Gaming on gentoo in general?

rabcor · Apprentice Joined: 05 Apr 2012 Posts: 200

I'm sure this is a common question on here but i'm gonna ask it anyways.

a few months back i tried my hardest to use linux. i tried a couple of different distros (always knowing gentoo is the best one for customization which is why i want it) starting with fedora, and some others, i even tried ubuntu, and the one that seemed to be working the best for me without any bugs and crashes and failures and whatevers was backtrack 5. unbelieveable right? its not even made for regular users. so i ended up ragequitting at one point when i was trying OpenSUSE and at some point (without doing anything special prior to it) i ragequit on linux when my opensuse just refused to boot up again, maybe it just didn't like laptops i wouldn't know.

so heres my only real problem with learning how to use linux. the tutorials i find... only like 20% of them work (yes i look for distribution specific tutorials) and i'm talking just about installing programs and basic stuff like that. its like the people who write these intentionally skip out some parts that are supposed to be "obvious" i may be an expert computer and windows user but with things i have 0% knowledge about like linux i will be needing idiotproof tutorials to get started which are surprisingly hard to find.but i'm feeling like trying again. and instead of going through some easier distros first i wanna dive right into gentoo.

also my biggest problem of all with linux was that it has no video player that can even match Media Player Classic. (which is better than vlc) after getting used to it i can't settle with vlc anymore. i could actually feel a framerate difference and see a (big) quality difference.

but heres the thing i really want to know. i'm a gamer (and rather hardcore one too) i play all games i get my hands on. ranging from strategy, first person shooters, puzzles, rpgs, whatever, all the way to those cute little hentai eroge games.

so how good is gaming on gentoo compared to windows 7 or xp? is there a big performance/quality difference? and how high are my chances to be able to run all the games i want to play without any real problems? (this includes the old DOS and 95/98 games all the way up to the new dx11 games and games on a different locale (generally the japanese locale))

i really want to use linux so badly you guys wouldn't believe it, i've used windows so much i actually got bored of it. and i have no intention of getting windows 8 it sounds like its gonna be worse than vista to me.

i also always use KDE (I genuinely dislike GNOME) and also how good is the idea of dualbooting it with windows? i tried dualbooting bt5 with windows 7, as i recall it worked fine until it eventually ended up with bt5 just crashing.

and lastly, how bad is my idea to start with gentoo with minimal knowledge of linux in general?

Edit: i edited out the offensive parts, sorry about that i was raging a bit.

Hyper_Eye · Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2012 5:55 am Post subject:

You should edit your post and remove the offensive derogatory term you used. It has no place here.

For a media player I recommend mplayer. If you are using KDE then you might consider using smplayer as a graphical front-end. I don't think vlc comes even close to competing with mplayer. For a media center I would recommend XBMC.

Gaming in Linux is hit and miss. DOS games are easy as dosbox works just as well in Linux as it does on any other OS and it is great. Older Windows games are usually a better bet than the newer games. As matter of fact, I find playing older Windows games in Wine is sometimes much easier than playing them in a newer Windows OS like Windows 7. DX9 and up is another issue. Sometimes they work and often times they don't. Your best bet to know what will work is to look at the Wine app database at http://appdb.winehq.org. There are native games to be found, especially when looking around the indie game scene, but the chances of a big budget title being Linux native is close to none. It just isn't something the game studios are interested in doing. You can play a lot of games in Linux but it will require patience, applying knowledge acquired over time, and a willingness to tinker. If you want to install and go with pretty much any game that is out there then Linux will not be a good experience for you.

Whether or not Gentoo is a good distro for you to start with depends on how much you want to learn. I've been using it for a long time and Linux is very familiar to me so I don't find myself in situations where I don't know how to proceed. That is not likely to be true of a beginner. You will have to follow guides very carefully and it will take time. The upside is there is a good chance you will learn a lot of useful knowledge that can be applied to any flavor of Linux as well as Unix in general. Maybe this appeals to you or maybe you just want to use your system without much interest in what is happening behind the scenes. If you would like to jump right into a Gentoo then try a Live DVD. You can also take a look at Sabayon which is a derivative of Gentoo with an easier install approach and it decreases the learning curve quite a bit. I will say this, if you spend a considerable amount of time with a Gentoo system other distros will just seem to fall short. The initial installation might be more difficult than other systems but the package management and the ability to maintain the system forever without a reinstall makes it hard to appreciate anything else.
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Gentoo Gaming Videos

Chiitoo · Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2012 7:52 pm Post subject: ><)))°€

Teegrins, rabcor!

