Arma under Linux

[GBee 0]

Has anyone got Arma or the Demo running under emulation in linux? If so details would be great. Right now I'm struggling to get the demo to install under Wine - Cedega might work better but I've not got a copy installed.

I really want to play Arma and until recently I'd resigned myself to having to install windows on one of my machines. Today though I've decided that the hassle of Windows is just too great and just a giant step backwards

[Rhodite 3]

While you may not favour Windows, a lot of techies I know use Windows as a gaming platform for the obvious reason that nearly all games support Windows.

Linux as we all know is a great and stable OS but trying to run games using WINE maybe asking a bit much. Granted I am not 100% familiar with how good WINE is these days but ArmA uses a fair amount of copy protection etc.. so I do wonder wether you will have to many issues trying to get it to work.

My opinion given so many do this, is for you to have a Seperate HDD or dual boot with Windows so you can play games without compatibility issues. This will naturally save you a lot of potential time and agro'.

Good luck

[echo1 0]

I agree with Rhodite, Windows is the best for games whether the Linux heads like it or not. Set up a dual boot system, uninstall all the extra crap on Windows (go into Add/Remove Programs) dont use it to browse the internet and it should run smoothly as a games platform.

[Kevlar2007 1]

You can't play it on linux because they used Dirct3D from M$ for the game instead of OpenGL. IDSoftware has clients also for linux for their games because they use openGL for their engines (Quake, Doom3) which I think is better then D3D which is only needed to justify Window$ as a gaming platform and bind us all to M$ somehow.

[S.O.S 0]

i thinkt theres A DIRECTX clone for linux

[Kevlar2007 1]

i thinkt theres A DIRECTX clone for linux

Yeah there is, I know about "Cedega" software. There made as I know only working DiretX clone for Linux. But it is not open source and costs periodic fee.

[Capt.Marion 0]

myself I think I will get a Mac when leopard comes out and I will just use their dual boot utility, boot-camp or whatever

[-CS-SOBR-1st-I-R- 0]

I would also like to know if there would be any advantages playing ArmA on a linux partition.

I couldnt find a direct reply to this question in the above posts...

Would it make sense to have a clear, light partition of around 5-10 GB (for addons to come) for ArmA only in linux or would the same partition in windows provide as much "push" on the games' performance ?

[GBee 0]

[CS]SOBR[1st-I-R] - To answer your question (at least the question I think you are asking), every game that I've run under linux (D3D and OpenGL) has run much better in terms of FPS under linux. I can't say why that is the case or if it will be the same for Arma ...

Windows is only "better" for games because everyone writes the games for that platform and not because Windows has some other advantage. I've lived without Windows for years now and to be quite honest it would be more trouble to re-partition, install and maintain a Windows installation than get a game to run under emulation in Linux. Please don't turn this into a Windows vs Linux vs Macintosh thread - the question and subject of the thread is whether anyone has managed to get Arma running on Linux and how they did it.

This also isn't a thread about Open Source - Cedega does cost a small amount and has many idealogical flaws, but it is still a valid way of running D3D games on Linux.

[Kevlar2007 1]

I did not want to express in my post that cedega is bad or illegitime way to run games on linux, only I wanted to say is that if you use cedega you must pay for it. I think it is best available way to run D3D games on linux. Sorry if it sounded different.

[wolfsatar 0]

SOBR[1st-I-R] @ Dec. 28 2006,04:43)]I would also like to know if there would be any advantages playing ArmA on a linux partition.

I couldnt find a direct reply to this question in the above posts...

Would it make sense to have a clear, light partition of around 5-10 GB (for addons to come) for ArmA only in linux or would the same partition in windows provide as much "push" on the games' performance ?

maybe some 0,X % ?

ok, linux partition logic is really performance orientated. but when u format ur drives correctly u can compare the linux storageperformance with windows storageperformance.

i have 5 partition on a raid 0

1. Pagefile

2. Temporary Data ("temp" etc.)

3. user profiles

4. windows

5. games

how do i get it ? customized xp install cd. (nlite)

[baddo 0]

Hi GBee,

could you please give some more information about how you got DirectX games perform much better under Linux than under Windows? What games are you referring to? You must have done some comparisons on both platforms for some games to come up with that argument.

I ask only because this is an interesting subject to me as a Linux user. I have used Linux for some years now but I never took it seriously when talking about games written for DirectX because of knowing that there must be an additional layer of indirection (indirection usually doesn't boost performance).

Thanks,

Baddo.

P.S. If anyone has managed to get Armed Assault demo or full version somehow working under Linux then let us know about it. Information about performance against running it under Windows is also welcomed.

[GBee 0]

could you please give some more information about how you got DirectX games perform much better under Linux than under Windows? What games are you referring to? You must have done some comparisons on both platforms for some games to come up with that argument.

I didn't do anything special, no tweaking etc. I just ran the games under the CVS (Free) Version of Cedega, in some cases using the Loki Installers to perform the installation. The non-free version wouldn't need the Loki installers.

