Ubuntu Suitable gaming OS replacement?

[drew15]

so, im bored and uninterested with Win7, and im looking for somthing different. somthing non-windows


im a very heavy gamer, and above anything else, i want compatibility with all my games. think along the lines of Mass Effect series, and anything you would consider an A1 title. Metro series, Far Cry series, and pretty much most games.

problem is, i cant seem to find somewhere i can search game compatibility, and i dont want to sit there and search each of the 103 games i have on steam individually (as well as the 15 origin games)

so is anyone able to tell me if they have had any problems? or if they know if its worth the switch? and i dont want to have to use an emulator to play the games, as that kind of defeats the purpose of my switching to ubuntu anyways


any feedback/opionions would be fantastic.

im not really concerned with any other functionality, as thats somthing i can work on in the future, gaming is the main "priority" here.


thanks!

-Drew

[lykwydchykyn]

im a very heavy gamer, and above anything else, i want compatibility with all my games.

Then stick with Windows. Unless by "bored" you mean, "tired of my games actually just working without any fiddling".

I love Linux, but if your written-for-Windows games are your first priority, you should run them on Windows.

[drew15]

by bored, i just want something fresh, something i can fiddle around with, and something i can make aesthetically pleasing as it suits my mood. but, it seems like if i do go down this path, im just going to create too many issues to get my games to work. if i was to go down the "emulator" path with say, Wine, will i lose performance? ive built myself a fairly substantial gaming rig, and i dont want to compromise on what quality i get, im just not sure if using an emulator will affect it?


Edit: i have just noticed that even steam recommends using wine when running ubuntu/linux so i guess its somthing ill start looking at.

i guess now, my question is, are there any noticeable running differences between windows/ubuntu? any glaringly large things ubuntu cant do, that windows can?

[grahammechanical]

any glaringly large things ubuntu cant do, that windows can?

Yes. run the games that you use on Windows.

The problem is not with Ubuntu in particular but with Linux in general. Games developers do not write games for Linux because they go where the money is and the money is with the Windows user. Things are changing ever so slowly but until Linux becomes common place app/games developers will go where the money is.

Hardware manufacturers have a financial incentive to make sure that Windows runs superb on their hardware. They do not have the same incentive for making sure that Linux runs superb. The Linux developers work hard keeping Linux up to date but if a hardware manufacturer does not reveal sensitive details of their hardware then the Linux developers have an uphill struggle.

Video drivers are an example of this. How long ago did machines come on the market with Nvidia Optimus technology? But took a very long time for Nvidia to even start writing a Linux video driver for Optimus. How important is the graphic adapter to gaming? There you go.

Regards.

[drew15]

Yes. run the games that you use on Windows.

The problem is not with Ubuntu in particular but with Linux in general. Games developers do not write games for Linux because they go where the money is and the money is with the Windows user. Things are changing ever so slowly but until Linux becomes common place app/games developers will go where the money is.

Hardware manufacturers have a financial incentive to make sure that Windows runs superb on their hardware. They do not have the same incentive for making sure that Linux runs superb. The Linux developers work hard keeping Linux up to date but if a hardware manufacturer does not reveal sensitive details of their hardware then the Linux developers have an uphill struggle.

Video drivers are an example of this. How long ago did machines come on the market with Nvidia Optimus technology? But took a very long time for Nvidia to even start writing a Linux video driver for Optimus. How important is the graphic adapter to gaming? There you go.

Regards.

thanks for that, you make a good point.

im wondering, as i can comfortably run any current game on ultra/high, im running a Gigabyte 680GTX SOC, and i know NVIDIA has been doing alot of work as far as their driver performance and linux compatibility goes, im just still not 100% sure.


i guess, i could always run a dual boot, and play around with it first, do you think that would be the best idea, before i go full hog?

[Bucky Ball]

i guess, i could always run a dual boot, and play around with it first, do you think that would be the best idea, before i go full hog?

Yes.

[sffvba[e0rt]

i guess, i could always run a dual boot, and play around with it first, do you think that would be the best idea, before i go full hog?

Yes.

+1

[endlessinstant]

Feel free to dual boot. Linux is pretty outstanding. I use it exclusively for productivity. As a gamer you would never be happy trying to go all in with it. I absolutely loathe Windows and use Chrome OS, Ubuntu, and OS X daily.

Even I have to keep a Windows partition on my Mac for some gaming.

[forrestcupp]

thanks for that, you make a good point.

im wondering, as i can comfortably run any current game on ultra/high, im running a Gigabyte 680GTX SOC, and i know NVIDIA has been doing alot of work as far as their driver performance and linux compatibility goes, im just still not 100% sure.


i guess, i could always run a dual boot, and play around with it first, do you think that would be the best idea, before i go full hog?

With the new Steambox using a Linux-based OS, things are starting to change on the gaming front. You can bet that going forward, they're going to be pushing people to develop Steam games for SteamOS, which means they will work in Ubuntu. But that doesn't mean the hundreds of games already on there will just magically start working. The future looks better for gaming on Linux than it ever has, but we're not quite all the way there yet.

If you are really interested, running a dual boot is your best option. Then you can just test your games out in Wine to see how it's going to work. One thing to keep in mind is that Wine is not perfect. Wine is the result of a bunch of developers reverse engineering the Windows API. It works great for a lot of things, and it still works like crap for a lot of things, too. So your best bet is to dual boot until you figure out if it's for you or not. I wouldn't test Ubuntu in a virtual machine, though, because that's not going to be a good representation of how it runs, especially for gaming.

If it doesn't work out, you can always come here to find out how to uninstall Ubuntu and get your bootloader working right again. If you end up loving it, you can always free up more of your Windows space to use for Linux.

[mastablasta]

Wine stands for Wine Is Not Emulator. a few things work quite nicely in wine. a very small number work better than in windows. majority though doens't work well. for programs that are only windows based stick with windows. and your games are windows based. they use directx10,11 etc that is only available in windows. wine has some API for directx9 but i don't htink there is anything to support 11.

other systems that play your games are console systems

maybe once steambox is out and if demand is high enough there will be more linux based games.

otherwise in general linux i way faster than windows and with some modding you can really clear up additional resources. for exmaple windows 8 and 7 need about 2 GB just for the OS to run nicely. mostly they would take at least half a gig of ram on boot and then go on to consume more of it until swapping starts. linux desktop can boot with 50mb ram used.

anyway for now, for gaming use windows. you can dualboot or if you just want to play arround and have enough ram - just install it in virtualbox: http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/virtualbox

it's faster to turn it on when you want to play with it and then turn it off rather then dualboot.