"10 days? Well that hardly sounds hard enough! Sure, it doesn't sound so hard but take in account that over 500 million of us use a Windows OS at least once, everyday of the week and you too will see that going cold turkey from XP to KDE might be harder or more limiting than first thought."
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Member since:2005-07-27
Member since:2005-07-06
Plus, there is the fact that Linux games generally run slower than on Windows with less graphical goodies... (see Doom 3... and Cedega can never be as fast as the real deal I don't think... and its slow to add new games)
Have you tried the native Doom3 port? (http://zerowing.idsoftware.com/linux/doom/)
I once tested it on an old Athlon XP 1900 machine (running Windows XP and FC3) and the Linux port was between 1fps faster to 2fps slower then the Windows port.
Being OpenGL, the visual effects were the same. (At least to my eyes.)
Needless to say, Doom3/Linux runs just fine at 1600x1200x4FSAA on my FC4/x86-64'ed dual Opteron workstation 
Gilboa
Member since:2005-07-27
Linux Doom 3 performance is generally good on Linux, but there is still a discrepancy
See:
http://www.anandtech.com/linux/showdoc.aspx?i=2241&p=1
And if I was a Linux only gamer I am sure I wouldn't be complaining as the performance isn't too bad. But when it comes to WINE I have read many things that the image quality is not as good as native, and missing stuff entirely in some instances (like movies in Blizzard games... something I could never sacrifice from the Single Player campaigns!)
Plus again... Cedega is $15 + $5 a month, Win XP Pro cost me $10 for a fully legit version and does all the games with no hiccups at all... so as much as I would like to switch over to Linux (because I could easily do that for about everything but games... especially with my PowerBook around to handle my iPod and that type of stuff) its just not realistic for me yet... I wish Cedega would just help regular Wine out instead of charging a subscription fee... or hell maybe a one time payment but what they ask for is too much for hit and miss gaming.
Member since:
2005-07-27
Outlines many things I agree with.
Dual booting sucks too, its no fun having to quit everything you are doing rebooting playing, then rebooting again... only to want to play a diff game maybe on a whim then rebooting again! Its madness!
On one hand, I would love to ditch Windows... after getting a new PowerBook there are so many "isms" about the Windows desktop experience I just abhor and see the same problems in Vista... OSX Aqua just kicks ass, and I love the customizability of both KDE and GNOME and XFCE Ect... When I build my new Athlon 64 X2 box I am going to try going Linux only... hopefully I can make it.
The problem is... games!
I am also a PC gamer. While there are a handful of games with native Linux binaries now, its hard to ignore the likes of HL2, Rome: Total War, Pirates!, Thief: Deadly Shadows, Deus Ex, Blizzard titles. I just can't do it. And don't tell me "go buy a console" because I have an Xbox and Cube and while they are great they can't match top end PC titles IMO... at least they aren't as satisfying for me. Not being able to play those games really hurts, and Cedega isn't a great solution. Having to pay for just the initial 3 months will cost more than my copy of XP Pro from school ($10 from Carnegie Mellon University - fully legal... same price for Office 2003 and Office 2004 Mac)
So it would cost me MORE to have a handicapped gaming experience on Linux
Plus, there is the fact that Linux games generally run slower than on Windows with less graphical goodies... (see Doom 3... and Cedega can never be as fast as the real deal I don't think... and its slow to add new games)
I wish that devs wouldn't be so dependent on DirectX but what can you do its a great tool