At first the idea sounds silly, but in all honesty it shouldn't seem so far fetched.
It was bound to happen sooner or later, but I was not expecting such good results.
There is of course the WINE application for Linux which allows windows applications to run in Linux systems (Of course I'm using Microsoft's definition of RUN because there is a subtle difference between running and running WELL).
Normal WINE cannot play games very well, there are no performance increases or anything of the sort. However, there are variations, which perform quite well. Such would be a program called CrossOver (there is also a version for Mac, but I am unaware of the performance details of said application).
It is a modified version of WINE which is not free (Which unfortunately led to it no longer being updated because the people who released WINE for free, didn't want their work paying for other peoples pleasure). However, the way the program works is you install a game like you would in windows, it creates a small, system within Linux, allowing windows applications/games to be installed and played. This is not to say that there is 100% compatibility, but there is enough for it to be worth a shot.
I tried it with some steam games, like Team Fortress 2, Portal, and have tried it with some others, and as long as you have proper Drivers for your system, the results are quite nice.
I could run Team Fortress 2 at a higher frame rate than on XP (as in 1.5-2x better than XP) with a higher resolution and graphics settings. The only issue is that Directx9 is not supported yet (emphasis on yet), so you will be stuck with 8.1 (for the moment), but in all honesty, this does not make a difference.
The things I had a problems with, are running things in fullscreen, and fonts, just make sure that if CrossOver does not install the fonts for you (usually it will automatically), get them yourself, or it will be illegable or worse, there just wont be any text at all.
And instead of running in fullscreen, just run it in a window, this is good because you can multi task, and it wont mess up your desktop (this is not a consistant problem, majority of the time it works fine, but SOMETIMES it can mess up your desktop).
But see if you can get your favorite distribution of Linux (mine being Ubuntu or something easy like that)
And give CrossOver a try. CrossOver Site.
If your lucky, you might be able to run your windows games off you windows partition as well!
Just make sure your NTFS drivers are installed and fully functional, otherwise write permissions will be missing and you wont be able to play any of the games.
Worst case scenario you would just need to copy the game files to the emulated windows system in the Linux partition.
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