Let me cut you off at the pass: I know someone, somewhere has gotten the games I’ve listed to work.

Both games are great, by the way, if you have the time to tinker enough to get them to work. But that’s just it – it works every time on XP but I struggle to get it to work consistently on Linux. I did manage to get FlightGear working – once, about a year ago – and that was great. I can play some popular FPS games in Linux (Quake III, UT, America’s Army) but where are the other games? Battlefield series? Call of Duty? Warcraft III? Far Cry? SimCity 4? Okay, it’s a glorified X-Box, but who cares – games install and they work.

My modern, fast system at home is running Windows XP, people, and gaming is the reason. Sorry, but Frozen Bubble and Tux Racer will never see my crisp greens. Yes, I *WILL* pay for games on Linux, so long as they are games I want to play. Linux gaming sites abound, such as linuX, Linux Games, and TuxGames, but don’t really offer anything substantial, just some howtos on getting your drivers installed and getting WINE to work. Ryan worked at the now defunct Loki Games and did some stuff with a bunch of Linux games. Gordon (aka Icculus) has even written an article about making your code portable, which includes “black box” modules (abstractions) so it does not matter if you have DirectX or OpenGL: either would work.

The team over at have done a fine job porting games, and Ryan C.

Portable code that uses open standards ( OpenGL) is nice, but OpenGL lags pretty significantly behind DirectX, so I have a hard time blaming developers there. WINE is a good idea but really a bridge technology, and many a techie will point out that what Linux REALLY needs is native gaming, and WINE will allow many developers to be lazy (read: Maxis/EAGames). WINE? If you have enough hair left to pull out, WINE is a good choice. NeverWinter Nights? If you can get it to work.

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