Win-games for Linux: myth or reality?
The topic was written under the influence of many applications (including in the habrasoobschestve) that there are almost no games for Linux, respectively, the latter is not a desktop system capable of competing with Windows. This argument is used, paired with another - “under your Linux there is no software needed for operation” - as the last line of defense when talking about “convenience”, “ease of development” or “security” is already useless. Any housewife without problems will master Ubuntu, especially if you train it on this system, and not to retrain from Windows. Yes, and viruses for this OS so far have to be collected manually, with the manual. And here comes someone who claims something like the following: “But the housewife has children who want to drive in toys, but there’s no one on your red-eyed underweight! Ha ha ha! (here is the laughter of the cine villain) ”.
An important clarification. I am not a Linux evangelist, I don’t promote this OS or any of its distributions, and I don’t care about the popularity of the Wine project. I have simply been engaged in the review of games from under Linux for a long time, running standing parallel to Windows only if absolutely necessary. That is why I know what I am talking about. And yes, Linux is considered on the example of Ubuntu, for everyone else, something may change slightly.
In fact, there are games under Linux. Most are free. Some even try to compete with their commercial counterparts. But they rarely can match the quality of execution with the commercial ones, and therefore most often we either have a ported version (World of Goo, for example), or launch from under a non-Wine emulator. And what do you want, if developers are now simply unprofitable to adapt their games for another OS? They are already pressed double development: consoles + PC. Have to spin.
But all is not so bad. Let's try to figure it out in practice. I will not give a large number of games as an example, for this there is a winehq , everything that is marked there with “platinum” or “gold” can be safely put and used. But I will describe the possible scenarios after the installation.
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To begin with - the actual installation process. We put Wine from repositories (if it is not installed yet). Run the configurator from the menu or winecfg from the console. Customize, if necessary, or immediately click ok. Run the game installer as usual. Everything. Further, with each game you only need to repeat the last item. Complicated?
Important point: never run wine and windows software from under the superuser / through sudo. It is fraught with unpredictable consequences.
The second important point: if something was set up incorrectly, stupid, buggy, or you even managed to run some kind of virus virus (yes, it happens ...) - do not be afraid to rub the entire Vine home folder. The next launch of the configurator will create it again.
And the third: check if there is a Linux version for the game you want to install? Save a lot of time and effort.
After this, there are three options. So, the first: the game is marked with the highest mark on winehq, and accordingly there should be no problems with its installation and during the game. As a rule, they are not there. The main joint that you may encounter in this case is a problem with access rights. Some folders may in some unknown way be read-only or accessible only to the superuser, and if the game needs them not only for reading, it will crash or behave strangely. Such a problem definitely exists in Ubuntu 9.04, it manifests itself completely randomly. It is treated by manual installation of rights.
Second: this is a game marked with "gold" or "silver." There are possible nuances. For example, you may need to enable or disable hardware sound acceleration in Vine settings. Or you will need to force a switch to OpenGL mode. All these problems, as well as their solutions, are described in the comments to the game on the same appdb. As a rule, games still run, but without following the recommendations, incidents like a stuttering sound or broken graphics occur. Seldom. But happen. And OpenGL is almost guaranteed to have a non-working hardware cursor, also an unpleasant trifle.
Third: - score below "silver". Anything can happen here, a standard Linux story begins, which I will try to portray in faces:
(forum)
(novice hysterical cry) - Ahhh, nothing works for me, help !!!
(catty voice of guru-1) - And everything works for me. Chyadt?
(catty voice of guru-2) - Boy, and with what parameters did you compile the core?
(newbie) - chigo?
(guru-2) - Ah, everything is clear ... * significant silence *
(voice from the audience) - Yes, he doesn’t even know what the core is, what are you doing with him?
(noble knight) - Dear, you should make * recommendation-1 * and * recommendation-2 *, as well as read manuals.
(voice from the audience) - Yes, he doesn’t even know what manuals are!
(already-no-novice) - Oh, thank you, everything turned out!
(beginner-2) - But nothing works for me, the tips did not help ...
(all in chorus) - Argh! ..
Simply put, either everything will work right away, or not right away, or will not work at all. Games using the DX10 on a mandatory basis, as well as something else, are likely to be swept away immediately. It's easier to reboot into Windows immediately than to suffer with them. But generally it is worth reading forums, suddenly your problem has already been solved?
In addition to the interaction of games with Wine, troubles can also generate hardware. For example, video card ATI / AMD. With them everything is still difficult, though not at all. As always, there are people who have no problems even with the most whimsical iron.
Some controllers (joysticks, gamepads, steering wheels, Zboard keyboards) are unable to interact normally with Linux, some instances do not work correctly, others do not work at all. No drivers. Friendly thanks to the manufacturers.
