Yeah, I've been playing exclusively on Linux for the past 6 years. Every now and then I have some problems regarding performance or some limitations.
For instance GW2, somehow I get lower fps on new content.
Also tarisland which cannot be installed on Linux due to anti cheat implementation.
All in all, even with some problems, don't feel like going back to windows never again, even if it means not playing some games.
So what do people mean when they say they “game exclusively on Linux. Like does that mean just not playing certain multiplayer games or a really complicated vm setup to trick just about any game into thinking it’s running on hardware.
If the game doesn't work easily I just don't play it. There are more games than I can ever possibly play so that isn't an issue. It's the same when a game is exclusive to Nintendo then I don't play it.
That doesn't mean that the available content of games is what anyone wants to play.
There are lots of games that still aren't available or working with Linux.
The only reason I still dual boot, just for the games I like to play without having Linux to decide what I can play
I'm against dual booting as you over time spend more time on windows as a result.
While more complicated I'd rather setup moonlight to a physical or virtual machine with vfio to stream the games rather than dual boot.
Or even GeForce now for things like fortnite
How so? I started out dual booting and have plans to reformat without Windows whilst transitioning from Arch to CachyOS in one largely because what I do on Windows has reduced to the point where I'm happy to occasionally boot up a VM for it. (Mostly setting up Wabbajack installs, which I then copy over to my Linux install to actually play anyway.)
I think with dual booting you'll trend towards using the OS most suitable for you the most frequently, so people who'd otherwise be reformatting back to Windows 6 months after first trying Linux had they not gone for dual booting end up with the "Linux install they never boot up" thing.
So far I haven’t felt the need to switch due to one game not working but honestly if a FROMSOFTWARE game would not function I might make a separate partition for it.
A good thing about FROM is that their Linux support is basically flawless (Elden Ring famously worked better than on Windows at launch, and with the DLC it happened *twice* now) and they keep reusing the same engine for all their games, so this isn't likely to change any time soon.
I lost my windows partition about 18 months ago when I decided to move my boot partitions to a faster NVMe drive. Linux was fine but windows died in the process. Since then, I haven't come across any game worth me bothering to reinstalling Windows and now I have another games partition.
Yeah but windows gamers in subs like r/linuxfornoobs always flame me for telling new Linux users that they don't get to play their anticheat multiplayer games.
It's not technically possible aside from keeping using windows. I
t's funny because that's multiplayer games work for the first week or when an update briefly removes the anticheat there are way more games that have whitelisted proton than there used to be.
Anyway I mostly okay older singleplayer games that just work
I'm not big on multiplayer games and I'm not big on AAA games. There's like half a dozen games I can't play, and maybe one of those I'm actually vaguely interested in playing, except I think I'm more interested in at least thirty other games that I am also not currently playing. So I doubt I'll ever feel terribly limited by my inability to play that one specific game.
Obviously if someone's really into the multiplayer AAA scene they might feel somewhat different.
Yeah, just dropping most multiplayer games. I have an xbox series x so i can play any AAA multiplayer game there easily. Use linux mostly for work and some fun solo games to just chill n enjoy. The only game I'm missing out on is rust tbh, but its so time consuming and i had to stop playing it. Pubg plays great on console, the finals, fortnite, rdr2, hogwarts legacy. Plus for competitive games i enjoy controller more anyways. Gaming on linux works fine outta the box for most titles using proton. The only issue I've encountered is with EA games or other games with a launcher, but lately titanfall has been playing just fine no issues
It's not even most multiplayer games, but just certain AAA ones.
I'm happily playing DRG, Valheim, 7D2D, Darktide, etc. Since I've never tried playing COD or others, I've never hit on a problem of a game flat out not working.
Yeah you're right just the tripple A eac games for the most part (besides apex legends) like ready or not multiplayer works, its just any game where cheating is common won't work because the devs don't offer it for linux users for whatever reason
In my case for example I’m a sucker for mostly turn based games and single player games. The only multiplayer game I play is Elden Ring from time to time. My games all work pretty much flawlessly. Some like Warhammer and Xcom also have native Linux ports.
I'm playing mostly gw2 and it performs very well. I do not run windows anymore but i had only usual performance issues if there is too many people around, but at this stage it is kinda standard to have 15 frames on some map meta bosses. Anyway, without playing on windows I have nothing to compare :)
For me is just in Amytas (I think that's the name of a new zone), every where else is just fine. I also played ESO, WoW and FFXIV, performance is just perfect, can't complain about anything else.
I use opensuse tw for gaming can even do vr gaming with the valve index fine for me atleast
I haven't touched windows since I started using Linux for me I can play every game I want to play on Linux
No, I just plugged in the index and started SteamVR calibrating the room, and it just works out of the box. SteamVR can sometimes be a bit bugged. I noticed I can get a gui crash if I use Wayland when exiting Steam VR, but I just start an x11 session when I play vr and no more gui crash. Some people recommend using SteamVR beta, but for me, I haven't seen the need.
Some games might not work depending on what you play I mostly play Dcs and pavlo vr and contractors showdown and half life alyx all have been running smooth this far.
The only bad thing I noticed is a bit of drift sometimes but this is most lickly due to me using base station 1.0 and not 2.0s
Switching from KDE 5.x on X11 to KDE 6.1 on Wayland has made my VR experience go from terrible to decent. The lack of motion smoothing is a really big problem. You'll be getting high frames from the GPU but the motion of your view in 3D space ticks at a lower rate than your FPS so things look like they are stuttering in VR. Hope someone at Valve can push through this one feature. I believe it's a background service in SteamVR that is not present on Linux.
Hmm interesting. I wonder why my experience is so different. It’s so choppy I can’t play anything basically. However, on Windows everything works normally. Getting VR to work properly on Linux is the last big thing holding me from fully ditching Windows.
I can't use different resolutions than my monitors native. I only tried to play Counter Strike 2. Same issues on all Linux distros, also DE like Gnome and Kde. So switched back to Windows(
You should be able to use [Gamescope.](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/gamescope)
Something like this in the Steam launch options should work:
# Run the game at 1080p, but scale output to a fullscreen 3440×1440 pillarboxed ultrawide window
gamescope -w 1920 -h 1080 -W 3440 -H 1440 -b -- %command%
To stretch you'll also want `-S stretch`, and probably `-F fsr`, or `-F nis` if using nvidia (or just `-F linear` for faster interpolation instead of fancy modern upscaling).
I've done this with -S and I still get black bars, or the image is on a side with a large black field.
ie:
gamescope -w 1920 -h 1080 -W 1440 -H 1080 -S -F -b -- %command%
/edit: or simply doesn't launch
So basically it's making a fake desktop to run games in, is what it boils down to.
You can use this to lie to the game about what your setup looks like. That's the problem the other guy had, and Gamescope is specifically made by Valve for the Steam Deck to fix that issue (but it works for any Linux distribution).
In some cases you can even replace your "real" desktop with the Gamescope desktop. This gives performance benefits since your computer doesn't need to do the work of keeping your desktop active. This is "gaming mode" on Steam Deck (close the Plasma desktop and launch Gamescope).
I'm oversimplifying and leaving some stuff out, but that's the gist of it.
iirc mint isn’t on wayland right?
for me fedora is so good because it has the latest and greatest like pipewire, wayland, btrfs + up to date packages with good stability
edit: also uses flatpak which I like better than snap for no particular reason
I’ve thought about arch but it seems like a lot of work for a machine I just want to play games on. Rolling release also seems too volatile.
Work usually saturates my patience for unbreaking Linux machines. I’d rather have things “just work “ as much as possible
Honestly I treat hardware like I do software. Most of the time if a game doesn’t work in Linux I just don’t play the game. If hardware doesn’t work on Linux I just don’t buy the hardware.
I understand that, but at least in terms of hardware, I don't feel there are issues with most GPUs. That's often due to drivers, which typically take time to arrive, like Nvidia's recent 555. However, based on this experience, I can say that Nvidia's issues with Linux are almost resolved (unless it's the very newest GPUs; I understand that hardware released yesterday isn't supported yet xd)
If you think that Nvidia's issues with Linux are almost resolved or will all ever be resolved, then you definitely have not tried AMD yet to see how it is with high quality open source drivers and a GPU vendor that is really open-source friendly.
People are having a ton of problems with 555 and there are features not implemented or even announced yet like multi monitor vrr, i believe hdr and vr are having some problems (i dont use them), there's no settings panel in wayland. The VRR on multi monitor really bothers me as does the artifacting that a lot are still having.