My comparison wasn't scientific but merely consisted of comparing framerates on both platforms using the same settings. I'm not the only one to notice the improvements - I've regularly seen people mention it. I've not a clue as to why it works better, maybe the cedega DX translation layer is actually more efficient than Microsofts DirectX? Maybe the improvement is in the kernel/drivers; linux will frequently run smoother and faster on the same hardware than Windows and this could in some way extend to the games? Maybe it's there is less CPU/Memory hogging crap running in the background in your average linux install?

The FPS gain ranged from 5-20, not a huge amount but enough to make a difference if your machine is struggling with the latest games.

Some of the games in question were Call of Duty, Max Payne 2, Starwars:KOTOR, Starwars:JK2, Battlefield Series (1942, Vietnam etc), Farcry. Operation Flashpoint would run under emulation but I recall that there were a few problems, in cutscenes etc and I can't remember how it compared in performance.

[Uldics 0]

I am in a long process migrating to Linux, games and some drivers holding me back a bit. I cannot refer to where I got it, but OFP and ArmA have been tested on both Wine and Cedega. But there was no info how they did it and how they managed to not get conflicts with Securom7/Starforce4 and probably Fade.

About Linux and Windows performance. My opinion is Linux runs games faster cause, it is a multitasking operating system. When disk access occurs, other processes are not waiting for it to finish or give right of way. I have never experienced my radio pause playing on Linux when starting a game. Not to say the same about Windows. Also swap file usage is not overused. Thats why it is faster. I just wonder, how the DX transition to OpenGL is not slowing it much more down.

[baddo 0]

Hi

I have a feeling that Wine does not support DirectX enough to allow usage of ArmA. Also there might be a big problem with the copy protection, and I think I am not going to touch that.

I've got OFP running quite well in Wine in Linux but OFP requires older DirectX than ArmA. The talks of games running faster in Linux than in Windows are nonsense at least when it comes to OFP running in Wine: it is definitely slower than in Windows (as I expected), don't even try to say the opposite without proof.

Problems I encountered with OFP running in Wine: radio sounds were often duplicated. Texture on water didn't look quite right. Mouse movement was not as accurate as it should be and made aiming harder, maybe there is a way to adjust this but I didn't bother.

Cedega & ArmA? I can't say about it at least yet, but the free version of Cedega in their CVS seems quite outdated, and I had problems with it in the times when I tried to use it for OFP (maybe the version I compiled had not the right settings).

Cheers,

Baddo.

[Shins 0]

You could always try ReactOS

http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html

[boecko 0]

I had OFP/Kotor running under wine/cedega, but didn't try it with arma since my primary OS is now Mac OS X

Check here for ArmA:

http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?iAppId=4362

Bye

Boecko

[d3dsh33p 0]

http://www.transgaming.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=2&meid=-1

[echo1 0]

ReactOS is nowhere near completion. Its an early alpha stage, you cant even use USB apart from mice with it, whats the chance that they have DirectX 9 fully worked out?

WINE (which is for free unlike Cedega) will be fullly DirectX compatible somday..... Until then Windows it is.

[baddo 0]

You could always try ReactOS

http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html

ReactOS is not a solution to run ArmA in Linux. Thanks for the link anyways.

Please use this thread to discuss how to get ArmA to run on Linux, not on some other operating systems.

Thank You.

[MamiyaOtaru 1]

Adding my two cents that Operation Flashpoint works fine under Wine (plain Wine, Cedega not needed). Bushes and roads flicker a bit. Not ideal, but it works. Other games (Farcry, Deus Ex, Jedi Academy, Starcraft) work flawlessly. So there's hope that ArmA will at some point. DirectX is heavily worked on in Wine at the moment.

Along with those games that work fine with Wine, there are native clients for Quake4, Doom3, Unreal Tournament 2004 etc. I get quite a lot of gaming done on Linux.

I do keep a windows partition around though for ArmA and some others. If I can use it less, great. I'll keep tabs on this and if I ever get ArmA going in Wine, I'll post.

[weegee_101 0]

GBee,

I've been down your road before. I'm a Unix SysAdmin dealing with mostly OS X and Red Hat Linux ( which isn't a happy place for a Unix SysAdmin) and I know I struggled for a long time with trying to play games under Linux at home. Finally I decided to begin dual booting instead of running everything under Linux and found that I was in Windows more often. Eventually, I just kept my Windows install and nuked my Linux boot.

Personally, I hate Windows, but for a gamer its a necessity, especially with all the aggressive copy protections. StarForce games are essentially 100% ruled out and SecuROM games (which is what I believe the 505 version of ArmA uses) are beginning to get to that point. Cedega is currently working on this, but frankly the current state of Cedega (I still have my subscription and a slightly older rig to run games in Linux on) is rather slow and bloated.

Honestly, look at your reasons for not using Windows, and then decide if they're heavy enough that you don't want to play games. Frankly, if your reason is "I hate Windows" then you really need to rethink why you hate it. I know that years ago when Windows was becoming a necessity, I hated the fact and looked for ways out, but eventually because of the gaming industries adoption of DirectX, I realized that I had no choice.

That said, from a Linux user to a Linux user, if you want to play games that don't have native support or work under Wine or Cedega then leave a boot record of Windows XP on your drive. That way, if you have a game that doesn't run under Cedega, you can always reboot into Windows XP.