I used linux in the past, both privately and work-related, but the last time was over 10 years ago, so I’m a bit out of touch. I am in need of a new PC, but it’ll be a good year before I have the funds, so for now I am making due with an i5 7500 and a gtx 1660. I do have 32 GB so there’s that. I finally feel confident enough to make the permanent switch to linux from windows as all of the programs I use are either available on linux or have a good/better equivalent. The only thing I fear will hold me back is games. I know Steam has Proton now which will run most games, but how does it compare? The games I play most are Skyrim (heavily modded) , RDR2, Witcher 3, Transport fever, Civilization, Crusader kings 3 and Cities Skylines (uninstalled atm waiting for 2). I’m on the fence to either wait until I can afford a new PC and dual boot or make the switch now and deal with a few gaming problems. Thing is, what kind of problems may I expect? Anyone able and knowledgeable to give me some advice?
EDIT: Wow, those are a lot of replies; thank you everyone! You really helped me. I will make the switch sooner rather than later.
On a very rare occasion do I ever run into a game that doesn’t work on Linux, have completely ditched windows about a month ago and haven’t looked back
I even get significantly better performance in most games, used to just about manage 60-70fps in overwatch on max settings under windows, now it smashed 170 no problem
Overwatch (and probably AMD’s drivers, thinking back) was actually the tipping point for me ditching Windows and fully commiting to Linux. I was getting the dreaded “rendering device lost” crash at least once per gaming session, with a brand new GPU, but have seen it maybe twice since switching. I don’t have quite the same performance gains as you, but Overwatch is definitely more stable and just feels smoother on Linux for me.
It might’ve been because it was so new, think Linux is typically slower to get drivers up and running for newer hardware