Do you dual boot because of games?

[NoTiG]

I really think gaming is a major issue on the linux desktop. And unfortunately its only going to get worse with directX 10. So I think alot of people actually still dual boot because of gaming. I was counting up the people on a previous thread... that had like 800 replies about why they still use windows. And the majority of the people i counted (i only got to maybe the 100th post) listed games as a reason.

Granted im asking if this is ONE of the reasons you dual boot and not necessarily the sole reason.](*,)

http://static.flickr.com/95/243995006_15e12060a1.jpg?v=0

[croak77]

No. I have a nintendo for games. PC is for pr0n...I mean work ;)

[Somenoob]

There are some mmorpg i play, and some rpg ones. I dual boot due to those games.

[NoTiG]

well keep in mind that consoles are basically becoming pc's. Like the Ps3 is basically a cheap (but expensive) computer!

[Demio]

Yep, the only reason in fact.

[Obor]

Since I never been into games, I dual boot because of photoshop, skype with video and my wife...

[curtisf14]

Does anyone have some experience with how well Wine works for installing Windows games on Linux?

[red_Marvin]

I have finally got starcraft to work nearly flawlessly in wine, so I don't have to anymore... ^^

[curtisf14]

Actually, that was the game I've been thinking about installing with wine. Any advice on getting it to work?

[bruce89]

well keep in mind that consoles are basically becoming pc's. Like the Ps3 is basically a cheap (but expensive) computer!

Indeed, it will even run Linux.

There is a theory that Sony are doing that so they don't get charged the games console tax.

I do dualboot because of numerous things, but a smaller amount of things to a year ago.

[kigina]

how about a "I dual boot because I just mess around with linux but use Windows as primary OS."

[red_Marvin]

curtisf14:
This is what i've done, though I cannot tell if every part is significant...
But it works now...

sudo apt-get install wine
sudo apt-get install libjack0.100.0-0
sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/libjack-0.100.0.so.0 /usr/lib/libjack.so

In winecfg:

Applications tab: Windows 98 mode.

Graphics: Check the following:
"Allow directX appsto stop the mouse leaving the window"
"Enable desktop double buffering"
"Allow the window manager to control the windows"
"Allow Pixel Shader (if supported by hardware)"
Select harware on the "Vertex shader support"

Drives:
D: /media/cdrom
E: /media/cdrom0
(when, adding them, click "show advanced" and select "CD-ROM")

Sound:
Check "OSS Driver" and uncheck anything else in the treeview
Select "Emulation" in the "Hardware acceleration" dropdown
and check "Driver emulation"

In the past, when I've tried to play starcraft it was really laggy and sound didn't work as it should. Now, getting sound was the only problem but after trying different combinations on the sound tab for a while I now get flawless sound! :KS
Good luck...

[xhaan]

I said yes but only because I might decide to do it one day... Even though I'm set up for dual boot, I haven't used XP at all since I installed Ubuntu, and I don't really have an interest in my games that require XP right now, though I might decide to play them again one day...

[Stew2]

I dual boot mostly because of games. Not so much that I play them that much anymore, but because they were a considerable investment and I don't want to just delete them :D . I have UT2004 and Doom 3 running in ubuntu (unfortunately Doom 3 doesn't run as well as in windows). If I could get HL2 to work (without Cedega), it wouldnt be too hard to convert totally. :D

Regards,
Stew2

Edit:Tis funny, I really don't play them much at all anymore, just can't bring myself to ditch them... :)

[etc]

I voted No, I don't dualboot, Linux is my primary OS. The only windows games I play work fine in wine.

[AndyCooll]

Nope. My boxes and laptops only have Ubuntu installed.

Never was a big game player. Only ******* (only) game I play is Football Manager and that runs fine on a VMware XP image I have.

:cool:

[Yossarian]

I have Windows installed because I have two hard disks, and I'm nowhere near filling either up. I might need it for something down the road.

I don't really dual-boot, though, as I never actually boot Windows. Email and browser are setup in Ubuntu.

EDIT: I don't really play computer games. Although I had a wicked game of GNOME Mahjong a week or so ago.

[SoundMachine]

No, I do dualboot on a test box to check out new versions but stable is Slackware and OpenBSD, at work, well, XP probably Vista because RMS lost his mind.

[Mihkal]

Yes, windows is only for games. But it doesn't have a box of it's own, so it takes up hard drive space and time away from ubuntu. It's kind of like a parasitic gaming console :D

[%hMa@?b<C]

only games I play are n64 roms, which mupen64 does well enough

[Polygon]

i dual boot for games because i dont want to waste my time on wine. sure it can make some games work, but usually the price of extreme frustration, system crashes, and some other annoyance. I just dont like to waste my time when i have a copy of windows xp right there that can play it natively.

but that is all i basically use my windows partiton for anymore.

