As opposed to supporting Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, and all the versions (service packs, hotfixes), drivers and hardware among them? You're making it sound like Blizzard should take control of a distribution's support. They don't need to be that involved.

I've messed with it a little but (Ubuntu, Hardy Heron) but it's not working out so well right off the bat. I start it up, and the screen keeps blinking before it even gets to the login prompt - I've got the portal in the background and it blips between my desktop.

mdhowle:
Two things: you have to disable the compiz effects first - they don't work well together with 3d apps yet. Get something like the Compiz Fusion Icon to do that. Then make sure WoW runs in OpenGL mode instead of Direct3D.

Some info:
http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=11329

More info, don't run weird stuff - it's for a different distro. Many of the performance tweaks still apply though:
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Install_and_update_World_Of_Warcraft_with_wine#OpenGL_Registry_Edit

I'm not sure why this was directed to me. Compiz works fine with WoW. You may want to if your system's specs aren't very high. Yes, you should run in OpenGL instead of the default DirectX.

Also, Neverwinter Nights.

I commend Id Software and Epic Games for porting their games to Linux. I wish more game development companies would do this even if it's a lower-tier support. You could let the communities handle the downstream support and you fix the bugs that have been verified.


Proud Linux user since 2001.

YMMV on that one... I'd say that would have a lot to do with your exact hardware setup and your proficiency with troubleshooting display and sound issues. It is really horrible on my laptop, but then again, my proficiency with Linux is horrible... I can basically read forum posts and follow instructions. Obviously some people find it works fantastically. It's pretty easy to try Ubuntu now with the Install in windows options they give you to try it out. Although I'm sure that will add a slight to moderate impact on disk access.

I think the performance on both are close on my box. I hit the "defaults" button in Video Settings and disabled vertical sync.

Averages (Ubuntu 8.04 / Windows XP)
Orgimmar at bank: ~20fps / ~23fps
Azeroth: ~55 fps / ~55 fps
Shattrath: ~25fps / ~25fps
Outlands: ~40ps / ~45fps

Neither seem to handle large populated areas. I do need to upgrade my motherboard and CPU since they're pretty dated.

My specs:
AMD Athlon64 X2 4200+ (Dual Core) - 2.21GHz
3GB of RAM
Nvidia 8800GT 512MB

Both are rendering under OpenGL too. Better comparison than a "DirectX vs OpenGL" debate.

For me, performance has been pretty horrible:
Intel Core2 Quad
8GB RAM
Nvidia 8800GT
Distros tested:
OpenSuse 10.3, Ubuntu 7.10, PCLinuxOS, Mandrivia, Debian, RedHat 8, Sabayon

-Framerates are consistently 10-50 fps lower than their windows counterparts.

-When you exit the game, you have to sit there for ~90 seconds waiting for access to your desktop again.

-Rotating the camera around your character causes the framerate to plummet to near single digit levels.

-Sound delays are atrocious (hit a mob, and hear the sound of the impact almost a full second later)

-Mouse cursor is inaccurate (doesn't always click exactly where the tip of the arrow is.

And that doesn't even cover trying to get other various issues with wine cleared up or the 32bit vs 64 bit cpu problems or some of the texturing bugs in the Nvidia video drivers.

That might be good for some people, but why should I settle for that when I can just boot into XP and get flawless performance and a consistent HIGH framerate (60+ fps)?

Maybe it's a tweaking issue, but I haven't been able to find any acceptable solutions to these problems so I've pretty much given up on WoW under Wine for right now.

It really does depend on your hardware..

I can run WoW on my desktop computer at home either in Vista with DirectX, or in Linux under Wine with OpenGL. OpenGL has many more screen-tearing problems, and I can't have my terrain draw distance maxed out like I can under DirectX.

My laptop, an HP dv6110us, is a very different story. It came with XP Media Center edition, but I used the express upgrade program to get Vista (came for free, since I bought the laptop about a month before Vista came out.) I installed Vista, and tried to get WoW working. Problem is, even today, the latest nVidia drivers are the ones released in January of 2007 -- that's right, the "current" drivers for the onboard nVidia Go 6150 are the original drivers released for Vista. Needless to say, performance for games in general is terrible. And of course, you can't simply install nVidia's drivers for Vista, and hacking them to get them to work improves matters, but I still have to run horrible framerates at a lower resolution than my LCD screen would prefer.

However, running WoW on Ubuntu Linux under Wine on my laptop results in performance similar to what I was getting under XP when I first got the laptop. I can run with high texture resolution, and at the maximum resolution that my LCD will take. It's very playable, and MUCH better than the performance I get under Vista.

So yes, your mileage may vary, but WoW is playable on any reasonable hardware setup with Wine under Linux. I'd *highly* recommend it for laptop users who may be suffering from the same terrible driver support from their hardware manufacturers.