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Gaming on Linux has been so fucking good. I switched from Windows to Linux a month ago and literally haven’t found a game I can’t play. Even Red Dead Redemption

Gaming on Linux has been so fucking good. I switched from Windows to Linux a month ago and literally haven’t found a game I can’t play. Even Red Dead Redemption 2, Hades, Fallen Jedi, Ghostrunner... Oh the really icing on the cake is just how easy it all is. You literally just install the Windows version and things “just work.” Its amazing. I’ve said this a lot of times now but it’s pretty amazing to write code and play games on the same machine. Truly, I don’t think I’ll ever have a bare metal install of Windows again. I don’t even have a VM with it right now even.

NikolaeVarius 6y ago
Escape from Tarkov
yepthatsreality 6y ago
Good to hear...was thinking this last week about making the leap just from all the good news from Proton. Now that Davinci Resolve works well on Linux I don't see why not to make the shift.
fartcannon 6y ago
I remember watching the DXVK developer work on Witcher 3 support. Progress was lightning fast and then, suddenly, Proton appeared. Even VR games work! Thank you, Valve. You guys are my low key hero's.
- throwaway45349 6y ago
  I recently ordered a Valve Index + gaming PC. How's the VR support on Linux looking like? I'd rather not install Windows if I have to.
  - fartcannon 6y ago
    Through proton, it's fantastic. The native Linux stuff is hit or miss unfortunately.
  - sandworm101 6y ago
    I own a Valve index and have eben running it exclusively on a linux gaming PC for the last couple months. There are problems. The VR games themselves are generally good. Games generally "just work" but some of the other VR bits and pieces are troublesome. Each time I play I have to bounce around menus to enable sound through the headset. And very few media players work in linux (codex issues). Skybox VR works, but not on the latest version of proton. I still haven't figured out how to watch youtube in VR. I would still recommend VR gaming under linux for all the same reasons I would recommend linux over windows generally, but not to a casual gamer expecting a seamless experience.
    - Zardoz84 6y ago
      You usually have the sound using HDMI/Display port output ? I suggest enabling simultaneous sound output.
  - Scaevolus 6y ago
    It works somewhat, but the more advanced VR features like async reprojection or motion smoothing don't work, and there's a definite performance hit. The FPS drop for general gaming is less noticeable, but it's really important for VR.
  - account42 6y ago
    It works, but still beta quality. Steam still crashes every time I start SteamVR (restarting Steam afterwards works though). There is no official way to play VR videos. Half-Life: Alyx has enough bugs that Valve still does not advertise that it supports Linux on the store page. SteamVR and Half-Life: Alyx have both not been getting many updates on Linux. Maybe I'm wrong and there are fixes coming up but honestly it feels kind of like whoever at Valve got VR running on Linux lost interest.
    - als0 6y ago
      Is there a Linux version of Half Life Alyx without Proton?
      - account42 6y ago
        Yes, but as I said it still has some bugs and Valve themselves don't advertise it on the Store page.
- qchris 6y ago
  I've been playing Witcher 3 on Pop!_OS 20.04 recently using Steam/Proton. There's a few edges that occasionally popped up. For example, the wireless keyboard I was using would freeze the game when I tried to change the volume, but that's not an issue with the wired one I have. Overall, the experience over a couple hundred hours (oh, quarantine) of play has been overwhelmingly positive. I don't have a Windows machine, so if it can't be played using Proton, I can't play it. Valve are also my low-key heroes.
- oliwarner 6y ago
  Agreed. Watching Philip pump out release after release, and getting to test and see the daily progress was a game in itself. Whatever Valve paid (pay?) him wasn't enough.
outworlder 6y ago
Which GPU do you use? I haven't been up to date on the state of drivers, specially for newer cards. Historically for me AMD has been better.
- rubyn00bie 6y ago
  I've used both an AMD RX580 (90% of the gaming so far) and just got a 3090. Both of the graphics cards have had no issue, but I also didn't even hesitate to mash the "install proprietary drivers" option to a yes. Even switching graphics cards was painless... Like it was easier than I could have hoped for. Download drivers, mark weird driver.run file as executable and ./driver.run my way to victory. My motherboard is being a pain in the ass or I'd let you know how the GPU passthrough was working with the RX580 feeding the host... ugh that's tonight's adventure.
MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
Wait, what do you mean you can just install a windows version on linux? Were talking about a windows only game correct?
- bromonkey 6y ago
  That's what proton does. Runs windows .exe games on Linux.
  - saxonww 6y ago
    Adding some context: in Steam on Linux, you can right click on a Windows game you've installed and in the properties, you can select various alternative runtimes for the game. If you select a compatible Proton runtime, then you are able to launch the Windows game on Linux and it usually works. I don't have modern hardware but I'm easily able to play things like Mass Effect with Proton with no serious issues on an older graphics card (Radeon 7790). I'm not so confident that brand new titles would just work (even if I had a modern gfx card), but people tend to have good success overall. It's really good. In case it's not clear, Proton is a Valve fork of the Wine project. The one problem I've run into is if I don't have the right dependencies installed. I didn't play any games for a long time, then went back and started playing some again, and through several `apt update` runs something had gotten out of whack; Proton is Wine, so you can still get into difficult "what does this error even mean" situations.
- rubyn00bie 6y ago
  Yes. In steam you just hit "install" et voila! It installs. Using Lutris you can install games from Origin or the Epic Games store the same way... just download and hit install. I honestly didn't think I was gonna get to play Fallen Jedi with ease since I bought it on Origin (regrets) but turns out I was wrong. Was easy as hell just like everything else on Linux :)
