Windows Gaming in Linux

For a lot of of Linux devotees, gaming has always been the reason for keeping an extra Windows machine, so it’s pretty interesting to see this barrier crumbling. Hackszine reader Michael Becker writes:

I’d love for you guys to talk some about using Linux as an alternative to Vista. Personally I’ll be using Linux with Beryl to get all those nice graphical goodies OS X and Vista user have and I’ll have DirectX 9c support using
Cedega.

I know several people running this setup. I can’t find any game I’d be
interested in playing that won’t run under Cedega and it will run
faster to boot.

I haven’t used Cedega, but it appears to be a closed-source fork of the WINE project with a more developed DirectX layer. So, like WINE, your games aren’t being emulated, but are running natively on the Cedega libraries. This means that DirectX 9 games will play as fast under Linux as they do in Windows. It’s peculiar, but according to some benchmarks, they actually appear to run faster than under Vista!

It’s a subscription based service ($5/mo), but they are supporting a huge list of games that have been tested to play on the platform. Seems interesting, and worth checking out if you can’t get your favorite game running under WINE.

And do try WINE first–it’s no slouch. There are a lot of great games like Half Life and Counter Strike that will play nicely. I’ve included a link below for installation instructions, so give it a shot if you haven’t already.

Are you a Linux gamer? Are we finally reaching the point where gaming is as good or better under Linux as it is in Windows? Tell us your experiences in the comments.

More reading:

• Beryl – give Linux desktop effects like OS X Expose and Vista
• WINE Gaming: Steam, Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Counter Strike Source and 1.6
• Transgaming’s Cedega – commercial WINE fork with improved DirectX support
• Linux Has Game – Linux gaming overview at bit-tech.
• Cedega 6.0 Performance Preview (benchmarks against Vista, XP)