Games that run better in WINE than Windows

[Mistrblank]

You're kidding, right?

WoW in WinXP, 20-30FPS in Netherstorm. Wine, 12-15FPS.
TF2 in WinXP, 22-32FPS on most maps w/DX9 and most settings set to high. Wine, 8-12FPS in DX8.1 with all settings set to low.

I only wish they ran better because I'd be able to dump WinXP.

Want to know what's really going on? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo

Meh. WoW on the same system, vanilla WinXP install to SP3 and up to date drivers I now get the same frame rates consistently testing with the in game timetest as I do with Wine. Wine itself took a considerable amount of time to configure however and there is a noticeable loss not having D3D enabled (won't even run with D3D on my setup) so it wasn't without cost. But OpenGL winxp to wine is the same. In many respects I get better performance because under Wine, multi window support is better for me (I do lose frames going to windowed mode in WinXP for some reason).

I have also noticed a significant halving of my latency from 250ms to 115-130ms ping times going to Linux. It's a shame though that on the same network, the Mac laptop I have drops latency to 80ms, but overall can't support the graphics of the game using onboard video.

I really do think it varies based on hardware and user dedication to getting things running. Realistically Wine will not be encumbered by Windows services and it is a lot easier to find information on tweaking Linux services and running processes. This dedication is one of the reasons that I'm moving back to consoles whenever I can for games (like Fallout 3), as cool as it is to have the customization in games, sometimes it becomes a liability when I'm concerned about every little graphical twitch that I think could be averted.

[DoktorSeven]

I have a very low spec system (about the minimum WoW can use), and it does run better in Wine than Windows. I believe main reason is that Windows takes up more resources than Linux (I run fluxbox and very few things in the background -- installed a minimal CLI Ubuntu system. Windows is also tweaked the best I can get it -- all unnecessary services stopped, running bblean instead of Explorer, etc) -- base (without WoW running) memory usage in particular is at least 3x higher in Windows than in my Linux system.

FPS is consistently higher in Linux than in Windows. Play is smoother. Large populated areas grind to an actual slideshow in Windows, not so in Linux.

Both use the same configuration for WoW (running from the same place on my Windows drive).

I've seen the same with other games like HL2 and Portal. Some might argue (as someone above did) that Wine is giving some sort of "false" performance boost, but when you're playing the exact same game, exact same graphics, and getting a better experience out of Wine, semantics doesn't matter. The game plays better under Wine, period.

[vegetable92]

no games work on linux its too complicated to do.you will need a linux expert to do it.

[Duskao]

Vegetable92, Give POL (playonlinux) a try. It uses wine, but with a bunch of games it does a lot of the tweaks to get the games running. I myself am still fairly new to Ubuntu/Linux and I have had most of the games I have tried to get running in one way or another and I even have an Ati video card, so thats with the driver problems.

I'm not saying everything works perfectly, great, modestly or even at all in some cases, but if you don't like windows it is at least worth a try. Here is a bit of a list I have had working with wine to some degree and a rating of how well they ran 1-10... none of which have worked better on linux then windows though.

Half-Life 2 (7)
Team Fortress 2 (4)
Mass Effect (2)
Day of Defeat (6)
Plants vs Zombies (5)
Guild Wars (9)
Lord of the Rings Online (8 )
Fallout 3 (4)
Chronicles of Riddick (10) (ran about equivlant to windows)
Indiana Jones and the Emperors Tomb (6) (missing faces???? but the performance was fine)

I have tried a lot of different games and I'm at about 50-50 to being able to get games to work. I have always used the newest wine release with POL.

I am certainly no linux expert. I can hardly use the command line in the terminal.

[yanom]

StarCraft totaly runs better in Wine. Under native windows the graphics are reversed (like a photo negative) but it looks fine under Wine.

[MetroidJunkie2008]

Ironically, the 2D games seem to give me more problems on Wine than the 3D ones. With games like Spore and Sims 3, no problems. Same speed as Windows. Ultra 3D Pinball Creep Nights? (Not actually 3D, uses 2D sprites) lags for no reason. Maybe it's the drivers.

[bigseb]

Rise of Nations worked right out of the install on Wine, won't even start in Vista.

For real?! That's great, I love that game and the the one after, Rise Of Legends. Haven't played 'em in a while so I will try this out tonight still!!

You rock!

[LoloftheRings]

Absolutely!
Warcraft 3 on Windows 800x600 all high settings: 60fps
Warcraft 3 on Linux 1440x900 all high settings with anti aliasing though nvidia control panel: 150 fps

If that ain't a clear difference Oo

Testing system:
Intel i5 661 clocked at 3.75 Ghz
Asus gts250 1gb
Kingston DDR3 4GB

Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bits
Arch Linux 64 bits

Had 80 fps on Ubuntu (still better than 60). Don't know why, maybe drivers. I did give Arch a bit more love when installing.

[cyrex]

The following games i have tested on both Windows XP, Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.10 with wine. This games run faster or better (more fps) on wine than on windows:


1. WoW - Runs better on wine than on windows. I actually have (using the same PC) a 20% to 35% better performance. This has been tested also by other friends who wanted wow on their PC and i showed them Ubuntu. The Wine i used is not modified or anything, is the standard one that comes using the link in winehq.org

2. Half-Life 2 - I mean WTF. I thought this game was going to lag or something on wine. It ran better than windows. I was really impressed (and still am)

3. Quake 3 - Another WTF. Am talking here about the Quake 3 Arena for windows, not the one for linux. It has much more FPS than on windows.

4. Need 4 Speed Underground - Ran about 15% better on wine.

That is all.

[darklegion]

Absolutely!
Warcraft 3 on Windows 800x600 all high settings: 60fps
Warcraft 3 on Linux 1440x900 all high settings with anti aliasing though nvidia control panel: 150 fps

If that ain't a clear difference Oo

Testing system:
Intel i5 661 clocked at 3.75 Ghz
Asus gts250 1gb
Kingston DDR3 4GB

Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bits
Arch Linux 64 bits

Had 80 fps on Ubuntu (still better than 60). Don't know why, maybe drivers. I did give Arch a bit more love when installing.

You probably have V-Sync enabled on the windows box, which will lock FPS at the monitor's refresh rate (which is probably 60hz)

I think as far as the video side is concerned, most games are not going to run better under wine. There is a hefty hit from the conversion from direct3d to opengl, and it's going to take a lot of optimisation for that performance hit to go away.

Also, as a side note for people looking to increase performance with wine: CPU is more important than the GPU, provided that you are using a decent NVIDIA card. Because wine is bottlenecking the GPU using a faster CPU can help reduce this bottleneck. I'm getting quite a large performance increase from overclocking my e5200 from 2.5ghz to 3.6ghz. Upgrading my video card produced virtually no improvements, except for games that were already running at high framerates.

I imagine that people with i5/i7 CPUs will be getting quite good performance with wine, although I have not tested this myself.