[NoTiG]

wow its 27 to 5 :P and even if you count the ppl who still dual boot so far....... the majority reason is for games! Surprising (not* :P .

How is linux going to compete with windows in the future in regards to games with directx 10 in the way? sure you could say that more users would attract more developers... but games are planned way in advance and by the time that happened it would be like 10 or more years from now. What linux needs is for either direct10 to work flawlessly somehow... or an equivalent or better programming platform for games. Opengl + SDL anyone ?

[slimdog360]

games, and if I could get my printer working properly I would wipe Windows. Or even if I could just get a printer which has an autoduplexing feature and works in linux. My canon ip3000 has this but doesnt autoduplex in linux.

[PenguinMan]

I only use Windows XP Professional for gaming. Otherwise, it is a useless OS to me for productivity. I am mostly in either Mac OS X or PCLinuxOS/Ubuntu.

If anyone loves Day of Defeat: Source as much as I do, join me for a nice WWII battle in Frenchy's Pit 1 or 2. My handle is "Macintosh Sauce." LOL

[aysiu]

Gaming may be a big deal to current Ubuntu users, but in the general population, it's not such a big deal.

A few excerpts from this April 2006 article (http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3596631) about gaming statistics:
One-third of adults spend 10 hours or more playing games each week, compared with 11 percent of teens.
Fifty-eight percent of households owning both a PC and a console system consider the console the dominant gaming platform.

[PenguinMan]

Gaming may be a big deal to current Ubuntu users, but in the general population, it's not such a big deal.

A few excerpts from this April 2006 article (http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3596631) about gaming statistics:
I would disagree somewhat, because of the fact that as the population becomes older there are more adults that like computing gaming.

[aysiu]

I would disagree somewhat, because of the fact that as the population becomes older there are more adults that like computing gaming.
So you're talking about the population that are not yet teens? Only 11 percent of teens gamed more than ten hours a week, and that includes console gaming.

[PenguinMan]

So you're talking about the population that are not yet teens? Only 11 percent of teens gamed more than ten hours a week, and that includes console gaming.
No, I mean the people that are adults already, or about to become adults. There are more of them every year, as the population becomes older. ;)

[aysiu]

Well, there are the 1/3 of adults who game ten or more hours a week, and then there are the 1/10 of teenagers who game ten or more hours a week.

Either way, neither is a majority.

So the only thing you have left are the prepubescents.

[NoTiG]

If i posted some statistic telling us that .0001 % of the worlds population used ubuntu, would that tell us anything? Not really... because more than half probably dont even have computers.

Posting statistics about how much the general population games is useless because what is important is what is holding people back from switching to ubuntu...

A more interesting statistic would be: Who uses windows, and linux and why do they still keep windows around (i.e. This poll) . So far its games. If gaming is so unimportant then why does it have the majority so far ?

[aysiu]

You're going to tell me that a poll of Ubuntu users who hang out on these forums is more reliable than the one I linked to, which is the general populace? Okay. Believe what you want to believe.

[enopepsoo]

It would be cool if some new popular game was released for windows and linux simultaneously, and the linux version benchmarked better on the same pc.

I don't really see that happening though. Maybe Id would, but I doubt it.=D>

[croak77]

If gaming is so unimportant then why does it have the majority so far ?

Cause most of the people here are geeks :)

I think it's safe to assume that the majority of computer owners do not play directx games just solitaire, minesweeper, etc. If gaming is important to you then you'll just have to dual-boot.

[xhaan]

I dual boot mostly because of games. Not so much that I play them that much anymore, but because they were a considerable investment and I don't want to just delete them :D . I have UT2004 and Doom 3 running in ubuntu (unfortunately Doom 3 doesn't run as well as in windows). If I could get HL2 to work (without Cedega), it wouldnt be too hard to convert totally. :D

Regards,
Stew2

Edit:Tis funny, I really don't play them much at all anymore, just can't bring myself to ditch them... :)

Same here. :D

[UbuntuniX]

Yup, I do.

[Jucato]

Yes I dual boot because of some MMORPG's that I play do not work in Wine. These are mostly the Asian/Korean types of MMORPG's. Although the use of DirectX is not really a problem (I've actually been able to successfully run a private server of Ragnarok Online), almost all of these games (the official servers) use an anti-hacking program called GameGuard, which doesn't really sit well with the Wine devs (at least, last I heard).

