Gaming on Linux: I’ll Stick With Wine, Please

In the rush to have the latest and most loudly trumpted computer games run on Linux there is a whole slew of games that really should be ported to Linux, the type of games sold by the likes of PopCap and Grubby (most of their games are already Linux possible - That is they should run well but it usually depends on the distribution), and others. These are the games played by non "Gamers", the ordinary people, who like to play scrabble (TM) or Bookworm and other puzzle Games. Who have no interest in World of Warcraft or Quake or whatever the latest blockbuster, chew up all your system resources, FPS is.

Agreed, TA. My all-time favorite games were Myst and Riven, which didn't need any fancy graphics cards or drivers. I should dig them out and see how they look on a modern widescreen LCD. If I can even get them to play.

TC, then you ought to look at Myst IV: Revelation... at the time of release it was actually quite heavy on required hardware of the time. This was largely due to the fact that it uses fully animated 3D panoramas. Rather freakin' gorgeous, I might add. (and yes, both Myst and Riven still work)

But TA, yes, you are correct. So-called "casual" gaming makes up a massive chunk of the market. And as for system requirements... I have managed to get several "gamers" hooked on Battle for Wesnoth, which is fairly light on requirements. Yes, I am a drug pusher.

*sits in corner shuddering*

Gimme my Wesnoth man! I need my fix!

You know what Wesnoth reminds me of? Playing Ultima way back on an Apple ][ , Wesnoth just proves that those folks got it right 2+ decades ago.

Me, I am a gamer, ~10 hours a week, the games I play though require horsepower. The epithet (and it can and is used that way) gamer is based on hardware needs. If you design your systems with games in mind, paying attention to mobo/memory/chipset/video card/io bottle necks and doing your best to minimize and balance those for performance and cooling, your a gamer. Otherwise you have a fairly expensive deck of cards or supercharged DS.

My .02

*note on powersupplies, when all else is even, buy the heavier one*