While I understand the frustration some guides may instil, I agree with Hyper_Eye in not only that some parts of your post will not come out well at all to most of the people around here, and gives a bad impression overall. It's not very nice to bash upon those who wrote the guides considering it's very likely they were created with nothing but best intentions in mind, and with one's free time no less. If they were paid for doing something more/other then that's a different story, of course, but even so, this is not the place!

That aside, since Hyper_Eye pretty much said everything I think about everything mentioned already, and what describes pretty much my experiences, I can only add that somewhat over a year ago, I started using Linux with only having tried Ubuntu very briefly before (installed, and took a little bit of a look-see but didn't really learn anything). Ever since, I have used Gentoo, and Gentoo only.
I still use the same install from that time, and I still have Windows 7 in a dual-boot setting but I have not needed it. That said, I am a bit of a gamer as well, though I don't play newer games much, or new games to me in general, but I may have more than 3 games running at a time (don't ask).

As mentioned by Hyper_Eye, it can be a bit of a hit-and-miss, however you can always contribute to it by for example learning Wine debugging and/or even development (that's what I'm trying to do, but it's going slow right now). If I were to mention some newer titles, Counter-Strike: Source comes in mind, and it runs well around the 300-500 FPS in most situations from what I can remember right now, so obviously that works. To get a bit more modern, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is far more than playable as well. For some games, my Gentoo makes things even better in a way or another as also mentioned above, so yes, gaming with Gentoo is certainly possible to say the very least, but if you want anything designed for Windows to work, you will want Windows (a dual-boot set-up is very functional, and easy to set up, too).

As for my hardware, it's rather old by now, with a 6-core Phenom and an nVidia GTX275 based card, so if you are as big of a gamer as you tend to seem like, you probably have something more powerful.

Just a few thoughts~

Edit:

Oh, and more or less most importantly, the Handbook being what it is, you wont really need a 'guide' for Gentoo, well, other than the Handbook itself. That is for the installing part, which actually teaches you a lot about maintaining it as well.

When in doubt or simply stuck, you have this great forum, and the IRC-channels to turn towards to.

Best of luck with whatever endeavours you may take yourself upon to!
Perhaps we'll meet yet again on the way.
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Thistled · Guru Joined: 06 Jan 2011 Posts: 572 Location: Scotland

As far as I aware, Gentoo has the best documentation out there, so if you can't grasp it, stay away from it.
I am no way a developer, and would regard myself as a low IQ linux user, but I mastered it thanks to the documentation, and the support you get from the guys and gals on these forums.
So no need for defamation of character as far as I am concerned. Poor call.
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gorkypl · Guru Joined: 04 Oct 2010 Posts: 444 Location: Kraków, PL

rabcor · Apprentice Joined: 05 Apr 2012 Posts: 200

Thanks for your replies guys much appreciated, altho it seems i got a bit misunderstood just because i wrote a bad word. i was raging at the time tho, and its surprising i was able to keep it all in one word. (at least that was all i found when re-editing)

@Hyper_Eye : Thanks a lot this practically answers most of my question

and learning a lot is one of the primary reasons i want to use linux.

@Chiitoo : thanks for pointing out the handbook

@Thistled : thanks for putting my mind to ease with this i will definetly be trying out gentoo now with the handbook as my main guide.

@Gorkypl : When did i say i have reading problems? its not that i'm reading wrong i stated specifically the guides are not working or intentionally skipping "obvious" parts. heres a quick example : go to the control panel/press start and then go to the control panel. it may not seem like much but it really is for someone who has no familiarity with the UI of a system. (of course i always get through something as trivial as this through searching it takes a bit more extra time is all) but i followed tutorials to the letter. and like i said only 20% of them seemed to work at all. and also let me tell you this, on my trusty windows (xp and 7) i have never had this issue with tutorials not working, and every tutorial that hasn't worked for me so far i troubleshooted myself and found my own way using the tutorial as semi-guidelines so reading is not the part i'm bad at. but thanks for trying to be helpful, its the thought that counts, altho i will not be heeding your words.

