Playing Windows games on Linux is not really a difficult task. Most gamers are reluctant to migrate to Linux because they have this misconception that Windows games cannot be played on Linux. How wrong they are. If you are one of those avid gamers that I mentioned above, here are 4 ways that you can play Windows games on Linux.
1) Wine
The obvious way to install any Windows applications on Linux is via Wine. At the time when WineHQ released the stable 1.0 version, it has already supported more than 200 Windows games. Before you install any games on Linux, you can first check out Wine AppDB whether your game is already supported in Wine.
2) PlayOnLinux
PlayOnLinux (POL) is a python based script based on Wine code. It is a useful tool that aim to help Linux users run Windows games on Linux without having to go through the scary command line interface. The main features of POL lies in its ability to allow each application to be installed within its own wineprefix. What this means is that one can easily install/modify/remove Windows games without affecting the systems or other applications. POL is open source and has a strong community support on their POL forum. Being a python script, it is not limited to any Linux distribution. Whether you are using Ubuntu, Fedora or Gentoo, you can find installation and usage instructions on the POL site.
CrossOver Games is an addition to the popular CrossOver series. Unlike other CrossOver products, which are aimed primarily at office productivity applications, CrossOver Games focuses on the stability of installing Windows games on Linux (and Mac OSX). As the same as PlayOnLinux, CrossOver Games provides a click and install method that makes it simple for anyone to use. The latest version of CrossOver Games has already tested to work with more than a hundred Windows games, including the popular World of Warcraft, Half-Life2 and Counterstrike.
CrossOver Games costs $39.95
4) Cedega
Formerly known as WineX, Cedega is a proprietary software from Transgaming Technologies specifically designed for running game written for Windows under Linux. Being a proprietary product, users must subscribe to Transgaming membership to enjoy the full functionality of Cedega.
As a fork of Wine, Cedega strength lies in implement the Mircosoft DirectX API on Linux. Installation of games using Cedega is make to mimics the experience that Windows users have. You insert the disc, run setup.exe, wait for the game to finish installing and finally enjoy your game.
Receive the latest update in your inbox.
Dam, four choices, I hadn’t known. Wine has already run pretty good for me for games that are several years old (one reason, I never bothered with cedega). I really like the idea of cross-over office but I haven’t heard of any ports made yet (been a few months since I last took a look). Getting a few big titles through cross-over office and the reputation of linux to radically change.
Sorry so the choice is really: Wine, Wine, Wine and Wine… Cedega is technically a fork but any worthwhile change is adopted upstream anyway.
PlayOnLinux and Crossover Games are too limited in their scope. I had to laugh when you said corssover works with “more than a hundred Windows games”. Considering there are tens of thousands, trying to get away with 100 doesn’t cut it for most people.
The performance on Cedega and Crossover is also slightly dodgy. In most things they actually come in slower than Wine. Not sure why, but I’d imagine it’s something to do with Wine being the bleeding-edge code repo.
If you want to run games on Linux you need two things: Wine and AppDB. Fin.
Sorry so the choice is really: Wine, Wine, Wine and Wine… Cedega is technically a fork but any worthwhile change is adopted upstream anyway.
PlayOnLinux and Crossover Games are too limited in their scope. I had to laugh when you said corssover works with “more than a hundred Windows games”. Considering there are tens of thousands, trying to get away with 100 doesn’t cut it for most people.
The performance on Cedega and Crossover is also slightly dodgy. In most things they actually come in slower than Wine. Not sure why, but I’d imagine it’s something to do with Wine being the bleeding-edge code repo.
If you want to run games on Linux you need two things: Wine and AppDB. Fin.
Games that work natively or in vanilla Wine with no configuration:
http://games.ibeentoubuntu.com/
Now if any one of these could handle Sims2, I’d completely delete my Windows partition. Alas.
Crossover Games is very good, in that it focuses support on the very popular ones. You can vote and donate money to decide which games or applications should be worked on. It also sets up different versions of wine for each games, in seperate ‘bottles’, which means you can get a game that only works on 9.x to work with a game that only works on 1.12 or something like that. I myself play TF2 and GuildWars, steam is getting more attention and will be updated sooner then via Wine to work at 100%, and GW only runs for me perfectly through Cxgames.
Also, if you become an advocate (which is really easy), its free, and you can use the trial to see if your programs run!
@Shanda: sad to say, Sims 2 is too heavy on DirectX and Wine have no support for it now. Heard that Cedega has some association with EA over this, but no news as of yet.
@blarg: Cool! Crossover Games has really put in great effort to make it works.
It’s too bad Diablo II is about six years past its prime.
Baynard,
WoW works, too.
You could always go with adding virtualbox in there.
If I remember correctly, you can boot to your windows partition from virtualbox so you don’t need to leave the linux os.
Because, yeah those are all, wine, wine, wine, and wine again. Just renamed and beefed in certain areas.
Playdeb: http://www.playdeb.net/
As Oli says, there is essentially one choice, and it’s WINE. The other choices are just frontends for WINE. Nevertheless, a useful list.
quote
>>@Shanda: sad to say, Sims 2 is too heavy on DirectX and Wine have no support for it >>now. Heard that Cedega has some association with EA over this, but no news as of yet.
I believe it is the copy protection keeping it from running under wine. While DirectX is not perfect in Wine you are more likly to see issues cause by copy protection. This is why most games need a No-CD/DVD patch to run in wine. There is such a patch for Sims 2 but it is not 100% working, and apparently fails completely under Wine.
on another note. Sims 3 plays perfectly in Wine.
I’m a Linux quasi-newbie, just learning about the magic of WINE. Found this page, which may be helpful to others:
http://www.smokinglinux.com/gaming/play-your-windows-games-with-wine-and-directx
Well the only thing I want to do is play the games I all ready payed for. And never buy another windows game again.
My goal is to figure out how to program and make games my self and help Linux through priority and open source games. If Linux is to be better then other os system, we need to make awesome games, and perfect our application so they do not crash as much. Application make the os not fancy effects.