So, I have a pretty good computer running Vista, but I've read posts where they claim that WoW using Wine (under Ubuntu linux) has better performance because there is a lot less OS overhead.

Is there any truth to this?

My gut feeling is that running on a native platform would be faster than running on an emulated one.

Anyone have experience and benchmarks? I could install ubuntu on my gaming machine and run some benchmark programs, but if someone has already done it, could you post for me?

First I'd like to add that WINE is not emulation. It is a re-implementation of the win32 API. So in other words, WINE may run Windows faster than Windows can run itself, in some situations.

WoW + WINE will run faster than WoW + Vista, especially if you have <1GB of RAM in your system. But it's going to take effort, as Linux is not officially supported by Blizzard.

In my case, I have an Acer Aspire 5520-5290 laptop with 1 GB of RAM, 256 MB of which is dedicated to video memory. So in reality, I have 768 MB of RAM, and as you can imagine the performance under Vista is horrid. In addition, the laptop only comes with a 32-bit version of Windows Vista, not 64-bit. The laptop has an AMD Athlon 64 x2 CPU in it, and thus a 32-bit OS won't make full use of the hardware. I got about 10FPS in Stormwind, to which I attribute Vista's bloatedness.

So, I:

* Cleared out the second visible partition (D: from windows, /dev/sda3 from linux), changed it to an extended partition, made /dev/sda5 a 100MB /boot partition, /dev/sda6 a 1.5GB swap partition, and the rest of the space went to /dev/sda7.

* Installed Debian Etch for the AMD64 architecture on it using a specially crafted LiveCD (which had Linux Kernel version 2.6.24 on it; needed it for hardware support), and did a standard install.

* Connected a CAT5 cable to the laptop, ran "dhclient eth0" on it to get internet connectivity

* Edited /etc/apt/sources.list to include "testing/lenny" and "unstable/sid" sources, edited /etc/apt/preferences to accomodate APT pinning on Lenny, ran "aptitude dist-upgrade && apt-get build-dep wine && aptitude install xorg gnome"

* Grabbed a quick coffee

* Downloaded the latest 64-bit nVidia Linux drivers, ran chmod u+x on the downloaded .run file, and ran it. The install is quite straight forward for this one.

* Downloaded the latest WINE sources, ran tar xvfj on them, then cd'd into the directory and ran "./tools/wineinstall". Ran "wine" once to build the ~/.wine directory.

* Ran "sudo mount /dev/sda2 /mnt" and "cp -R /mnt/Program Files/World of Warcraft ~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files && wine "~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/World of Warcraft/Wow.exe""

And voila, I was no longer getting 10FPS, but instead anywhere between 50 and 70 FPS.

I had to stop and think about that for a second when I saw the results. Same area of Stormwind, same hardware. Just Debian Linux + WINE in place of Vista.

Let this be a lesson to everyone: Windows Vista is a notorious piece of garbage. That huge list of things I had to do in order to make it work would be entirely alleviated if Blizzard would decided to support Linux (preferably Debian, the most stable of the distributions). Then we could all more easily enjoy the fruits of Open Source, without all the hacking to make things that aren't supposed to work, work anyway.

Hope I didn't forget anything! Good luck in your adventures =)


--Ziegfried the Divine


P.S.: If anybody at Blizzard reads this, you would likely deeply appreciate Debian's package manager "APT". It is an incredible piece of work, and I doubt you will find a finer package manager anywhere. You would find this helpful if you ever decided to support Linux.

Ziegfried makes it seem so horribly complicated to get it running in Wine.

The steps it took me under Ubuntu:

1) Install Wine. Easily done through add/remove.

2) Create a launcher. Mine looks somewhat like wine "/path/to/wow/Wow.exe" -opengl.

3) Do the optimizations from wowwiki.com.

4) Run the launcher.


Since I had WoW installed under Windows I didn't even bother with a second install. My Windows install is XP so performance is about the same.

I did this using Ubuntu.

1.) I installed Ubuntu.