External sound, especially in the usb / firewire box format, can also cause problems.
And finally, in the case of glitches, it is worth checking the installed software. In extremely rare cases, something may conflict. As an example, Pulseaudio in Ubuntu causes a very unpleasant effect of a “ragged” and “stuttering” sound. Well, the driver for the video still needs to be installed, but those were cases ...
Finally - a few examples from my own experience. Selected almost by chance.
Stalker, S: Clear Sky . Everything is working fine. There is nothing more to add.
World of Warcraft . “Platinum” in appdb, works without problems, sometimes faster than in Windows. Sometimes it is slower, it is not necessary every time, but also an increase and a decrease in productivity within 5-10 fps (as far as I can tell). Ping steadily lower. Of the bugs, I can recall only two: the lack of a hardware cursor in the OpenGL mode and the ping timeout that does not always work (the player does not always throw out the login screen in the event of a connection break - this is what leaves in the “hung” world).
Starcraft: Brood War . It works fine, although for some reason I received “silver” in appdb. I haven’t personally noticed a single problem.
Diablo 2 . When you exit the game throws a sign with an error, but the real problems are not noticed.
Red Alert 3 and addition. There would be no problems if it were not for the lack of water. In a sense, the wine engine refuses to draw water as such. As a result, you can see funny incidents like amphibious tanks floating through the air. Perhaps this is ruled by some setting.
Painkiller Overdose . He earned no problems, did not have to edit anything.
Warhammer 40k Dawn of War , all additions to it and Dawn of War 2 . Run, work, fps slightly lower than on a similar configuration under Windows.
Freelancer . Works. The hardware cursor does not work, which in the free flight mode can cause a number of problems. FLMM is working. DS did not check.
TES: Oblivion . Everything works without problems.
Half-Life / HL2 / TF2 and so on. Works. In Cedega, the support of this entire “hassle” household is stated, but why do we need a paid product when there is a free and / dev / hands?
Heroes of Might and Magic 3, HoMM 5 , addons to them. Oddly enough - work. And what else is needed for happiness?
But Settlers , starting with the second version and ending with the fifth, I have not started. It's a pity.
The configuration on which everything was tested: Athlon64 3500 + / 2gb / Asus M2N-X / GeForce 8500 GT 256mb. OS - Ubuntu 8.10 -> Ubuntu 9.04. Wine is always the latest stable release.
In general, there will not be any particular problems for children in a Linux housewife, and they will not be bored. In extreme cases, you will need to tinker with the settings and read the forums ... I do not think this is such a big problem. Those who have had a Spectrum in their childhood or their analogs will understand. In the end, modern children are not forced to write games on their own to play them, right?
An important clarification. I am not a Linux evangelist, I don’t promote this OS or any of its distributions, and I don’t care about the popularity of the Wine project. I have simply been engaged in the review of games from under Linux for a long time, running standing parallel to Windows only if absolutely necessary. That is why I know what I am talking about. And yes, Linux is considered on the example of Ubuntu, for everyone else, something may change slightly.
In fact, there are games under Linux. Most are free. Some even try to compete with their commercial counterparts. But they rarely can match the quality of execution with the commercial ones, and therefore most often we either have a ported version (World of Goo, for example), or launch from under a non-Wine emulator. And what do you want, if developers are now simply unprofitable to adapt their games for another OS? They are already pressed double development: consoles + PC. Have to spin.
But all is not so bad. Let's try to figure it out in practice. I will not give a large number of games as an example, for this there is a winehq , everything that is marked there with “platinum” or “gold” can be safely put and used. But I will describe the possible scenarios after the installation.
')
To begin with - the actual installation process. We put Wine from repositories (if it is not installed yet). Run the configurator from the menu or winecfg from the console. Customize, if necessary, or immediately click ok. Run the game installer as usual. Everything. Further, with each game you only need to repeat the last item. Complicated?
Important point: never run wine and windows software from under the superuser / through sudo. It is fraught with unpredictable consequences.
The second important point: if something was set up incorrectly, stupid, buggy, or you even managed to run some kind of virus virus (yes, it happens ...) - do not be afraid to rub the entire Vine home folder. The next launch of the configurator will create it again.
And the third: check if there is a Linux version for the game you want to install? Save a lot of time and effort.
After this, there are three options. So, the first: the game is marked with the highest mark on winehq, and accordingly there should be no problems with its installation and during the game. As a rule, they are not there. The main joint that you may encounter in this case is a problem with access rights. Some folders may in some unknown way be read-only or accessible only to the superuser, and if the game needs them not only for reading, it will crash or behave strangely. Such a problem definitely exists in Ubuntu 9.04, it manifests itself completely randomly. It is treated by manual installation of rights.
