# Any gamers out there?



## Grell (Jan 1, 2017)

Hey, I am thinking about investing in a video game console.  I want to get the PS3.  I am always at least one generation behind when it comes to video game consoles just because it is a lot cheaper than to have the latest technology.  I have a PS2 that does not play too nicely with my HDTV and I think it is about time I move up to the PS3.  I mainly want to play rpgs and maybe some football or sports games.  What do you guys think?  Is it worth it to get a PS3?  Do you guys like video games as well?  Thanks.


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## Sevendogs (Jan 2, 2017)

Big gamer here but not on consoles. You might as well hand me a melon as a controller because I will do just as well with it...been gaming using a keyboard and mouse since the 80's so it's really hard for me to switch.  Wouldn't mind gaming on a big TV though - I like the big screen.


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## PacketMan (Jan 2, 2017)

I love my PS3. And not just for gaming.  On my FreeBSD server I stream all of my media content via DLNA by using this port - net/minidlna. I also use Plex media server on my server, and PS3 has an app for that too.  Honestly, although I have a smart TV in my house, buying a cheaper non-smart TV, and then mating it with a PS3/4 is not a bad way to go. You get a media player, gaming console, DVD player, and Blue-Ray player all in one box.  Getting PS3 and (replacing Windows with) FreeBSD into my household has been without a doubt been two of my best decisions ever. It works wonderfully, and I have a happy family too.

Sevendogs - Gaming on big TVs is nice.


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## sizigee (Jan 2, 2017)

PC gamer here... Consoles are nice, but I prefer a mouse+keyboard.  I got a controller for the action games (like assassins creed, etc), but that's it. Console games are more expensive than PC as well (thank god for steam specials)


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## SirDice (Jan 3, 2017)

I game quite a lot. Almost 50 hours in the past two weeks according to Steam. But, no consoles. Only PC gaming. I have a nice rig for desktop usage (Core i7, 16GB, GTX1080) and a few years ago I built a decent HTPC to hookup to my TV. The HTPC isn't used much any more since I got a Steam Link. Steam Link works surprisingly well. But I would recommend using ethernet, not wireless. For media playing I have a Raspberry Pi (several actually) running LibreElec (the continuation of OpenElec). The media itself is stored on a FreeBSD server with a 4 x 3TB RAID-Z set.


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## gkontos (Jan 3, 2017)

I think you should go for the PS4. You will find that most recent games are not available for PS3.


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## ekingston (Jan 3, 2017)

In my youth, I was a moderate gamer on the PC. I stopped for a while (saved a lot of money on computer parts). Then "reality tv" went prime time and I stopped watching TV and started getting back into video games. 

I got an XBox 360 many years ago and still use it regularly. It is getting hard to find XBox 360 games now but I've got a bunch of them, so I'm pretty happy. No gold membership (strictly local gaming).

If I were buying a console today, it would be the PS4 (as someone above pointed out DVD/Blueray/media player, etc.) or the NES Classic (if I could find one).

However, I've gotten into PC gaming using Steam to buy the games. A friend pointed me at it. Lots of sales, especially if you can wait for the new games to age a bit. I just started messing around with Elder Scrolls Online (thanks to the recent sale).


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## kpedersen (Jan 3, 2017)

I used to be an avid computer gamer. I even learned to program via QuakeC 

However, even being a massive fan of Half-Life, I pretty much stopped playing all games once Steam and other forms of DRM came into the scene. Its weird but I can no longer find fun in something that I know will no longer be accessible to me in ~10 years. I know its a bit daft because I should have gotten my enjoyment out of the software by then but I just despise the control that any one can have over me.

Not to mention I started to find cracking software (i.e stripping protections) so much more fun and satisfying than playing games anyway. Funny how interests evolve huh? 

That said, not all game developers / publishers are evil. As part of my PhD, I am working alongside games companies on technologies that can prolong the lifespan of games (which is a form of artwork in a way), without having to manually port the software to different platforms (or even releasing the source code). So I guess I *am* still fascinated by computer games


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## lme@ (Jan 4, 2017)

kpedersen: There's http://www.gog.com A lot of games (most of them older, but still great) and a few new ones. All without DRM and strings attached.


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## Sevendogs (Jan 4, 2017)

I am a GoG fan as well - cheap, fun games.


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## kpedersen (Jan 4, 2017)

lme@ said:


> kpedersen: There's http://www.gog.com.


