Can You Use Linux For A Gaming PC?

Question

Can you use any one of the 7 Linux OS's for a gaming pc? I know most games use windows as their main software, but whats an emulator? WINE? i heard this makes it possible?

Answer 1

Hi

"one of the 7 Linux OS's"



eer last count 450 linux distros.



"but whats an emulator? WINE"

go to

http://www.winehq.org/

and search the AppDB.



There are distros that speclise in gaming just search in google for gameing distros.

Answer 2

WINE means Wine is not an Emulator. Linux continues to work on LiveStreaming which is use by almost all online games. It's a work in progress. You install the newest release of wine and then you also install Playon to increase the gaming experiences. There are more commercial games that can play on Linux, than what people actually know about. The list continues to grow. Live streaming server is an important file for gaming online. Reaching the same experience you would on a Wndows computer is a work in progress.

Answer 3

Using Linux is living life on the each. Most times, Linux won't install the games because the games only work on the Windows OS (and Mac I suppose). Linux does have a marketplace with free software's and games, nothing like Battlefield 3 though.



Using WINE is like a bomb ready to explode too. The reason I say this is because I used Ubuntu with WINE to install a software. Lets say this, Ubuntu had to be recovered (or reinstalled).



Best bet is to just get Windows, maybe Windows 8 for £50.

Answer 4

You shouldn't use Linux for a gaming PC. If you need to then dual boot Linux/Windows on the same machine.Steam just started supporting Linux and there really aren't many good modern games that run on Linux. Many of the older games can run using Wine but nearly all of them have some performance cost associated with running through Wine or a windows VM.

I love Linux, but for gaming I'd definitely recommend dual booting Windows.

Answer 5

Your normal PC games you buy in the store won't play on linux as these are built for windows. There are some games for linux, but currently most of the commercial releases are for windows, and there are a couple for Mac. Most games you buy will inform you of the requirements for the game somewhere on the box, and will tell you they require some version of windows, if they are windows games.



Having reviewed some of the answers. Wine will emulate many windows based applications, and works pretty well, although it's not perfect, and a lot of major apps have issues running on wine. VMWare and others provide virtual windows environments which can run windows software pretty much perfectly, although the support for the systems hardware can be limited.



So to put it simply you could run linux, and still have support for some windows applications, but you are going to be able to run your windows applications perfectly without any issues, there will especially be many issues with games, since you will require emulation to run them, so they will likely have issues and run pretty slowly, since they are already resource hungry applications.

Answer 6

ok since no one here actually knows what they are talking about....





gnu/linux is not quite there yet for a viable gaming platform (hopefully in like 10-20 years or so it may be).



This is the truth.



steam on linux? yes its a very nice surprise, but it ONLY has valve games and indie games. which it doesnt even have all the valve or indie games.



WINE? lol nooooooooooooooo. not even close. like really NOT EVEN CLOSE.

if you want to play games from like 2007 and earlier? ok yes there are some.

if you want to play ANY semi recent games? NOPE

and wine is also very buggy, most games are NOT fully playable. like WoW got like a "platinum" (highest compatibility rating) but MAJOR functions, such as partying with other players, doesnt work, it causes the game to crash... how do you play w/o partying? -.-

and many other things dont work. ya they are constantly updating, but there arnt few many games that have 100% of the game functions working. and it takes years upon years to get a game playable, so you will be playing 2013 games in 2016-2020 lol





so no, linux is definitely NOT a gaming platform. it has a few games, and wine can play a few games, but thats as far as it goes.



If you want to use console emulators (like nes, snes, etc) then you can definitely do that, as every console has a linux port, even ps2, gamecube/wii, DS.





i do really like gnu/linux, and i wish it was able to play all commercial games and had support for commercial software (like photoshop, etc). And i do believe that some day they will get that, and take over the world.

BUT right now, its not a viable option for any commercial software or games.



there are too many linux fanboys who just make up complete lies about what it can and cant do.

Answer 7

Of course but you will never have the old school easy to use gaming feeling as you would with windows 7/8 or even mac just about any OS is better than linux for gaming, hope you do make your mind up soon :P

Answer 8

Wine and Steam will play 90% of your games but Windows is still preferred. Wine and Steam are available on ANY Linux OS not just the seven you mentioned. You can use a virtual machine to play windows games -- but it's slow.

Answer 9

If you don't know what an emulator is you will not be able to run linux, it takes a lot of knowledge to install it let alone run it. stick to PC dude.

Answer 10

Take a look at what other users have said works with wine and what does not work.