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JR

I've spoken with a number of PC gamers who have enjoyed their Windows XP gaming rig for many years and are now stymied by this Tuesday's Windows XP end of life date.

Up until recently I have had 4 Windows XP gaming rigs in my basement. I spent $99 to buy a copy of Windows 7 for the best rig. I'm not about to buy Windows 7 for the other 3 somewhat older rigs.

Here's another option: on my second best rig I installed the latest Ubuntu version 14.04 beta 2, installed the latest nvidia drivers version 331.38, and the latest Wine version 1.6.2. (all freeware)

On top of this I install BF1942, patched up to 1.61b, and installed various mods thereof: BG42 v 1.8, BF1918 v3.1, DC-Final v0.8, EoD v2.51, FH v0.7, Pirates v1.0, WhoDaresWins v0.23, RTR, SWWWII, XWWII v2.6.

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(as an aside, all these mods we play are available here: http://96.163.219.120 feel free to join us at ts3.chgclan.us most nights around 8:30pm )
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Anyway, all of the above works great, and with none of the obvious overhead or wind drag you'd expect from an emulator.

Ubuntu and Wine are free, they are supported, they work, you can play your old XP games on them. Your mileage may vary, but I'm pleased as punch.

I have not removed Windows XP from my last two machines yet, but I'm happy to know the Ubuntu Wine gaming option is out there in case they falter.

I'd enjoy hearing any other comments on Ubuntu, Wine, and / or The XP drop dead date, etc...

ProfessorZ · Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 7:06 pm Post subject:

Wow, that's impressive that BF1942 runs decently on a Ubuntu/wine setup. Does Linux still heavily favor Nvidia gpus over ATI/AMD?

What sort of hardware were you running the wine box with? I have a Core 2 Duo @ 3Ghz just sitting in the closet looking for a purpose Wink

- Z
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JR · Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 7:31 pm Post subject:

The rig on which I installed Ubunto and Wine is:

Mainboard: 790FX-GD70(MS-7577)
CPU: Dual Core AMD Phenom II X2 550 (3.1 GHz)
RAM: total 4GB DDR3 2x2GB PC3-10700H Corsair CM3X2G1600C8
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260

Butter · Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2014 12:05 am Post subject:

That is pretty great! It sounds like WINE has matured into a rather stable product. Thanks for making that suggestion.

And part of the reason it runs so well is that Wine Is Not an Emulator. Wink

It is a recursive acronym though.
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JR · Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2014 12:56 pm Post subject:

A couple of caveats:

1) a 32 bit Ubuntu was installed in this case. Yes, 64 bit would be preferable for a number of reasons, the most important of which is that 64 is greater than 32, however, the machine only has 4 gig of RAM (and will most likely only ever have 4gig of RAM) and all the games in question are 32 bit games. This leaves us only with the general fear that there will be 64 bit issues to overcome in a 64 bit install with little to no up side, so a 32 bit Ubuntu was installed.

2) the best video drivers, the ones you should get, come from the manufacturers web site. So the question is not, does Ubuntu support ATI or NVidia best, the question is, does Nvidia or ATI support Ubuntu best. My experience, albeit a dated experience, is that ATI drivers suck and NVidia drivers rule, in general, and most likely in this case as well.

JR · Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2014 4:28 pm Post subject:

Windows update just posted what I assume to be the last Windows XP updates:

Super Wabbit · Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2014 8:06 pm Post subject:

Let the games begin!