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There’s no getting around it: Linux isn’t and probably never will be the first choice of operating system for hardcore gamers. You won’t be able to run any of the latest releases when they come out, and you’ll get much better performance and full DirectX 10 support by sticking with Windows Vista. Sorry.

However, if your gaming needs aren’t quite on the cutting-edge, Linux can be an alternative. It’s a choice that offers many advantages. There are no viruses, no wayward processes chugging away in the background and no spyware, trojans or worms. What’s more, you have complete control over every aspect of your system.

Beyond Tux Racer

With only a few notable exceptions, such as the amazing World Of Goo, there are very few native Linux conversions of recent games. This leaves you with two possible avenues. You can either dual-boot Linux with your Windows installation, giving you 100 per cent Windows compatibility and a Linux desktop, or you can run those Windows games under Linux using WINE. This isn’t an emulator – it’s a wrapper that offers a byte-for-byte translation of what various DirectX and Windows libraries do.

But WINE can be a tricky beast to tame. To get the best out of it, you’ll need to use the infamous Linux command line, a process that will immediately dispel any belief that Linux has left its geeky credentials behind. The good news is that someone’s already done the hard work for you. Crossover Games is a commercial project, which might rankle with hardcore open-source fanboys, but it provides WINE in a simple desktop application that offers one-click access to a surprising number of releases. The money goes to boosting WINE itself, and the cash makes it possible for the system to be updated on a frequent basis.

Crossing over

The tool supports many games, including World of Warcraft, Team Fortress 2 and a host of others. You’ll find a full list right here. Compatibility is graded by gold, silver and bronze awards, and if a game wins any of these, you should be able to play it through without too much difficulty. In our experience, though, performance is usually a little below the equivalent XP speed. Using the Half Life: Lost Coast benchmark as an example, the Linux version (with the same settings) ran around 20 per cent slower, although that didn’t make much difference considering the age of the game.

Even if a title isn’t in the database, it doesn’t mean that you definitely won’t be able to run it. WINE – and hence Crossover Games – will attempt to run any Windows ‘.exe’ file you throw at it. If you like games from an earlier point in the decade, for instance, there’s a good chance that these will run, even without any mention of their compatibility in the database. But you might also have some luck with newer games.

We were able to get Oblivion and Stalker to run by clicking on the ‘.exe’ file from our shared Windows partition, although we couldn’t perform the same trick with Bioshock, presumably because of the copy protection. We were also able to successfully run Valve’s Steam service in the same way, installing it onto a mounted Windows partition. Steam even found the installed games list from our Windows installation, which saved us both the space and effort of downloading and setting them up twice.

Steam is one of the best reasons for using Crossover. Thanks to its civilised anti-piracy mechanism and the download model, plenty of games and demos in its roster will run. From the Crossover application window you can download, install and run the latest Steam client, which will in turn download your games to the Linux desktop. And if they don’t work, you can always revert to Windows.

Our biggest problem came when using a dual-monitor configuration in Linux, as most games can only detect this as a single massive resolution through Crossover. Fortunately, there are two solutions. Either use the game’s Properties field to set a screen resolution or Windowed mode, or force a virtual resolution in the Crossover Games configuration panel. In our experience, Linux is much better at running a game within a window alongside your normal desktop applications, which can be great if you like to run more than one Eve account at the same time.

Hard choices

Unfortunately, software is only part of the equation. Good games performance is equally as reliant on solid Linux driver compatibility, with the biggest sticking point being your choice of PC graphics card. Currently, there’s really only one option, and that’s something from the Nvidia range of cards. ATI cards can be made to work, but they’ll leave you reformatting your hard drive and begging Steve Ballmer for forgiveness.

Linux is open source, but neither Nvidia nor ATI provide open drivers for their hardware. Ubuntu will still detect the hardware, but you’ll need to head online to acquire the drivers. Luckily, audio is another story, and will normally work from the first boot. When it comes to controllers, there’s no easy way to know if things will work. You’ll find that many Logitech joysticks are compatible, for example, but a steering wheel is unlikely to be functional. There are no custom calibration tools and no button configuration utilities either, and feedback is always hit-and-miss. You might think that you can simply install the Windows drivers and tools through Crossover, but you can’t.

If your joystick doesn’t work and you’re after a quick and cheap solution for arcade titles, console controllers work well with a corresponding USB converter and are probably the best way to proceed if you need something heftier than a keyboard and mouse.

