right, that can be very useful indeed. (though it requires that the game runs decently under WINE :) )

and there is also stuff like dxwnd for windows which gives you the same option.

In addition to the other reasons people have posted, I'd like to add that using Linux will help improve Linux support & bring more games to Linux, as more users = more reason to support it. Linux has been in a bit of a catch-22 situation so far: users have avoided Linux due to lack of games while developers have avoided Linux due to lack of users.

Valve has helped a lot with this by releasing Steam for Linux, bringing their games to Linux and getting other developers to do the same. More Linux gamers will mean more & better Linux ports, and more Linux development/improvements in general.

With the increase in availability of Linux ports and Wine compatibility, I do almost all of my gaming on Linux now & rarely need to reboot into Windows - I'm actually considering going Linux-only when I build my next PC sometime next year. This really depends - on the game, GPU, open-source vs proprietary graphics drivers & how recent those graphics drivers are.

Just as with any other port, the general performance varies depending on how it was ported, how well it was ported/how much time and effort was put into optimisation etc. Some games perform about as well as they do on Windows, some perform better and some perform worse.

Nvidia graphics cards offer the best performance by far on Linux, but only as long as you use the proprietary drivers. In my experience Nvidia's proprietary drivers are about on par with their Windows drivers, however the open source 'Nouveau' drivers are severely lacking in features, performance and compatibility.

AMD's graphics cards suffer from poorer drivers irrespective of whether you use their proprietary drivers or the open source drivers (I have heard that the open source AMD drivers are better though), however they have started to put some effort into improving them recently so hopefully things will get much better soon.

Apparently they are not on par.

As I said, a lot of it comes down to the quality of the ports themselves (and I guess SteamOS possibly has issues - I have no personal experience with SteamOS myself). I've played quite a lot of games on Linux in the ~3 years I've been using it and performance has varied, with some games performing better, others worse, many about the same.

It's to be expected really, when games are written and optimised solely with Windows in mind and then ported to Linux as an afterthought. Especially if they're using a wrapper to convert DirectX to OpenGL & reduce the effort needed rather than rewriting the renderer to use OpenGL instead.

(That said, Arma 3's performance is looking *very* impressive for a port using a wrapper)

Its not that hard to get amd catalyst drivers installed :) Believe me I know since im running a r9 270x on Linux. Granted the drivers aren't the best but every linux supported game works without a hitch. There is always Linux recovery mode to reinstall open source drivers if the proprietary drivers don't work.

Just to make it clear: this assertion is based on my personnal experience, I’ve done no real study about this.
Plus it’s based on a comparison between Windows XP and the Debian Sid of the same era, as I didn’t try any newer version of Windows. Things might have changed since then and maybe Microsoft got better with resources management.

Anyway, I’ll edit my post to give these precisions. (EDIT: Done!)

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I fully agree, and buy only AMD GPU for the exact same reasons!
Hey, my laptop even runs libreboot & linux-libre (on a Debian Jessie), this should show you how much I feel concerned by software licenses ;)

So is FreeBSD. But it is not a problem for Sony to use it as the heart of Playstation 4. ;)

I was once on some sort of doctors appointment, he prescribed some xanor and changing to linux.. I don't have either anymore.. I did like xanor tough.. I wish I would have tried linux also. =)

As I said, "That is illogical and no reason for being better off with Windows. Windows was also never made with gaming in mind."

I've just realized, though, that this is actually an (illogical) argument in favour of Linux. :)
You see, there is afaik no Microsoft home computer OS that was made with gaming in mind. SteamOS, on the other hand, is a Linux OS made with gaming in mind. (There are other GNU/Linux OSes made with gaming in mind as well.)

What can I say... Your impression is simply incorrect.

Yes, "Using a less demanding OS [can mean that] more resources will be free for the game usage" and Linux OSes are more lightweight.
However, that doesn't currently help you because the vast majority of games available on Linux run a lot worse than on Windows due to bad porting and bugs in Wine.

Nevertheless, everyone who is even slightly interested in DRM-free, open source and non-proprietary software should make sure that their game purchases get counted as a Linux purchase whenever at all possible. (buy games using a GNU/Linux installation and download the Linux installer first)
Development for Windows doesn't need more funding but development for Linux does, so do the world a favour and don't be counted as a Windows user.

I admit my experiences with Catalyst are rather old and might be outdated by now. But there is still the problem of laziness & convenience winning out against time & effort :)
And since I boot up windows from time to time anyway to test some code, I don't really have the motivation to completely ban MS software from my PC :p

VVVVVVV is proprietary, not present in package repository. You probably need to install few libraries and remove some static outdated ones from VVVVVV folder.

