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.
Check out https://www.protondb.com, to see which games work well on Linux. Games that are platinum should work out of the box, ones that are Gold might need some tinkering. Most games work great, but a lot of multiplayer games aren’t supported.
In general gaming on Linux has been a pretty smooth experience lately. Games on Steam usually just work, but IMO running games outside of Steam is pretty hit or miss. They sometimes need following a guide or trying to fix an obscure issue that only like 2 other people have.
The thing about Linux is that you might have some issues outside of gaming. Things you might not expect like Discord not being able to screenshare audio or that one program you need not working on your distro properly. Also you should know games on an NTFS drive don’t work well on Linux, so you can’t expect your drive full of Windows games to just work if you have them on a 2nd drive. In general I still think you need some patience if you’re going to settle on a Linux desktop, it’s not entirely a bug free experience yet.
I’m not the OP, but drat, I didn’t know that bit about the NTFS drive not working nice… that was gonna be my plan for my games so I wouldn’t have to re-download hundreds of gigabytes of games (Battlefield 1, Borderlands, TF2, Genshin, etc…)
Yeah it’s a real pain point. I copied my games to an external drive, reformatted the drive, then put them back and everything worked smoothly then. On the bright side if you can’t do this, Steam makes moving games to your Linux drive pretty easy.
What distro?
I’m on Nobara currently, but the NTFS thing is an issue with Linux in general.
I’m gonna have to try this when I switch then, thanks!
I just copied my library to a properly formatted drive. No duplicate downloads were needed.
Oh ok, cool!
I run this setup right now and it works very well. The key is to disable fast boot in Windows (preferrably before even installing Linux), otherwise it won’t shut down all the way and leave the drive in a dirty state. The ntfs-3g driver will still read and write to it, but games won’t work.
Does disabling fast boot make it so when you tell the computer to shutdown it actually shuts down? I found out that shutdown doesn’t really shutdown after checking Task Manager and seeing the uptime
Yes, that’s what it does.
Oh nice, that’s always irritated me so much. I’m gonna work on disabling that then, thanks!
NTFS will work, I used it for a few years without even realizing. I eventually switched to EXT4 for my games drive from an old Windows install when I realized ntfs-3g was using a decent amount of CPU and had a small impact on performance.
Does your EXT4 games drive play nice when trying to run the games in Windows?
I’d like to dual boot but the NTFS / EXT compatibility issue remains a concern for me since I would rather not have to redownload everything only to have it not work on one of the OSes.
I don’t boot into Windows often enough so I just reformatted the drive to ext4. When I did use both though NTFS was perfectly usable for both.
Oh ok, that’s interesting that there would be a performance impact! But that’s cool that it does work. I’m honestly more worried now about getting Nvidia to work since that’s what my pc has since I’m using sway, but I guess I’ll worry about that when the time comes. Thanks!
My wife switched to Linux recently and we kept her large data hdd as it was (i.e. ntfs) but within a week she discovered several new files had been corrupted, and could neither be opened or deleted. Seemed to be happening when she was using drag and drop in Thunar, while moving files using copy paste worked better. Didn’t want to take more risks so we backed everything up and reformatted to ext4.
Outside of steam, there are community scripts with Lutris and other alternatives.
But sometimes they don’t work well.
There are also ways to play epic games and gog games easily through the Heroic games Launcher and Wine-GE.
(wine and winetricks and 2 other wine components need to be installed).
A bit of a tangent to the discussion but that issue with screensharing audio could perhaps be worked around, by piping the system output to the browser mic input, given that the mic still works when screensharing. Easy with pipewire and an audio I/O graph tool like helvum.
I did that for a while and it does kinda work if you bring your mic threshold way down, but there is a modded client called “discord-screen-audio” which tricks Discord into almost working properly. The one limitation being that you can only stream your main monitor and not another one, or a specific app. But the audio does work!
Linux gaming is, imo, in a golden age.
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It depends. Do you play stuff with kernel level anticheat? If no, then the current state of Linux gaming is, by and large as good as, and occasionally better than, Windows - even on games that don’t run natively.
Proton is astounding, and the state of Wine is amazing compared to 10 years ago (and it wasn’t bad then). Get Bottles or Play on Linux going, plus Steam, and there’s very little you can’t do…
Except kernel level anticheat.
(To be 100% transparent, there are other issues. I have a couple games I can’t get to run reliability, but they’re all obscure edge cases. But like 90% of stuff without anticheat just works at this point.)
Edit: proofreading
EAC works in Proton, as long as the developer takes the time to configure it right.
Isn’t it even more or less just a checkbox for them (game developers) to enable? That’s what I read when I first heard about it getting Linux compatibility, but maybe it was hyperbole.
Its not exactly a checkbox. Basically, the developer has to choose the right version of the EAC library to include in their build. Older versions didn’t support Linux. And with the new library versions there is the “with Linux support” and “without Linux support” varients.