The competition

With Crossover, games are installed into something called a ‘bottle’, which is a term for a separate virtual Windows installation. You can keep bottles completely isolated from one another, so that there’s no conflict with shared libraries or other files. It also means that one bottle can emulate Windows XP, while another could attempt Windows 2000 or Vista. These options are dynamic, and you can change almost anything about each bottle through a properties manager that looks and feels much like the real thing on Windows.

If you’re looking to run Bioshock and Oblivion, there’s a competitor to Crossover that will run both on Linux without problems. Transgaming’s Cedega is a private and purely commercial fork of the WINE project. It doesn’t release any of its modifications back to WINE, and it uses a subscription model to keep its customers up to date. If your subscription ends, you’ll still be able to use the software, but you won’t benefit from any updates. While this closed model goes against the open Linux philosophy, it does offer the Transgaming developers certain advantages, such as licensing DRM systems so that more paranoid publishers’ games can be installed and run on Linux systems.

DirectX 10 and beyond

This March, the CEO of the company behind Crossover – Jeremy White – laid out a roadmap for future development. He mentioned that his developers had spent the last year working hard on under-the-hood improvements such as .NET support, Gdiplus and DirectX. As a result of this hard work, DirectX 9 compatibility is looking good in both Crossover Games and WINE. But White’s plans for the next release include the far more ambitious aim of support for DirectX 10, and if development goes well, there may be a compatible version of Crossover Games released by the end of the year. If Codeweavers can achieve this magic trick, there will be a good chance that WINE can be ported back to Windows, bringing DirectX 10 compatibility to older versions of Windows such as XP and 2000 – an irony that won’t be lost on Linux users.

While it’s obvious that Linux is never going to be a hardcore gaming platform, it’s far from a barren wasteland. Technology such as WINE and Crossover presents enough potential to satisfy most persistent gaming urges, and over the course of the next 12 months, the situation is only likely to improve for Linux games. There’s also a world of independent, free and open-source gaming to delve into, and commercial small-scale games such as the aforementioned World Of Goo have been very successful.

As with most things to do with Linux, getting things set up and running properly can be something of an adventure in itself. But to those of us with a passion for the free desktop, that’s half the fun.

The best way to achieve a faster boot is to work through each of the most time-consuming startup areas in turn, making one change at a time. After each change, reboot your system and time the results to make sure that the tweak has worked for you. You may not see an improvement with every tweak.

Reboot your PC and launch the BIOS set-up program (you’ll press [F2] or [Del], probably – a prompt will explain what you need to do). Most BIOSes have a Quick Boot option that disables some fairly pointless hardware checks, so make sure that’s enabled. Look for a section like ‘Onboard devices’ or ‘Integrated peripherals’ where you can disable network, FireWire or eSATA controllers and any other hardware that you’re not using. Fewer devices means your PC is initialised more quickly and Windows has fewer drivers to load.

Change your BIOS’s boot order to ensure that your hard drive is checked first. Complete this section by checking your BIOS manual to see if it has any general speedup tricks, like using a PEG Link mode for faster graphics.

Disabling devices in your BIOS is good, but there are more ways you can minimise Windows’ need to load drivers. If you’ve a printer or other external device connected that you rarely use, for instance, then disconnect it or turn it off. And if you’re not using a particular item of hardware, like a network port, then disable it in Device Manager (but carefully: pick the wrong device and you’ll disable your PC).

Don’t expect major results here. Our poorly configured test PC cut its lengthy 95 second boot time (from power-on to opening an IE window) by only four seconds.

Driver management

It’s likely that Windows will still be loading many unnecessary drivers, but to find out you must view the full list for yourself. Click ‘Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools | System Information’, then expand the Software Environment section of the tree and click ‘System Drivers’ to see what’s running.

Click the State column header to group all drivers marked as ‘Running’, then browse through these looking for drivers that relate to applications you no longer use. Enter a driver’s name into Google if you’re not sure what it might be.

Use this list to identify software that might have installed your driver, then remove the program if you think that it’s no longer necessary. We uninstalled the iRiver Music Manager, SpeedFan, PC Tools Spyware Doctor. After rebooting, we found their associated drivers had also disappeared.

If some of your drivers still remain, launch Device Manager (‘devmgmt.msc’), click ‘View | Show Hidden Devices’, then ‘View | Devices by Type’, and expand the ‘Non-Plug and Play Drivers’ section of the tree. This may display additional third-party drivers: double-clicking these will display more information, or you can remove them by right-clicking and selecting ‘Uninstall’.