  - checkyoursudo 6y ago
    Trying to play anything through that requires the Origin client fails for me at trying to install OriginThinClient or something. Lutris install of Origin was fine though. Mostly everything else works pretty easily.
phaedryx 6y ago
I'm to the point where I'll buy a game even if it isn't supported (yet) because I assume it will be eventually. They really have been doing a great job. All of my computers are windows-free now.
lynndotpy 6y ago
The only issues I've seen are with some games with third party libraries. Project Winter has been working on Linux for several months now, after some impressive efforts between the devs and the Linux fanbase.
lambda_obrien 6y ago
Rdr2? Fuck, I'm in. I built a PC that i couldn't get windows running on due to some stupid uefi or something, i can't figure it out so it's sitting in the corner and I'm using a PlayStation now. I'll try putting Linux on it so i can use them games i bought but couldn't use because software is a fucking drm nightmare these days.
- nixass 6y ago
  Can you explain that "UEFI thing"? There was a listing on ebay recently where the guy was selling his i7 8700+mobo+ram combo way under price because he said he couldn't run windows at all, only linux. It seemed so weird but google was not helping too much. What happened that you "bricked" it or was it factory setting?
  - jagger27 6y ago
    FWIW I’m having trouble installing Windows on my AMD B450 system where Linux also runs fine. It locks up during the boot process after the first reboot.
    - bserge 6y ago
      What do you install it from and what software do you use to build the installation image?
      - jagger27 6y ago
        USB 3.0 flash drive made with Microsoft's own installer tool from their website (from another Windows machine). So just to be clear, it fully completes the installation and boots normally the first time, but fails to boot after I install the first Windows Update. I have successfully run Windows 10 on this particular device in the past, which is weird. I only reinstalled it to use a larger SSD. Some Googling suggests it might be a USB device issue. I also have a weird issue where out of nowhere my onboard Realtek Ethernet stopped working in Windows (though works fine in Linux), so I've been using a USB 3.0 Ethernet dongle. Something's rotten with my machine. But I'm not exactly sure what. I'd likely use it more for work related tasks, but it's so frustrating dealing with this crap that just plug my MacBook into my monitor and call it a day.
skohan 6y ago
Yeah it's so good that I haven't bothered to boot Windows in months. The odd game doesn't work (Horizon, Zero Dawn for example) but it's so convenient to use Linux for everything I would rather just not play the game than to have to boot into Windows. Linux is just such a more quiet and less pushy experience, I find it relaxing.
- steeleduncan 6y ago
  I've not tried it myself, but I think Horizon:Zero Dawn was mentioned as explicitly fixed by Valve in the latest Proton runtime.
  - jcastro 6y ago
    Lots of the crashes are fixed but it still needs performance work. Not quite playable but seems to be improving regularly.
checkyoursudo 6y ago
I haven't been able to get any game that requires Origin or UPlay to work. I can't even get either of those to install via steam. I can install them via, e.g., Lutris or PlayOnLinux, but then steam doesn't see the clients. Otherwise, yeah, I used to run a GPU passthrough to a Win guest for a few games. Now I don't even do that. Gaming on Linux is quite good. Mostly good enough, anyway.
- xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
  I've probably spent 100 hours trying to get Uplay to work on Linux. It's a nightmare and I would recommend just not purchasing Ubisoft games at all. Even if you get it to work, their games seemingly have more problems with wine/proton than most, and multiplayer has never worked at all (again, due to Uplay). Nearly every other game I've tried has worked great with proton though! Even multiplayer games (through steam) tend to work very well.
2bitencryption 6y ago
Agreed, however after months of being "Linux only" (Manjaro KDE + Proton), just this weekend I broke and installed a Windows as a dual-boot option. 90% of games with Proton "just work" like you said. It is amazing. But then there's that one game that doesn't work, or works but with half the fps... for me, it was Death Stranding. It runs at 60+ fps at 1440p on Windows, but runs at half that on Proton, with horrible artifacts/frametime on Linux + Proton (even the community mod "GloriousEggroll" Proton version). If CyberPunk is any good, I'm going to buy it and want the best experience... for now, that probably means Windows, unless by some miracle it works on Proton with no issues.
- anderber 6y ago
  I would think that Cyberpunk 2077 would have good Proton compatibility on day one. It runs on Stadia, which uses Vulkan.
  - jsheard 6y ago
    There's been no word of Vulkan support in the public Windows build though, as far as we know it only uses DirectX 12
    - robotnikman 6y ago
      So they have Vulkan support because of stadia but won't release it publicly? That's kinda stupid
      - jsheard 6y ago
        It wouldn't be the first time, there's a bunch of games on Stadia that have no public Linux build or Vulkan support in their Windows build Maybe Google are licensing a proprietary DX->VK wrapper for Stadia developers to use, so they can't release it elsewhere?
        Arelius 6y ago
andrewzah 6y ago
My issue usually has been with random indie games just refusing to work. Like Party Animals, which either refused to launch for me or my friends or had horrible performance. Among Us as well. Also any multiplayer competitive games that use anti-cheats are impossible to play. Valorant, for example. IMO it is well worth it to maintain a dualboot for windows games.
- leetrout 6y ago
  Agree. It’s odd that among us causes problems since there’s not a lot there and it works on android. Most recent frustration for me was Firefighter Simulator. Ended up trying out a VMware product and playing it through a VM. Wasn’t great.
tsjq 6y ago
That's so good to know. No wine etc needed?
- account42 6y ago
  Proton is Wine.