Some games still build with the older version for compatibility reasons, some will stick with the older version for spite reasons. Some games update to the new version but use the non-linux-support new version.
To be fair I could not even get Valorant running on Windows. Anti cheat like that is complete and utter bs and will make me never play any game with it. Just like I don’t buy a game until they remove Denuvo.
I wouldn’t buy a game that uses Denuvo even if I was running Windows. That stuff’s basically malware.
I haven’t used proton recently because I replaced my Linux laptop with a Windows one (changed jobs, didn’t need it anymore). But when I did play games with Proton a lot, around 2020, I sometimes had issues with cutscenes not showing at all. Just black screens for cutscenes on some games. Did that get fixed?
This can usually be fixed by using GE-Proton.
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protondb.com will tell you how well each game works. There’s also an icon on Steam, if it says it’s certified for the Steam Deck that’s also good.
I’ve installed Manjaro in 2020 during covid specifically for gaming and never looked back since.
We’re living in the golden age of Linux gaming right now, get yourself a piece of it.
If a game doesn’t work on linux, I don’t buy/play it until it does. End of story. There is plenty of choice and time is limited, so having an extra filter is just helpful.
The only experience I have is with Steam Deck and it’s fantastic! I love it so much that I’ve decided to build my next PC as a Linux only box. I am a refugee from /r/patientgamers though. I don’t play the new hotness unless it’s first party Nintendo stuff.
I’m also so fed up with Microsoft’s anti-consumer practices and disastrous updates, so it makes it an easier decision.
Just a heads up, the steam deck can run switch games, often better that the original hardware. If you own a copy of the game it’s legal to emulate on your device however you’d like.
I heard that, but I also heard it’s kind of a removed to set up with BIOS or something? I was actually messing with an Arcade Punks iso that had some switch games on it and they worked. Terrible selection other than Mario Kart. So I tried to add another one I own and it won’t play. I’ll eventually try to figure that out.
Look into Emudeck, It does all the hard work for you, as well as emulation for everything that the steam deck can handle.
I will, thanks.
The whole reason I kept Windows around was for Genshin Impact. At compete random, the game silently added proton compatibility with their anti cheat, so now I never have to boot into Windows anymore. I was never expecting it to actually happen lol.
Wait, when did that happen?? That’s great! I always was playing it with the sneaky secret way that shall not be named lol.
So that’s not necessary anymore?
Yup, I just run the exe thru Lutris as is. No modifications. Happened randomly like 5 months ago or something.
Dang, awesome!
Is there anything wrong with the sneaky way that shall not be named?
Naw, but my spouse is a hardcore player with a ton of time into it and I am only a casual player.
I don’t wanna risk an IP ban on our connection and have her have to start using a VPN or worse, have her account banned because it’s associated with my account using the secret way to play.
If I do it through proton which is officially supported, that risk goes away.
I actually had issues with proton. I would recommend through Lutris, and then use their wine-proton version. That’s how I play the game unmodified and officially.
Roger that.
Yeah because it patched the game to bypass the anti cheat, which is definitely in violation of ToS. Otherwise you’d be able to name it without fear lol. The anti cheat works now so no need to run it anymore for any risk. You can just play the unmodified game officially without any risk.
Oh okay, I see, thanks for explaining.
More players = increased revenue potential
If only more companies realized this…
They do. It’s a matter of assumed additional dev time and library lock in. Actively fighting proton efforts is stupid tho
For me it reached a point where I now expect a new game I’m trying to just work. This was a monumental shift when I first realized that a few months ago.
Your best bet is Steam/Proton, since Valve stands behind it and development on all the Proton components (Wine, DXVK, VKD3D, Gamescope, …) is very active.
If you get games outside of Steam (I often prefer GoG if that’s an option, plus I have some itch.io bundles purchased a while ago), some tinkering may be necessary. For those, I like to go “vanilla” with Wine(-GE-custom usually), plus DXVK or VKD3D on top. There’s also Lutris to help with these scenarios. Works great too.
Another topic is native Linux games. There are some gems which work beautifully. I recently finished native Celeste from itch.io and it was flawless. Another great Linux port is Bastion. But some older titles may have compatibility issues - missing or incompatible libraries, broken gamepad support or stuff like that. For those, the Windows version via Proton may actually work better than the native version. Luckily, we can now pick either one.
I stopped checking protondb or winehq before buying games. Games just work these days.
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I only check protondb when something doesn’t work. Usually some gigachad has a fix or a good reason in the comments.
You still have to be careful with multiplayer games in my experience though
probably true. I rarely play multiplayer, so I would not know.
Have you heard of ProtonDB? It rates the current state of games and recommended fixes.
Gaming on Linux has improved a lot over the years. It’s typically only multiplayer games with Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) that you’ll run into major issues with. Mod managers frequently require a fair amount of extra work and reading but I think a lot of Bethesda games have easy work arounds and documentation.
