If you like gaming on LinuxMint, or Linux in general, I'd like to strongly suggest that the Cinnamon desktop is not the desktop to use, XFCE is. I say that with a sad heart, as I truly enjoyed the Cinnamon desktop experience. It's really a nice desktop and I like the applets and shortcuts that allow you to split the screen between multiple applications. I've spent a lot of days doing a bunch of testing prior to upgrading to LinuxMint 17, as I had problems in LinuxMint 16 Cinnamon 64-bit running five games from Humble Bundle 10 and 11, and Windows games run through WINE. The HB games were Hoard, Strike Suit Zero, Papo & Yo, Antichamber, and Monaco. The Windows games were Rollercoaster Tycoon 2, MDK2, and Age of Empires 2 The Conquerors which all would not run full screen. This is with an AMD HD5770 graphics card using the AMD proprietary graphic driver installed from the Driver Manager, an AMD Phenom 2 x6 1055T (2.8GHz) CPU, and 4GB of RAM.
I'll summarize my results first for easy reading and then post my test data at the end. I chose to test with all the Humble Bundle games that would not previously run plus some that I knew did run before, plus the three previously mentioned Windows games.
Firstly I'd like to make note that from my testing, the open source AMD graphic driver is not anywhere near good enough for gaming. Which is contrary to a lot of people hyping up the improvements in the open source driver. So I'm omitting it from my summary, but you can find my results with it in my test data.
With LinuxMint 17 Cinnamon 64-bit using the AMD proprietary driver installed from the Driver Manager which is an older version, I found that some games that used to run in LinuxMint 16 Cinnamon 64-bit no longer ran and vice versa. I find that quite odd. Installing the 14.6 beta AMD proprietary driver downloaded from their web site improved significantly what games would run, but still left five games that would not.
With LinuxMint 17 XFCE 64-bit I got the same results whether I used the older AMD proprietary driver installed from the driver manager, or two different versions of the 14.6 beta AMD proprietary driver downloaded from AMD's web site. Which is, that all the games I tested with ran perfectly except for Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 which would only run in an emulated desktop (in a window).
So this is why I say the Cinnamon desktop environment seems to be at fault in some way, and that the XFCE desktop environment is the better choice for LinuxMint gamers. Although I wouldn't rule out KDE as being a good choice too. I just have not tested it.
My only complaint regarding my AMD graphics card at the moment is Papo & Yo plays at a bit below playable FPS at times with choppy/laggy frame rates happening regardless of screen resolution and graphic settings. And the Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 issue which may be a combination of a WINE issue plus graphic card driver issue. On an older computer of mine that has a Nvidia GeForce 7600 with the proprietary Nvidia driver installed, it plays fine full screen until you change the in game screen resolution, and then the game crashes with a similar error message. Same issue using an emulated desktop with it.
With LinuxMint 17 XFCE 64-bit this is a far better gaming experience than I've ever had on Linux. And I now feel that I have been unfairly blaming my AMD graphics card as the source of problems. Which seems to go contrary to a lot of comments I've seen on the internet regarding how bad the proprietary AMD graphic drivers are. But perhaps my particular AMD graphics card is old enough that it is well supported with their driver. I've read some comments that suggest that with newer AMD graphic cards that is not necessarily the case. Regardless, my next graphic card purchase will be an Nvidia one due to their proprietary driver working very well in Linux.
I hope this information helps some of you people play more games on Linux.
Here's my test data:
Code: Select all
Order of tests:
LM-17 Cinnamon 64-bit
Open source AMD graphic driver
Proprietary AMD graphic driver from driver manager
Proprietary 14.6 beta 7/14/2014 AMD graphic driver from AMD web site.
LM-17 XFCE 64-bit
Open source AMD graphic driver
Proprietary AMD graphic driver from driver manager
Proprietary 14.6 beta 5/27/2014 AMD graphic driver from AMD web site.
Proprietary 14.6 beta 7/14/2014 AMD graphic driver from AMD web site.
All Windows games running through WINE done on version 1.6.2 stable.