NikolaeVarius 6y ago

Escape from Tarkov

yepthatsreality 6y ago

Good to hear...was thinking this last week about making the leap just from all the good news from Proton. Now that Davinci Resolve works well on Linux I don't see why not to make the shift.

fartcannon 6y ago

I remember watching the DXVK developer work on Witcher 3 support. Progress was lightning fast and then, suddenly, Proton appeared. Even VR games work! Thank you, Valve. You guys are my low key hero's.

throwaway45349 6y ago
I recently ordered a Valve Index + gaming PC. How's the VR support on Linux looking like? I'd rather not install Windows if I have to.
- fartcannon 6y ago
  Through proton, it's fantastic. The native Linux stuff is hit or miss unfortunately.
- sandworm101 6y ago
  I own a Valve index and have eben running it exclusively on a linux gaming PC for the last couple months. There are problems. The VR games themselves are generally good. Games generally "just work" but some of the other VR bits and pieces are troublesome. Each time I play I have to bounce around menus to enable sound through the headset. And very few media players work in linux (codex issues). Skybox VR works, but not on the latest version of proton. I still haven't figured out how to watch youtube in VR. I would still recommend VR gaming under linux for all the same reasons I would recommend linux over windows generally, but not to a casual gamer expecting a seamless experience.
  - Zardoz84 6y ago
    You usually have the sound using HDMI/Display port output ? I suggest enabling simultaneous sound output.
- Scaevolus 6y ago
  It works somewhat, but the more advanced VR features like async reprojection or motion smoothing don't work, and there's a definite performance hit. The FPS drop for general gaming is less noticeable, but it's really important for VR.
- account42 6y ago
  It works, but still beta quality. Steam still crashes every time I start SteamVR (restarting Steam afterwards works though). There is no official way to play VR videos. Half-Life: Alyx has enough bugs that Valve still does not advertise that it supports Linux on the store page. SteamVR and Half-Life: Alyx have both not been getting many updates on Linux. Maybe I'm wrong and there are fixes coming up but honestly it feels kind of like whoever at Valve got VR running on Linux lost interest.
  - als0 6y ago
    Is there a Linux version of Half Life Alyx without Proton?
    - account42 6y ago
      Yes, but as I said it still has some bugs and Valve themselves don't advertise it on the Store page.
qchris 6y ago
I've been playing Witcher 3 on Pop!_OS 20.04 recently using Steam/Proton. There's a few edges that occasionally popped up. For example, the wireless keyboard I was using would freeze the game when I tried to change the volume, but that's not an issue with the wired one I have. Overall, the experience over a couple hundred hours (oh, quarantine) of play has been overwhelmingly positive. I don't have a Windows machine, so if it can't be played using Proton, I can't play it. Valve are also my low-key heroes.
oliwarner 6y ago
Agreed. Watching Philip pump out release after release, and getting to test and see the daily progress was a game in itself. Whatever Valve paid (pay?) him wasn't enough.