@ ALL : I was misunderstood for being bashing people that make tutorials, i have nothing against those people whatever gods they believe in bless them all. just the tutorials that waste my time by not working or being outdated. and for this i am sorry. and thanks for all your lovely support

And please note. i said "its like" people intentionally skip... it does not mean i'm saying it is truly that way, of course i know its not i fully realize tutorial writers don't all make it n00b proof cus that is a lot of extra writing. but this is just what it feels like and it got real frustrating.

Chiitoo · Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2012 3:57 am Post subject:

I think most, if not all (well at least I), did understand it was frustration that was typing at the time, so don't worry about it, really.

I think what we, or at least I wanted to make sure that what sticks right in the beginning is that such 'behaviour' will not be appreciated, at all. Even if it's just one simple word, it will easily be a turn-off for most (Off the Wall forum section may be more than an exception but of course even there rules exist).

If the ones who replied to you would have taken you in with only that word, we/I would not have posted at all so again, don't worry about it!

There are some parts of the Gentoo documentation that are known to be out-dated due to some rather major changes that have taken place rather recently (they may have been corrected by now, I haven't checked for a while), but in the way you describe your down-falls, like missing steps and such, that sort of things I can't remember noticing. If you do find any, do something about it! File a bug, or let it be known here, in the appropriate forum-section.

With that said: welcome to Gentoo ! !! !
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Mr. Hibba · n00b Joined: 17 Feb 2010 Posts: 36

Hi, and welcome to the world of Gentoo,

Regarding gaming with Gentoo, I've had moderate success with a number of games. Particularly WoW (runs quite well), Left 4 Dead 1&2, Team Fortress 2, RIFT (Runs fairly well, too). Although none of them run quite as well as they would in their native Windows habitat, the performance was definitely good enough to be enjoyable. Excuse me if I give you a kind of "cop-out" answer, but I guess the only way for you to judge if Linux will be an appropriate gaming platform for you is to give it a try. :wink: As for the Japanese locale thing, I bet it's possible to set it up. I've not yet done it, but I think I've read about it before.

On a side note, if you are interested in gaming in native Linux games, I have a top 4 that I recommend: Nexuiz, Xonotic (www.xonotic.org), PlaneShift (www.planeshift.it) and Super Tux Kart.

Dual-booting with Windows also works well. I've only set it up in the Grub bootloader before, so I can't speak for Lilo. If it's any help, here is my grub entry (slightly modified) for booting Windows:

title Windows
root (hd0,2)
makeactive
chainloader +1

If you want to use this, please remember to change the second line to point to your Windows partition. This is just how I have my disk partitioned and the above code may not work out of the box for you.

Best of luck to you in the Gentoo world,
Mr. Hibba.

i92guboj · Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2012 11:40 am Post subject:

Don't waste your time. If 100% of the games you play have a "Designed for Windows <insert version here>" sticker on their case you should really use the OS that the games were designed for. Just like if you like Wii games you wouldn't probably be buying an XBOX, that'd be silly.

You can always [dual boot||use a virtual machine||put together a second computer with old parts]] if you want to use linux for other purposes, and devote your windows machine to gaming, just like you'd do with a dedicated console. I don't think there's a chance that linux at the current state of things will satisfy your gaming requirements. Check back in 20 years.

Old games will probably work in either dosbox, dosemu or wine (or one of its derivatives), but expect some occasional difficulty when setting them up to work. Emulation is ok for old video machines via mame, snes, playstation and a few other older consoles. Anything later will probably be difficult. Don't expect 3d to be in par. A game can't take 100% from your machine when the game and hardware manufacturers are not willing to cooperate with anything that's not windows.

ps. Of course, my comments above do not apply if you are willing to investigate and limit your gaming experience to what linux wants to offer. But that's probably too much of a limit for any intensive gamer, overall if you like to play the latest and greatest.

Mac Tzu · Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 1:32 pm Post subject:

Hey Rabcor,
I understand ur feeling about starting out in gentoo. I had a similar experience when I first choose to move to Linux. it was back when the ps3 first launched and it was able to running linux in vm. i feel your pain about tutorials, the problem is they are not maintained. However as stated above the documentation is awesome and the doc are maintained by the developers.