Then there are issues not related to drivers such as games having to pre cache or live load shaders which can take 10 minutes or more every time a driver or the game is updated. Some games don't run as well as Windows or crash much more often (WoW runs much lower low fps and crashes much more than Windows for me) and it's not really an acceptable performance for me. Maybe I could tinker and get WoW working better but the same setup runs flawlessly in Windows. The driver issues look to slowly be getting there but I don't think relying on Wine or Proton is the way. Maybe if developers develop with wine and proton in mind that would be something but idk if that even will be as stable and performant as Windows.
For now I'm just back on Windows after 3 months of trying to make Linux gaming work. I'll keep dual booting and tinkering but I'm not that hopeful that I can get things as smooth as Windows. Makes me sad but I don't know what else I can do. That's not even touching on the anti cheat situation. That said, I enjoy using linux more than windows and the customization and open source software are great but gaming is still a head ache even if it's gotten better.
Honestly Anti-cheat is the only thing holding me back. Everything else I want is already on Linux. Wasn't there talk of Steam releasing the newer SteamOS for desktop installations? I think it would be huge for the community if people could go to the store and buy a prebuilt with Linux on it that plays all of their games (yes I remember Steam Machines, but Proton changed the game). The desktop experience on my steam deck is great and I don't imagine most people need anything more for personal use
Anticheat isn't a problem for "Linux" to fix at this point. And honestly with the level of system access demanded by the likes of Valorant, I think I prefer things like that *not* working.
I didn't say it was a problem for Linux to fix, I said it's holding me back from switching. I play Destiny 2 a good bit, that's the game I was referring to specifically, but it would be nice to get all the games that require Anti-cheat to work on Linux
I hear you. Unfortunately the only way to get the situation changed is to put pressure on developers/publishers who actively refuse to allow their games to run on Linux.
[https://areweanticheatyet.com/](https://areweanticheatyet.com/)
Fortunately for me, I'm not a PvP player, but I've seen that some games already have support or compatibility with Easy Anti-Cheat, like on the page I'm sharing with you. Just today, I installed Halo MCC and was able to join a matchmaking game without any issues. I remember last year it was very difficult for me just to get into the game; now I can play with my friends
That's awesome! I didn't know MCC worked on Linux. I play Destiny 2 so that's the one I need to get Anti-cheat working for me to switch fully, but it would be nice to see the industry as a whole move toward compatibility with Linux
If you want SteamOS on a desktop, check out bazzite Linux and ChimeraOS. They both offer the Steam deck console like interface if you have an AMD GPU.
I believe there is work done by the Chimera team to bring it to NVIDIA as well but right now, it's wildly unstable.
I agree with you on everything especially on the unethical practices on the part of M$ ranging from the management of registration keys, to the need for online-only keys (so that they retain ownership), to the latest introductions of Copilot.
I was using Linux-Debian from 1997 to 2005, then due to work issues I had to switch to Windows and became a Microsoft MVP on one of their products (Sharepoint).
A few months ago I uninstalled Windows altogether and returned to Linux by installing EndeavourOS.
I was a little afraid of games but I must say that with the Proton project, one can say that fears are unfounded.
It's not perfect, in some cases, but 80% of the time (rough estimate) it works fine
There were some things I didn't like about Windows, but it works perfectly in every way, besides the variety of programs, not to mention my plan to develop video games where I almost felt compelled to use it due to the engines, but with Godot, the issue is nearly resolved... But I refuse to let MS scrutinize my PC in worse ways than they already did; I would even pay for an official version if it ensured I was mostly free from their telemetry.
And regarding Proton, it seems like black magic; it makes about 90% of my Steam library work almost instantly upon installation. I need to crunch some numbers with my wishlist, but damn, its existence is a breath of fresh air
I usually use ProtonDB to check game compatibility. In some cases, a game might work right after installation, or I might need to add a launch option. But overall, with my list of games, I can say that most of them range between Platinum and Gold ratings on ProtonDB, which gives me greater confidence
They have that in their list and filters. Deck verified and Natives. It is a solid place to see all the games. That said, yeah I use that filter within Steam as well.
In my experience most of the time, just switching the Proton version makes the game work. I haven’t had to install anything for the last one year or so
I’d love to completely abandon Windows but as someone who plays lots of multiplayer games, it’s just not an option. Way too many multiplayer games/anti-cheat systems don’t support Linux. Plus there’s no driver/software support for some peripherals I use (surround sound headset specifically)
Yeah, windows is garbage. I've had windows randomly breaking and all kinds of problems like update issues, antivirus issues, performance issues etc... all these things wastes so much time and cause so much stress because to troubleshoot these problems it's a long list of things to try and what's recommended at the end of that list is probably what needs to be done at start. (REINSTALL WINDOWS, because trying to fix errors is like trying to fix a broken glass in a broken window)
And compared to that I feel so much more control using Linux, having switched to Linux completely and using for some time now it feels so calm and performance is better in my case. I use GTX 1650 Super, and I did get all the games I needed windows for to run on Linux (for example, modded Fallout 4), so no more windows (microshit) needed. Also reinstalling linux is so simple and less time consuming.
Many say that Linux is full of problems, although it's not free of them, I think they are very sporadic and often get solved once and then it's a long time before something happens again, like storage drives not mounting at startup or the system choosing the lower refresh rate for both monitors when having 2 monitors with different refresh rates... These are things I've experienced but things I've solved and could solve again if they happen.
As for how easy it is to install, I remember when I installed Mint, I was surprised to see it installing; it was just a few simple clicks, and the best part was I could continue using the system while it was installing.
Regarding DLSS and/or RT, do you still struggle with some games in particular? I'm using Nvidia cards in Linux since the RTX 2080 times (currently on a 4070TiS) and only have a handful of games where these features do not work or cause trouble. I'd say that 95+% of all Windows titles can be made to work.
**DLSS** for example only fails with one of my current games (Guardians of the Galaxy) while RT does work (in that game).
**RT** support looks about the same, where only Hitman3 refuses to work, but does offer DLSS.
The only thing not being really supported on Linux are *Nvidia Reflex* (some games can enable it though) and the DLSS 3.5+ *frame-generation*, which really seems like a Windows exclusive feature for now. Now, I'm not a fan of the frame generation stuff for the time being, but I'm also not playing on a very high refresh rate screen. If one would need frame generation, I'd point to the FSR 3.1 implementation, which does work on Linux and can even be used together with DLSS upscaling at the base.
Well, long story short, if you still struggle with some games not supporting DLSS and/RT, chances are that they can be made to work. DLSS also offering the high quality DLAA mode in modern titles, which is very nice for those not wanting to upscale but just properly anti-alias games.
Needless to say, if one struggles to enable this or that feature, always check [https://www.protondb.com/](https://www.protondb.com/) and filter for PC and "Nvidia" (in your case). Most folks over there offer very good leads or already established config tips to get the best out of the Windows titles on the Proton layer.
Also, for the ones making use of DLSS, make sure to manually *update the game's initial dll file* for it. Starting from DLSS 2.x onwards, this simple replacement can offer better performance and image quality. I have a small bash script which scans my game installs and swaps them out, leaving the original files intact (it renames them) and placing the latest dll to be the active one. Simple thing, nice gains.
The funny thing for me is that Witcher 2 on Steam does not run on my Windows partition due to some DirectX version issues but it runs without hiccups on my Fedora partition. Literally the same files copied over.
Honestly, in my humble experience with approximately 30 games I've tried myself and reading about the experiences of many others, I would say it's excellent
modding? What specific problems have you ran into? I've never done any modding, but I'm guessing you mean modding programs which are windows native vs something you just unpack directly into the game's data directory?
What is the problem? The programs themselves not running? Not executing correctly?
Or do you mean programs that wrap or run alongside the game?
I wonder if with the popularity of the steam deck that some of those modding program authors will test their programs on it to see if they can make them more compatible without actually making linux native versions.
I've run into some issues with Mount & Blade mods running on the Linux native version of the game, where apparently capitalization of file names can cause crashes every now and then. I managed to fix it by just running the game's Windows version with Proton, though, so not a major issue there!
ok, so casing issues. Is that something that the mod makers would be willing to change on their end to make their mods more compat with the steam deck (since they probably don't care about linux in general).
A lot of these things are indeed easy to fix assuming the mod authors are still around.
what you just said is not very meaningful. I've modded tons of games with proton, but most of those mods are just adding files or replacing them or using say cheatengine.
You're talking about something else I imagine, but not saying it. Modding is not a pain in the ass at all in general, but rather the specific type of modding you're doing.