outworlder 6y ago

Which GPU do you use? I haven't been up to date on the state of drivers, specially for newer cards. Historically for me AMD has been better.

rubyn00bie 6y ago
I've used both an AMD RX580 (90% of the gaming so far) and just got a 3090. Both of the graphics cards have had no issue, but I also didn't even hesitate to mash the "install proprietary drivers" option to a yes. Even switching graphics cards was painless... Like it was easier than I could have hoped for. Download drivers, mark weird driver.run file as executable and ./driver.run my way to victory. My motherboard is being a pain in the ass or I'd let you know how the GPU passthrough was working with the RX580 feeding the host... ugh that's tonight's adventure.

MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago

Wait, what do you mean you can just install a windows version on linux? Were talking about a windows only game correct?

bromonkey 6y ago
That's what proton does. Runs windows .exe games on Linux.
- saxonww 6y ago
  Adding some context: in Steam on Linux, you can right click on a Windows game you've installed and in the properties, you can select various alternative runtimes for the game. If you select a compatible Proton runtime, then you are able to launch the Windows game on Linux and it usually works. I don't have modern hardware but I'm easily able to play things like Mass Effect with Proton with no serious issues on an older graphics card (Radeon 7790). I'm not so confident that brand new titles would just work (even if I had a modern gfx card), but people tend to have good success overall. It's really good. In case it's not clear, Proton is a Valve fork of the Wine project. The one problem I've run into is if I don't have the right dependencies installed. I didn't play any games for a long time, then went back and started playing some again, and through several `apt update` runs something had gotten out of whack; Proton is Wine, so you can still get into difficult "what does this error even mean" situations.
rubyn00bie 6y ago
Yes. In steam you just hit "install" et voila! It installs. Using Lutris you can install games from Origin or the Epic Games store the same way... just download and hit install. I honestly didn't think I was gonna get to play Fallen Jedi with ease since I bought it on Origin (regrets) but turns out I was wrong. Was easy as hell just like everything else on Linux :)
- checkyoursudo 6y ago
  Trying to play anything through that requires the Origin client fails for me at trying to install OriginThinClient or something. Lutris install of Origin was fine though. Mostly everything else works pretty easily.

phaedryx 6y ago

I'm to the point where I'll buy a game even if it isn't supported (yet) because I assume it will be eventually. They really have been doing a great job. All of my computers are windows-free now.

lynndotpy 6y ago

The only issues I've seen are with some games with third party libraries. Project Winter has been working on Linux for several months now, after some impressive efforts between the devs and the Linux fanbase.

lambda_obrien 6y ago

Rdr2? Fuck, I'm in. I built a PC that i couldn't get windows running on due to some stupid uefi or something, i can't figure it out so it's sitting in the corner and I'm using a PlayStation now. I'll try putting Linux on it so i can use them games i bought but couldn't use because software is a fucking drm nightmare these days.