Regarding gaming would be awesome if there were more modern games that run with stability but they don't. this largely not linux's fault, it is a issue of proprietary software such as dx11 if they release even a binary of dx11 for Linux then gaming would be possible. So I recommend dual booting totally awesome.

if your still interested in installing and running Gentoo I'm happy to help step by step if you like.

regards

PhaTaL-Err0r · n00b Joined: 18 Apr 2012 Posts: 6

Rabcor,

I've been using Gentoo since around 2000, or 2001. Gentoo is not that difficult really, especially if you follow the guide.

The most "difficult" part would be configuring the kernel specifically for YOUR pc and its specs. Also make sure you compile any SATA and PATA stuff directly INTO the kernel and NOT as a module, or else you'll run into bootup issues. Then again there's "genkernel" which will make a kernel based on the live CD, but that kinda make the point of gentoo moot, and that's customization.

Also the CFLAG "-march=native -O2 -pipe" is suitable for a stable yet speedy system. Gentoo is a blazingly fast and stable from-source distro.

If you get confused it's okay, we have this support forum and also an IRC channel on FreeNODE. Also if you get absolutely stuck then I suggest trying ArchLinux. ArchLinux is a blazingly fast binary-only distro, but nowhere near as customizable as Gentoo, but it is pretty much a "roll your own" distro, but again it is pre-compiled binary.

Good Luck and welcome to the amazing world of Gentoo Linux!

Mr. Hibba · n00b Joined: 17 Feb 2010 Posts: 36

Arkhelion · Apprentice Joined: 07 Sep 2010 Posts: 151 Location: France

As it's been said before on these forums, genkernel has a lot of command-line parameters, and allows pretty much the same level of customization any manual command does. Just read the manual.
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Arkhelion

r0shi · n00b Joined: 20 Jul 2004 Posts: 62

With everything built as modules now, one must beg the question of why you would even bother with a custom kernel.

PhaTaL-Err0r · n00b Joined: 18 Apr 2012 Posts: 6

hasufell · Retired Dev Joined: 29 Oct 2011 Posts: 429

Gaming on Gentoo is awesome, cause we compile games properly, as usual.

Ant P. · Watchman Joined: 18 Apr 2009 Posts: 6920

r0shi · n00b Joined: 20 Jul 2004 Posts: 62

The Doctor · Moderator Joined: 27 Jul 2010 Posts: 2678

hasufell · Retired Dev Joined: 29 Oct 2011 Posts: 429

PrincePink · n00b Joined: 30 Mar 2012 Posts: 4 Location: Austria

@OP

I used to be in the same boat.. and I'm an avid gamer. I tried various distro's such as Ubuntu, Crunchbang, Fedora, Arch... but I always wanted Gentoo because I liked the philosophy behind it and the "maximum" freedom.

When I tried to install Gentoo the first time.. I was a complete noob; even with the documentation I took over 20 hours to get a base install working and that didn't even include a working GUI. Sometimes I messed up settings and reformatted... I didn't really know what I was doing.
But you know what? I learnt along the way... I learnt a freaking lot. After the "tenth" or so installation.. I was capable of doing most things I want to do.. and if problems arise.. I can usually solve them and I don't mind using the console.

I set myself the mission (even though I have a dual boot.. which I highly recommend); that I wouldn't play World of Warcraft until I could play it under Gentoo... took a while.. but I managed it :-)

Also other games like Heroes of Newerth (which I was lucky.. seeing as there is a linux client)... and I'm working other remaining games to run. My installation isn't perfect.. still a lot to change.. but I'm seriously happy with it at the moment.

I highly suggest you dual-boot: Play your games on Windows and try to install Gentoo. If your worried about messing your bootloader etc.. just try on a virtual machine. If you really have the time.. and you stick to it.. you will manage it in the long run :-)

like I did.. it just took a while. It's so much easier now to use the console with time and fix major problems I previously couldn't solve.

You could also have a look at Openbox (which im currently using).. it gives you more freedom than KDE imo.. and contains next to nothing.. not even a background loader.. you can choose and customize everything yourself.. whatever you feel like. The documents on the Gentoo wiki's and the Arch wiki's are amazing help.. even though some are out of date.

I'm happy with both.. both Windows and Linux have their benefits. Installing Gentoo can be frustrating at first (especially compared to Crunchbang.. 15 minutes with nearly everything setup).. but just stick to it.

I also disagree with using genkernel.. Try to do it yourself.. It might be harder (and I spent a lot of time on learning that).. but you learn a lot more in the end.. :-)