I’m gonna get shit for it, but gaming on Linux really isn’t great imo.
My experience is that it’s a pain in the arse to get anything running, performance is worse, vsync is fucked, no HDR, doesn’t work with Hue Sync, and then a hundred other miscellaneous problems.
Proton is an incredible achievement from a technical standpoint, and if people are happy to put up with issues to protect their privacy then good on them, but I think people oversell how good the actual Linux gaming experience is.
P.S. I don’t need suggestions on how to fix the issues I listed. I’m more than able to resolve them if I had the time, I just don’t want to have those problems to start with.
I guess I’m a “casual gamer” and I tend to avoid games using anti-cheat (not clear on how much access to my computer I’m giving that software). So far, for me, the games have “just worked”. I’m even alpha testing a new game (Palia) in Lutris and it seems to be working just fine.
Actually, I have had minimal problems overall. The only games I have been unable to play are those with ‘Easy Anti Cheat’. But more often than not I can click install on Steam and start playing games first try just like on Windows. I do still check tho on protondb if anyone else has had issues getting the game to work just out of habit.
For what it’s worth, Apex Legends literally runs smoother on my Arch Linux install than my Windows 10 install. It was completely unexpected, but a very welcome discovery.
It’s absolutely far from perfect, but I’m happy because of how much better it’s gotten compared to how it used to be. Like, similar to like how everytime I find myself complaining about emptying my shitty dishwasher I remind myself that not long ago I had to do them by hand.
Most things are easy to get running in my experience, and I’ve never noticed performance loss. My only gripe is lack of RTX support, but I plan on switching to AMD anyway so I’m not too fussed.
Not sure what you mean by vsync being fucked?
I do keep windows installed tho, because modding Bethesda games specifically has been a major pain in the ass for me on Linux. Outside of that and a couple other minor things I play everything in Linux with little effort. Still wouldn’t recommend it to the average Joe though, but I love to tinker.
Speaking as someone who has had a lot of issues running windows games in Windows in the past I gotta say, my experience is the other way around, sure they both have issues but when linux has them I actually have a way to fix them, often with just clicking a few bottons to install libraries
Unless it’s through steam, then it just works in my experience
Yeah I tried it as well and it worked, but it was annoying. I used Ubuntu and every now and then some of my games would break after package/OS updates, which sucked because the games usually took effort to work well. I already spend my day solving tech problems and really don’t feel like dealing with it after work, so I settled for Windows as my desktop.
Still, it’s way better than it was 10 years ago and it keeps improving. With Windows continuing and worsening its anti-consumer practices I could see myself on Linux for desktop usage in the future at some point.
I honestly agree, the only exception is the steam deck. I don’t know how, but that thing runs games really smooth. I really want CoD, BF2042 and R6S to support Linux, these games are stopping me from daily driving linux.
Yeah, I imagine that’s helped by Valve working hard to get games running on a device they have a lot of control over, making it easier to fix/optimise games.
Gaming on Linux will obviously continue to improve, but I think it will always be playing catch up and I don’t see most game devs bothering to support it, unfortunately.
I wholeheartedly agree that people massively oversell gaming on Linux.
If you’re lucky though you might be in a position where most of the games you play not only run on Linux but actually run better than on Windows, even non natively through Proton, how ever that black magic works.
I still dual boot Windows though for those few outliers which is annoying, especially when it wants to update itself after you didn’t use it in 4 months and everything runs very slow.
I’m gonna get shit for it, but gaming on Linux really isn’t great imo.
My experience is that it’s a pain in the arse to get anything running, performance is worse, vsync is fucked, no HDR, doesn’t work with Hue Sync, and then a hundred other miscellaneous problems.
Proton is an incredible achievement from a technical standpoint, and if people are happy to put up with issues to protect their privacy then good on them, but I think people oversell how good the actual Linux gaming experience is.
P.S. I don’t need suggestions on how to fix the issues I listed. I’m more than able to resolve them if I had the time, I just don’t want to have those problems to start with.
Linux games work just fine on my SteamDeck.
Not sure how to add pictures here yet so you have to imagine Leo laughing with drink here.
I guess I’m a “casual gamer” and I tend to avoid games using anti-cheat (not clear on how much access to my computer I’m giving that software). So far, for me, the games have “just worked”. I’m even alpha testing a new game (Palia) in Lutris and it seems to be working just fine.
Actually, I have had minimal problems overall. The only games I have been unable to play are those with ‘Easy Anti Cheat’. But more often than not I can click install on Steam and start playing games first try just like on Windows. I do still check tho on protondb if anyone else has had issues getting the game to work just out of habit.
For what it’s worth, Apex Legends literally runs smoother on my Arch Linux install than my Windows 10 install. It was completely unexpected, but a very welcome discovery.
It’s absolutely far from perfect, but I’m happy because of how much better it’s gotten compared to how it used to be. Like, similar to like how everytime I find myself complaining about emptying my shitty dishwasher I remind myself that not long ago I had to do them by hand.
Most things are easy to get running in my experience, and I’ve never noticed performance loss. My only gripe is lack of RTX support, but I plan on switching to AMD anyway so I’m not too fussed.
Not sure what you mean by vsync being fucked?
I do keep windows installed tho, because modding Bethesda games specifically has been a major pain in the ass for me on Linux. Outside of that and a couple other minor things I play everything in Linux with little effort. Still wouldn’t recommend it to the average Joe though, but I love to tinker.
Speaking as someone who has had a lot of issues running windows games in Windows in the past I gotta say, my experience is the other way around, sure they both have issues but when linux has them I actually have a way to fix them, often with just clicking a few bottons to install libraries
Unless it’s through steam, then it just works in my experience
Yeah I tried it as well and it worked, but it was annoying. I used Ubuntu and every now and then some of my games would break after package/OS updates, which sucked because the games usually took effort to work well. I already spend my day solving tech problems and really don’t feel like dealing with it after work, so I settled for Windows as my desktop.
Still, it’s way better than it was 10 years ago and it keeps improving. With Windows continuing and worsening its anti-consumer practices I could see myself on Linux for desktop usage in the future at some point.
I honestly agree, the only exception is the steam deck. I don’t know how, but that thing runs games really smooth. I really want CoD, BF2042 and R6S to support Linux, these games are stopping me from daily driving linux.
Yeah, I imagine that’s helped by Valve working hard to get games running on a device they have a lot of control over, making it easier to fix/optimise games.
Gaming on Linux will obviously continue to improve, but I think it will always be playing catch up and I don’t see most game devs bothering to support it, unfortunately.
@li10
I think devs have an incentive to support it as it gains marketshare.
Easy anticheat for example didn’t support #wine until after the steam deck came out
I don’t think it’s going to gain any significant market share though, or at least not until games start supporting it.
Bit of a chicken and egg situation.
@li10
Very true.
Although like I said EAC was one of the big holdouts preventing a lot of games.
I wholeheartedly agree that people massively oversell gaming on Linux.
If you’re lucky though you might be in a position where most of the games you play not only run on Linux but actually run better than on Windows, even non natively through Proton, how ever that black magic works.
I still dual boot Windows though for those few outliers which is annoying, especially when it wants to update itself after you didn’t use it in 4 months and everything runs very slow.