Second: this is a game marked with "gold" or "silver." There are possible nuances. For example, you may need to enable or disable hardware sound acceleration in Vine settings. Or you will need to force a switch to OpenGL mode. All these problems, as well as their solutions, are described in the comments to the game on the same appdb. As a rule, games still run, but without following the recommendations, incidents like a stuttering sound or broken graphics occur. Seldom. But happen. And OpenGL is almost guaranteed to have a non-working hardware cursor, also an unpleasant trifle.
Third: - score below "silver". Anything can happen here, a standard Linux story begins, which I will try to portray in faces:
(forum)
(novice hysterical cry) - Ahhh, nothing works for me, help !!!
(catty voice of guru-1) - And everything works for me. Chyadt?
(catty voice of guru-2) - Boy, and with what parameters did you compile the core?
(newbie) - chigo?
(guru-2) - Ah, everything is clear ... * significant silence *
(voice from the audience) - Yes, he doesn’t even know what the core is, what are you doing with him?
(noble knight) - Dear, you should make * recommendation-1 * and * recommendation-2 *, as well as read manuals.
(voice from the audience) - Yes, he doesn’t even know what manuals are!
(already-no-novice) - Oh, thank you, everything turned out!
(beginner-2) - But nothing works for me, the tips did not help ...
(all in chorus) - Argh! ..
Simply put, either everything will work right away, or not right away, or will not work at all. Games using the DX10 on a mandatory basis, as well as something else, are likely to be swept away immediately. It's easier to reboot into Windows immediately than to suffer with them. But generally it is worth reading forums, suddenly your problem has already been solved?
In addition to the interaction of games with Wine, troubles can also generate hardware. For example, video card ATI / AMD. With them everything is still difficult, though not at all. As always, there are people who have no problems even with the most whimsical iron.
Some controllers (joysticks, gamepads, steering wheels, Zboard keyboards) are unable to interact normally with Linux, some instances do not work correctly, others do not work at all. No drivers. Friendly thanks to the manufacturers.
External sound, especially in the usb / firewire box format, can also cause problems.
And finally, in the case of glitches, it is worth checking the installed software. In extremely rare cases, something may conflict. As an example, Pulseaudio in Ubuntu causes a very unpleasant effect of a “ragged” and “stuttering” sound. Well, the driver for the video still needs to be installed, but those were cases ...
Finally - a few examples from my own experience. Selected almost by chance.
Stalker, S: Clear Sky . Everything is working fine. There is nothing more to add.
World of Warcraft . “Platinum” in appdb, works without problems, sometimes faster than in Windows. Sometimes it is slower, it is not necessary every time, but also an increase and a decrease in productivity within 5-10 fps (as far as I can tell). Ping steadily lower. Of the bugs, I can recall only two: the lack of a hardware cursor in the OpenGL mode and the ping timeout that does not always work (the player does not always throw out the login screen in the event of a connection break - this is what leaves in the “hung” world).
Starcraft: Brood War . It works fine, although for some reason I received “silver” in appdb. I haven’t personally noticed a single problem.
Diablo 2 . When you exit the game throws a sign with an error, but the real problems are not noticed.
Red Alert 3 and addition. There would be no problems if it were not for the lack of water. In a sense, the wine engine refuses to draw water as such. As a result, you can see funny incidents like amphibious tanks floating through the air. Perhaps this is ruled by some setting.
Painkiller Overdose . He earned no problems, did not have to edit anything.
Warhammer 40k Dawn of War , all additions to it and Dawn of War 2 . Run, work, fps slightly lower than on a similar configuration under Windows.
Freelancer . Works. The hardware cursor does not work, which in the free flight mode can cause a number of problems. FLMM is working. DS did not check.
TES: Oblivion . Everything works without problems.
Half-Life / HL2 / TF2 and so on. Works. In Cedega, the support of this entire “hassle” household is stated, but why do we need a paid product when there is a free and / dev / hands?
Heroes of Might and Magic 3, HoMM 5 , addons to them. Oddly enough - work. And what else is needed for happiness?
But Settlers , starting with the second version and ending with the fifth, I have not started. It's a pity.
The configuration on which everything was tested: Athlon64 3500 + / 2gb / Asus M2N-X / GeForce 8500 GT 256mb. OS - Ubuntu 8.10 -> Ubuntu 9.04. Wine is always the latest stable release.
In general, there will not be any particular problems for children in a Linux housewife, and they will not be bored. In extreme cases, you will need to tinker with the settings and read the forums ... I do not think this is such a big problem. Those who have had a Spectrum in their childhood or their analogs will understand. In the end, modern children are not forced to write games on their own to play them, right?
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/64801/
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