News I've been gaming on Windows for over 30 years, but now I'm giving Linux a shot

[Admin]

Hopefully I can play more than Super Tux Kart

I've been gaming on Windows for over 30 years, but now I'm giving Linux a shot : Read more

 

[Notton]

For Intel, you probably want to go with Bazzite.
If you do try SteamOS on Intel, I would definitely like to hear how that goes.
As for Nvidia, good luck with that no matter what OS you use.

SteamOS is a far simpler experience if you have any Ryzen + Radeon (both iGPU and dGPU) setup.

And don't forget about streaming to/from with Steam remote play, or better yet Moonlight or Artemis.

 

[bit_user]

One thing I'll say for Tux Racer is that you can even play it on machines that have no 3D hardware acceleration!

One of my favorite, old skool Linux games is Trackballs. It's loosely reminiscent of Marble Madness, plays fine on a iGPU, and is included in just about every distro. However, I've noticed that the input sensitivity seems tied to the frame rate, unfortunately. I'd therefore advise enabling VSync and dialing back your refresh rate to something in the ballpark of 60 Hz, for the best experience.

Fun fact: Marble Madness was developed by Mark Cerny, who went on to become the lead architect of Sony's PS4 and PS5.

 

[abufrejoval]

For me the real challenge is to cover both gaming and desktop use with one OS and some critical integration.

Personally, I'm no longer as playful as I used to be: perhaps long overdue grandchildren would change that a bit.

After an early gaming spree with an Apple ][ in my late teens, I've really used PCs professionally for so many long hours every day, that I wasn't up to gaming afterwards, until the kids started getting into that.

We've never had consoles, handheld or otherwise, hand-down PC workstations always seemed the better investment, everyone had a cheap personal laptop, too, but mostly for school work and unusable for anything 3D at the time.

The "kids" now have mostly gamer workstations running Windows, but I am busy aiming for a new Linux baseline, which I can apply to myself and the kids. But since the kids unlike me are experts gamers but suck at IT, I need something that combines full game and desktop support with low maintenance, good security and full range hardware support.

And the 'kids' aren't kids any more, they need to file tax returns and manage their ever more digitalized lives on that same hardware, but also laptops and phones.

So much like Windows that new OS base also needs to support a 'family enterprise base', no-cloud private services for groupware like NextCloud, a family IAM (identity and access management) and file sharing/replication in a geographically distributed, secure and fault resilient manner with low operational effort: just what everyone wants, I guess!

As pilot I use a Lenovo LOQ ARP9 laptop, that I got very cheap last summer, which it also is guest gaming machine (guinea pigs). It sports an (iGPU less) 8 core Zen 3 Ryzen APU and an RTX 4060 mobile dGPU, with lots of RAM and two NVMe for dual booting Windows 11 IoT LTSC and Bazzite.

Bazzite is really rather good at things that most Linux distros still fail at, like HDR and high-refresh support, Steam, EA and Origin support is as good as it gets, supposedly game controllers are also well served, which I haven't tried yet, because... I personally just don't get to game a lot, and controllers take a lot of time to get used to.

But while the static OS image approach may be good for security, it's hard for a Unix old-timer in terms of integration or just getting things done. Getting it into my Univention based IAM isn't trivial, evidently nobody thinks that Bazzite should also be used for productivity and desktop work. What's really missing is the Sparcstation 1 type approach, which combined static client images (booted off the network) with servers hosting all volatile user data: it created a roaming desktop metaphor that I've been yearning for ever since.

I've been cycling through Linux desktops with added game support, which typically have criticial deficiencies around hardware and these newer game optimized distros and their ability to support desktop use cases: nothing sticks out as an optimum so far!

Anyhow, I'd be interested to see how this goes, I see it as a huge potential trend growing out of SteamOS on one hand and gross Microsoft overreach on the other.

 

[lmcnabney]

FAT32 partitions? Cute

 

[GeorgeLY]

Proton has a very nice support and most of the games play without a hitch. For games outside the Steam you might try Lutris, it is not as polished, but allows you to easily switch configurations without going into WINE prefixes, etc. You can actually use other runners, such as Proton as well. It has integration with other stores, or you can install executables directly. Now I am playing Witcher 2 installed via GOG executable on Radeon 9070Xt - no problems whatsoever.

The compatibility is actually better than Windows for old games.

