Gaming On Windows On Linux Ain't So Bad

Using Linux has always meant being a second-class citizen for gaming. But if you’re up to the task, you can have the best of both Linux and Windows worlds.

- Alex Campbell

It sounds crazy, the idea of running Windows under Linux. If I’ve learned one thing from being a Linux user, though, it’s that I will go through extraordinary steps to play games. For me, being at the mercy of devs who may or may not port their games to Linux on Steam is infuriating. Running Windows games and applications in WINE is a nightmarish experience, full of half-implemented DLLs and missing functionality. And dual-booting my system just for the sake of games is always a pain in the ass.

My answer seemed to lie in the use of virtualization, though my previous experience using VirtualBox and VMWare Player has meant no GPU. After reading up on Linux’s built-in virtualization software KVM, I took the plunge, and banished Windows from the bare metal, and installed Linux on my precious high-end desktop.