Arma 3 has a Linux build on Steam, but IIRC, the version is a bit behind on the Windows one.

Star Citizen is indeed not possible for now. Hopefully they'll do what they said and prepare a build for Linux when Vulkan is implemented.

I'm not an expert on VMs, but I think you need GPU-pass-through to play games in VMs. Otherwise you get an emulated one, which is just too slow. VMs do generally allow you to install on whatever you want, but usually they are files on the host system that are completely separate from the rest.

you can set up VM for basic software like MS office or some handy tools however for hardware accelerated graphics you'll need a passthrough technology for which you'll need 2 GPUs that need to be different and processor and motherboard need to support virtualization technology as well as monitor with dual input. You have more information on GPU passthrough on YouTube with a lot of tutorials.

For normal VM on the other hand you can connect your USB ports to VM and run some software or tools that need access to USB devices, however for 3d graphics acceleration eventhough it might work is just way too slow for playable framerates.

Your best bets are:

1) Try your luck with wine
2) If you hate windows more than you love those games just find some replacement games that suit you and have native linux support
3) If you absolutely need those games you can consider dual-booting just for them.
4) (hardest to set up) GPU passthrough

PS: Star citizen announced Vulkan API over DX12 and will probably be ported in the future, the game is located on List of games with Vulkan support with planned Linux support. Source

What you want is PCIPASSTHROUGH.
I got mine working , even installed the graphic drivers , but sound was crackling constantly and the CPU was constantly spiking on my VM

It's a VM with a dedicated graphics card basically.

Read these :
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PCI_passthrough_via_OVMF
https://davidyat.es/2016/09/08/gpu-passthrough/


You can also try with the XEN hypervisor:
https://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/Xen_PCI_Passthrough

Quoting: calfretOk, so now that I am totally over on Ubuntu MATE, I am seeing that I can't do everything that I need. Namely ARMA 3 and Star Citizen have ZERO support for Linux. WINE has them listed as 'Garbage' in the AppDB.

I absolutely *DESPISE* Windows, and the intrusiveness of 10 makes it a show stopper for me. So I was wondering: can my badass new computer run well with Windows 7 inside a Virtual Machine? I found a video on Youtube of someone running Star Citizen thru a Virtual Machine.

Will this work without Windows trying to reformat my entire system? I can set up a partition on my "storage" drive and install the VM on that. This would physically isolate it from both my boot drive and my Home drive (boot on 250GB m.2, Home on 1TB 7200rpm, Storage on 5 TB 5400 rpm).

And what is the status of Windows security BS? Once I activate the copy on a VM, will I be prevented from installing it on a proper drive if the VM fails to work for me?

Thoughts from the community at large please.

Gday most multi plat and mainsteam games
seem to refuse to support OpenGL + Vulkan + SDL2 + OpenAL

Arma 3 has always been an unoptmised resource hog ,
shame its the best looking graphics for any shooter.

Ive seen a lot of mention of hardware PCI-E passthou on LEVEL1TECH video channel
When I can finally get proper frames in Linux native games
Ill be looking into runnin win7 inside linux using hardware gpu pci-e passthou myself
but you need TWO VIDEO CARDS

Quoting: charliebrownau

Quoting: calfretOk, so now that I am totally over on Ubuntu MATE, I am seeing that I can't do everything that I need. Namely ARMA 3 and Star Citizen have ZERO support for Linux. WINE has them listed as 'Garbage' in the AppDB.

I absolutely *DESPISE* Windows, and the intrusiveness of 10 makes it a show stopper for me. So I was wondering: can my badass new computer run well with Windows 7 inside a Virtual Machine? I found a video on Youtube of someone running Star Citizen thru a Virtual Machine.

Will this work without Windows trying to reformat my entire system? I can set up a partition on my "storage" drive and install the VM on that. This would physically isolate it from both my boot drive and my Home drive (boot on 250GB m.2, Home on 1TB 7200rpm, Storage on 5 TB 5400 rpm).

And what is the status of Windows security BS? Once I activate the copy on a VM, will I be prevented from installing it on a proper drive if the VM fails to work for me?

Thoughts from the community at large please.

Gday most multi plat and mainsteam games
seem to refuse to support OpenGL + Vulkan + SDL2 + OpenAL

Arma 3 has always been an unoptmised resource hog ,
shame its the best looking graphics for any shooter.

Ive seen a lot of mention of hardware PCI-E passthou on LEVEL1TECH video channel
When I can finally get proper frames in Linux native games
Ill be looking into runnin win7 inside linux using hardware gpu pci-e passthou myself
but you need TWO VIDEO CARDS

You don't necessarily need two cards.
For experiments sake , you can use integrated graphics on your motherboard for Linux and the Graphic card for the VM.
However I need to warn you that no guide I read said Win 7 would work(not saying it doesnt , haven tried it myself)
Most guides seem to reference Win8 , Win8.1 and Win10(mostly)

I haven't seen proper integrated graphics on the MOTHERBOARD in years
I wish they would actually bring this BACK

SOME and not ALL intel cpu's have an onboard GPU on the actual cpu
its still using two cards thou