 

[GeorgeLY]

Proton has a very nice support and most of the games play without a hitch. For games outside the Steam you might try Lutris, it is not as polished, but allows you to easily switch configurations without going into WINE prefixes, etc. You can actually use other runners, such as Proton as well. It has integration with other stores, or you can install executables directly. Now I am playing Witcher 2 installed via GOG executable on Radeon 9070Xt - no problems whatsoever.

The compatibility is actually better than Windows for old games.

Oh, and I am using Ubuntu + Open Source Driver + Steam installed via `apt` and Lutris installed from their web-site.

 

[ezst036]

The fact that gaming is at all even possible demonstrates the viability and maturity of the Linux desktop, even with whatever flaws can be highlighted.

Compare that to 10 years ago. It's not even on the same planet.

 

[Eximo]

Definitely on my list of things to do if Intel launches big battlemage, or maybe I will convince myself to get a 9070 XT if the price ever comes down.

Though the last time I messed with Nvidia in Linux I did manage to get the driver installed, but only tried benchmarks. I was testing my old GTX1080 thermals after putting the air cooler back on.

 

[palladin9479]

Just use Ubuntu, then almost anything can work with wine64 and dxvk. All these boutique distros run into package maintainence issues.

 

[watzupken]

I’ve swapped most PCs at home to Linux. I think it takes some perseverance to get used to it. Once you move passed that adaptation phase, most won’t miss Windows. Something like Bazzite is more gaming centric and takes the complication out of having all the necessary gaming apps installed out of the box. For more general purpose use, I like and will recommend Mint.

 

[Christopher_115]

What an incredibly annoying article format. I guess you were doing this live for some reason earlier? (Though why anyone would sit and watch the screen waiting for updates for something like this is beyond me.)

But now we have to scroll all the way down to the first "tile", scroll down through the tile to read it all, then scroll UP to find the second tile, then scroll down reading it, etc.

F-, would not recommend.

 

[rambo919]

Proton has a very nice support and most of the games play without a hitch. For games outside the Steam you might try Lutris, it is not as polished, but allows you to easily switch configurations without going into WINE prefixes, etc. You can actually use other runners, such as Proton as well. It has integration with other stores, or you can install executables directly. Now I am playing Witcher 2 installed via GOG executable on Radeon 9070Xt - no problems whatsoever.

The compatibility is actually better than Windows for old games.

Actually I find Lutris better because of the control it gives you instead of trying to make all your choices for you..... and I like how each game is sandboxed from each other.

I can see how steam is easier for most people though..... people today are just not used to all the work that we were used to in "ye olden days" getting games to work.

 

[TerryLaze]

The fact that gaming is at all even possible demonstrates the viability and maturity of the Linux desktop, even with whatever flaws can be highlighted.

Compare that to 10 years ago. It's not even on the same planet.

No it really doesn't.
All the gaming is being done by recreating all the windows ddls and other windows stuff needed to run them.
It shows how good people are at copying windows, it has nothing to do with how good linux is.

 

[rambo919]

No it really doesn't.
All the gaming is being done by recreating all the windows ddls and other windows stuff needed to run them.
It shows how good people are at copying windows, it has nothing to do with how good linux is.

I think he meant it more as a repudiation of the claim that Linux is not viable because "it can't run games".... the "windows barrier" has long been used as a lazy accusation that Linux is not capable of running the software.... now that excuse is proven false though many a fanboy will want to memory hole it.

Not that I can understand how anyone can fanboy for Windows but whaeva.

It used to be a thing to prefer Windows because it's not Mac..... now people prefer Linux because it's neither Windows or Mac and the really lazy one's run to Mac because Windows has become more of a horror show but they don't actually know how computers work anyway and Mac markets itself as doing everything for you including thinking.

How the turns have tabled.

 

[rambo919]

Just use Ubuntu, then almost anything can work with wine64 and dxvk. All these boutique distros run into package maintainence issues.

At least promote Mint instead..... Ubuntu tries to be primarily for enterprise these days.

 

[rambo919]

Personally I have come to the conclusion that of Nvidia hardware use Mint and for AMD hardware use MX.... I fail to REALLY see the value in a "gaming" distro.... neither steamos nor bazzite as really proven themselves exceptionally worthy yet.

It seems to be all hype for the most part.

 

[TerryLaze]

Personally I have come to the conclusion that of Nvidia hardware use Mint and for AMD hardware use MX.... I fail to REALLY see the value in a "gaming" distro.... neither steamos nor bazzite as really proven themselves exceptionally worthy yet.

