Discussions and news about gaming on the GNU/Linux family of operating systems (including the Steam Deck). Potentially a $HOME away from home for disgruntled /r/linux_gaming denizens of the redditarian demesne.
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Original /r/linux_gaming pengwing by uoou.
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Let's not become delusional now. Linux as an overall operating system feels much better to use but only because we care to become tech savvy and to troubleshoot. There are so many headaches that come with Linux which makes it unattractive to most people.
We are probably not most people.
Thank you for being the sane one.
I've recently stumbled upon a lot of people like whoever wrote the article, rampaging all over the place, going "Linux is more user-friendly than Windows", which is just an insane thing to say.
Linux is great, I love my Garuda to bits. But games are still optimised for Windows, we still need to use compatibility layers to get them running, and even though it's gotten MUCH easier these days, there's still a lot of titles that require tweaking/hacking. And some just refuse to run, period.
And then you have all the hardware compatibility issues that come with manufacturers just not supporting stuff. I can't turn my GPU's RGB off without Windows. I had to distro-hop to get the GPU drivers working correctly (it might be a "skill issue", but that just proves the point, I think). Even titles that are marked as Gold on ProtonDB sometimes crash or refuse to run randomly.
Ive had less issues getting gamws to run on linux than windows. Mh world runs without bsod and has better performance on linux, older games are easier to run since proton handles that while on windows theres tons of tweaking involved if it runs at all on 11 etc.
Not to mention all the drivers for tablet not needing to be manually started on linux every time I want to use it, my discord no longer has missing audio or audio input issues that I had on windows and almost everyone else still does etc. Flight sims and vr are the only two things I miss.
there’s still a lot of titles that require tweaking/hacking. And some just refuse to run, period.
run into that shit on windows, too. and theres not compatability layers to blame, there.
Even titles that are marked as Gold on ProtonDB sometimes crash or refuse to run randomly.
and shit doesnt crash on windows? All protons in the world arent going to fix a games inherent bugs that make it crash.
run into that shit on windows, too. and theres not compatability layers to blame, there.
I honestly cannot remember the last time I had trouble running anything on Windows. Probably around early Windows 7? It's been years.
and shit doesnt crash on windows? All protons in the world arent going to fix a games inherent bugs that make it crash.
Mate, come on... If a game crashes on Windows, you know it's the game's or the driver's fault.
If a game crashes on Linux, it might be the game's fault, or the driver's fault, or the virtualiser's fault, or the virtualised driver's fault, or maybe a config file somewhere has something commented for no reason, or maybe you just rebooted and forgot to re-mount the secondary drive, or maybe a billion other reasons.
Gaming on Linux is MUCH better than it used to be, but pretending that it's anywhere near Windows' level of "fire and forget" is just being silly.
I honestly cannot remember the last time I had trouble running anything on Windows. Probably around early Windows 7? It’s been years.
I have the feeling you don't play much non-popular games.
I have the feeling you don’t play much non-popular games.
Such as?
do you have nvidia?
i'm going to push back on this a bit. gaming on Linux today is nothing less than a miracle story thanks to Vulkan, Valve and Wine. i can play AAA titles on launch and it just works, and often better than on windows.
gaming on Linux isn't like it was 10 years ago. i'd say for most users, it'd be perfectly fine on an easy to use distro.
some things will not work, because of companies that still oppose Linux, like Epic and Nvidia, making using those products difficult. but that isn't Linux's fault, it's theirs.
do you have nvidia?
AMD. The distro I had did something weird where I was getting around 10-15 FPS on the Desktop until I added the community repos and installed drivers from there. Everything was great until I realised that Steam stopped working at all and Heroic Launcher wouldn't launch any games. After hopping over to Garuda, everything is fine-ish. Every now and again I launch something like Hogwarts Legacy and just need to reboot because nothing loads after the disclaimers. Still haven't figured out how to launch Mafia DE. Etc., etc.
i’m going to push back on this a bit (...) gaming on Linux isn’t like it was 10 years ago
I'm not arguing that, I myself said that it's great today with things like Proton.
But saying that it's "better than on Windows" is just flat out insanity.
but that isn’t Linux’s fault, it’s theirs.
Average Joe doesn't care who's fault it is, just that he can't play his favourite game without issues or terminal hacking.
If it is not the best, we will make it the best
They will know our peaceful ways, by force if necessary
Depends on what types of games you want to play. If you play a lot of competitive multiplayer games you're gonna have a bad time.
More people need to say that if you're going to want ring 0, I'm not going to give you my money.
...which is a completely valid point if you don't mind not playing those games. But if you do want to play them (for example because back when you got to love them, they didn't have this), you have yourself a dilemma.
