Gaming on Linux… (Un)Happy Feet!
Posted by Prashanth | Filed under Headshot, Linux, Open Source, Technology
Whenever I try and convert myself to into a total Linux geek and into the guy who would ditch and literally break free from the ‘closed’ Windows once and for all, there is one temptation that comes in my way and that just doesn’t allow me to become an aggressive Linux activist and also not convincingly make someone else use Linux. Each time someone comes to my place, he gets wooed with my Ubuntu Desktop and its features but then at the end of the day, the situation is something like this…
Fortunately for now, people who feel passionate about gaming at the same time know the better platform can have an easy time without that tedious reboot. I know how hard it is to reboot for those who love hibernating and working for long hours, but that’s life. You can’t have everything you ask for at one place, right? Maybe not this time…
Option A
For those who believe gaming is an absolute impossibility on Linux, here you go. That’s an emulation software or something that fools the game that it is actually running on windows and not something else. Although the free implementation of the same thing, better known as Wine doesn’t really pack that punch to run technically complex software like games or apps like Photoshop, this one as per its claims does. I cannot really test it for several reasons. Firstly, I own a Radeon Xpress 200 motherboard whose on-board graphics do not have as good of drivers for Linux. And secondly, the Radeon HD 2400 that I own hasn’t got very efficient graphics drivers for Linux either. Although ATI does have a high performance Open Source driver in the pipeline, but for now I am stuck. Claims, reviews and discussions across cyberspace suggest that games run better on Cedega/Linux than they run natively on Windows.
Now this is something worth a thought. A CPU game running on Linux runs an emulation software for interoperability and the game itself. But then windows doesn’t need that compatibility layer. So proving that Linux technically has a better potential to extract more juice out of your PC, I head on with another problem. Not all games are supported, especially the DX10/10.1 ones which are here/yet to to come.
The only problem is that the site calls a Cedega user as a Trans-Gamer… which sounds on the same lines as Trans-Sexual. 
A Cedegan or a Tuxegan might sound better!
Option B
There is this project, although currently in testing stages called Project Alky which aims at an open source solution to to liberate DirectX 10 gaming from the confines of Vista and bring it first to Windows XP, and then to Linux and OS X. The project plans to do this by building a converter that can take in a DX10 game executable and spit out a modified version that can be run on a (non-Vista) target OS. Now that means celebration for people who love Open Source, Linux and Crysis all the three just as much… Not only just that, but also the upcoming Direct X10 based desktop applications…
Option C
Linux based games aren’t bad either. You have quite a few of them which give some of the older Windows games a hard punch. But then, one in a million developers make Linux versions of their games as well. Take Unreal for example. Epic Games has been sincerely making Linux versions of its series since the beginning. Coming back to Linux native games, you have Tremulous, Nexuiz, Alien Arena and Wormux (the Linux and OSS clone of the popular Worms, for non-gamers!). With greater adoption of Linux, this number is predicted to increase with a number of developers bringing out Linux native versions of their games…
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