All of my games run better on Linux, only reason for windows now is VR.
My main games are Star Wars Battlefront 2, Star Citizen, Minecraft and Cyberpunk
Do you not use Roblox? Microsoft got me locked out of it pretty good.
They likely don’t play Valorant, Fortnite, Roblox, Rainbox Six Siege, Destiny or League of Legends.
Basically all of my games run well on Linux, but I wouldn’t dare say they run better on Linux than Windows. Some do, e.g. Minecraft, but almost all other games have at least a bit lower FPS.
If games build for Windows in general ran better on Linux it’d be pretty surprising, given the amount of investment into Windows gaming there’s from many more big corporations than we have on Linux.
Linux gaming is better than ever, but there’s enough people expecting too much and going back to Windows because of Linux gaming shilling.
Linux is usually lighter on hardware, so in theory you have more performance left for games. I doubt it’s noticeable though and I certainly didnt notice any difference except for some games like GTA 4 and Sims 3. They run a lot better on Linux than on Windows.
Yes, Linux OS are usually lighter on hardware. But if we’re talking about gaming and other heavy applications usually have the same hardware requirements.
Windows Defender, update checker and other system services on Windows do tank performance by a few percent as shown by those “debloated” Windows images.
But DXVK also usually reduces performance by 5-15%, even more so for VKD3D. This outweighs the performance gains of less background services. Not to mention I’m (and I guess most people are) running apps like Discord, Spotify and Firefox in the background.
There’re games running better on DXVK than native D3D, but that’s usually because they are using an older graphics API that isn’t optimized on newer GPUs. Both GTA IV and Sims 3 use DirectX 9. Interestingly, running older titles om Windows with DXVK also results in performance gains.
I certainly didnt notice any difference […]
Me neither, except for a few games where my hardware was already struggling. Without direct comparisons I’d say a 10% performance overhead is negligeble too.
I typically land 10-15 more FPS on Linux but my setup is unique (custom nix flakes), plus AMD GPU and CPU.
I also saw the same increase in performance on my wifes computer, and shes on a basic Fedora setup. She has AMD and Nvidia combo.
Sadly performance seems to be tied to environment setup. Which is a good way to lockout a good amount of gamers.
I do not run roblox, though I’m sure getting it working wouldn’t be too difficult.
The only known way to get it working is an android emulator with a modified apk and only software rendering. Roblox went severely out of the way to shut down Linux gaming, able to detect wine and proton and crash itself if they’re detected
Yup. Same goes for easy anticheat. Linux can run a game using it where everything functions perfectly, but the moment an online match begins you get dropped.
I recently experimented with ALVR on my Deck after overcoming some hurdles it actually worked quite well. Overload and Hellblade ran surprisingly well, even on the Deck. Just a hickup every 15 minutes or so when it was loading something, I guess.
Caveat: I don’t run SteamOS, so it’s a little bit easier for me to have all the dependencies.
VR and League, I miss the VR but I also like having a good excuse to not play LoL.
Just curious: Have you tried VR with ALVR under Linux? What is holding you to Windows?
I picked up a Quest 3 recently, and have been having success running it under Linux. That said, I don’t know any different.
I did look into it around December but saw the index wasn’t playing nice with Linux. I may look back into it, as thats all thats keeping Windows installed at this point.
There were some recent fixes to Steam VR but I have never tried a VR headset myself. It should work on Wayland with a compositor that supports DRM-leasing protocol, so basically everything but GNOME.
Have you tried running modded minecraft on linux, how good would you say it runs of at all possible
Yeah, it runs better in my experience. I want to say, it may be different depending on the hardware just like Windows.
I use prism launcher, it auto installs fabric, forge, etc for you.
Wait til it hits 2.3%
2.4 is the tipping point. Mark my words.
Any day now, it’s gonna be the year of the Linux handheld.
It already is, it’s at 2.32%
What a time to be alive
Sus vibe
I, for one, welcome our new penguin overlords.
We are at the point where the gas paddle is pressed to the floor and the engine is roaring but the turbo hasn’t spooked up fully yet and kicked in so we are righhtttt about to get punched in the face by another level of torque and acceleration of Linux growth.
Let’s gooooo!!!
P.S. is PopOS! still the popular choice for desktop gaming? Looking for a more permanent alternative to Windows. I’m currently leaning toward openSUSE + Plasma 6, since I’ve fallen out of love with Ubuntu/Canonical pretty hard. I know Pop is Ubuntu-based, but… I’d rather not have to build up from something like Arch.
Like others have said, use fedora. But use the nobara flavour of fedora, as its built from the ground up for gaming and fixes a lot of tricky edge cases before mainline does.
If you want arch but you have live (/jk) you can just use endeavorOS. It is Arch but with an easy installer that even sets up yay, so afterwards you can just write „yay [desired pakage]“ to install stuff
You have to enable firewall for each service (each port on which your pc is reachable) and I recommend systemd-manager to have a easy overview on which deamons are running.