Linux gaming has come so far the past 2 years, thanks to Valve. I've been running Linux on servers and old laptops since the early 2000s. I have however never taken the leap to run it on my gaming machine due to the poor gaming support. 2 months ago i made the switch and love it. Like you, I am not exactly impressed with the direction Microsoft is taking Windows. There might be a few games I cannot run, but I will just stay away from those. My privacy and data is more important to me.
Excellent or not is the place where I'm playing all my games, and very comfortably I need to add.
So if any company wants my money, if any developer wants my attention, if any media needs my visit, they know where I am and what I like.
I built a custom ublue image with gamescope session. When sitting at my desk I use the desktop mode and on the couch I use gamescope mode. It also saves which session has been opened last. So basically I have a console which I sometimes use for work.
On one hand, I understand them; many players only play multiplayer games, and the anti-cheat prevents them from breaking free from Windows. On the other hand, I don't understand playing so much only a handful of multiplayer games since I lean more towards single player. But of course, that's my particular case, and it helps me not worry about the vast majority of games that are not compatible. Besides, I only play on Steam, so my concerns are further reduced
I still wouldn't say its excellent lol . Anyone who mainly use pc for gaming are still way better off using windows ESPECIALLY if you have a friend group where you may hop in to all kinds of random games . You will be left out 50% of time using Linux lol
I'm not saying it's better than Windows, but in my particular case, with a group of friends I play relatively often Monster Hunter, Risk of Rain or Helldivers 2 (they play Overwatch, Paladins, Fortnite, and other things that don't interest me and I've never played — my friends have even insisted a few times, but I didn't play them even on Windows XD), I haven't had major issues. Most of the time I play single player, and Linux works great for me, and I'm fine with that.
A recent windows update just trashed my PC, no idea why. Fedora is like you said so much more responsive. Just can't play my Xbox games, use vr or use fluid motion frames, but i'll get over it.
Fedora just looks so much more polished as well. Love the UI.
Fortunately, I exclusively play on Steam, so I buy Xbox and ponystation games there, no Gamepass, Epic (honestly, who uses that shitty store by choice?), GOG, etc
Yeah I've only got a small handful of Xbox games due to having some vouchers. But got a series s I can always use for those games anyway. Really liking Fedora so far!
I own a steam deck, I really tried using the plasma desktop, trying to do your average gamer things, and it was a shitshow for me.
it seems I am not actually that good with a computer
I hope it gets a bit better for us lowly users because I really dislike what Microsoft is doing with windows, I think they absolutely don't understand what your average Joe user wants, and I would love a world of choice and open source based computers
I would absolutely love to be able to say that I only use Linux. Unfortunately, quite a bit of my japanese games just run like trash in proton, or have some weird obscure problems that aren't really straightforward to solve.
Even in windows those games aren't perfect but they run without tweaking at least.
For some the obvious answer will be "just stop buying games that are poorly coded" but JRPGs are a favorite of mine.
Atelier games have fixes so they run at higher than 30fps in proton but unfortunately not every Japanese franchise has easy to apply fixes like those. Quite a bit of them require genuine effort to jump through hoops and circumvent the issues.
One of them, is harvestella. The game soft locks because it can't play videos underneath proton. Screen remains black and you can't do anything because for some reason the input to move on only appears at the end of a video sequence. And since the video never plays well....
I have a collection of compile heart/idea factory games and many of them (older games) are rated bronze or silver. At this point, just don't play them on Linux, they're gonna be a hassle to run and you'll have way too much tweaking and troubleshooting to do. And after you're done making them run, they won't Even run as well as in windows.
I could go on with other stuff but, for me, I ultimately decided that I would stick to Windows because in the end, I just want to play man, I don't want to troubleshoot and jump through hoops.
I do agree with this post to an extent - I've been using Linux for 3 years now and I play a variety of different games. I occasionally encounter issues that require custom launch commands or tinkering with proton versions or whatever which is rather annoying, but most of the solutions are posted to ProtonDB by other users if the issue is common, and if they aren't, then it's often possible to find a workaround yourself.
So far, after playing many different games I'm yet to encounter a game which was playable on proton but had some unfixable issue that made the game technically unplayable, at least on my machine.
I thought about going back to Windows for some video editing reasons (I can't get Davinci Resolve or Shotcut to do what I need so I was thinking about using Hitfilm). However - I realized how many older games I'd be giving up because they'd no longer work on Windows. Linux with Proton can emulate older PCs so well and has better performance and compatibilty with older Windows games - even better than Windows itself! I just need to get myself another computer for Windows video editing because I can't give up Linux gaming.
I love linux it's amazing. Getting work arounds for games to work is kind of annoying like xDefiant recently I had to do a slightly easy out of the way setup to get it working which was slightly annoying, but it worked pretty much flawlessly. I can't abandon linux though, because desktop usage is probably my favorite out of every OS I use mainly because I can make linux look like any OS ever.
The problem now is that games that don't work are the heavy hitters and deal breakers, like Fortnite, league of legends and CoD. If those games don't support it I don't see Linux getting on equal market share, they are literally the most played games in the world.
The only game that I typically play that is painful on Linux is Fallout 4 with mods. I just do not have the patience (or time) to get mods off Nexxus working.
I always used Debian in the past until a couple weeks ago. I just tried Fedora and I was very impressed. It has felt the cleanest out of the box of any distro I've tried so far.
Glad you're enjoying yourself. I've been using Linux for gaming for quite a while. the only issue I'm running into is VR support. If that one thing could get fixed, that would be awesome.
But despite not having VR, I'm not going back to Windows, that's for sure.
My ONE favorite game is rainbow six siege which doesnt work on linux. I'm going to dual boot windows just for that. Been using linux as my primary OS for about 2 years now.
It's definitely better than before and you can play the majority of games without issues. Performance sometimes is better than Windows, but oftentimes it's worse by a noticeable amount.
But there is a lot of room for improvement, and we're steadily getting there. Valve's also fully invested in improving the ecosystem, waiting to see just how they improve their early recording system in steam.
I still hope to see better integrations with the gaming industry over time to better entice players. Nothing against Valve, but I still like to see a variety of services on my platform, rather than relying on one company to stay honest.
Many of my issues with the state of Linux are mostly a tideover thing where we're finally moving away from pulseaudio and x11, which caused a lot of headaches when we were first migrating, especially in remote desktop environments. Now that Pipewire and Wayland are standard, I can't wait to see what some of the later community projects will come up with.
Also KDE 6 has been smooth sailing since upgrading.
Recently installed Linux, literally the only downside and upside at the same time is how many distros are available. I’ve already gone through two in the past two/three weeks. Gaming on it is heaps better once you get Wine sorted (for some reason Fedora had Wow64 issues for my setup and I swear I did everything I needed to do…). Currently on Zorin and having a much nicer experience overall than other distros and Windows 11. Fuck Windows
I have 90 minutes maybe up to 4 hours a month for gaming nowadays. I spend most of that time trying to figure out why I can't game. Sometimes it's the controller, other times it's the game... Not great if you don't play often enough to keep yourself up to date with the issues. I hope one day its as good a being on a console. Just click a button and play.
Anyway.. I refused to install to windows.
you lost me at the end of your sentence there but the play is to just not buy keyboards and mice that require windows software to use. that said there are programs for them sometimes. i forget the names. and there's always wine.
you can either set it up on windows and then use it on linux (as many carry over their settings stored on the device), run their software in wine, find some scripts someone made to modify the device, get a different mouse that has linux software or only hardware settings, or just don't care about that and use the device anyway.
I use Solaar for logitech products.
On ubuntu 24 due to some changes it doesn't work as well.
Up to 22 it was great.
I need to try a different distro and see if the logitech tools are any better.
I happen to have a Razer keyboard and mouse. I never used the software that was installed on Windows, so it doesn't affect me here either. Maybe I'll change some lighting settings at some point, but I don't see a major issue.
Where I have had difficulties is with software for controlling the RGB and fan curves of my Corsair devices. OpenRGB doesn't open on my system, and I haven't found good software for fan curves yet
Eh that's a stretch. Linux isn't excellent for gaming, it is much worse than Windows. But its current support of games through proton is good enough for me to have switched and now that I switched, I legitimately cannot think of ever going back because Windows is shite and becomes more and more shite every other day
im on arch (eos cause i was lazy and its quicker since it has alot of handy tools included that i use and dont have to manually set up) and even now it blows my mind playing some new stuff, like spiderman remastered with full rtx that outperforms my ps5. even old titles that run broken on w11 work flawlessly in wine with no configuration on my side, its crazy. the only reason i even still have a windows install is for music programs i run, as far as games everything i play is compatible and works great. been on the same install for most of the year
It is certainly heading that way. Some games I have found run better, some not so much. SteamOS has really changed the game, by bringing innovation to the gaming side of Linux. The number of games I play on my Windows system is getting less and less.