For example, to play SPAZ I had to append *.bak to libasound.so.* - to make sound work, and libstdc++.so.* - to make GPU being correctly detected. Thats where the game is actually installed.
If it were properly packaged for my distro, I wouldn't need that. This is about the same like starting older windows game or newer windows game on older windows. Some libraries do not match.

OneDrive is basically FTP. I don't understand the "cloud" hype, but you absolutely need to switch you whole life right now or. OR! ... Well. Linux users are not as good at marketing, must ask the Apple guy over there how it was called. Aha, enlightment! You absolutely need it right now. He says.

I think you mean marketing, a lot of it. Initially they sold (actually, gave it for free) at loss for many years, then once everyone was hooked, it was time to harvest. Make people use it, depend on it, maintain control over it. Thats like, say, Samsung Galaxy phones. The Platform.The Way, The appstore.

For this reason, I consider Linux to be Personal Computing. Windows - not, its a product. Android is also a product, unlike Cyanogenmod - thats a Personal Handheld. Thats a very interesting system, where a person can change anything or modify to his needs. I think, thats the right type of self-positioning. When corporation allows this, when it allows everything to be changed, modded, adapted - if it can manage that, thats excellent.

Final Fantasy
Of couse it can suffer, especially proprietary applications that publisher does not care to update at all. Sounds pretty similar to Windows. By that I mean native applications, like native windows games on windows. Someone changes something and then some application breaks. Usually, people do a bugreport and application is fixed. Unless abadoned and nobody cares - thats type of applications one should always avoid.

is [url=https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1320070]"awesome".
Here you see people, basically downloading the source code for kernel module (driver), compiling it and installing. Aren't buggy or late-fixed drivers "awesome"! One is supposed to have it present in the system from start up. Someone will start yelling at me, I should've used the mac instead - it has only limited hardware base, hence no such problems, but I don't like overpriced old stuff. I don't think many do.

Well, Atheros- and Intel-based wifi always worked for me.

No and no. This is not how it works.
First, Windows executes everything. Linux does not, binary file or script needs "executable" attribute to be set - thats normally automatically set within a package. The hidden extension trick is still misused in email letters, on hacked websites, on hacked software vendor websites, on social sites.
Second. The package is stored in central secure place, not on million of different sites. Windows binary signing is actually a good idea.. but security corps would probably sue for this.
Third. The software code is open, so bugs happen, exploits happen, but at least - they are fixable and easier to find.
Fourth. The system is easily automatically updated, bad stuff is fixed few hours to few days once it becomes known. Only recently appeared on Windows, and with a special twist of "people are gonna install everything anyway", where on Linux you know exactly what is installed and that thing can be removed or blocked - no obligations.
Linux has 60-80% marketshare on web space, and if its not installed according to security practices, its hacked, rooted, shell-dropped. Google has already done Windows-like things with Android, the outcome is known.
You still can recieve a specially crafted HTML page link and have your linux system raped.
I would use an AV or IDS, its in intent of malware writer to be unnoticed.

Lets say Linux is awesome for gaming and is going to work. You mean manual, not book - Windows has largest collection of manuals installed - just F1. Do you need it? Thats what I mean. When it fails, its usually already reported.

It is useful, I can play, pause, work then get back. For example, Jagged Alliance 2 1.13.

Oddly, the famous alt-tab issue in Linux, is because most applications initialize window in full screen. Full screen means - window is in exclusive mode and window manager can't manage that window. If window is not in full screen, then alt-tab works everywhere. Windows has far less problematic Alt-Tab because it simply ignored the "exclusiveness".

I wonder how should I call this? "Awesome, nice" or "but thats an ugly hack and windows is still not capable".
Looks like it just hooks the binary and overrides the window flag. This is not always going to work as stated in the comments here.

I play Painkiller on HD5850 in full hd using open radeon driver here...

There is. Windows 7. Probably 8/10 too, but I am not into that kind of stuff.

SteamOS? Well, maybe it is good that such OSs exist, they will keep MS in shape, because MS is losing its shape recently. But as of current time SteamOS has less than zero to do with gaming. It has to do with rent of software, which is entirely different thing. To put it in plain words, SteamOS is platform in support of DRM. While SteamOS's purpose seems benign at first, we speak about company which sells licenses, some of which are bundled with multiple layers of DRM.

So, thanks, but for now Windows is 10000000000 times superior alternative.

Edit: also 3dnews local magazine shows interesting data that games in SteamOS run 21-58% slower than in Windows. Which basically means that SteamOS is not viable for gaming altogether.

when I put my machine together. I left partitions on my drives for a boot and data partition for linux. said I'm gonna install linux on my home system as soon as I start using it this time. with SteamOS coming, I'm gonna switch to Linux.

been months and those data partitions are still there, still empty.