Introduction from a Linux Gamer

[nicodarious]

Just saying hi. Bought my first Alienware from Bestbuy the other day. Never owned one before and thought I would try this time around.

I am an avid Linux user more than anything and will be installing and configuring Gentoo on this beast. If anyone is interested, I will start a thread of my finds with some how-tos with them.

Optimus will be the worst issue, and this will be my first run through with it.

 

[Alienwulf]

Welcome to the forum..Ubuntu was my flavor. Now you can run Steam on Linux much better for gamers. If Orgin would get on it too would get me to switch faster.

 

[nicodarious]

Not really into Origin. Although it won't run on Linux, I heard that it's really not much better on MS, with all the slow graphics and crashes! How say your experience with Origin?

BTW, since there's so many versions of the Alienware boxes, thought I would give mine here:

Alienware 14
Intel i7 4700MQ
1920*1080 matte IPS panel
8GB stock 1600 RAM ( for now, until I upgrade to 16GB)
Nvidia GT750 w/2GB onboard (bestbuy ad said 1GB, but my software and the underside of the laptop is telling me different!)

Not the cream of the crop, but it should do for a few years!

 

[Alienwulf]

Not bad system there good and solid for gaming. I use Orgin for BF3 and BF4 mostly 3 plays great 4 they just gort all the bugs out. I use to use Linux a lot dual boot and the like but games were a big let down. Now they have Steam on Linux I am going to switch one of my desktops over to Linux with just Steam and see how much better it might be. Unless your really worried about battery life I would disable the cpu graphics and just run on the GT750. less gaming issues that way. Optimus seems to kick in when you lest want it to or it use to. If you have any problems there are several good people here to give you a hand this is a very helpful forum.

 

[nicodarious]

Thanks for the info! It's nice to know that there's others looking towards Linux for more than server base. Been running some flavor and form since 1999 and haven't looked back. The way I see it, if a game or other piece of software won't run natively and it b0rks with emulation, it's such bad coding that I don't want it; there's always other software that will do just what I want.

So far I'm afraid there's no way to just run dedicated graphics. The bios doesn't have an option to do so and bbswitch seems to always want to prefer Intel video. From what I understand thus far, even the nvidia graphics run through the Intel card. Nvidia card just does the processing. Still learning about optimus, since this is the first time I've been forced to use it. I miss my old laptop already.... (Asus g73-jw. RIP, old girl. You served me well for years.)