Linux FTW: Karmic Win pt. 7, Wine, DirectX, and Games
November 15, 2009 3:10 pmIn the last post, we discussed using Gnome Do to do awesome things such as maintaining Twitter easily.
One of the key factors in finally making the switch over to Linux completely was when I learned that Windows Emulation had progressed far enough that I’d be able to play modern games on it successfully. I hate to seem so shallow that video games would make or break the decision, but I just know that if I can’t do pretty much EVERYTHING I like to do while on Linux, the likelihood of its endurance is far less.
In any case — with a few simple steps, a few downloaded files, and some patience, you can easily setup DirectX 9 in WinE and play many modern games including Civilization IV, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Counterstrike: Source, and many others. NVidia cards tend to have much better success than ATI, but there area workarounds for ATI users.
Wine’s official website maintains a very comprehensive database of applications that have been tested under Wine. The list is intimidatingly long, and contains both popular and esoteric gmes; old and new. The “Platinum Top 10″ (top 10 most popular games, raked by popularity, that work perfectly in Wine without any modification) are:
- Guild Wars
- Photoshop CS2 (CS3 and CS4 have not bee fully emulated yet)
- Supreme Commander
- Watchtower Library 2008 (yes, as in the Jehova’s Witnesses… strange that it’s a top 10 app)
- Half-life 2 Retail
- Silkroad Online
- Spore
- Day of Defeat: Source (via Steam)
- Star Wars: Jedi Knight – Jedi Academy
- Call of Duty 2
see more games/apps from the Platinum list
The Gold list, games that require a few tweaks but work perfectly once fixed. The tweaks are almost always in the AppDB profile, but if not, it’s just a google search away. 
The Top 10 list has some high profile games, and so it’s worth mentioning:
- Final Fantasy XI
- Warhammer Online Live
- World of Warcraft (The profile explains that the only reason “Platinum” wasn’t chosen is because the Installation wasn’t tested — they likely just copied it over from a Windows computer; full installation instructions are available on the Wine Profile though.)
- EVE Online
- StarCraft Brood War
- Steam (the distribution platform for games from the “Valve” distributor — there may be some issues with “purchasing” games on Steam, but any games that you have already purchased on your account should be downloadable just fine)
- Team Fortress 2 (Steam)
- Aion: The Tower of Eternity
- Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
- Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne (Battle.net play was not officially tested, but may work)
Not every game works just yet, but the list is growing. See the Wine ApplicationDB for info about whether or not your favorite apps will work, and how well they work.
Pretty much every modern game (made for windows) requires DirectX, but fortunately setting up DirectX is pretty easy and can be done in less than 30 minutes (assuming a broadband Internet connection). Below is all the files, and instructions, to getting set up with DirectX in Wine.
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