7 ms·

Looks like switching to linux when win 7 support ended was the right move. All my games may randomly freeze for no discernible reason, but at least I don't hav

Looks like switching to linux when win 7 support ended was the right move. All my games may randomly freeze for no discernible reason, but at least I don't have to deal with that BS.

McAtNite 5y ago
I’m desperately wishing for Valve to have success with the Deck so that Linux gets better attention from game devs. The last Windows machine in my environment is exclusively for PC games, and I honestly can’t wait to install Linux over it.
- fartcannon 5y ago
  Just start now. Think of unsupported games as you think of games for Nintendo and Sony machines. Your financial support of gaming on Linux will encourage developers to support it. Waiting just keeps the status quo.
  - RussianCow 5y ago
    I did this a few years ago with the same mindset, thinking I’d still regularly boot into Windows, but I haven’t done so in probably over a year. I was surprised at how little I missed the games that don’t run (well or at all) on Linux—probably because there are so many good options these days. At this point I’m thinking of deleting my Windows partition altogether.
    - fartcannon 5y ago
      Yeah, if you ever REALLY need one you can just run it in an emulator. In 20 years, I've never REALLY needed it.
foerbert 5y ago
Really? I made the same move (or at least finished it 100%) at the same time, and that's not a problem I've ever seen. Some (surprisingly few, actually) don't perform well under Wine/Proton, or at all, but random freezing I've never seen. And certainly not all of my games.
- Skunkleton 5y ago
  Seems like luck of the draw. I’ve had the same random freezing issues
- skoskie 5y ago
  But it’s linux, so one obscure setting in a config file or slightly different hardware can make all the difference. I say this as a linux user since WinXP. The whole OS market is pretty rough right now.
  - ziml77 5y ago
    > The whole OS market is pretty rough right now. This is my feeling over the past few years. No OS is in a great spot. But I have hopes for Linux being better supported with Valve using it on the Steam Deck. (Not the highest hopes, but more hope than I used to have)
    - GekkePrutser 5y ago
      I don't agree. KDE in particular feels more well rounded than ever before. I use it on FreeBSD but I use Linux on servers and I'm also very happy with that. Windows 10 is stable for me too though I was hit with the eTPM stutter bug (I use my Windows box exclusively for gaming, in particular VR which I didn't feel like figuring out in proton). But the windows dark patterns are surely there and I hate them. But as it's only my gaming machine I can deal with it. And Mac... Well I moved away from it because Apple is locking down too much and I've come to hate opinionated software. Still they seem to be doing nice things with M1..
      - hparadiz 5y ago
        I recently got Apex Legends working and it's running perfectly at 144 fps in 2k on a 1080 ti. I've also played FFXIV and Path of Exile extensively in Linux. The only thing left is Adobe products which is honestly a matter of time. Just really takes hammering out some market share until Adobe relents. A lot of the best kernel, driver, and gui shell improvements have only really hit their stride in the past 24 months. Things are coming together rapidly.
creakingstairs 5y ago