2.) I installed the most updated copy of Wine I could find through its repositories (by adding their repositories to Synaptic.)

3.) Your original Wow CD/DVD should autorun in Wine as mine did. For the expansions, however, I used Blizzard's downloading program in wine as if I were using it in windows. It takes significantly longer if you don't have your ports open, but still very effective. The WoW patcher works the same way without any problems.

4.) I downloaded a utility called "envyNG" that makes installing the latest Nvidia and Ati drivers incredibly easy, since it does all of the work for you lol.

5.) I ran WoW, and it works much better than it has for my in XP/Vista.

Core 2 Duo E8400
nVidia 8800GT
4GB Memory

Installed Ubuntu 8.10
Recompiled kernel with cpu optimizations
Intsalled Nvidia 180.41 drivers
Installed development/stable WINE
Launched WoW in OpenGL

The performance is nowhere near Windows 7 and lag is very very noticeable in Dalaran. I'd say I get about 40fps less in linux... not sure why you guys are getting either such bad performance in Windows or such good performance in linux.

My friend is having the same experience. Either Ubuntu has an issue or you're all delusional...

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Q u o t e:

Let this be a lesson to everyone: Windows Vista is a notorious piece of garbage. That huge list of things I had to do in order to make it work would be entirely alleviated if Blizzard would decided to support Linux (preferably Debian, the most stable of the distributions). Then we could all more easily enjoy the fruits of Open Source, without all the hacking to make things that aren't supposed to work, work anyway.

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Funny that you know how to run linux but you don't know how to get WoW running decently in windows.. I have XP, Vista and Windows 7 installed and performance is pretty much the same across the board, except for linux/wine which lags behind (sadly).

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Q u o t e:

WINE may run Windows faster than Windows can run itself, in some situations.

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I guess this isn't one of those situations... linux plays wow better on old hardware and bad on new hardware? ;-)

I know this is an old thread but i found it on a google search and i have to say i believe these poeple claiming better performance in wine than vista/XP are flat out full of it.

I have 3 machines in this house, my main gaming rig my laptop my wifes rig.

On my main gaming rig i have,
E6420 @3.2ghz
4GB DDR800
HD4870

In vitsa is get a buttery smooth 60FPS with vsync, 100+ with it off (Horrid tearing without vsync) with the exception of dalaran with max settings and 8X AA @1680x1050. My machine donet even dip below 60 in boss fights in 25 mans.

In wine i cant even run the game with full screen glow, specular lighting or AA and i barely stay above 40FPS.

My laptop with
athlon x2 2.0 GHZ
4GB DDR2
HD3200

Runs just fine on max settings with no AA usually ~30 FPS except dalaran. In wine on this laptop anything outside vanilla wow is completely unplayable wrath content is a slideshow that never gos past 10 DPS.

The wifes machine
Athlon 64 4000+ (Single core)
2GB DDR400
8800GT

Runs wow just fine on max in XP. In wine runs about 40FPS on medium(ish) settings (No shadows most sliders at medium some max)


Now i dont believe its the fault of linux or wine that the performance is sub par in wine compared to windows but it IS sub par.

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Q u o t e:
I know this is an old thread but i found it on a google search and i have to say i believe these poeple claiming better performance in wine than vista/XP are flat out full of it.

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With a high end system running GNOME or KDE a lot of people will turn up the desktop screen effects. This is the only reason I can come up with that people with fast computers would have performance issues.

I legitimately run WoW at maximum settings including shadow detail with the same or better performance under WINE than Windows Vista. I dualboot Vista and Linux Mint "Felicia."

E8400 @ 3.6 24/7
4GB PC8500
8800GTX 768mb
near identical results on 173/177/180.xx drivers

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Q u o t e:


With a high end system running GNOME or KDE a lot of people will turn up the desktop screen effects. This is the only reason I can come up with that people with fast computers would have performance issues.

I legitimately run WoW at maximum settings including shadow detail with the same or better performance under WINE than Windows Vista. I dualboot Vista and Linux Mint "Felicia."

