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Macs are not good gaming machines? Most Macs have decent hardware, and the driver problem in Linux prevents a large portions of hardware to perform efficiently

by hdra 14y ago

Macs are not good gaming machines? Most Macs have decent hardware, and the driver problem in Linux prevents a large portions of hardware to perform efficiently anyway, so performance is definitely not a problem for Macs, my friend play Skyrim and Diablo 3 without any problem on their macs. > Therefore, using the lack of success of OS X as a gaming platform since Steam added support for it to say that Linux won't succeed either is faulty logic. True. Same thing applies with saying that gaming on Linux will take off just because Steam added support for it. I think the problem with desktop Linux that was discussed around a while back is still the biggest thing that is holding Linux as a gaming platform (or as a desktop OS, even). A number of humble bundle that I purchased runs really slowly on Linux because of lack of support for my graphic card. TLDR: Still a chicken/egg situation with Linux adoption as a mainstream OS in general.

w1ntermute 14y ago
> Most Macs have decent hardware It doesn't matter if they have decent hardware, that hardware is expensive and not upgradeable. That's a big factor for gamers who want to get the most bang for their buck. 2 years down the line, those Macs will struggle to run the latest games at the highest settings, and rather than being able to just swap out some components as necessary, people will have to ditch the whole computer and buy a new one from Apple. Good for Apple's profits, bad for the gamers. > the driver problem in Linux prevents a large portions of hardware to perform efficiently anyway I don't know what this mythical "driver problem" is, but I haven't personally encountered it. > A number of humble bundle that I purchased runs really slowly on Linux because of lack of support for my graphic card. I don't know what graphics card you have, but I have purchased just about every Humble Bundle so far, and they run just fine on my Linux machine.
- barrkel 14y ago
  I agree with your Mac point. But Linux still has driver issues. I'm not sure even my keyboard (Corsair K90) would work with Linux - a quick scan on the forums (http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=109501 http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=109501) suggests it needs various manual tweaking and most of its functionality would be missing. I have various other bits of USB paraphernalia of Taiwanese / Chinese / etc. origin like scanners, printers, microscopes, etc., all of which only come with Windows drivers and maybe, if you're lucky, Mac. The problem with Linux is that you generally have to know the chipset etc. in order to know which driver is applicable, and it turns into a detective hunt. You must have seen this before; quite frequently, a single SKU may have multiple different chipsets behind the scenes, but the manufacturer's Windows drivers just cope - meanwhile, to get Linux to work, you need to know the details. I have never installed Linux and had it work for all my hardware, except for distributions tailored specifically for the machine (Eeebuntu on my Asus Eee 701) - and even then they missed out on things like the keyboard shortcut to toggle the wifi radio so you could use it on a plane. The pool of hardware out there is deep and gnarly.
  - nitrogen 14y ago
    When did you last use Linux? These days, the correct kernel module for supported hardware is loaded automatically as soon as you plug it in.

by hdra 14y ago

w1ntermute 14y ago

> Most Macs have decent hardware It doesn't matter if they have decent hardware, that hardware is expensive and not upgradeable. That's a big factor for gamers who want to get the most bang for their buck. 2 years down the line, those Macs will struggle to run the latest games at the highest settings, and rather than being able to just swap out some components as necessary, people will have to ditch the whole computer and buy a new one from Apple. Good for Apple's profits, bad for the gamers. > the driver problem in Linux prevents a large portions of hardware to perform efficiently anyway I don't know what this mythical "driver problem" is, but I haven't personally encountered it. > A number of humble bundle that I purchased runs really slowly on Linux because of lack of support for my graphic card. I don't know what graphics card you have, but I have purchased just about every Humble Bundle so far, and they run just fine on my Linux machine.

barrkel 14y ago
I agree with your Mac point. But Linux still has driver issues. I'm not sure even my keyboard (Corsair K90) would work with Linux - a quick scan on the forums (http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=109501 http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=109501) suggests it needs various manual tweaking and most of its functionality would be missing. I have various other bits of USB paraphernalia of Taiwanese / Chinese / etc. origin like scanners, printers, microscopes, etc., all of which only come with Windows drivers and maybe, if you're lucky, Mac. The problem with Linux is that you generally have to know the chipset etc. in order to know which driver is applicable, and it turns into a detective hunt. You must have seen this before; quite frequently, a single SKU may have multiple different chipsets behind the scenes, but the manufacturer's Windows drivers just cope - meanwhile, to get Linux to work, you need to know the details. I have never installed Linux and had it work for all my hardware, except for distributions tailored specifically for the machine (Eeebuntu on my Asus Eee 701) - and even then they missed out on things like the keyboard shortcut to toggle the wifi radio so you could use it on a plane. The pool of hardware out there is deep and gnarly.
- nitrogen 14y ago
  When did you last use Linux? These days, the correct kernel module for supported hardware is loaded automatically as soon as you plug it in.