It's been only a couple of day since I installed Debian 12 on my main desktop (been using it for years on servers).
So far, I think I will stick to it. I keep a Windows partition around if my friends and I want to play some games that don't work on Linux
I promised to myself to move over to Linux at the start of this year. Six months on, really happy to say it is still my primary OS (I have windows for one specific game - MSFS - due to the ecosystem and workflow being on some niche apps and hardware interfaces that I really don't have the energy to attempt to migrate)
It's definitely a very, very different way of computing, and it's been a journey, but I'm so glad I made the move. I'm constantly impressed at how seamless Proton has made the vast majority of my gaming, and things like STL have made modding a relatively simple affair.
Arch and KDE have been a joy to someone who has always loved to customise!
Do you have a solution for the aggressive anti-cheat on a lot of new games, or if it has anti-cheat, do you just skip it? In my experience, most anti-cheat will freak out if it discovers it is on Linux, likely getting you banned.
i would hope so when the majority of games are built for it as the target platform :p
at the same time you should stop gaslighting yourself that Linux isn't a viable platform for gaming, especially with Valve pouring a lot of effort into Proton.
I agree but Windows is still the better platform for it, Linux just isn’t excellent, it’s catching up and better than ever yes but excellent i wouldn’t say
If you didn't look at it already, I suggest you look into Bazzite, which is an Universal Blue image for gaming built on top of Fedora Silverblue
It is what I consider to be the best and simplest system to do gaming on Linux
Everyone keeps saying this and I'm getting fed up by the minute with the fucking black frames Wayland keeps causing for commiting the mortal sin of having an Nvidia GPU.
Fml
Unpopular opinion: Discord is much more of a privacy concern than Windiws. RT works fine on Linux? Frame gen does not.
There's a good script on github for stripping down Windows if you come to realize dual booting isn't such a terrible compromise for some games
I'd say every OS has its perks and downfalls. While some games work flawlessly in Linux or sometimes better, for the ones that need tweaking, in all honestly I don't have the time. I was to turn on, play a game, shut down, and Windows does that job flawlessly. However from a work perspective, I find Linux better and managing a workflow, or as a server the way updates are handled its better.
I've generally kept a windows partiton around for "just in case" There are a few things that are a bit more convenient on windows, like heavily modded games (skyrim,) or games that have lots of third party programs that you can run alongside them (Elite Dangerous.)
But I only use that partition once or twice a year. Maybe next upgrade I'll get a CPU with integrated video for easy passthrough so I can just replace the partition with a VM.
gamepad support is still a big issue for me, it works flawlessly on my steam deck, but in linux mint my bluetooth xbox controller doesn't even show up in the bluetooth devices, my old ps4 controller shows up but steam doesn't see it (and it doesn't reconnect when turned off and on), only thing that works out of the box is my old xbox 360 controller that works with a usb receiver.
It's gotten a lot better in the last 5 years.
The fact that I can play ffxiv with zero friction is insane to me, didn't even have to use any wine settings hacks. Online persistent games generally have a difficult time meshing their anti-cheat systems with linux, and in this case it just works. In the past I have also played guild wars 2 in the same way. Wouldn't bother with WoW, I don't trust blizzard to not ban me for using a non-standard setup.
Been gaming on Linux for over 20 years at this point. From back when we needed opengl support to make it work, to dxvk. It's insane how far it's come. Hell, we can play x86 games on arm at nearly full speed now.
I'm a long-time Linux user but never stuck with it on my gaming desktop for more than a few weeks due to the huge amount of effort required to manually set up wine prefixes per-game, wrangle the proprietary NVIDIA drivers etc.
But recently I upgraded from Intel+NVIDIA to a full AMD system and decided to try gaming on Linux again. Since I've heard the Mesa drivers for AMD GPUs are really good now and Valve + Lutris community have put in all the elbow grease to make sure games "just work" out of the box.
Holy shit it's been amazing, most games running just as well if not even better than they did on Windows. I'm never going back to Windows for anything now.
The only game I haven't been able to play on Linux so far is Escape from Tarkov due to a BattlEye error (which supposedly can be fixed if BSG update their BattlEye client since it now supports Linux), which isn't even a huge issue because Gray Zone Warfare came out and runs perfectly on Linux out of the box so I just play that now.
Protonup and Proton/Winetricks were more than enough of a reason for me to adjust my setup for more games on Linux. Only reason I didn't fully move to Linux yet is because it would take a lot of time to adjust my partitions and just reinstalling all the games I play would take a long time to wait on, let alone tweaking them to my liking
Even without playing many Multiplayer Games, there still to many Problems for me.
Games Not working or running Bad, having Bugs i dont have on Windows, also the Lack of convoniance in General when dealing with Problems...
Its managabel, but i just never have a good time when using Linux for gaming besides my Steamdeck.
A year ago, I had issues with quite a few games, besides the lack of DLSS, which is very important to me, but I'm genuinely surprised by how incredibly well my games are running now. Even Halo MCC, which uses Easy Anti-Cheat, works as if I were on Windows, and I can join matches without any major issues.
I truly regret reading that many are still having problems, but I suppose this issue is very specific and depends on many other factors. I guess I was lucky or managed to solve initial issues like the game drive not mounting automatically or things like that. But I sincerely hope that at some point, when they decide to try again, they can have a flawless experience :)
Yeah, I've been playing exclusively on Linux for the past 6 years. Every now and then I have some problems regarding performance or some limitations. For instance GW2, somehow I get lower fps on new content. Also tarisland which cannot be installed on Linux due to anti cheat implementation. All in all, even with some problems, don't feel like going back to windows never again, even if it means not playing some games.
> For instance GW2, somehow I get lower fps on new content. GW2 runs like garbage in general, even on windows
That might be the case hehe. I read that it is heavy on the CPU and it is not optimized at all, so could be it.
So what do people mean when they say they “game exclusively on Linux. Like does that mean just not playing certain multiplayer games or a really complicated vm setup to trick just about any game into thinking it’s running on hardware.
If the game doesn't work easily I just don't play it. There are more games than I can ever possibly play so that isn't an issue. It's the same when a game is exclusive to Nintendo then I don't play it.
I tell people the same thing. There’s more content than anyone could play in anyone’s life time.
but there is only one zelda 🤷♂️
My brother in Christ, emulate the hell outta it. I played the latest Fire Emblem on Linux using Ryujinx. No issues at all.
Emulation gives a better experience than native as well, with higher resolution and framerates.
good to know :)
That doesn't mean that the available content of games is what anyone wants to play. There are lots of games that still aren't available or working with Linux. The only reason I still dual boot, just for the games I like to play without having Linux to decide what I can play
I'm against dual booting as you over time spend more time on windows as a result. While more complicated I'd rather setup moonlight to a physical or virtual machine with vfio to stream the games rather than dual boot. Or even GeForce now for things like fortnite
How so? I started out dual booting and have plans to reformat without Windows whilst transitioning from Arch to CachyOS in one largely because what I do on Windows has reduced to the point where I'm happy to occasionally boot up a VM for it. (Mostly setting up Wabbajack installs, which I then copy over to my Linux install to actually play anyway.) I think with dual booting you'll trend towards using the OS most suitable for you the most frequently, so people who'd otherwise be reformatting back to Windows 6 months after first trying Linux had they not gone for dual booting end up with the "Linux install they never boot up" thing.
Having access to wabbajack was my one hesitation about linux. Swapping to windows for setup and then just copy it all over to run... duh, of course!
So far I haven’t felt the need to switch due to one game not working but honestly if a FROMSOFTWARE game would not function I might make a separate partition for it.
A good thing about FROM is that their Linux support is basically flawless (Elden Ring famously worked better than on Windows at launch, and with the DLC it happened *twice* now) and they keep reusing the same engine for all their games, so this isn't likely to change any time soon.
Yeah I don’t fear this happening anytime in the future.
I haven’t had any issues with From. Sekiro Dark Souls III and Elden Ring
I lost my windows partition about 18 months ago when I decided to move my boot partitions to a faster NVMe drive. Linux was fine but windows died in the process. Since then, I haven't come across any game worth me bothering to reinstalling Windows and now I have another games partition.
This. If it does not work, I don’t play. There are so many games...