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Linuxmint 17 Cinnamon 64bit with open source AMD GPU driver labeled "xserver-xorg-video-ati Version 1:7.3.0-1ubuntu3.1"
Games that did not run:
Antichamber - Segmentation fault
Beatbuddy - ./Beatbuddy.x86: error while loading shared libraries: libXcursor.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Guacamelee - Error: ( bool GVideoSys::InitOpenGLContext(u32, u32) ) Missing required OpenGL extension: ARB_framebuffer_object
Error: ( bool GVideoSys::InitOpenGLContext(u32, u32) ) Missing required OpenGL extension: EXT_texture_compression_s3tc
Error: ( bool GVideoSys::InitOpenGLContext(u32, u32) ) Missing required OpenGL extensions
Prepping shutdown...
( SoundMgrFmod::SoundMgrFmod() ) SoundMgr constructor
Shutting down...
Hoard - segmentation fault
Joe Danger 2 the movie - ./JD2Launcher: error while loading shared libraries: libXrender.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Monaco - segmentation fault
PapoYo - segmentation fault
Strikesuitzero - X Error of failed request: GLXBadFBConfig
Major opcode of failed request: 156 (GLX)
Minor opcode of failed request: 34 ()
Serial number of failed request: 169
Current serial number in output stream: 168
TheSwapper - Could not attach to process. If your uid matches the uid of the target
process, check the setting of /proc/sys/kernel/yama/ptrace_scope, or try
again as the root user. For more details, see /etc/sysctl.d/10-ptrace.conf
ptrace: Operation not permitted.
No threads.
=================================================================
Got a SIGSEGV while executing native code. This usually indicates
a fatal error in the mono runtime or one of the native libraries
used by your application.
=================================================================
Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 - A Windows game run through WINE. Game loaded but displayed full screen 1/3 up the way of the monitor so was not playable. It did seem to play properly in an emulated window.
MDK2 - A Windows game run through WINE. Game loaded but displayed the full screen in the top left hand corner of the monitor such that you only saw the bottom right hand corner of the game. Played fine in an emulated window.
Age of Empires 2 - The Conquerors - A Windows game run through WINE. Game loaded and appear to run fine although the aspect ratio was not maintained on my wide screen monitor. Changing to a higher screen resolution caused the game to crash. It did seem to run fine in an emulated desktop.
Games that did run properly:
Dustaet - Ran beautifully. No screen tearing.
Fez - Ran beautifully. No screen tearing.
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Linuxmint 17 Cinnamon 64bit with AMD GPU driver from Driver Manager labeled "fglrx-updates Version 2:13.350.1-0ubuntu2". Driver shows as version 13.35.1005-140312a-169199E in AMDCCC.
Games that did not run:
Antichamber - segmentation fault
Beatbuddy - ./Beatbuddy.x86: error while loading shared libraries: libXcursor.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Guacamelee - segmentation fault
Hoard - segmentation fault
Joe Danger 2 the movie - ./JD2Launcher: error while loading shared libraries: libXrender.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Monaco - segmentation fault
PapoYo - segmentation fault
Strikesuitzero - segmentation fault
Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 - A Windows game run through WINE. Crashes to error message: "Exception Raised - Access Violation. Error Location: Unknown", gracefully goes back to the desktop. Does not run in an emulated desktop.
MDK2 - A Windows game run through WINE. Just brings up error message before loading: "EaccessViolation." Does not run in an emulated desktop, it gives the same error.
Age of Empires 2 - The Conquerors - A Windows game run through WINE. Crashes with a program error. Does not run in an emulated desktop, it gives the same error.
Games that did run properly:
Dustaet
Fez
Theswapper
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Linuxmint 17 Cinnamon 64bit with AMD GPU driver 14.6 beta 7/14/2014 from their web site. Shows as version 14.20-140529a-173820E in AMDCCC.
