Conclusion

Final Thoughts

 

I have been very happy with my new system in the near 3 weeks I have owned it, as in these 3 weeks I have really given it a beating running benchmark after benchmark for this review – even taking it in the trailer and going camping at one point :).

I will probably be getting a new PSU, one with higher amp rating on the 12v rails (mine has 4x12v @ 19A), probably an 800W+ just to see if that helps me take my Radeon a little higher. The Radeon Toxic edition is clocked at 960mhz/1050mhz, but also takes 1 6-pin and 1 8-pin, so if I can get mine to run fully stable on all benchmarks at 950mhz I would be happy.

I think it’s clear from the last set of graphs that those people that say Linux can’t game are completely full of crap. Linux absolutely has the capability for companies to release very good games that run under linux with very good framerates. The native Linux games like Doom 3 and UT2004 obviously ran best, but using the wine variants gives people a *chance* to play their favorite winblows game under Linux without using a virtual machine or emulation (since “Wine Is Not an Emulator”). However, wine/cedega/cxgames results can vary from running perfectly smoothly (WoW) to running decently with minimal effort (Left 4 Dead), to running but with a massive amount of head pounding and throwing the monitor through the window (Fallout 3), to not running at all properly (Crysis).

Some people will say using software like wine/cedega/cxgames is cheating and will only keep the gaming companies ignoring Linux – since we’ll run it some other way. I do agree on the fundamental point they are making however I also live in the real world. Fact is, we want to game now, not when the companies wake up and make universal games. Also, it is extremely difficult for gaming companies to reach the Linux community and make a profit. The cost to benefit of this, as far as I know, has been extremely low on all companies that have tried it.

For example, EVE Online tried pre-packing a cedega build that they would officially support and offered it as a Linux package for download on their site. This, I think, was a very awesome move and they deserve commendation for trying it (even if it wasn’t “native”). However, after some time of offering it they eventually pulled it with a letter to the community that they simply weren’t getting the return from the Linux clients that they were for the Mac and Windows groups. However, last I read, they do make sure that when they release patches and updates, it will not break Wine/Cedega variants, which again is fine by me.

Another game worth noting is that Unreal Tournament 3 (UT2004 had a linux binary on the dvd at release) stated that it would ship with the Linux binary. Then just before the launch they said it would come shortly after. Then they launched the game and the Linux community waited patiently. And waited. And waited. And … yup.. still waiting. The game has been out since November of 2007 and near 2 years later still no linux client, but they do keep saying “It’s still being worked on.” Prime example that gaming companies simply don’t have the motivation required to keep (or even really get) Linux gaming to the high-end levels.

If we could get Wine or Cedega to the point that they could run any windows based program, or at least the gaming companies to take care to not break wine/cedega compatibility on updates, then that would be a perfectly fine solution as well (to me). We do need to get Wine/Cedega to be a little more streamlined so that framerates are a little better (in some games, there are benchmarks in others where wine surpasses windows), and gaming companies to be careful when updating their clients that they don’t break their Linux fanbase. A few years ago WoW learned that lesson the hard way and Linux users went ape-shit on Blizzard, ever since I don’t think there’s been any real problems directly related to WoW.

As it is, for the mass market, Linux gaming probably isn’t there yet simply due to lack of titles. This is not a fault of Linux, just of Linux adoption across the country. If you are a computer novice that just likes to game, unless your games have a native linux binary or are certified to work on wine, cedega or cxgames – then unfortunately I don’t see you removing your winblows partition completely to make way for Linux. I am very saddened by this, but it’s the most likely outcome.

On the other hand, for those of us that like to do real work on our computers without the interference of the operating system trying to force itself onto you at every turn ;), it is nice to know that buying higher end parts for our system isn’t a complete waste. On top of our productivity with Linux, we do have at least some really good games that will play on our operating system. The big three being Left 4 Dead, UT2004 and Doom 3. I hear people have gotten F.E.A.R. to run as well, which is awesome. I won’t include Fallout 3 on that list until getting it to install and run is a little more streamlined, and it still completely baffles me that the appdb rates this game as gold simply because once you DO get it running, it runs great. Oh, except for the random lockups, hanging, and the 4 hours it took you to get it running. Game itself is kinda cool though.. maybe thats how it works – they rate the game and not how well wine actually plays it :D.

The Wine appdb rating system is a bit weak in my opinion, if you have to download and compile wine from sources and apply a patch simply to get one game to run – that deserves a bronze at best. Talk about modifying all your shortcuts just to run two different versions of wine to run different games… PAIN.

But, as much as I harp on how difficult it was to get Fallout 3 to run on my system; that was 1 game out of 8 benchmarks, and the others more or less “just worked”, which is a pretty good outcome actually in my opinion. Left 4 Dead did require some tweaking, and some registry keys to get it to play fluidly on all max settings, but nothing I did was difficult (or help the Multicore Rendering option, unfortunately).

So, there you have it – a full review of a system running the Radeon HD 4890 Vapor-X GFX card on Linux 2.6.31 with the latest Catalyst drivers: And it rocks! Thanks for taking your time to read through my long-winded review of my new system. Hopefully the different sections will provide at least some people information to help them out.

See you next time!

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