Ah, yea, if you want NVIDIA driver, you can use nvidia-inst and to switch back to nouveau, use nvidia-inst -n
is PopOS! still the popular choice for desktop gaming?
Pop!_OS was pretty good for two reasons:
- System76 sells devices installed with it. Thus, onboarding (potentially new) users is something they put significant efforts into. As a result, it was a pretty polished experience that offers some unique functionality like factory reset and
- Easiest install for proprietary Nvidia drivers on the market
But, the Linux landscape is always on the move. And while the engineers behind Pop!_OS have put their hearts and souls into COSMIC (a new Desktop Environment), the current available version of Pop!_OS has seen only relatively timid changes. Thus, it has become less competitive over time.
For example, over the past two years, distros have erupted that come with built-in Nvidia drivers (pre-installed).
So, Pop!_OS has gone slightly out of favor. But, if you liked what you had back then, then it’s still perfectly reasonable to continue using it.
But…, if you’re actually interested in the latest and greatest Linux for desktop gaming, then we’d have to mention the following:
- Bazzite; built-on technologies made possible through Fedora Atomic. This is one of the few distros that, based on its installer, come with built-in Nvidia drivers pre-installed. Rock-solid atomic system that comes with all the bells and whistles without sacrificing any general functionality nor high security standards. Offers decent documentation (please consider to read up on it) and has thought up great onboarding solutions. All-in-all, it’s (probably) the most hands-off gaming experience on Linux.
- ChimeraOS; this is more of a couch-gaming/console experience. Unfortunately, only supports AMD. Definitely worth mentioning still.
Honorable mentions:
- Nobara; Glorious Eggroll’s (will be abbreviated to GE) distro. GE is well known for providing all kinds of gaming related goodies. For example, a popular set of Proton releases/derivatives is Proton-GE and it’s often recommended over the others. So, the community was very excited when GE announced (and shortly after) released its contribution to Linux distros for gaming; a Fedora-based distro called Nobara. It did a lot of good things and still does. However, as a former Nobara user, I have to say that updates for major releases are pretty hit or (mostly) miss. This is not GE’s fault; it’s the nature of the beast. Reproducible distros (like Bazzite) are able to circumvent these issues with help of incredible engineering that goes on in the background. But, this is not Nobara’s stronghold. (And let’s not even talk about the bus factor.) If you’re fine with potentially reinstalling every once in a while, then, by all means proceed. But, if you’d rather not, then other options are better.
- Linux Mint (Edge ISO); this is just the goodness we’ve come to appreciate from Linux Mint but with a more up-to-date kernel. Kernel updates often come with improvements to performance. So, with this, you won’t be missing out. Like Pop!_OS, it’s based on Ubuntu. The only caveat with Mint is the fact that it’s not enabled to game from the get-go. The required steps to get it all setup aren’t very hard, but it’s great to just have everything setup for gaming from the start.
I got tired of the Ubuntu crap, and was delighted to find that plain Debian stable is fantastic now.
Use Fedora: easy to install drivers, easy distro, most things set up, not too much much bloat
If you want something more gaming oriented but still very desktop capable use Nobara
If you want the console experience on pc use Chimera OS
Unless you have nvidia and/or really new hardware, pretty much any distros works fine for gaming - I very comfortably use mint. But if that is the case, you’ll probably want something more up to date like arch. Idk enough about opensuse to make any assertions about it though, so use your best judgement.
Pop is great for gaming, especially for Nvidia cards.
I’m running OpenSUSE and am very pleased. I even put it on my Steam Deck.
Only gripe I have with OpenSUSE is that it has very conservative defaults, opting for security first. So you will have to add your user to all sorts of groups manually to get everything going.
Check out Nobara
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F
Fedora you say?
Yup sorry had a bug with my lemmy client (voyager)
Funny because I use voyager and Fedora as well
man i’m a linux enjoyer but celebrating 2% feels really desperate lmao, when it hits 5% i’ll be ready to respond with an entire “oh sweet”
Feel you on that. 5% will definitely be a major milestone and I can’t wait for it to happen. Hopefully at that point more manufacturers and publishers will take Linux more seriously and give us better support.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Linux user share on Steam has smashed through the 2% barrier.
Not actually for the first time though, it did initially rise up above 2% in March 2013, shortly after the original Steam for Linux release when it left Beta.
Part of the reason it had higher numbers at the start, was that Valve added a special Tux item into Team Fortress 2 only on Linux but it quickly dropped in the following months.
With the latest info though from the May 2024 survey, Linux has now hit 2.32%.
If I have my historical data correct, we haven’t seen Linux be over 2% since 2013.
Take into account the explosive growth of Steam as a platform and that’s quite a lot of people now.
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