Linux gaming VS Windows gaming?

[Bobbywhiskey]

I currently have dual boot and i was wondering, wich on run games faster??
Im pretty sure that not all games works on linux, is it true?

[immoral giant]

Probably work faster in Windows, and would depend if you can actually get the games working on linux.

[nehalem]

Windows graphics drivers are considered better. The difference is going to be minimal usually with nvidia and bigger with ATI (although improvement has been made here).

So Linux isn't ideal for gaming but as the interest in desktop linux improves the gaming will too.

[der_joachim]

It is said that games run better in Windows. OTOH, I did install some older games on my Linux box using the Loki installers. Call of Duty was not perceptibly faster or slower than in Windows counterpart.

I also have linux ports of ET and TCE installed. Never had any performance problems with these.

Generally, DirectX games are better (faster/more stable) in Windows. In theory, OpenGL games are equally supported in Windows and Linux alike.

[stoffe]

In my experience there is no performance differences worth mentioning, if the games are written correctly. That is: not emulated or ported half-assed or as an afterthought. The platforms in themselves are pretty much on par from what I can tell, you get a few FPS more on one or the other, depending on the game and the tests, and the weather outside.

That's not to say that all, or even most games are equal, for the most part Windows "wins". Even on open source and cross platform projects, simply because that version gets the most attention. Why that is can be for many different reasons, but it seems to be very common. Sadly. And of course, many many games can't be run on anything else even under emulation.

Writing the games (or any app) with cross platform in mind from the start, and/or using good solid libraries for this, you will not only have equal performance on either OS, you will also have an application that is better written, usually, since doing this usually demands better standards and code quality.

[YokoZar]

Doom3 was widely reported to run better in Linux. ID even gave the Linux version lower system requirements.

As for running games with Wine, we've gotten mixed reports, but some do run better, still some run a lot worse.

[rejser]

hmmm. I have to say for me they run way faster in linux, even when I had a quite optimized win there where several old games that would not work on my computer. In linux I have played through Quake 4 in my XP18000 gf4mx 64mb, I'm quite shure that it wouldn't be playable in windows on my computer.

[Chayak]

I've found the biggest problems is getting the game running in the first place. Once you manage to do that they usually end up running fairly well.

[extarbags]

Actually, a lot of games (World of Warcraft, for one) run faster under Cedega on a ReiserFS system.

[der_joachim]

I may be talking dumb here, but I think Linux has a few great advantages over Windows for gaming:

- Potentially low memory footprint. When playing a game, I switch to a very simple WM, reducing memory usage to a bare minimum. Works flawlessly for me.
- Like extarbags says: better disk performance, due to a faster file system.

Of course, in a perfect world, we would not need Cedega or any other form of emulation. There would be better drivers and configuring them would be a lot easier. Unfortunately, that is not the case.