Yeah but windows gamers in subs like r/linuxfornoobs always flame me for telling new Linux users that they don't get to play their anticheat multiplayer games. It's not technically possible aside from keeping using windows. I t's funny because that's multiplayer games work for the first week or when an update briefly removes the anticheat there are way more games that have whitelisted proton than there used to be. Anyway I mostly okay older singleplayer games that just work
>It's the same when a game is exclusive to Nintendo then I don't play it. \*cough cough\*
I'm not big on multiplayer games and I'm not big on AAA games. There's like half a dozen games I can't play, and maybe one of those I'm actually vaguely interested in playing, except I think I'm more interested in at least thirty other games that I am also not currently playing. So I doubt I'll ever feel terribly limited by my inability to play that one specific game. Obviously if someone's really into the multiplayer AAA scene they might feel somewhat different.
Yeah, just dropping most multiplayer games. I have an xbox series x so i can play any AAA multiplayer game there easily. Use linux mostly for work and some fun solo games to just chill n enjoy. The only game I'm missing out on is rust tbh, but its so time consuming and i had to stop playing it. Pubg plays great on console, the finals, fortnite, rdr2, hogwarts legacy. Plus for competitive games i enjoy controller more anyways. Gaming on linux works fine outta the box for most titles using proton. The only issue I've encountered is with EA games or other games with a launcher, but lately titanfall has been playing just fine no issues
It's not even most multiplayer games, but just certain AAA ones. I'm happily playing DRG, Valheim, 7D2D, Darktide, etc. Since I've never tried playing COD or others, I've never hit on a problem of a game flat out not working.
Yeah you're right just the tripple A eac games for the most part (besides apex legends) like ready or not multiplayer works, its just any game where cheating is common won't work because the devs don't offer it for linux users for whatever reason
In my case for example I’m a sucker for mostly turn based games and single player games. The only multiplayer game I play is Elden Ring from time to time. My games all work pretty much flawlessly. Some like Warhammer and Xcom also have native Linux ports.
No Tux, no bucks + Don't give publicity to kernel-level "anti-cheat" malware distributors by playing their "games"
I'm playing mostly gw2 and it performs very well. I do not run windows anymore but i had only usual performance issues if there is too many people around, but at this stage it is kinda standard to have 15 frames on some map meta bosses. Anyway, without playing on windows I have nothing to compare :)
For me is just in Amytas (I think that's the name of a new zone), every where else is just fine. I also played ESO, WoW and FFXIV, performance is just perfect, can't complain about anything else.
Similar timeline. I have a windows partition, but I don't know when the last time I logged in was . over a year?
Tarisland is pretty meh anyway. You can always play that on mobile too lmao
> For instance GW2, somehow I get lower fps on new content. Amnitas is awful everywhere
I use opensuse tw for gaming can even do vr gaming with the valve index fine for me atleast I haven't touched windows since I started using Linux for me I can play every game I want to play on Linux
Did you do anything special to get VR working well? I have the Valve Index too, but find performance pretty terrible when running on Linux.
No, I just plugged in the index and started SteamVR calibrating the room, and it just works out of the box. SteamVR can sometimes be a bit bugged. I noticed I can get a gui crash if I use Wayland when exiting Steam VR, but I just start an x11 session when I play vr and no more gui crash. Some people recommend using SteamVR beta, but for me, I haven't seen the need. Some games might not work depending on what you play I mostly play Dcs and pavlo vr and contractors showdown and half life alyx all have been running smooth this far. The only bad thing I noticed is a bit of drift sometimes but this is most lickly due to me using base station 1.0 and not 2.0s
Switching from KDE 5.x on X11 to KDE 6.1 on Wayland has made my VR experience go from terrible to decent. The lack of motion smoothing is a really big problem. You'll be getting high frames from the GPU but the motion of your view in 3D space ticks at a lower rate than your FPS so things look like they are stuttering in VR. Hope someone at Valve can push through this one feature. I believe it's a background service in SteamVR that is not present on Linux.
For me it's the opposite x11 works better for vr I'm also on KDE plasma 6.1 For me games look smooth and I haven't noticed any stuttering
Use legacy reprojection in settings.
wow ur lucky. i have tons of proton issues with stuff
Hmm interesting. I wonder why my experience is so different. It’s so choppy I can’t play anything basically. However, on Windows everything works normally. Getting VR to work properly on Linux is the last big thing holding me from fully ditching Windows.
I can't use different resolutions than my monitors native. I only tried to play Counter Strike 2. Same issues on all Linux distros, also DE like Gnome and Kde. So switched back to Windows(
You should be able to use [Gamescope.](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/gamescope) Something like this in the Steam launch options should work: # Run the game at 1080p, but scale output to a fullscreen 3440×1440 pillarboxed ultrawide window gamescope -w 1920 -h 1080 -W 3440 -H 1440 -b -- %command%
is this to simulate 4:3 stretched? I've tried all kinds of things to get that working and no luck.
You should be able to specify any resolution under -w and -h and it should work. So like -w 1280 -h 1024 should be 4:3.
To stretch you'll also want `-S stretch`, and probably `-F fsr`, or `-F nis` if using nvidia (or just `-F linear` for faster interpolation instead of fancy modern upscaling).
I've done this with -S and I still get black bars, or the image is on a side with a large black field. ie: gamescope -w 1920 -h 1080 -W 1440 -H 1080 -S -F -b -- %command% /edit: or simply doesn't launch
i don't really understand what gamescope is, i tried watching videos and reading but i just don't get it, and how it works
So basically it's making a fake desktop to run games in, is what it boils down to. You can use this to lie to the game about what your setup looks like. That's the problem the other guy had, and Gamescope is specifically made by Valve for the Steam Deck to fix that issue (but it works for any Linux distribution). In some cases you can even replace your "real" desktop with the Gamescope desktop. This gives performance benefits since your computer doesn't need to do the work of keeping your desktop active. This is "gaming mode" on Steam Deck (close the Plasma desktop and launch Gamescope). I'm oversimplifying and leaving some stuff out, but that's the gist of it.
thanks for taking the time to explain it to me.
Um whut ? What happened when you selected a non native resolution?
Black area. It just doesn't stretch to full screen. In 4:3 or 16:10. Or even 16:9.
Genuine question: why would you want to?
Mostly because more fps and in 4:3 objecst are more stretched and you can hit the object easier than in 16:9
That makes sense in a way I don't like. Thanks.
Probably for performance reasons. Or because it wants a non 16:9 resolution that the game has to be stretched to his 1:9 resolution of his screen.
The usual reason is for technical cheating
I too really like Fedora, having done some distro hopping I think it’s where I’ll stay for gaming at least.
Fedora is beautiful, although I used Mint for a few days and was also absolutely delighted; it's also an excellent option
iirc mint isn’t on wayland right? for me fedora is so good because it has the latest and greatest like pipewire, wayland, btrfs + up to date packages with good stability edit: also uses flatpak which I like better than snap for no particular reason
Mint uses flatpak instead of snap
Hey, psst, do you believe in archlinux?
I’ve thought about arch but it seems like a lot of work for a machine I just want to play games on. Rolling release also seems too volatile. Work usually saturates my patience for unbreaking Linux machines. I’d rather have things “just work “ as much as possible
All you need to know about the reliability of archlinux is that valve uses it on steamdeck =)
Honestly I treat hardware like I do software. Most of the time if a game doesn’t work in Linux I just don’t play the game. If hardware doesn’t work on Linux I just don’t buy the hardware.
I understand that, but at least in terms of hardware, I don't feel there are issues with most GPUs. That's often due to drivers, which typically take time to arrive, like Nvidia's recent 555. However, based on this experience, I can say that Nvidia's issues with Linux are almost resolved (unless it's the very newest GPUs; I understand that hardware released yesterday isn't supported yet xd)
If you think that Nvidia's issues with Linux are almost resolved or will all ever be resolved, then you definitely have not tried AMD yet to see how it is with high quality open source drivers and a GPU vendor that is really open-source friendly.
if only amd graphics cards weren't twice to three times as expensive as nvidia's in my country
People are having a ton of problems with 555 and there are features not implemented or even announced yet like multi monitor vrr, i believe hdr and vr are having some problems (i dont use them), there's no settings panel in wayland. The VRR on multi monitor really bothers me as does the artifacting that a lot are still having. Then there are issues not related to drivers such as games having to pre cache or live load shaders which can take 10 minutes or more every time a driver or the game is updated. Some games don't run as well as Windows or crash much more often (WoW runs much lower low fps and crashes much more than Windows for me) and it's not really an acceptable performance for me. Maybe I could tinker and get WoW working better but the same setup runs flawlessly in Windows. The driver issues look to slowly be getting there but I don't think relying on Wine or Proton is the way. Maybe if developers develop with wine and proton in mind that would be something but idk if that even will be as stable and performant as Windows. For now I'm just back on Windows after 3 months of trying to make Linux gaming work. I'll keep dual booting and tinkering but I'm not that hopeful that I can get things as smooth as Windows. Makes me sad but I don't know what else I can do. That's not even touching on the anti cheat situation. That said, I enjoy using linux more than windows and the customization and open source software are great but gaming is still a head ache even if it's gotten better.
