Linux Gaming: Native vs. Wine vs. Windows 7 Performance

[curaga]

It isn't FUD, it's fact. You have a bunch of distro's that all require their own unique tweaks and tricks to do what should be a simple task. Even something as simple as how to install an application requires different steps for different disto's. You also have multiple projects that are overlapping or trying to replace each others efforts to find a solution to an issue. This does fragment the knowledge of how to get something done and it also fragments the talent pool of developers.



The kind of specialty apps that I'm referring to isn't really considered all that much a specialty anymore in windows. Media creation applications , financial software CADs (even simple cads like home and yard design CADs) are examples of higher use apps but then there are also simple little applications such as crap like lottery analysis applications, lightscribe apps, educations apps.



How many v4l commands you want? How many x-server examples do you want? There are quite literally hundreds of tasks that do not have a gui in linux but those same tasks are easily handled in other OS's from the comfort of a desktop.



Yes windows does have DLL hell but MS is also very diligent with their compatibility packs as are the independent 3rd party software vendors. Personally, I maybe come across a missing DLL issue once maybe every year. In linux land you come across too many projects where the projects only test against their distro of preference and if you deviate from that they are of little help to the person having the issue. I'll just use XBMC for example. Unless you are using Ubuntu the official reply is "Does it work on Ubuntu 32-bit?" Hell for the longest time if you tried to compile it even for 64-bit you would get "What do you need 64-bit for, install 32-bit?"

Many of these boil down to "they're volunteers, and doing what they like".

[deanjo]

Many of these boil down to "they're volunteers, and doing what they like".

Oh I know that, there is no disagreement there. It is a case of "they're volunteers, and doing what they like" instead of "a company paying a developer to fill the end users needs or wants or developing for market to increase revenue".

[yogi_berra]

There's a trivial solution to fragmentation: use Ubuntu.

Good luck.

Would you say that if they Canonical adopted Red Hat's business model of charging for security updates?

[danboid]

Hard to draw a conclusion??

If those benchmarks are correct, and I'm not doubting they are, I'd say the conclusion is simple - wine really does kick ass these days!

I was very disappointed that, despite there being very little difference in the performance between running these games under wine versus native w7 (albeit only OGL games being tested) Mike was celebrating this as a massive win for wine and FOSS (gaming) so I'll do it for him here:

Congrats wine devs - keep up the amazing work!

Although its not directly comparable- these benchmarks do bode well for the performance of VSTs under wine/Ardour 3 which is what I've been testing recently. A lot of these VSTs I've never used under real Windows but after seeing these results I doubt performance would be much better under real Windows even if compatibility would be better.

A3 is going to go a significant way to ending one of the most frequent complaints we've all heard against Linux over the years - that there's no good music software. Such a shame Lightworks for Linux turned out to be vapour as that would've been another key missing element resolved!

As for anyone there who wants to use Linux without using the command line (when you grow up you'll understand why the cli is the best option in many cases) I point you towards opensuse and YAST2- there really isn't anything you would need to change on your system you can't do from yast. Then when you've grown up you can drop all the pointless clicking and install Debian!

I must also point out to such people that non-casual use of Windows is every bit as hairy if not more so than Linux as you have to start messing with the registry, the maze that is Active Directory etc. Linux is MUCH easier to use these days than it was 5/10 years ago and learning to use the terminal pays off endlessly.