My First Week of Linux Gaming
My First Week of Linux Gaming has been a breath of fresh air. I have formatted my Windows 10 machine, sold my Xbox One for £200, cancelled my Xbox Live membership and cancelled my preorder of The Division. I am now feeling ~£300 better off.
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I got 99 problems and my name is One[/caption]
Installing Ubuntu
My PC isn’t the most powerful, but I expected more than I was getting from it as a Windows 10 machine. I have a dual core 2.7Ghz processor, with 8GB of ram and 2GB graphics card. I simply downloaded Ubuntu onto a USB stick, booted my computer from the USB stick and followed the instructions that came up on screen. Simples, install complete.
My graphics card (Asus ATI Radeon HD 6670 2GB PCI-Express HDMI) didn’t seem to install perfectly. The max resolution I could run was 800 x 600. A simple internet search found me a simple solution, I basically done a driver update and set the resolution via the terminal. Job done.
Let’s Play
My first step towards gaming on ubuntu was of course to install Steam. I have a back catalog of 74 games, built up over 11 years of gaming. A lowly 22 of those games are compatible with linux. My first install was an old friend, Civilization 5. I have played close to 400 hours of Civ 5 across Windows and OSX so this would be the best way to compare performance. It runs and looks great. I am in gaming heaven.
Next step was for something ‘new’, I bought XCOM years back but never actually got round to playing (this seems to happen a lot in my Steam library, including Portal 2 and Back to the Future: The Game). Again, runs and looks great. I am in gaming nirvana.
For step 3 I thought I would really push the boat out. Install Guild Wars 2 using Wine. This wasn’t quite as successful. The install seemed to work but whenever I fire the game up it seems to install the whole machine on the loading screen. More investigation needed.
Summary
In summary, my first week of Linux Gaming has been quite successful. I played 2 great games at a better quality then I would of when I was using Windows 10. The frustration of trying to install Guild Wars 2 has left me a little uncertain but hopefully I can get that fixed in the coming week.
Tonight I play Firewatch :-)
Next Week
Next week I will look into replacing the console void in my living room (Netflix and party gaming), PlayonLinux and Fedora.