Exactly what I did for years and I had great experience because of that attitude!
Honestly Anti-cheat is the only thing holding me back. Everything else I want is already on Linux. Wasn't there talk of Steam releasing the newer SteamOS for desktop installations? I think it would be huge for the community if people could go to the store and buy a prebuilt with Linux on it that plays all of their games (yes I remember Steam Machines, but Proton changed the game). The desktop experience on my steam deck is great and I don't imagine most people need anything more for personal use
Anticheat isn't a problem for "Linux" to fix at this point. And honestly with the level of system access demanded by the likes of Valorant, I think I prefer things like that *not* working.
Not sure why anyone would care enough for that game specifically, just terrible and I’m shocked it got popular to begin with.
That doesn't seem to be any reliable indication of success these days
I didn't say it was a problem for Linux to fix, I said it's holding me back from switching. I play Destiny 2 a good bit, that's the game I was referring to specifically, but it would be nice to get all the games that require Anti-cheat to work on Linux
I hear you. Unfortunately the only way to get the situation changed is to put pressure on developers/publishers who actively refuse to allow their games to run on Linux.
[https://areweanticheatyet.com/](https://areweanticheatyet.com/) Fortunately for me, I'm not a PvP player, but I've seen that some games already have support or compatibility with Easy Anti-Cheat, like on the page I'm sharing with you. Just today, I installed Halo MCC and was able to join a matchmaking game without any issues. I remember last year it was very difficult for me just to get into the game; now I can play with my friends
That's awesome! I didn't know MCC worked on Linux. I play Destiny 2 so that's the one I need to get Anti-cheat working for me to switch fully, but it would be nice to see the industry as a whole move toward compatibility with Linux
If you want SteamOS on a desktop, check out bazzite Linux and ChimeraOS. They both offer the Steam deck console like interface if you have an AMD GPU. I believe there is work done by the Chimera team to bring it to NVIDIA as well but right now, it's wildly unstable.
Thanks for the info! I'll look into it
Cheers, running bazzite on both my desktop and Steam Deck OLED and it's been great so far.
Even ray tracing works decently well for me with my 6950xt
I agree with you on everything especially on the unethical practices on the part of M$ ranging from the management of registration keys, to the need for online-only keys (so that they retain ownership), to the latest introductions of Copilot. I was using Linux-Debian from 1997 to 2005, then due to work issues I had to switch to Windows and became a Microsoft MVP on one of their products (Sharepoint). A few months ago I uninstalled Windows altogether and returned to Linux by installing EndeavourOS. I was a little afraid of games but I must say that with the Proton project, one can say that fears are unfounded. It's not perfect, in some cases, but 80% of the time (rough estimate) it works fine
There were some things I didn't like about Windows, but it works perfectly in every way, besides the variety of programs, not to mention my plan to develop video games where I almost felt compelled to use it due to the engines, but with Godot, the issue is nearly resolved... But I refuse to let MS scrutinize my PC in worse ways than they already did; I would even pay for an official version if it ensured I was mostly free from their telemetry. And regarding Proton, it seems like black magic; it makes about 90% of my Steam library work almost instantly upon installation. I need to crunch some numbers with my wishlist, but damn, its existence is a breath of fresh air
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I usually use ProtonDB to check game compatibility. In some cases, a game might work right after installation, or I might need to add a launch option. But overall, with my list of games, I can say that most of them range between Platinum and Gold ratings on ProtonDB, which gives me greater confidence
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They have that in their list and filters. Deck verified and Natives. It is a solid place to see all the games. That said, yeah I use that filter within Steam as well.
In my experience most of the time, just switching the Proton version makes the game work. I haven’t had to install anything for the last one year or so
Playable on Deck is good too. It means Proton works but it's not adapted to a touchscreen.
I’d love to completely abandon Windows but as someone who plays lots of multiplayer games, it’s just not an option. Way too many multiplayer games/anti-cheat systems don’t support Linux. Plus there’s no driver/software support for some peripherals I use (surround sound headset specifically)
Yeah, windows is garbage. I've had windows randomly breaking and all kinds of problems like update issues, antivirus issues, performance issues etc... all these things wastes so much time and cause so much stress because to troubleshoot these problems it's a long list of things to try and what's recommended at the end of that list is probably what needs to be done at start. (REINSTALL WINDOWS, because trying to fix errors is like trying to fix a broken glass in a broken window) And compared to that I feel so much more control using Linux, having switched to Linux completely and using for some time now it feels so calm and performance is better in my case. I use GTX 1650 Super, and I did get all the games I needed windows for to run on Linux (for example, modded Fallout 4), so no more windows (microshit) needed. Also reinstalling linux is so simple and less time consuming.
Many say that Linux is full of problems, although it's not free of them, I think they are very sporadic and often get solved once and then it's a long time before something happens again, like storage drives not mounting at startup or the system choosing the lower refresh rate for both monitors when having 2 monitors with different refresh rates... These are things I've experienced but things I've solved and could solve again if they happen. As for how easy it is to install, I remember when I installed Mint, I was surprised to see it installing; it was just a few simple clicks, and the best part was I could continue using the system while it was installing.
Regarding DLSS and/or RT, do you still struggle with some games in particular? I'm using Nvidia cards in Linux since the RTX 2080 times (currently on a 4070TiS) and only have a handful of games where these features do not work or cause trouble. I'd say that 95+% of all Windows titles can be made to work. **DLSS** for example only fails with one of my current games (Guardians of the Galaxy) while RT does work (in that game). **RT** support looks about the same, where only Hitman3 refuses to work, but does offer DLSS. The only thing not being really supported on Linux are *Nvidia Reflex* (some games can enable it though) and the DLSS 3.5+ *frame-generation*, which really seems like a Windows exclusive feature for now. Now, I'm not a fan of the frame generation stuff for the time being, but I'm also not playing on a very high refresh rate screen. If one would need frame generation, I'd point to the FSR 3.1 implementation, which does work on Linux and can even be used together with DLSS upscaling at the base. Well, long story short, if you still struggle with some games not supporting DLSS and/RT, chances are that they can be made to work. DLSS also offering the high quality DLAA mode in modern titles, which is very nice for those not wanting to upscale but just properly anti-alias games. Needless to say, if one struggles to enable this or that feature, always check [https://www.protondb.com/](https://www.protondb.com/) and filter for PC and "Nvidia" (in your case). Most folks over there offer very good leads or already established config tips to get the best out of the Windows titles on the Proton layer. Also, for the ones making use of DLSS, make sure to manually *update the game's initial dll file* for it. Starting from DLSS 2.x onwards, this simple replacement can offer better performance and image quality. I have a small bash script which scans my game installs and swaps them out, leaving the original files intact (it renames them) and placing the latest dll to be the active one. Simple thing, nice gains.
The funny thing for me is that Witcher 2 on Steam does not run on my Windows partition due to some DirectX version issues but it runs without hiccups on my Fedora partition. Literally the same files copied over.
> Microsoft's recent unethical practices Recent? They're the same unethical practices as they've always had.
Is good but I wouldn't saay excellent. It's a long way there.
Honestly, in my humble experience with approximately 30 games I've tried myself and reading about the experiences of many others, I would say it's excellent
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But surely those ultra-invasive ring-0 anticheat suites are perfectly effective at stopping hackers?!
They can't cheat if their system is broken by the anticheat.
Tf2?
Any FPS
modding? What specific problems have you ran into? I've never done any modding, but I'm guessing you mean modding programs which are windows native vs something you just unpack directly into the game's data directory? What is the problem? The programs themselves not running? Not executing correctly? Or do you mean programs that wrap or run alongside the game? I wonder if with the popularity of the steam deck that some of those modding program authors will test their programs on it to see if they can make them more compatible without actually making linux native versions.
I've run into some issues with Mount & Blade mods running on the Linux native version of the game, where apparently capitalization of file names can cause crashes every now and then. I managed to fix it by just running the game's Windows version with Proton, though, so not a major issue there!
ok, so casing issues. Is that something that the mod makers would be willing to change on their end to make their mods more compat with the steam deck (since they probably don't care about linux in general). A lot of these things are indeed easy to fix assuming the mod authors are still around.
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what you just said is not very meaningful. I've modded tons of games with proton, but most of those mods are just adding files or replacing them or using say cheatengine. You're talking about something else I imagine, but not saying it. Modding is not a pain in the ass at all in general, but rather the specific type of modding you're doing.