Thanks, I didn’t know about ProtonDB. I never play multiplayer so that won’t be a problem.
If you never play multiplayer, you’re probably fine. Though the only issue with that is triple A games not letting Anti-Cheats work on Linux for whatever reason.
Other then that, you’ll only run into issues when modding Skyrim for the most part. Here’s a github page with a step-by-step guide on how to do it; although, far as I can tell it’s four years old and might be obsolete.
There’s also this post in the Steam Community forums which is two years old at the earliest.
For Skyrim I’ve had pretty good luck with just adding Vortex mod manager as a non steam game, running it with Proton and using mods that way
Just to add to your comment, steamtinkerlaunch is a compatibility tool that allows you to install any mod manager through a GUI. Pretty handy.
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One other website I’d check out if you are getting into any obscure/older games that might not have a lot of comments on ProtonDB is the PCGamingWiki. Lots of fixes are listed there
> Mod managers frequently require a fair amount of extra work and reading
That’s one complaint I *do* have sense switching to linux, I wish that there was a linux version of vortex (or MO2 or what have you) so that modding can be made relatively simple for more than just a few games that have easy workarounds
I could be wrong but I think there are Lutris install scripts that help with that
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I’m playing Baldur’s Gate 3 since day 1. That’s really all I need and a lot more than I expected just a few years ago. It’s only gonna get better from here.
I’ve played most of those on Linux and they work just fine. Some notes:
- I’ve never modded anything on Linux, so I don’t know what the experience is like; I imagine there are decent guides though
- own but haven’t played Witcher 3, Transport Fever, or Crusader Kings 3 - CK3 is native Linux, so it should work
- I’ve played Civ 3-5 on Linux, haven’t tried 6
I’ve played exclusively on Linux for the last decade, and I’ve played tons of popular games that all work well. There are only a handful of games that don’t work well, and they are either super old (e.g. almost DOS days), multiplayer (mostly anti-cheat), or less popular.
RDR2 runs fantastically on my 6650XT @ 1440p, and I’m guessing it would run acceptably well on your 1660.
So yeah, try it out! Most of my games just work, and the rest only required very minor tweaks (e.g. launch options in Steam or a specific Proton version).
Ironically, I’ve had more issues with CK3 natively than running through Valves Wine flavour.
When running natively, using the Vulkan renderer it gets stuck initializing, and when using OpenGL it stutters. Using Proton and DXVK it is butter smooth.
Huh, that’s pretty lame. I’ll have to try it out and see if I have the same experience.
I have noticed that issue on other games though, where DX11 worked better than native.
The same is true for some Feral Interactive games.
For Crusader Kings 3 on my desktop the issue does not exist. Native Vulkan is silky smooth there. On my laptop it only works with native OpenGL or Proton.
Both are AMD machines because fuck Nvidia drivers.
Ah, I wonder if it’s an issue switching from integrated graphics to the dGPU then. I have been avoiding dGPUs on laptops for years now because I just didn’t want to deal with it on Linux. I ended up getting an AMD laptop for my last laptop (E495) so I could do light gaming, and it’s a fantastic Minecraft box now for my kids.
I haven’t had major issues when I had an NVIDIA card (had one for ~10 years), but I did recently switch to AMD for my desktop this year and I can finally use Wayland now so my monitors refresh properly.
Vulkan is MUCH better at multi GPU systems btw. Most games default to the dGPU without hacks like DRI_PRIME, or allow you to select one in video settings
“Making do”
i5 7500
1660
32 GB RAM!
me with my plebian i5 6500, 16gb back alley ram and igpu 😭
i5 2500. And this fucker refuses to die.
Me with i5 3470 and integrated
That pc slaps with a good linux distro
If your pc doesn’t support vulkan you’re fucked, unless you use steam
What does supporting Vulkan entail?
Steam Proton (which does the heavy lifting of running windows games on linux) includes DXVK/D9VK/VK3D3 which translates Windows DirectX games (don’t work on Linux) into Vulkan (which works on Linux)
not having Vulkan will result in falling back on the way older DirectX -> OpenGL translation which not many actually care about nowadays and hasn’t been opti.ized to run well in years (awful performance)
How do I know if my PC supports Vulkan?
depends on how old your graphics chip is
typically anything newer than 10 year old will support some level of VulkanMy msi GF63 thin laptop doesn’t…
What graphics card do you have? I think you’d have to have a really old card for it to not support Vulkan. Or perhaps integrated graphics might not support it very well, I’m not too knowledgeable on integrated graphics currently.
Vulkan drivers for your gfx card
Vulkan isnt that new though so a 1660 should be fine, right?
I use a 1650ti and it’s not supported
1650ti most certainly does support Vulkan. However there may be problems if you have switchable graphics.
Indeed, i have to use optimus manager in X11 in order to let my graphic card process games and other things