Unless you want to play against a shitload of cheaters every day (ruining the fun whenever you have 30 minutes to wind down), your game should have a decent enough AC to detect when someone loads a cheat, including the lowest level. And guess who doesn't have a problem with 3rd party programs accessing ring 0.
So there you have it, you either stop playing all multiplayer games (not even just competitive ones!) entirely, or stick with Windows and all the awful things that come with it. I've been wanting to switch to Linux for the past 20 years, have been playing various multiplayer games over the past 2 decades, and it was always either the AC or just the sheer incompatibility (especially in the earlier years). There was even a time when people could happily cheat on Linux and get away with it in Counter-Strike: Source, because VAC simply didn't work on Linux.
I agree with your first paragraph, if you just got hooked to these games and want to compromise your own privacy and security by playing these games, that is your own trade offs.
But your second paragraph claims that not compromising security and privacy means you have to deal with cheaters. That is false. The games who support Linux do not have more cheaters. In fact, there's plenty of cheaters all over the anti Linux games, such as destiny and league.
Also there are plenty of multi-player and competitive games on Linux. It's only a few who do not (who admittedly also happen to be some of the more popular titles). I only agree with this sentiment if you're hooked onto the specific games that are anti Linux, not the competitive multi-player genre.
Apart from the problem of my friends sticking with the same games I play regardless of my decision, the other problem is... yes, most people usually play the games that most people play. I also happen to be in that (high) percentage, so there's not much room.
BTW I've been playing League for a long time, and while cheaters have been a thing for a while, in my experience it practically became a nonexistent problem recently. It doesn't prove anything, just saying that League isn't in the 'cheaters all over' category anymore (imho).
Thankfully, Rocket League is actually pretty decent in this regard, so that's a "safe" one - but there's several more that still necessitates Windows, so I don't see the point of going back and forth in dual boot every time I switch games.
So there you have it, you either stop playing all multiplayer games (not even just competitive ones!) entirely
There's plenty of multiplayer games that run just fine on linux. Including FPS games with perfectly functional anti cheat, it's just a select few which are unfortunately very popular that actively block linux. This is the part where you put your money where your mouth is and support the games that support the system you want to game on.
Honestly at this point those fanbases are allowing companies to expand on anti-consumer practices to a similar degree as sports games. I wouldn't feel bed if they started being left behind as well
You're not wrong. I would never install a rootki- I mean anti-cheat on my machine regardless. But the point stands.
The author lost me when they showed the terminal command to install Nvidia drivers on Debian. Yes, it's one sentence. That's still extremely daunting to the vast majority of computer users. It undermines the author's own thesis.
Linux is a better gaming OS for some (myself included) but there is still a small learning curve. It's nowhere near as bad as it's made out to be, but it's not nothing.
I'd have softened the title and focused on the ways Linux shines as a gaming OS: compatibility with older games (1990-2010 in my experience) that dont work on modern Windows, the ability to get more performace out of older hardware, consistent behavior, and a much more pleasant desktop experience.
Windows is a better choice for many people, but Linux is just as good for many and a better choice for some.
Id rather disable secureboot and copy paste a command in terminal than mess around with regedit tbf
Depending on your distro, that command likely has a GUI alternative. It just depends on the distro implementation, the disparity is a weakness of GUIs in general. instructions for windows won't match MacOS or others, and sometimes even older versions of windows
Why do we treat people as if they're too stupid for this. This is nauseating.
As a happy and satisfied Linux gamer I disagree.
Linux is the best OS overall, at least for me, but not the best for gaming for most people. Not yet.
Emulators Xenia (xbox 360 emulator) was not mentioned, because it is Windows only. There is no Xbox 360 emulator for Linux.
Game compatibility 80% are platinum or gold on ProtonDB https://www.protondb.com/
This is impressive, but you can't claim that a system that can't play up to 20% of game titles is better. Not to mention that some of the other titles might need some tinkering as well.
Conclusion Linux gaming is now a great and viable option for most people. But it still isn't better than Windows if you don't care about bloatware, security or privacy, and just use your machine exclusively for gaming.
Bonus: Linux is free, so you could maybe also get slightly better hardware by selecting it over Windows.
Also, platinum doesn't mean shit. I've been trying to get a Platinum rated game on Proton working for the last week. the first distro I was using straight up could never run it, and I don't think anyone using the distro I'm now on has been able to run the latest patch. So that 80% comes with the heavy asterisk of "Your personal machine may still not be able to run this."
Until recently, the only Ps4 and Ps5 emulators were linux only.
This particular point cuts both ways and has for a while. Some emulators are Windows only, some (though likely fewer) are Linux only, and the vast majority are cross-platform