Yeah true. There is also humble indie bundle and things like that. And of course torrents. But I guess I am still too bitter that online DRM has become such a standard thing in the games industry haha.


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## lme@ (Jan 6, 2017)

Worse than DRM is Free-to-Play and Pay-to-Win games.


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## TiberiusDuval (Jan 6, 2017)

PC-gamer here, worst thing about it, is need to have Windows on hard drive. Though I'm not an ideological Windows hater.


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## Grell (Jan 6, 2017)

TiberiusDuval said:


> PC-gamer here, worst thing about it, is need to have Windows on hard drive. Though I'm not an ideological Windows hater.


That's probably the main reason I don't play PC games any more.  I just don't want to have to use Windows.  Right the only Windows machine I have is an XP system that can in no way play modern games.  My main system has FreeBSD on one hard drive and Debian on another.  I just don't want to have to deal with Windows on another drive or partition.  That and also if I start to play PC games I would need the latest hardware which I just don't don't have the money for, nor do I need right now. 

I did wind up buying that PS3 though and I love it.  All the games are like $10 at the local game store, as opposed to like $40-$50 for the PS4.  I've been playing some Final Fantasy 13, Madden 15, and this Batman game.  The games look great on the big HDTV I have.  It's been some time since I've found myself enjoying video games so much, it is a great feeling to be back into them.  To just get lost in an immersive RPG is really neat, also I am learning a lot about how football works by playing Madden.


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## ANOKNUSA (Jan 7, 2017)

While I'm a die-hard PC gamer myself, the PS3-era did have some amazing titles that have aged relatively well and which you could probably pick up for pretty cheap: _Fallout: New Vegas_, _Dark Souls_, _Red Dead Redemption_, _Portal/Portal 2, Dishonored_, _Assassin's Creed 2_ (AKA _Assassin's Creed: The Good One_), and _Arkham Asylum_ come to mind. The replay value of those first two with all the expanded content is especially high. _The Last of Us_ was also the only console-exclusive title that ever tempted me to rent a console just so I could play it.


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## tingo (Jan 8, 2017)

Gamer? Nope, but I have a SteamOS machine, so occasionally I play games on it.


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## tobik@ (Jan 9, 2017)

Would anyone care for a port of the Adventure Game Studio Engine?  I'm debating whether I should submit it or not.

I successfully played through Primordia with it.


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## bcomputerguy (Jan 9, 2017)

tobik said:


> Would anyone care for a port of the Adventure Game Studio Engine?  I'm debating whether I should submit it or not.
> 
> I successfully played through Primordia with it.



submit it. I think bringing more gamers will help make BSD the place to be. It might even help spur the porting of the graphics stack.


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## drhowarddrfine (Jan 9, 2017)

bcomputerguy said:


> I think bringing more gamers will help make BSD the place to be.


The only problem with that is it would bring more gamers to FreeBSD.


> It might even help spur the porting of the graphics stack.


Possibly.


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## daemontrainer (Jan 9, 2017)

used to be a big pc gamer, now days, play stuff on steam once in a while. Depends on my mood heh  = ]
Finally contained my windows into a vm (qemu w/ kvm). Its... usable, but I have not ironed out all of the issues yet. Hopefully I won't have to admit defeat and install windows on metal again X.X we'll see.
BTW does anyone know how far away are we (FreeBSD or DragonflyBSD, since they too seem to be interested in this) from a semi stable GPU passthrought? I heard FreeBSD xen dom0 is a thing, and bhyve is picking up speed. But I thought both of those projects are currently "in heavy development"?

As for console... too much money for me, but if you are willing to hunt for deals. You can get an old PS3 from ebay and troll thriftshops/ good will for donated games.
I have a P.S.2 as well and couple old games I play very very occasionally.  Thanks for reminding me I need to actually go and hook it up in the new apartment heh.^^

remainder of my systems are all unix (htpc, router and server/storage vault) thought ^^


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## bcomputerguy (Jan 10, 2017)

drhowarddrfine said:


> The only problem with that is it would bring more gamers to FreeBSD.
> Possibly.



Well this is where core team comes in to keep things conservative. I'd like to see more ports but the kernel doesn't need to be bloated, work with restrictions make greatness.


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## Sissy (Feb 15, 2017)

I found some games to use with FreeBSD at www.gamebsd.com. Old-school kind and works with joysticks too!  There's hope for old school gaming after all with FreeBSD.