Why do I play these games that do not run in Linux, rather than RPG's that do (GuildWars, etc.)?
1. They're cheap. Most of them are actually free. And if they do have fees, I can easily pay for them because they have local handlers.
2. I like them. I'm more into the Anime type of games, but I do enjoy a bit of D&D style.
3. I can play with my friends.

Until I can play these games in Linux, I can never get rid of Windows. I'm hoping that ReactOS may one day solve that problem...

[CronoDekar]

Interestingly, while I set up my computer on a dual boot mainly as "backup," I haven't really booted into Windows XP in forever. I don't really game in Windows either though -- last ones I did were Warcraft III and Starcraft (both of which I'm horrible at) when I was still on single boot. I'm considering for Edgy Eft just to remove it entirely (or maybe MEPIS, since I've been more into KDE lately).

Though, if Spore ends up being as good as it looks, Windows certainly will be tempting... Hopefully it'll be released on the Nintendo Wii, too.

[NoTiG]

Cause most of the people here are geeks :)

I think it's safe to assume that the majority of computer owners do not play directx games just solitaire, minesweeper, etc. If gaming is important to you then you'll just have to dual-boot.

Actually i would guess that the average linux user would be LESS likely to game than a regular person... because linux is a power Users os.

Even world of warcraft by itself has over 7 million subscribers... which is amazing.

The thing is, if you want to find out what would keep people on windows rather than linux, you would have to actually ask people who have tried both. Asking the general population if linux works for them is useless since they have not even tried it. Which is why asking those who have tried both gives you more important statistics.

[3rdalbum]

I dual-boot in order to use my video capture box and do DVD authoring; but while I'm in Windows I've been known to play some cheap games that I got from the bargain bin :-)

[max.diems]

No. I have a nintendo for games. PC is for pr0n...I mean work ;)
You work in the pr0n industry?

[etotehpii]

I dual boot mainly for game(s).
I've gotten warcraft III to work well in Linux. (one less reason to boot over to windows)
Battlefield 2 is the only reason I can think of for wanting to boot into windows now.
I use a VMPlayer that hosts windows for anything else I need thats not a game.(Yes, I know I'm cheating :) )

Does anyone know what will happen if I activate the VMplayer windows with the same key as my actual paritioned windows? I'm figuring that the VMplayer windows would deactivate my real windows. Maybe I can just keep changing the time back in my windows thats being hosted!

[rocknrolf77]

I dual-boot because of games and photoshop. But I don't like being in xp. When I'm done gaming or photoshopping I boot right back in to Ubuntu. Got vmware set up yesterday, but I don't have enough hd space yet to install xp there. When I do I eventually get one more disk so I don't have to reboot for photoshop. Looking forward for that day. :)

[puppy]

I'm proud to say that I only dual-boot for a few games that aren't supported by Cedega (Prey and F.E.A.R - both fairly recent so no surprise...) however as soon as I'm finished with them I'm back in Ubuntu.

The games I play most of the time, World of Warcraft and the various Steam games, work perfectly well under linux :D

I too am worried about DX10, but mostly because of the stringent hardware requirements it will reputedly impose - I don't want to be forced to upgrade my graphics card just so that I can play the latest games - I don't want my nice Geforce 6800GT to become obsolete :(

[NoTiG]

I would like to thank everyone for voting and keep it up!

ps. is it legal to bump your own threads ?

[K.Mandla]

I used to dual boot, but Linux made my bleeding-edge hardware unnecessary, so I sold it and I stick with Wolf ET and Chromium BSU all the time. Those are games enough for me.

[lexxonnet]

The only game I dual boot for so far is Rome: Total War. I'm going to try NFS working with cedega, but haven't tried yet(need to change my partition sizes). Dont play much else other than that(oh, except quake, but that thankfully runs natively :D)

[NoTiG]

Here is an interesting slideshow i just found from the last linux desktop summit in california:
(http://www.desktoplinuxsummit.org/images/DLS2006_Presos/Vikas_Gupta.odp)

They took a pie chart and broke down what people generaly use their desktop computer for. The largest was browsers 34% ... the next largest was games at 18% . Therefor i think its safe to say that next to browsers , games are most important. ANd after all... the browsers are already here and good enough. Therefor i think this is solid proof that it is games that is the barrier.

http://static.flickr.com/95/243995006_15e12060a1.jpg?v=0

[ekuliak]

I dual boot because of games.

Right now the only games I play on Windows are Oblivion and the free F.E.A.R. multiplayer game. I havn't played either for a few weeks now though (mostly due to school).