E8400 @ 3.6 24/7
4GB PC8500
8800GTX 768mb
near identical results on 173/177/180.xx drivers

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I cant speek for others however i do not run games with desktop effects on (In fact running 3d games with compositing enabled wasnt even possible with any ATI cards until very recently)

Also your claim is not even remotely possible considering it needs to be run in opengl to get it playable in wine your missing a few high end graphics options whether you realise it or not.

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Q u o t e:


Also your claim is not even remotely possible considering it needs to be run in opengl to get it playable in wine your missing a few high end graphics options whether you realise it or not.

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Shadows, projected textures, terrain highlights, full screen glow and every option set to max, and it looks great, I can post screenshots if you don't believe me.

I also have it working now with the 3D desktop effects all set up the way I like it with no performance loss whatsoever. To get it to work with my Window Switcher or Expo, I had to change it to non-windowed mode and of course set "enable 3d windows" (duh) in compiz.

Patch 3.12.
Linux Mint "Felicia." Flawless. Kudos to Wine.

3D windows in Compiz has *nothing* to do with 3d effects.

Tooltip reads: Elevates windows while rotating the cube.

Also, fancy shadows do not work under OpenGL, which is the only way of running WoW with decent performance.

You may have a very fast computer that lets you run WoW in Linux very easily, but there definitely is a performance hit, even if that hit is just the fact that Blizzard straight up has worse OpenGL support than Direct3D.

Performance hit compared to what? The name of this thread and the topic of discussion is comparing it to Windows Vista, where at it's lowest (Dalaran) I get higher average frame rates under Linux than I do Vista.

The 3D Windows option of compiz is the difference between being able to run the game or not. With ANY desktop effects or window switcher enabled the game shows an all white screen and won't close. With the 3D windows option enabled, it is seamless and I can alt+tab/expo.

Comparing apples to apples, I run it in OpenGL in vista as well, and in fact it is faster than Direct3D there as well.

Im buying a Dell XPS Studio 16" with 4gigs RAM 256 gig Solid State Drive ATI Mobility RADEON™ HD 4670 – 1GB ( Video Card)

I hate Vista and I want to use Ubunto. But I dont want to change OS if I have to sacrifice alot of preformance. How well do you thing WoW will run with this hardwear?

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Q u o t e:
3D windows in Compiz has *nothing* to do with 3d effects.

Tooltip reads: Elevates windows while rotating the cube.

Also, fancy shadows do not work under OpenGL, which is the only way of running WoW with decent performance.

You may have a very fast computer that lets you run WoW in Linux very easily, but there definitely is a performance hit, even if that hit is just the fact that Blizzard straight up has worse OpenGL support than Direct3D.

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Ummm.... I've run WoW in both the default and OpenGL modes, The shadows work fine.

The rendering is done differently and OpenGL is more easily supported because the way it renders is well... open. Direct 3D is a specific type of rendering that has a set standard way of being done and communicated whereas OpenGL is kinda like an opensource program (you know, like Linux ;))

The fact is, it all really comes down to preference. I've noted that WoW does indeed run a lot better in Linux (speed, looks, and stability) and it even is much faster to alt tab out of the game under linux, especially with desktop emulation off and running on a Gnome system.


Now, to you linux guys out there i have an issue that i hope you can help me with.

I was using Ubuntu with no problems but i decided to go to Fedora instead (personal reasons) and i'm having great difficulty with WoW http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=18601082708&postId=185709326108&sid=1#5 there's the thread

fancy shadows *do not* work under opengl. Direct3D support for them was just implemented less than a month ago in 1.1.25 and even still wine's Direct3D performance is much worse than what it is in Vista.

WoW runs better under Wine in OpenGL, that is a fact. However, OpenGL support for the windows client is hardly what it is for the Mac (No hardware cursor or fancy shadows support). Plus it's a massive performance hit. Seeing as how we run the windows version of WoW under wine, we are affected by the sub-par OpenGL support.

Go look up WoW on AppDB and read for yourself. There's tons of threads on the performance difference, as well as numerous bug reports.