I am a PC gamer and I exclusively use Linux. It’s completely viable for gaming, I can say for a fact.
Just made the switch, surprised how smooth the transition went so far.
Ooooh, what distro did you go with?
I went full AMD and Fedora. Couldn’t be happier. All games I’ve tested work. It’s been a while since I’ve had a gaming pc so I don’t have a reference point, but everything is as smooth as I’d want to. Some games may need a library or so as stated in protonDB but, I’m so impressed. Now I have desktop running KDE, steam deck has KDE too and my laptop also with fedora.
Can’t be Arch, else he would’ve already said that he uses Arch btw. /s
FYI: That’s more Windows games than run in Windows!
WTF? Why? Because a lot of older games don’t run in newer versions of Windows than when they were made! They still run great in Linux though 👍
Huh wonder whether shadows of destiny pc port works on proton.
There is like a good chunk of an entire decade’s worth of games that can’t be played on PC legitimately due to either expired licenses for music (e.g. EA Trax) or lack of support for older, disc-based DRM (SecuROM etc.).
That’s before factoring older titles that no longer work due to arbitrary changes to DirectX and the Windows kernel, which break backwards compatibility.
In my opinion this the unique milestone linux has to achive to be declared as a total winner vs windows, in the near future I would like to see non tech industries using linux instead of microsoft spyware.
I have a 3090 and heard nvidia gpus dont do very well for Linux gaming if anyone wants to quell my fears and get me off Windows
I’m on a 5090 and bazzite has (in the majority of games and apps) just worked.
I use a quest 2 headset through my desktop via desktop streamer into steam VR into VRchat. Would this all work on linux? it’s already a pain on windows.
I think virtualdesktop works, but don’t quote me on that.
I’m installing Mint for the first time at this very moment. So far, it’s easier than I anticipated. Fuck You Microsoft.
Edit: bro, firstly, what the fuck and where did all this performance come from?!?! I vastly underestimated how many resources windows was hogging. I downloaded Steam (easy-peasy) and then Project Zomboid just as a test. This game runs like butter now. I was having major problems with it before. To the point I basically stopped playing. I know its just one example but I haven’t had my machine run this well in several years, I feel. Also, got Spotify running. Super easy. I need to figure out how to get my VPN set up (ProtonVPN) but so far, I’m kind of in shock. I can’t wait to actually dig in and see what I can do with this new setup.
Protonvpn has a flatpack. Check your distro’s app store for it.
But what percentage of games that use anticheat?
The rust entry is kinda wrong. Linux friendly community servers do run they just need more active players to be fun
Had a quick look into this, this is the best related info I could find on the situation with Rust.
As a former RUST addict, I can tell you that Facepunch didn’t really know what they were doing initially with the game on Linux (although they gave an honest try).
Later, they basically said, “Look, we don’t really have the knowledge to support this, so you can ask for a refund if you exclusively bought the game to play on Linux, and if you are using Proton/Wine/etc, you can play on non-EAC community servers” (since official servers use Linux incompatible EAC). They aren’t hostile to the Linux community, but Gary and the team feel like they aren’t up to the task, so they don’t officially support things anymore.
And how many run on linux via a well documented way?
I’ve been playing around with bazzite a bit, and for sure, i can run a lot of games on it, but you often end up googling which launcher to use, which settings to use, … And then even if you find something, it doesn’t always work.
Linux is making good progress in this regard, but this title feels a bit over optimistic (or at least, users who take it at face value will quickly be disappointed when they can’t get 90% of their games to work).
I’ve been playing around with bazzite a bit, and for sure, i can run a lot of games on it, but you often end up googling which launcher to use, which settings to use, … And then even if you find something, it doesn’t always work.
Here’s a step-by-step guide:
- Launch Steam.
- Install game.
- Hit Play.
Zero issues.
Please let me know if you find good documentation. I want to make the jump off of windows, but honestly I’m scared it will just cause a ton of frustration
I previously played with just Steam and there’s basically one setting to enable - allowing the install of non-native games - and then (for supported games) it’s pretty much the same as Windows. In some cases you need to select the Proton version but generally using “latest” does the trick. There are games that require Proton-GE to work. These were essentially ones where Valve’s Proton version doesn’t have workarounds for various DRM etc (likely because doing so would get them in trouble). On Steam Deck this is done by pretty much going into the local Appstore in “desktop mode” to install. Other distros may vary.
For non-Steam games it’s a bit more of a pain, and can vary widely by game. I’ve installed a ton either just by running the Windows installer from Wine or scripts provided by Lutris.
Honestly if you’ve got the cash and want to try things, grab a Deck and give that a shot. If it works for you, take the leap to Linux on PC. Alternatively on PC, add/resize a disk and go dual-boot. The guided installers on Ubuntu variants generally make this pretty easy.
Honestly, check https://www.protondb.com/ and look for the games you want to play, it will let you know how well they work out of the box by just installing them on steam and hitting play. The reality is that it very much depends on what games you want to play, if you like CoD and other competitive multiplayer you’re unfortunately in the missing 10%, but for most cases you should be fairly well covered.
thing is, not even protondb is reliable. There’s been many times I’ve tried running a game, and encountered an error not posted anywhere, nor protondb, reddit or steam forums. All the comments on protondb will say, “works great out of the box!”, and I’m just left digging through random forums at that point.
The ONLY issue I’ve had like this was related to me having a dual monitor setup.
A lot of people have mentioned ProtonDB already, but I’ll throw in Lutris as well. It’s a multi-platform game launcher that supports Steam, GOG, Humble Games, Epic Games, EA, etc. but its website also lets you search for a game title, and most should have a user-created method to launch.
I keep seeing this and I keep forgetting to look into this!