Be careful here: this is risky, and removing something important could cripple your PC to the point that it won’t even boot in Safe Mode. But get it right and the results are good, with our efforts trimming a whole 10 seconds off the test PC’s boot time.

Trim your services

Third-party Windows services are just as likely to extend your boot time as additional drivers, and so you should remove those next. The procedure is very similar to the one you’ve just followed. Launch the Control Panel Services applet (‘services.msc’), then browse the list to identify services that are surplus to requirements.

On our test PC this included Apple Mobile Device and the Bonjour service (installed by iTunes), CyberLink Rich Video Service, MSCamSvc (webcam-related software), Nero BackItUp Scheduler 3 (unused on the system) and more. Once again we uninstalled associated software where possible to remove these services. And if we wanted to keep the software, as with iTunes, we simply disabled the relevant services (double-click them and set ‘Startup Type to Disabled’). Again, don’t disable any core service or you’ll seriously affect your PC.

If you’re running Windows Vista then there’s a third option available that’s potentially useful with non-critical services you might need only occasionally. Double-click ‘Apple Mobile Device’, say, then set the Startup Type to ‘Automatic (Delayed)’. Windows will give initialising the service a lower priority, so your computer’s desktop should appear more quickly.

The results here will vary depending on what you remove, but we trimmed a further four seconds off our test PC’s boot time – not bad for five minutes’ work. And there’s still more that can be done in taking control of your Windows start-up programs. Install Autoruns to uncover everything that’s set up to launch when Windows starts, then uninstall the programs you don’t need (or just reconfigure them to load on demand, not when your PC boots). We gained three seconds, which meant a 22 second improvement overall – almost 25 per cent off our original time.

PCs need regular maintenance to keep up this kind of performance, though, so check your drivers and services occasionally. Clean and defrag your hard drive on a regular basis, too, for the best possible boot results.

Writen by Lanard Perry

Is your computer running slower than ever? Does it crash a lot?

If so it might be because advertisers have loaded it up with Spy and Adaware without your knowledge.

“Spyware” is a common term for files that are installed on your system that allow companies to monitor your Internet activity.

“Adaware” is software that will show you pop up ads over and over. These files can be extremely dangerous to your PC and could cause major problems.

They track the websites you visit, items that you buy online, the emails you send and your Instant Message dialogues. In a worst case scenario they can even record your credit card number, personal identification numbers, and all of your passwords.

I know all of this because I learned the hard way. Fortunately, I never had any personal data stolen, at least that I’m aware of. But every now and then, when least expected, my computer would crash, sometimes resulting in days of lost activity and income.

It seems like I spent a small fortune fixing one problem after another. I bought expensive software programs that actually made my problems worse, then another hard drive that I really didn’t need.

Ultimately I had to take my computer to 2 different techs to work out all the bugs. If only I knew then what I know now.

After months of frustration and too many hundreds of dollars I care to admit to I finally learned what it takes to keep my computer healthy and functioning properly.

Below is what I learned and a recommendation that can help you avoid what I went through.

1. Get a spyware removal program. You’ve heard it before, but have you done it? This helps as your 1st line of defense against hackers and viruses.

2. Avoid opening email attachments from people you don’t know. When in doubt, don’t do it. Granted, this isn’t so easy to do when you’re in the people business, but I still encourage you to manage it as best you can. This alone eliminated a lot of my problems.

3. Scan for viruses and clean your registry at every opportunity. I spend a lot of time on the Internet working on my website marketing products, sending and receiving email and the like.

Consequently, my computer is vulnerable to attack from a lot of different ways. So, I scan it for viruses and clean my registry daily; sometimes several times a day depending on how long I’ve been on it.

If you don’t have a good spyware program you should get one. It’ll help you optimize your computer’s performance, and get it in tip top condition in no time.

Here are the benefits.

They’ll let you:

know if you have any files that are infecting your PC

help protect your computer and eliminate trojans, worms, dialers, browser hijackers, etc., and

help you avoid serious problems before they happen

You’ll be amazed at how much speed and problem free use you can regain from the use of your computer after you install a good spyware program.

If you don’t have one I strongly recommend Spyware Nuker. It’s relatively inexpensive and is money well spent to safeguard your computer and personal and professional information stored on it.

You even get to try if for free before you buy it and I believe it comes with a 90 day satisfaction or money back guarantee.

Happy listings and please feel free to call me if I can be of assistance.

About The Author
Lanard Perry is the author of “Farming Expired Listings”, a real estate listing system that shows how to list 1-2 listings a week. Visit http://www.farmingexpiredlistings.com for more info.