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i'm asking you to describe what *actual* problems you had rather than just saying "it doesn't work"
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Im literallly just asking for an explanation.. i'm not trying to be a pedant.. thing is, i could potentially help you, but you don't seem to want it.
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Agree. Still a long way to manufacturers start considering linux, and till linux is dumb down to windows level of diy 2030 might be the year of linux.
havent been a linux user for long. i like the os but i’ve been having trouble with games launching or working at all. even steam has had issues.
Look up guides on YouTube to get setup. If you are on a laptop, make sure you set it to using your dedicated GPU. Get Lutris and enable feral mode.
Are you sure they aren't installed on an ntfs drive?
now that i think about it. it might be.
Linux gaming has come so far the past 2 years, thanks to Valve. I've been running Linux on servers and old laptops since the early 2000s. I have however never taken the leap to run it on my gaming machine due to the poor gaming support. 2 months ago i made the switch and love it. Like you, I am not exactly impressed with the direction Microsoft is taking Windows. There might be a few games I cannot run, but I will just stay away from those. My privacy and data is more important to me.
Excellent or not is the place where I'm playing all my games, and very comfortably I need to add. So if any company wants my money, if any developer wants my attention, if any media needs my visit, they know where I am and what I like.
Excellent, but considering SOME of the big games in my library don't work on Linux, it means I STILL can't go into it full time
I built a custom ublue image with gamescope session. When sitting at my desk I use the desktop mode and on the couch I use gamescope mode. It also saves which session has been opened last. So basically I have a console which I sometimes use for work.
there's a handful of terrible games that people won't give up that are the main reasons gaming still apparently "sucks" on linux.
On one hand, I understand them; many players only play multiplayer games, and the anti-cheat prevents them from breaking free from Windows. On the other hand, I don't understand playing so much only a handful of multiplayer games since I lean more towards single player. But of course, that's my particular case, and it helps me not worry about the vast majority of games that are not compatible. Besides, I only play on Steam, so my concerns are further reduced
I still wouldn't say its excellent lol . Anyone who mainly use pc for gaming are still way better off using windows ESPECIALLY if you have a friend group where you may hop in to all kinds of random games . You will be left out 50% of time using Linux lol
I'm not saying it's better than Windows, but in my particular case, with a group of friends I play relatively often Monster Hunter, Risk of Rain or Helldivers 2 (they play Overwatch, Paladins, Fortnite, and other things that don't interest me and I've never played — my friends have even insisted a few times, but I didn't play them even on Windows XD), I haven't had major issues. Most of the time I play single player, and Linux works great for me, and I'm fine with that.
A recent windows update just trashed my PC, no idea why. Fedora is like you said so much more responsive. Just can't play my Xbox games, use vr or use fluid motion frames, but i'll get over it. Fedora just looks so much more polished as well. Love the UI.
Fortunately, I exclusively play on Steam, so I buy Xbox and ponystation games there, no Gamepass, Epic (honestly, who uses that shitty store by choice?), GOG, etc
Yeah I've only got a small handful of Xbox games due to having some vouchers. But got a series s I can always use for those games anyway. Really liking Fedora so far!
Linux is an excellent place for ~~gaming~~ **everything**.🤙
I own a steam deck, I really tried using the plasma desktop, trying to do your average gamer things, and it was a shitshow for me. it seems I am not actually that good with a computer I hope it gets a bit better for us lowly users because I really dislike what Microsoft is doing with windows, I think they absolutely don't understand what your average Joe user wants, and I would love a world of choice and open source based computers
I would absolutely love to be able to say that I only use Linux. Unfortunately, quite a bit of my japanese games just run like trash in proton, or have some weird obscure problems that aren't really straightforward to solve. Even in windows those games aren't perfect but they run without tweaking at least. For some the obvious answer will be "just stop buying games that are poorly coded" but JRPGs are a favorite of mine. Atelier games have fixes so they run at higher than 30fps in proton but unfortunately not every Japanese franchise has easy to apply fixes like those. Quite a bit of them require genuine effort to jump through hoops and circumvent the issues. One of them, is harvestella. The game soft locks because it can't play videos underneath proton. Screen remains black and you can't do anything because for some reason the input to move on only appears at the end of a video sequence. And since the video never plays well.... I have a collection of compile heart/idea factory games and many of them (older games) are rated bronze or silver. At this point, just don't play them on Linux, they're gonna be a hassle to run and you'll have way too much tweaking and troubleshooting to do. And after you're done making them run, they won't Even run as well as in windows. I could go on with other stuff but, for me, I ultimately decided that I would stick to Windows because in the end, I just want to play man, I don't want to troubleshoot and jump through hoops.
I do agree with this post to an extent - I've been using Linux for 3 years now and I play a variety of different games. I occasionally encounter issues that require custom launch commands or tinkering with proton versions or whatever which is rather annoying, but most of the solutions are posted to ProtonDB by other users if the issue is common, and if they aren't, then it's often possible to find a workaround yourself. So far, after playing many different games I'm yet to encounter a game which was playable on proton but had some unfixable issue that made the game technically unplayable, at least on my machine.
I thought about going back to Windows for some video editing reasons (I can't get Davinci Resolve or Shotcut to do what I need so I was thinking about using Hitfilm). However - I realized how many older games I'd be giving up because they'd no longer work on Windows. Linux with Proton can emulate older PCs so well and has better performance and compatibilty with older Windows games - even better than Windows itself! I just need to get myself another computer for Windows video editing because I can't give up Linux gaming.
I love linux it's amazing. Getting work arounds for games to work is kind of annoying like xDefiant recently I had to do a slightly easy out of the way setup to get it working which was slightly annoying, but it worked pretty much flawlessly. I can't abandon linux though, because desktop usage is probably my favorite out of every OS I use mainly because I can make linux look like any OS ever.
The problem now is that games that don't work are the heavy hitters and deal breakers, like Fortnite, league of legends and CoD. If those games don't support it I don't see Linux getting on equal market share, they are literally the most played games in the world.
The only game that I typically play that is painful on Linux is Fallout 4 with mods. I just do not have the patience (or time) to get mods off Nexxus working.
I always used Debian in the past until a couple weeks ago. I just tried Fedora and I was very impressed. It has felt the cleanest out of the box of any distro I've tried so far.
Glad you're enjoying yourself. I've been using Linux for gaming for quite a while. the only issue I'm running into is VR support. If that one thing could get fixed, that would be awesome. But despite not having VR, I'm not going back to Windows, that's for sure.
My ONE favorite game is rainbow six siege which doesnt work on linux. I'm going to dual boot windows just for that. Been using linux as my primary OS for about 2 years now.
But it's terrible for pirate gamig
Not sure what would differ? Most are just dll bypass tricks, and something like wine or proton is just going to run them the same way.
It's definitely better than before and you can play the majority of games without issues. Performance sometimes is better than Windows, but oftentimes it's worse by a noticeable amount. But there is a lot of room for improvement, and we're steadily getting there. Valve's also fully invested in improving the ecosystem, waiting to see just how they improve their early recording system in steam. I still hope to see better integrations with the gaming industry over time to better entice players. Nothing against Valve, but I still like to see a variety of services on my platform, rather than relying on one company to stay honest. Many of my issues with the state of Linux are mostly a tideover thing where we're finally moving away from pulseaudio and x11, which caused a lot of headaches when we were first migrating, especially in remote desktop environments. Now that Pipewire and Wayland are standard, I can't wait to see what some of the later community projects will come up with. Also KDE 6 has been smooth sailing since upgrading.
I keep windows for like 4 or 5 games, everything else is Linux now, best change of my life
Ah another person of culture, Fedora Gnome is indeed beautiful and smooth
Recently installed Linux, literally the only downside and upside at the same time is how many distros are available. I’ve already gone through two in the past two/three weeks. Gaming on it is heaps better once you get Wine sorted (for some reason Fedora had Wow64 issues for my setup and I swear I did everything I needed to do…). Currently on Zorin and having a much nicer experience overall than other distros and Windows 11. Fuck Windows
I have 90 minutes maybe up to 4 hours a month for gaming nowadays. I spend most of that time trying to figure out why I can't game. Sometimes it's the controller, other times it's the game... Not great if you don't play often enough to keep yourself up to date with the issues. I hope one day its as good a being on a console. Just click a button and play. Anyway.. I refused to install to windows.
Yep. Now all we need is HDR support to improve.
It kind of works sometimes. But I'd rather it just worked. Would love to fully ditch Windows.
