows.
Diablo 2 and Warcraft 3 worked fine, if anything better than Windows (didn't have to be an admin!).

You mentioned Freespace2 - I never got it working. I feel particularly dumb since it's native now, but the damn thing just locks when I try to run it. *sigh*...
I assume my experience here is not typical though.

As for the video cards, the ATi card is technically much faster than the NVidia card. It's going to be somewhat hamstrung by drivers, but it's got power to burn by comparison.
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feminista · Apprentice Joined: 25 Mar 2005 Posts: 182

I've been able to run every adventure game I own in DOSBOX, Cedega, or ScummVM. ScummVM in particular is ridiculously easy to get working, and plays (in my experience), every Lucasarts adventure up to Curse of Monkey Island, but you need Cedega/Wine for Grim Fandango and Monkey Island 4. Sierra games mostly run in DOSBOX, as does Legend of Kyrandia 2. The only game I haven't tried is The Neverhood.

I've also been able to play all of my SNES games and a few PSX games at full framerate with only a Geforce 6600.

I've never used windows on this computer, so I can't compare performace, but I've been happy with everything. A few minor annoyances (Grim Fandango launcher wants me to install DirectX even when it's already installed, so I have to circumvent it and run the game executable directly), but I've felt no need whatsoever for a windows partition.

elboricua · Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 1:56 am Post subject:

I do a lot of gaming in linux. I have a Nvidia Geforce 5900 Ultra in this box, so things move along smoothly.

My portfolio of games:
WolfGL
jdoom
Doom 3
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
RTCW Enemy Territory
Unreal Tournament
UT 2003/4
Americas Army
Never Winter Nights and Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark Expansions
Aliens vs Predator (Icculus port)
Baldurs Gate 2 (with Wine)
Diablo 2 LoD (with Wine)

Emulators:
Zsnes
mame with gxmame frontend

and of course :
Frozen Bubble
Abuse SDL
Tux Racer
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Omega21 · Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 5:31 am Post subject:

I haven't actually used NVidia.. Im quite happy with my Ati setups.

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AliasXZ · Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 9:07 am Post subject:

I do alot of Linux gaming - I have a nvidia Geforce4 ti4400

id recommend using cedega aswel as native because it works fine for me.. I play:

cedega:

half life
counter strike
diablo
diablo2
warcraft3
stronghold2
NFS2U
far cry
Starcraft+Broodwar
Operation Flashpoint

native:

doom3
ut2003
ut2004
ut goty
ET
AA
NWN
Quake4 (portage wooo!)
Quake3 Arena
Quake2

and im gona try more

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wolf31o2 · Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2005 4:53 pm Post subject:

Gentii · Guru Joined: 01 Feb 2004 Posts: 306

wolf31o2 · Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 2:22 pm Post subject:

Gentii · Guru Joined: 01 Feb 2004 Posts: 306

I don't know why people need so many games ? I already spend way too much time with a few ones, or even with only one. The games I mostly played since I'm on linux are enemy territory and quake 3. I was playing warsow recently, it's a nice game, but I gave up. q3 and et are really enough

AliasXZ · Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 11:20 am Post subject:

because we are hard-game-players :roll:

and its kinda cool to run a game that says "windows" on the back under linux

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krinn · Watchman Joined: 02 May 2003 Posts: 7470

Gentii · Guru Joined: 01 Feb 2004 Posts: 306

AliasXZ · Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 2:49 pm Post subject:

lol!
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AliasXZ · Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 2:50 pm Post subject:

lol! chheeesh sorry *takes it all back*
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PaulBredbury · Watchman Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 7310

Obi-Lan · Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2005 9:39 pm Post subject:

Im new with Cedega and so far I have played Half Life 2 and Baldurs Gate 2 with it. Half Life crashed some times thought. I wonder if its because some bad settings or 64-bit enviroment. I have used Ati Radeon 9800pro (agp) and Nvidia Geforce 6600GT (pci-e) and 6600GT was easier to setup (well, ati is not so difficult either, except tv-out...) and seems to perform better.

And even if Cedega wouldn't exist, I dont think that editors still would bother to build linux version especially when game is made with directx. More attractive option would probably be to build game to xbox with directx and probably bigger market.