Games that did not run:
Beatbuddy - ./Beatbuddy.x86: error while loading shared libraries: libXcursor.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Joe Danger 2 the movie - ./JD2Launcher: error while loading shared libraries: libXrender.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Strike Suit Zero - At first glance it looks like it runs right. But the mouse doesn't line up with the menus, and the screen is not using all of the monitor in full screen mode. On top of some screens only showing a bottom corner.
Rollercoaster tycoon 2 - Windows game run through WINE. Loaded to a black screen then crashed. It would run properly in an emulated desktop.
MDK2 - Windows game run through WINE. Looked like it run full screen properly but frooze upon exiting the game and unable to get back to desktop. Had to log out and back in. Runs fine in an emulated desktop.
Games that did run properly:
Antichamber
Dustaet
FEZ
Guacamelee
Hoard
Monaco
Papo & Yo
The Swapper
Age of Empires 2 The Conquerors - Windows game run through WINE. Ran full screen just fine with aspect ratio maintained.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Linuxmint 17 XFCE 64-bit running open soure AMD GPU driver labeled "xserver-xorg-video-ati Version 1:7.3.0-1ubuntu3.1"
Games that did not run:
Hoard - It ran! Although screen was black with mouse cursor showing. But sound could be heard and interactions with mouse could be heard. So I technically could not play it.
Papo & Yo - It ran. But graphical glitches were so bad it could not be played.
Strike Suit Zero - It runs. But graphical problems are too much to play it. Everything is really dark and things seem to be missing.
The Swapper - Crashed with seg fault.
Games that did run:
Antichamber - With screen tearing and possibly other graphical problems.
Beatbuddy - With some screen tearing.
Dustaet - With some screen tearing.
Fez - With some screen tearing.
Joe Danger 2 The movie - Runs with some screen tearing and sever graphical problems.
Monaco - Game runs perfectly!
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Linuxmint 17 XFCE 64-bit running "fglrx-updates version 2:13.350.1-0ubuntu2" from driver manager. Shows as version 13.35.1005-140312a-169199E in AMDCCC.
Games that run:
Antichamber
Beatbuddy
Dustaet
Fez
Hoard
Joe Danger 2 the movie
Monaco
Papo & Yo
Strike Suit Zero
The Swapper
MDK2 - Windows game run through WINE.
Age of Empires 2 The conquerors - Windows game run through WINE.
Games that do not run:
Rollercoaster tycoon 2 - Windows game run through WINE. Brings up error message: "Exception Raised - Access Violation Error Location: Windows Unknown Driver". You click on ok and then it crashes gracefully back to the desktop. It will run properly using an emulated desktop, as in windowed mode, not full screened.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Linuxmint 17 XFCE 64-bit running AMD 14.6 Beta 5/27/2014 from their web site. Shows as version 14.20-140522a-172181E in AMDCCC.
Games that run:
AntiChamber
Beatbuddy
Dusteat
Fez
Guacamelee
Hoard
Joe Danger 2 The Movie
Monaco
Papo & Yo
Strike Suit Zero
The Swapper
MDK2 - Windows game run through WINE.
Age of Empires 2 The conquerors - Windows game run through WINE.
Games that do not run:
Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 - Windows game run through WINE. Brings up error message: "Exception Raised - Access Violation Error Location: Windows Unknown Driver". You click on ok and then it crashes gracefully back to the desktop. It will run properly using an emulated desktop, as in windowed mode, not full screened.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Linuxmint 17 XFCE 64-bit running AMD 14.6 Beta 7/14/2014 from their web site. Shows as version 14.20-140529a-173820E in AMDCCC.
Games that did run:
Antichamber
Beatbuddy
Dustaet
Fez
Guacamelee
Hoard
Joe Danger 2 the Movie
Monaco
Papo & Yo
Strike Suit Zero
The Swapper
Age of Empires 2 - The conquerors - Windows game run through WINE.
MDK2 - Windows game run through WINE.
Games that did not run:
Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 - Windows game run through WINE. Brings up error message: "Exception Raised - Access Violation Error Location: Windows Unknown Driver". You click on ok and then it crashes gracefully back to the desktop. It will run properly using an emulated desktop, as in windowed mode, not full screened.