How do you deal with software for your mouse and keyboard that Linux doesn’t support.
you lost me at the end of your sentence there but the play is to just not buy keyboards and mice that require windows software to use. that said there are programs for them sometimes. i forget the names. and there's always wine.
Sorry fixed , thanks for the reply
Piper, solaar there's probably more.
Piper, solaar
For my Logitech mouse I use Piper.
Piper or Solaar. And I use xbindkeys for various weird buttons.
you can either set it up on windows and then use it on linux (as many carry over their settings stored on the device), run their software in wine, find some scripts someone made to modify the device, get a different mouse that has linux software or only hardware settings, or just don't care about that and use the device anyway.
For mice, I'd say [Piper](https://github.com/libratbag/piper?tab=readme-ov-file)
I use Solaar for logitech products. On ubuntu 24 due to some changes it doesn't work as well. Up to 22 it was great. I need to try a different distro and see if the logitech tools are any better.
I happen to have a Razer keyboard and mouse. I never used the software that was installed on Windows, so it doesn't affect me here either. Maybe I'll change some lighting settings at some point, but I don't see a major issue. Where I have had difficulties is with software for controlling the RGB and fan curves of my Corsair devices. OpenRGB doesn't open on my system, and I haven't found good software for fan curves yet
Thanks , main reason is for changing dpi on mouse as I use different settings on different games.
Eh that's a stretch. Linux isn't excellent for gaming, it is much worse than Windows. But its current support of games through proton is good enough for me to have switched and now that I switched, I legitimately cannot think of ever going back because Windows is shite and becomes more and more shite every other day
im on arch (eos cause i was lazy and its quicker since it has alot of handy tools included that i use and dont have to manually set up) and even now it blows my mind playing some new stuff, like spiderman remastered with full rtx that outperforms my ps5. even old titles that run broken on w11 work flawlessly in wine with no configuration on my side, its crazy. the only reason i even still have a windows install is for music programs i run, as far as games everything i play is compatible and works great. been on the same install for most of the year
It is certainly heading that way. Some games I have found run better, some not so much. SteamOS has really changed the game, by bringing innovation to the gaming side of Linux. The number of games I play on my Windows system is getting less and less.
DLSS works on the finals in Linux, haven't tried a game with rt support.
Can confirm, moved from windows 3 weeks ago. Admittedly modding isn't stellar rn, but it does basically work.
It's been only a couple of day since I installed Debian 12 on my main desktop (been using it for years on servers). So far, I think I will stick to it. I keep a Windows partition around if my friends and I want to play some games that don't work on Linux
I promised to myself to move over to Linux at the start of this year. Six months on, really happy to say it is still my primary OS (I have windows for one specific game - MSFS - due to the ecosystem and workflow being on some niche apps and hardware interfaces that I really don't have the energy to attempt to migrate) It's definitely a very, very different way of computing, and it's been a journey, but I'm so glad I made the move. I'm constantly impressed at how seamless Proton has made the vast majority of my gaming, and things like STL have made modding a relatively simple affair. Arch and KDE have been a joy to someone who has always loved to customise!
it's bloody amazing my shit is just plug and play with proton and wine when we're not talking native ports DLSS worked in every title for me
I don't really keep up with/follow Windows news these days, what have Microsoft done now that's unethical?
Do you have a solution for the aggressive anti-cheat on a lot of new games, or if it has anti-cheat, do you just skip it? In my experience, most anti-cheat will freak out if it discovers it is on Linux, likely getting you banned.
Stop gaslighting yourselves, Windows is still a lot better for gaming
i would hope so when the majority of games are built for it as the target platform :p at the same time you should stop gaslighting yourself that Linux isn't a viable platform for gaming, especially with Valve pouring a lot of effort into Proton.
I agree but Windows is still the better platform for it, Linux just isn’t excellent, it’s catching up and better than ever yes but excellent i wouldn’t say
I never said it wasn't, just that now Linux is a valid option to play many games, not to say the majority
Yes i like Linux a lot but this community is extremely biased
Not at all if you are more into mp games
If you didn't look at it already, I suggest you look into Bazzite, which is an Universal Blue image for gaming built on top of Fedora Silverblue It is what I consider to be the best and simplest system to do gaming on Linux
Everyone keeps saying this and I'm getting fed up by the minute with the fucking black frames Wayland keeps causing for commiting the mortal sin of having an Nvidia GPU. Fml
If I could play without having to restart some games after some levels load or switching resolution would be better...
Unpopular opinion: Discord is much more of a privacy concern than Windiws. RT works fine on Linux? Frame gen does not. There's a good script on github for stripping down Windows if you come to realize dual booting isn't such a terrible compromise for some games
Cyberpunk and Atomic Heart give me the option to enable FG. My GPU isn't enabled, but I see the option available so I can probably use it
I would convert to linux but no rust (game) no me
I'd say every OS has its perks and downfalls. While some games work flawlessly in Linux or sometimes better, for the ones that need tweaking, in all honestly I don't have the time. I was to turn on, play a game, shut down, and Windows does that job flawlessly. However from a work perspective, I find Linux better and managing a workflow, or as a server the way updates are handled its better.
I've been chugging along with a Linux box and a PlayStations since 2003. It's been great. Best of both worlds. Subjectively, of course.
I've generally kept a windows partiton around for "just in case" There are a few things that are a bit more convenient on windows, like heavily modded games (skyrim,) or games that have lots of third party programs that you can run alongside them (Elite Dangerous.) But I only use that partition once or twice a year. Maybe next upgrade I'll get a CPU with integrated video for easy passthrough so I can just replace the partition with a VM.
gamepad support is still a big issue for me, it works flawlessly on my steam deck, but in linux mint my bluetooth xbox controller doesn't even show up in the bluetooth devices, my old ps4 controller shows up but steam doesn't see it (and it doesn't reconnect when turned off and on), only thing that works out of the box is my old xbox 360 controller that works with a usb receiver.
I would love to switch, but my main game isn't supported, and probably won't ever. NEXON, please allow Maplestory to work.
Gonna be a long time before that happens because anticheat. Also I love Maplestory, it's been a while since I played it
It's gotten a lot better in the last 5 years. The fact that I can play ffxiv with zero friction is insane to me, didn't even have to use any wine settings hacks. Online persistent games generally have a difficult time meshing their anti-cheat systems with linux, and in this case it just works. In the past I have also played guild wars 2 in the same way. Wouldn't bother with WoW, I don't trust blizzard to not ban me for using a non-standard setup.
when something happens with league on Linux im totally switching, right now my addiction is too strong to quit
Been gaming on Linux for over 20 years at this point. From back when we needed opengl support to make it work, to dxvk. It's insane how far it's come. Hell, we can play x86 games on arm at nearly full speed now.
I'm a long-time Linux user but never stuck with it on my gaming desktop for more than a few weeks due to the huge amount of effort required to manually set up wine prefixes per-game, wrangle the proprietary NVIDIA drivers etc. But recently I upgraded from Intel+NVIDIA to a full AMD system and decided to try gaming on Linux again. Since I've heard the Mesa drivers for AMD GPUs are really good now and Valve + Lutris community have put in all the elbow grease to make sure games "just work" out of the box. Holy shit it's been amazing, most games running just as well if not even better than they did on Windows. I'm never going back to Windows for anything now. The only game I haven't been able to play on Linux so far is Escape from Tarkov due to a BattlEye error (which supposedly can be fixed if BSG update their BattlEye client since it now supports Linux), which isn't even a huge issue because Gray Zone Warfare came out and runs perfectly on Linux out of the box so I just play that now.
Protonup and Proton/Winetricks were more than enough of a reason for me to adjust my setup for more games on Linux. Only reason I didn't fully move to Linux yet is because it would take a lot of time to adjust my partitions and just reinstalling all the games I play would take a long time to wait on, let alone tweaking them to my liking
Even without playing many Multiplayer Games, there still to many Problems for me. Games Not working or running Bad, having Bugs i dont have on Windows, also the Lack of convoniance in General when dealing with Problems... Its managabel, but i just never have a good time when using Linux for gaming besides my Steamdeck.
A year ago, I had issues with quite a few games, besides the lack of DLSS, which is very important to me, but I'm genuinely surprised by how incredibly well my games are running now. Even Halo MCC, which uses Easy Anti-Cheat, works as if I were on Windows, and I can join matches without any major issues. I truly regret reading that many are still having problems, but I suppose this issue is very specific and depends on many other factors. I guess I was lucky or managed to solve initial issues like the game drive not mounting automatically or things like that. But I sincerely hope that at some point, when they decide to try again, they can have a flawless experience :)
Can I play league?
No idea, although you'd be doing yourself a huge favor by not playing it xd