I can’t wait for Proton to get better so I can ditch Windows for good. I know it’s already really good and it will run for most of the game I play, but I do like to dabble in competitive online or AAA once in a while :(
- deadbunny 5y ago
  Proton is great, anticheat work fine with it. It's up to the producers of AAA games to enable it now.
  - etataetaet 5y ago
    I've probably played ~15-20 games on wine now and literally all have worked with, at most, minimal tweaking (Changing the proton version). I mostly play single player or indie multiplayer so I haven't had to deal with the anti cheat. Only game that hasn't worked with Proton is Oneshot and its kina understandable considering the games context... It did have a linux version that mostly works out of the box though!
- Mindwipe 5y ago
  Proton and VR are currently not happy bedfellows.
mobilio 5y ago
I do this switch 13 years ago just before 7 was released to macOS. So mine last Windows was XP.
seanp2k2 5y ago
I've had the freezes happen when my nvidia drivers weren't properly installed and when the kernel wasn't using the nvidia DKMS modules. glxgears should run super fast at a consistent framerate. Check out https://gist.github.com/wangg12/c69b56272eaeed1aba9515d19f550a12#install-nvidia-graphics-driver-via-apt-get https://gist.github.com/wangg12/c69b56272eaeed1aba9515d19f55...
- ipaddr 5y ago
  A update is needed as most are on 20.04
nwallin 5y ago
> All my games may randomly freeze for no discernible reason, All? My experience is that 90% work fine, 9% have weirdness, (for instance, voices in Skyrim are out of sync with mouth movements) and 1% of them have game breaking bugs.
- dimgl 5y ago
  Yeah, I have the experience as OP. Every single game I play on Linux has random hitches for seconds at a time.
  - freedomben 5y ago
    Can you keep an htop running by chance? It would be very helpful to see if CPU is maxxing out when the hitches happen, or if the swap file is growing, etc. Any time it happens to me, it's usually low resources because of something. Most often some chrome tab (or 3) that are going crazy. I also discovered that one of the apps that I thought was using hardware acceleration actually wasn't. The CPU usage made it pretty clear that the CPU was doing a ton of work.
  - fsflover 5y ago
    Sounds like a typical problem with an Nvidia GPU.
    - dagw 5y ago
      I've found that AMD APUs are by far the worst supported GPUs on Linux. Nvidia gives me far less problems.
Zardoz84 5y ago
I made Kubuntu my main OS a long time ago, and I play a lot of (thanks to Valve, Steam, Wine and Proton...) games, and I never experienced a game freezing. My experience it's so good, that I only touch Windows to play Fornite. The only annoying bug/problem that I have actually, it's that Dolphin could have a erratic behavior if I had mounted a SMB folder via an VPN and I end the VPN before un-mounting the SMB folder.
rkagerer 5y ago
Stayed on Win7 in hopes MS would get their sh*t figured out by now. Looks increasingly like my next PC will need to be Linux and some VM's.
simion314 5y ago
>All my games may randomly freeze for no discernible reason, Could be a GPU thermal issue, happens to me with old games that have no FPS limit, then the GPU does so much work that it hangs for some reason(Nvidia GT970), I am not sure if is my GPU broken/dusty, the driver bugged or Xorg, Windows users only see a game crash not a full system crash.

