Should we be using Linux as our main OS for gaming RIGHT NOW?

It is a good idea as people who are typically into gaming will build their own machine and will have to buy Windows to play video games which of course leads to pirating. A free OS for gaming would be great, but it is the implimentation that is in question. How well will it work compaired to Windows? Is it really viable? If it works anywhere close to as well as it does on Windows, then it should blow up, and Linux can potentially see more effiecient hardware use in-game. IT should be great, but we will see.

Its all about the drivers. And at this point, I dont like say it but Windows has the big advantage. Think guys. Why are the best drivers at Windows? Its because the money. nVIDIA and co. having game deals. Why they shoud bring the games to a platform barely someone is owning? Why waste money in programing for a platform which isnt profitable yet?

And imo linux mint mate [gnome2]  is my distribution of choice. And Mint isnt Ubuntu. Its debian architecture. Ubuntu promts are way different to mints ones. Why learning a new script when you can speak debian?

I just recently switched over to the newest version of Linux Mint Debian Edition. Excellent distro, I do not think I will switch to another distro anytime soon :)

 

Are you from the macrumors forum?

The great thing about linux is there is many flavors. Take it this way do you want microsoft AND comcast in your living room running your life? Charging you a fortune for a service and platform. Thats what is going to happen with the next xbox.

Sony, Apple, Nintendo, Android, and of course Linux all do not use DirectX for making games.

Microsoft is Directx.

One of these things is not like the other...

no dawg you should be running windows 95 

You sir have just made my day. I laughed so hard.

If you like playing TF2 on Steam, then go for it. As others have pointed out, consider that there might not be a good display/video driver for your card in Linux. Nvidia has a new Linux driver that's being hyped. I'm sure other issues lurk as well.

That said, I think it's a good idea to support Steam with Linux, even if it's not your main gamimg rig. The more we support it, the more they will deliver. I would much rather play my games on Linux Mint over Win8. Thing is, none of the games I play now are on Steam for Linux.

When I have CS:S (tick) ARMA 2 and ARMA 3 in the future, I'll gladly migrate to linux permanently.

I'm gonna go with "No" on this one, because graphics drivers and other necessities are still troublesome on the Linux platform as opposed on the Windows platform.

It would be brilliant to switch to a Linux gaming rig, but for now all of the gamers will stick to Windows.

If everything was there, all my rigs would run linux, but it's not. If all you play in terms of games is tf2, it's great. i'm building a rig soon for my brother, all he plays is tf2 so we decided to save some money and go linux

No I don't think so.. first drivers are not as updated on linux as on windows, many times drivers are not even made by the company itself, second the modular design of Linux puts a big overhead just to get to your video card/sound device and almost every other piece of hardware, also you have more than one standard for audio among other things, and there is not best standard because it depends on the software, you may find one that works wonderfully for audio mixing but then something so simple as browser audio becomes laggy as hell.

Could virtualbox even run games that well? I would imagine it being severely slowed.

No it cant in vbox becase the max video ram you can give the gest os is 125Mbs

But if you have vmware running a virtual machine its is possible

Me personally I've already gone over in linux. I have 1 windows machine and even that dual boots. 

The thing that urks me the most is the amount of money involved with graphics API. Its like going to the NFL draft. Thats the kind of all star money we are talking about keeping the money in the hands of big companies and directx (EA, Activision, Blizzard). Its almost as dangerous as moving into mofia territory as it was to say open sourse or die in the company of big business.

Thats the line we need to say from the highest towers and the lowest depths. Open Source or die.

Microsoft is all alone with directx. They have entirely too much market share. They need to be chopped down to size. Or go open source. We also need to get rid of software patents but thats a whole other ball of max no one wants to tackle.

Ubuntu works fine for me. Just had to uninstall everything, install XFCE then install what I wanted. Sound works perfect in Killing Floor and the new game mode where all the enemies teleport to me and I don't have an attack animation about 30% of the time really spices up the gameplay. I'd have to say it still needs some work before it's viable for the average user to switch.

not gentoo?