As I dive deeper into Linux, I find that the PC gaming community is not always a friend to Linux. Sure it's going to take some finesse to make a Windows game work on Linux, but it doesn't mean it wont work. I'm one of those people that believe there will always be a way to make your computer do what you want it to; you just have to do some research.
For my first game, I decided to whip out my old Sims 3. I began with trying to use PlayonLinux. Put together by other users Play on Linux is a front end for Wine that is intended to make the install process easier. It also offers handy tips and tricks to getting games to work on Linux. I was finding that with Crunchbang I was having issues with getting The Sims 3 to run after the install. I took to Google and browsed every Linux board I could find on Sims 3. I decided I needed an updated kernel and a more recent version of Wine. Another distro hop was needed, this time opting for Linux Mint 17 XFCE (expect a review in the upcoming week).
I didn't use PlayonLinux this time, instead I opted for just using Wine v. 1.6. Wine stands for Wine Is Not an Emulator. Wine is a collection of libraries which have been reverse engineered to allow Windows applications to run on Linux. Over the past few years Wine has made vast improvements to their collection. Wine is available on all major distributions. You can check your distributions software center or application database for installation information.
After getting through the install, I came across a nice little bug. Upon opening the game, I found the text was unreadable. Back to the boards I went, it took a lot of searching but I did find the answer. I installed DriConf, which is a utility of sorts allowing you to configure visual quality settings. Once DriConf was installed, I opened it and went to the Image Quality Tab. There I enabled the S3TC Texture Compression. The messed up text was fixed and I've had no issues running the Sims since.
As usual Linux users are superheros bringing their knowledge to the boards and offering fixes to many of the problems that I found recorded. While my bug was not a massively big one it was tough finding the fix. I tried to go to all the boards that had this bug recorded with no fix and post the fix for it. If you find a bug, hit the boards to find your answer. If you do happen to find an answer make sure you post about it. This will help the community as a whole.
The Sims 3 may be the first game I try to get to work with Linux, but it will not be the last. I have a whole slew of games ready to get working. As I come across bugs I will post any fix I can in hopes that I can help at least a few of my fellow Linux users and gamers.