nixass 6y ago
Can you explain that "UEFI thing"? There was a listing on ebay recently where the guy was selling his i7 8700+mobo+ram combo way under price because he said he couldn't run windows at all, only linux. It seemed so weird but google was not helping too much. What happened that you "bricked" it or was it factory setting?
- jagger27 6y ago
  FWIW I’m having trouble installing Windows on my AMD B450 system where Linux also runs fine. It locks up during the boot process after the first reboot.
  - bserge 6y ago
    What do you install it from and what software do you use to build the installation image?
    - jagger27 6y ago
      USB 3.0 flash drive made with Microsoft's own installer tool from their website (from another Windows machine). So just to be clear, it fully completes the installation and boots normally the first time, but fails to boot after I install the first Windows Update. I have successfully run Windows 10 on this particular device in the past, which is weird. I only reinstalled it to use a larger SSD. Some Googling suggests it might be a USB device issue. I also have a weird issue where out of nowhere my onboard Realtek Ethernet stopped working in Windows (though works fine in Linux), so I've been using a USB 3.0 Ethernet dongle. Something's rotten with my machine. But I'm not exactly sure what. I'd likely use it more for work related tasks, but it's so frustrating dealing with this crap that just plug my MacBook into my monitor and call it a day.

skohan 6y ago

Yeah it's so good that I haven't bothered to boot Windows in months. The odd game doesn't work (Horizon, Zero Dawn for example) but it's so convenient to use Linux for everything I would rather just not play the game than to have to boot into Windows. Linux is just such a more quiet and less pushy experience, I find it relaxing.

steeleduncan 6y ago
I've not tried it myself, but I think Horizon:Zero Dawn was mentioned as explicitly fixed by Valve in the latest Proton runtime.
- jcastro 6y ago
  Lots of the crashes are fixed but it still needs performance work. Not quite playable but seems to be improving regularly.

checkyoursudo 6y ago

I haven't been able to get any game that requires Origin or UPlay to work. I can't even get either of those to install via steam. I can install them via, e.g., Lutris or PlayOnLinux, but then steam doesn't see the clients. Otherwise, yeah, I used to run a GPU passthrough to a Win guest for a few games. Now I don't even do that. Gaming on Linux is quite good. Mostly good enough, anyway.

xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
I've probably spent 100 hours trying to get Uplay to work on Linux. It's a nightmare and I would recommend just not purchasing Ubisoft games at all. Even if you get it to work, their games seemingly have more problems with wine/proton than most, and multiplayer has never worked at all (again, due to Uplay). Nearly every other game I've tried has worked great with proton though! Even multiplayer games (through steam) tend to work very well.

2bitencryption 6y ago

Agreed, however after months of being "Linux only" (Manjaro KDE + Proton), just this weekend I broke and installed a Windows as a dual-boot option. 90% of games with Proton "just work" like you said. It is amazing. But then there's that one game that doesn't work, or works but with half the fps... for me, it was Death Stranding. It runs at 60+ fps at 1440p on Windows, but runs at half that on Proton, with horrible artifacts/frametime on Linux + Proton (even the community mod "GloriousEggroll" Proton version). If CyberPunk is any good, I'm going to buy it and want the best experience... for now, that probably means Windows, unless by some miracle it works on Proton with no issues.

anderber 6y ago
I would think that Cyberpunk 2077 would have good Proton compatibility on day one. It runs on Stadia, which uses Vulkan.
- jsheard 6y ago
  There's been no word of Vulkan support in the public Windows build though, as far as we know it only uses DirectX 12
  - robotnikman 6y ago
    So they have Vulkan support because of stadia but won't release it publicly? That's kinda stupid
    - jsheard 6y ago
      It wouldn't be the first time, there's a bunch of games on Stadia that have no public Linux build or Vulkan support in their Windows build Maybe Google are licensing a proprietary DX->VK wrapper for Stadia developers to use, so they can't release it elsewhere?
      - Arelius 6y ago

andrewzah 6y ago

My issue usually has been with random indie games just refusing to work. Like Party Animals, which either refused to launch for me or my friends or had horrible performance. Among Us as well. Also any multiplayer competitive games that use anti-cheats are impossible to play. Valorant, for example. IMO it is well worth it to maintain a dualboot for windows games.

leetrout 6y ago
Agree. It’s odd that among us causes problems since there’s not a lot there and it works on android. Most recent frustration for me was Firefighter Simulator. Ended up trying out a VMware product and playing it through a VM. Wasn’t great.

tsjq 6y ago

That's so good to know. No wine etc needed?

account42 6y ago
Proton is Wine.