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## sidetone (Feb 18, 2017)

What about emulators/higan, in the description it says it runs Nintendo. Its website https://byuu.org/emulation/higan/, says it runs various old Nintendo, Sega and few other consoles.

That there is pretty cool, for early 90's or late 80's console gamers.

* I tested it, and it is only set up for Nintendo games. It doesn't readily work with keyboard inputs.


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## sidetone (Feb 18, 2017)

Sissy said:


> I found some games to use with FreeBSD at www.gamebsd.com. Old-school kind and works with joysticks too!  There's hope for old school gaming after all with FreeBSD.


There was a user on here, who was sponsoring or advertising that website.

Thread GameBSD.57825


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## aht0 (Feb 19, 2017)

Biggest issue with the consoles for me is that they are so under-powered. You'll buy some new game and then discover that compared to PC version your graphics is watered down and games themselves are severely limited. Because console hardware simply can't handle the load otherwise. For example: servers you play in allow only 16 players instead of 32, 48 or 64 you'd see on PC version of the same game. Building a gaming PC out of up to 5y old hardware costs about as much as console and such PC actually performs much better. If you only want to play some particular game you can optimize the costs and do a targeted build, reducing the hardware costs further.


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## GameBSD (Feb 20, 2017)

It is pretty cool to see people finding GameBSD. Currently there is a new update planned, a major overhaul for the sound functionality.


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## bushido95 (Mar 6, 2017)

I don't game as much as what I used too. I do have a Raspberry Pi set up with Retropie for whenever i need to kill a couple hours playing Final Fantasy VI or Zelda.


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## Alain De Vos (Jun 11, 2020)

Any wine gamers ?


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## Menelkir (Jun 11, 2020)

bushido95 said:


> Final Fantasy VI or Zelda.



Final Fantasy VI is a masterpiece.

Anyways, retroarch works like a charm in FreeBSD and supports a lot of emulators. 



Alain De Vos said:


> Any wine gamers ?



I play guild wars 1 on wine (32bit).


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## SirDice (Jun 12, 2020)

Alain De Vos said:


> Any wine gamers ?


I used to run an Arma 2 server on Wine.


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## Samuel Venable (Jun 19, 2020)

Not much of a gamer or game maker, but I enjoy creating software that makes game creation easier. I contribute to the ENIGMA Development Environment for this reason, and the user fundies as well as myself are the two people responsible for official FreeBSD support for the game creation suite. More details on the official website - http://www.enigma-dev.org

Big thanks to fundies for helping me countless hours to get it working, despite the fact he doesn't like the BSD's and prefers Linux. It was very selfless on his part and it wouldn't have been made possible otherwise.


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## Mjölnir (Jun 19, 2020)

When I was young I enjoyed some weekends with my friends to have a 50-hour LAN-Party and play _Quake_ or _Doom_. Yeah, that was fantastic, and the pizza service was happy, too.
Today I play chess on Lichess (as long Corona lasts), else I prefer the _real thing_: OTB (_over the board_) in a chess club and tournaments, and occasionally in a pub.  If you want to challenge me on lichess: I'm _Walter_von_Entferndt_.  My playing strength is low to moderate.


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## a6h (Jun 21, 2020)

I'm not a gamer, but I've played a couple games.
River Raid on Atari 2600, Indianapolis 500 on a PC with two 5.25 FDD (IBM AT?) and naturally
The triune G: Doom II, Duke Nukem 3D and Quake II


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## Alain De Vos (Jun 21, 2020)

eduke32 works fine btw.


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## olli@ (Jun 21, 2020)

FWIW, currently my favourite game console is an Oculus Quest. That's completely off-topic here, though.


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## aht0 (Jun 25, 2020)

SirDice said:


> I used to run an Arma 2 server on Wine.


Wonder if Arma3 Linux server binaries would now work in FreeBSD (it requires Steam to work in the same box)


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## SirDice (Jun 25, 2020)

It  doesn't. At  least not when I moved from Arma 2 to 3. The biggest problem will be CentOS 7 not having the right glibc version.  Even using a Debian jail on FreeBSD it was a headache to get it to work. I ended up getting a Linux VPS to get it to run reliably.


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## Dfrnln (Jul 7, 2020)

If you have enough money, you can buy PS4, it's more powerful than PS3 and there are a lot of sports games, which will look more realistic because of PS4 specs


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