Looks like switching to linux when win 7 support ended was the right move. All my games may randomly freeze for no discernible reason, but at least I don't have to deal with that BS.

McAtNite 5y ago

I’m desperately wishing for Valve to have success with the Deck so that Linux gets better attention from game devs. The last Windows machine in my environment is exclusively for PC games, and I honestly can’t wait to install Linux over it.

fartcannon 5y ago
Just start now. Think of unsupported games as you think of games for Nintendo and Sony machines. Your financial support of gaming on Linux will encourage developers to support it. Waiting just keeps the status quo.
- RussianCow 5y ago
  I did this a few years ago with the same mindset, thinking I’d still regularly boot into Windows, but I haven’t done so in probably over a year. I was surprised at how little I missed the games that don’t run (well or at all) on Linux—probably because there are so many good options these days. At this point I’m thinking of deleting my Windows partition altogether.
  - fartcannon 5y ago
    Yeah, if you ever REALLY need one you can just run it in an emulator. In 20 years, I've never REALLY needed it.

foerbert 5y ago

Really? I made the same move (or at least finished it 100%) at the same time, and that's not a problem I've ever seen. Some (surprisingly few, actually) don't perform well under Wine/Proton, or at all, but random freezing I've never seen. And certainly not all of my games.

Skunkleton 5y ago
Seems like luck of the draw. I’ve had the same random freezing issues
skoskie 5y ago
But it’s linux, so one obscure setting in a config file or slightly different hardware can make all the difference. I say this as a linux user since WinXP. The whole OS market is pretty rough right now.
- ziml77 5y ago
  > The whole OS market is pretty rough right now. This is my feeling over the past few years. No OS is in a great spot. But I have hopes for Linux being better supported with Valve using it on the Steam Deck. (Not the highest hopes, but more hope than I used to have)
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    I don't agree. KDE in particular feels more well rounded than ever before. I use it on FreeBSD but I use Linux on servers and I'm also very happy with that. Windows 10 is stable for me too though I was hit with the eTPM stutter bug (I use my Windows box exclusively for gaming, in particular VR which I didn't feel like figuring out in proton). But the windows dark patterns are surely there and I hate them. But as it's only my gaming machine I can deal with it. And Mac... Well I moved away from it because Apple is locking down too much and I've come to hate opinionated software. Still they seem to be doing nice things with M1..
    - hparadiz 5y ago
      I recently got Apex Legends working and it's running perfectly at 144 fps in 2k on a 1080 ti. I've also played FFXIV and Path of Exile extensively in Linux. The only thing left is Adobe products which is honestly a matter of time. Just really takes hammering out some market share until Adobe relents. A lot of the best kernel, driver, and gui shell improvements have only really hit their stride in the past 24 months. Things are coming together rapidly.

creakingstairs 5y ago

I can’t wait for Proton to get better so I can ditch Windows for good. I know it’s already really good and it will run for most of the game I play, but I do like to dabble in competitive online or AAA once in a while :(

deadbunny 5y ago
Proton is great, anticheat work fine with it. It's up to the producers of AAA games to enable it now.
- etataetaet 5y ago
  I've probably played ~15-20 games on wine now and literally all have worked with, at most, minimal tweaking (Changing the proton version). I mostly play single player or indie multiplayer so I haven't had to deal with the anti cheat. Only game that hasn't worked with Proton is Oneshot and its kina understandable considering the games context... It did have a linux version that mostly works out of the box though!
Mindwipe 5y ago
Proton and VR are currently not happy bedfellows.

mobilio 5y ago

I do this switch 13 years ago just before 7 was released to macOS. So mine last Windows was XP.

seanp2k2 5y ago

I've had the freezes happen when my nvidia drivers weren't properly installed and when the kernel wasn't using the nvidia DKMS modules. glxgears should run super fast at a consistent framerate. Check out https://gist.github.com/wangg12/c69b56272eaeed1aba9515d19f550a12#install-nvidia-graphics-driver-via-apt-get https://gist.github.com/wangg12/c69b56272eaeed1aba9515d19f55...

ipaddr 5y ago
A update is needed as most are on 20.04

nwallin 5y ago

> All my games may randomly freeze for no discernible reason, All? My experience is that 90% work fine, 9% have weirdness, (for instance, voices in Skyrim are out of sync with mouth movements) and 1% of them have game breaking bugs.

dimgl 5y ago
Yeah, I have the experience as OP. Every single game I play on Linux has random hitches for seconds at a time.
- freedomben 5y ago
  Can you keep an htop running by chance? It would be very helpful to see if CPU is maxxing out when the hitches happen, or if the swap file is growing, etc. Any time it happens to me, it's usually low resources because of something. Most often some chrome tab (or 3) that are going crazy. I also discovered that one of the apps that I thought was using hardware acceleration actually wasn't. The CPU usage made it pretty clear that the CPU was doing a ton of work.
- fsflover 5y ago
  Sounds like a typical problem with an Nvidia GPU.
  - dagw 5y ago
    I've found that AMD APUs are by far the worst supported GPUs on Linux. Nvidia gives me far less problems.

Zardoz84 5y ago

I made Kubuntu my main OS a long time ago, and I play a lot of (thanks to Valve, Steam, Wine and Proton...) games, and I never experienced a game freezing. My experience it's so good, that I only touch Windows to play Fornite. The only annoying bug/problem that I have actually, it's that Dolphin could have a erratic behavior if I had mounted a SMB folder via an VPN and I end the VPN before un-mounting the SMB folder.

rkagerer 5y ago

Stayed on Win7 in hopes MS would get their sh*t figured out by now. Looks increasingly like my next PC will need to be Linux and some VM's.

simion314 5y ago

>All my games may randomly freeze for no discernible reason, Could be a GPU thermal issue, happens to me with old games that have no FPS limit, then the GPU does so much work that it hangs for some reason(Nvidia GT970), I am not sure if is my GPU broken/dusty, the driver bugged or Xorg, Windows users only see a game crash not a full system crash.