It seems to be all hype for the most part.

Well with any normal distro the linux noob has no idea if it will install gpu drivers or if they will have to search for how to install them, same for steam.
With bazzite you not only know that you could do it in theory after finding out how, it's already ready to go with everything you are going to need.

 

[rambo919]

Well with any normal distro the linux noob has no idea if it will install gpu drivers or if they will have to search for how to install them, same for steam.
With bazzite you not only know that you could do it in theory after finding out how, it's already ready to go with everything you are going to need.

Then I must be just old because I am still annoyed at Windows for automatically installing gpu drivers when it feels like it.

If you install mint and the right PPA.... driver installation is ridiculously easy but their kernel updates lag a bit. MX ahs is the exact opposite where it's only useful with Nvidia for older GPU's but the kernel updates and mesa which in combination are the AMD drivers are spot on. Which is why I pointed out the difference between Mint and MX.

AMD recently actually abandoned any other Linux driver approach for anything other than niche needs.

 

[Elusive Ruse]

What I do is go to my library and filter games that are available on Linux and play those on Linux, while going back to Windows for the others. E.g. I play Cities Skylines and Northgard on Linux and the performance is brilliant. I was initially surprised how many of my library games had Linux support.

 

[bit_user]

All the gaming is being done by recreating all the windows ddls and other windows stuff needed to run them.
It shows how good people are at copying windows, it has nothing to do with how good linux is.

There was an active market of games ported to run natively (i.e. real commercial ports that you could buy on Steam), but Wine became so good that it basically killed such efforts.

Even while you're not wrong about the userspace aspect of the current Linux gaming scene, I'd say don't overlook the fact that it wouldn't amount to a hill of beans if the kernel and GPU drivers weren't good. Quite a lot of effort went into that, as well as making WINE as good as it is.

 

[bit_user]

Well with any normal distro the linux noob has no idea if it will install gpu drivers or if they will have to search for how to install them,

The only drivers you need to install are Nvidia's. Intel and AMD drivers are installed out of the box. AMD has downloadable/proprietary drivers you can install, but it's not necessary.

 

[TechNomad]

I started the journey this past weekend with a CachyOS install. So far, so good

 

[palladin9479]

No it really doesn't.
All the gaming is being done by recreating all the windows ddls and other windows stuff needed to run them.
It shows how good people are at copying windows, it has nothing to do with how good linux is.

Hmm this is more complicated then that. Both Linux and Windows has dynamic linked libraries, check under /lib and /usr/lib for all the binary .so.<version> files, not to mention all the python modules inside site-packages. Heck many games built for Windows end up with SDL libraries packaged. The two main differences between the two were operating environment and graphics API support. Wine/Wine64 takes care of the operating environment by fabricating a generic NT 5/6 environment complete with registry file. For a long time it was the graphics API that made gaming on linux a non-starter as a game would have to either OpenGL or deal with wine's piss poor D3D to OpenGL proxy. Then a guy came along and built a DX to Vulkan proxy called DXVK as a replacement for wine's native layer and it was so successful that Valve eventually sponsored him to work on it full time.

The best part is that DXVK is OS agnostic, you can easily drop the DLL's into any Windows game and it will convert it's native DX9~11 (8 is still spotty) API calls into Vulkan, which can often result in fixing a bunch of old game engine issues.

On the OS level there is nothing inherently superiors to Linux based OS's over Microsoft's NT based ones. Of course Microsoft loves to pull shenanigans with spyware, monetizing customers behavior patterns, and other actions we find distasteful. So does Google with ChromeOS and Android, both Linux based OS's, as well as Apple with their BSD derivative.

 

[palladin9479]

At least promote Mint instead..... Ubuntu tries to be primarily for enterprise these days.

They are both Debian derivatives and Ubuntu is after that RHEL money. Personally I prefer RHEL like distros but can't stand Fedora and ultimately Debian derivates won that fight. And while Mint is one of the better boutique distributions due to it being a repackaged and scaled down Ubuntu, it still has the same issue all other boutique distro's do, limited support. Ubuntu is still the gold standard for Linux user distro's and practically every bit of user how-to or documentation is going to work on it. The native package repository is seconded only to Debian and you'll have the least amount of conflicts if you do end up having to bring in third party repositories.

With linux it always comes down to repository management and ensuring you don't stumble into dependency hell.