Windows Games on Ubuntu

[Jernyman]

Hey Everyone,
I recently got Steam, and before buying that many games I want to know if there's a way to make "Windows only" games on Steam work with Ubuntu. I know of the program Wine, but I haven't used it at all. All the information I've found in searches hasn't given a direct answer. It seems possible, I just don't know how. Could someone give me directions or advice on how to make Steam's Windows only games work on linux?

[Hannibal]

Yes buy Windows

[Jernyman]

I have Windows but I want to switch to ubuntu soon...

[LonePiper]

In short, Linux (and Ubuntu) is not Windows, and games designed specifically to work in Windows will not work natively in Linux (or Ubuntu).

But yes, there is Wine which helps make Windows programs run under Linux based distros, such as Ubuntu. It's just a bit hit and miss.

It works better for some games and programs than others. When it doesn't work, expect to spend a whole lot of time googling solutions and visiting forums.

For example, some time ago I managed to get the demo of Portal to run pretty much straight away without any tweaking. However, just recently I've spent hours trying to get Terraria to run under Wine with little success.

In short, unless you are happy to play only the linux supported games (and even then sometimes you'll have trouble), or you are happy to tinker and troubleshoot and mess around with your system and settings, then it may pay you to hold on to Windows for a while, or at least dual boot.

[Spawn of Totoro]

Jernyman님이 먼저 게시:

I have Windows but I want to switch to ubuntu soon...

You can dual-boot and have both. I do.

[Jernyman]

Ok, thanks for the input. I think I'll try running steam's Skyrim through Wine (on a different computer with Ubuntu), and see how it goes. Skyrim is a pretty demanding game, so it will test whether I can make good use of windows games or not. Do I run the windows version of steam through wine (on Ubuntu), or should I download the linux version of steam?

[Spawn of Totoro]

Jernyman님이 먼저 게시:

Ok, thanks for the input. I think I'll try running steam's Skyrim through Wine (on a different computer with Ubuntu), and see how it goes. Skyrim is a pretty demanding game, so it will test whether I can make good use of windows games or not. Do I run the windows version of steam through wine (on Ubuntu), or should I download the linux version of steam?

You will need to run the windows verson of Steam in wine. If you run the linux version of Steam, it won't even let you download Skyrim.