7 ms·
All the comments about Linux gaming make me want to give my $0.02. I've been gaming on Linux, with no Windows installed anywhere, for around 6 years. In the fir
by lionkor 7mo ago
All the comments about Linux gaming make me want to give my $0.02. I've been gaming on Linux, with no Windows installed anywhere, for around 6 years. In the first 3 years, it was a massive pain. Games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. would consistently have issues with mouse input, weird acceleration, a lot of games wouldn't run at all. This is NO LONGER the case at all. Things run very well out of the box.
All games I want to play run very well and mostly the process is just "install -> play".
If a game has an aggressive anticheat, like Battlefield 6 or Valorant, it will not work and you can forget about it.
Controllers work fine, so do some wheels and other peripherals, but a good number of wheels, pedals, joysticks, VR headsets, and other wild and wacky input devices might not work that well or not at all. It mostly depends on whether the software for them runs on Linux, runs in Wine, or is needed at all. Not sure about VR, but I know it was a bit dire 1-2 years ago.
If you don't play hardcore simulator games, and don't play one of the competitive shooters with aggressive anticheat (e.g. CS2 and other competitive shooters run perfectly well), you can just install Linux, install Steam or one of the other launchers, and just hit play.
If you're not sure, you can check the status on https://protondb.com https://protondb.com.
- Levitating 7mo ago> Games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. The old stalker games run on the X-Ray engine (the mods on a modified OSS version of it). In my experience they've always worked pretty well, though the games are quirky in general. Good hunting stalker.
- lionkor 7mo agoTime is money, get talking! Yes, last time (recently) I tried, the original games ran very well, with no (Linux specific) issues!
- oceansky 7mo agoNo wonder it's classified informally as "eurojank".
- konart 7mo agoWell, modded Stalker is ways better than most of the USAjank that typicall can't offer something other yet another blockbuster.
- oceansky 7mo agoEven vanilla STALKER is still a timeless classic.
- a-french-anon 7mo agoWe still can't compete with Bethesda on that front, though...
- LorenDB 7mo agoVR works quite well these days.
- otikik 7mo agoI have been a happy user of the Bazzite distro (which used proton) for several years at this point. Very happy as well.
- 3form 7mo agoAnd importantly, older games now tend to work better in Linux than they do in Windows.
- fauzanhilmi 7mo agoRelated: Wine 11 rewrites how Linux runs Windows games at kernel with massive speed gains https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47507150 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47507150
- himata4113 7mo agoWell actually I've been technically playing all the games that are protected by these aggressive anticheats on linux since I've decided to switch. My setup is a custom version of the linux kernel that 'backdoors' itself and exposes host information to the windows vm making all the anticheats happy enough to work out of the box. Have not gotten banned in any of the games either. Custom VMM and EDK builds are required to block blanket detections of virtualized hardware. I repurposed lookingglass to instead stream all the wdm buffers as seperate applications that I can open directly in linux like they're native applications. The neat part is that I forward all the installed applications to KRunner which talks to the windows vm and launches the application there and spawns a looking glass instance for that applications assigned path. The only downside that this is a two GPU solution and you have to run any GPU intensive applications in windows.
- progforlyfe 7mo agoThat is honestly amazing and impressive. Probably a bit too much tweaking for the common gamer though, but glad it is possible!
- himata4113 7mo agoI've been messing with kernel-mode anticheats for 3 to 4 years so yah, not something a typical gamer can do. But I have been contempating on making this publically available for everyone to use wrapped in a neat little package!
- freedomben 7mo agoYou definitely should! Even just a blog post about it would be great. I won't be doing it myself, but my son would for sure.
- drakythe 7mo agoOut of curiosity do you run the backdoored kernel in your day to day computing or only when gaming? Any concerns about incidental security issues?
- robinwhg 7mo agoIs there a performance hit for cs 2 compared to windows with an rtx card? That‘s pretty much the only thing holding me back.
- sdrm 7mo agoCS2 has first class linux support. I'm on cachyos specifically, and on my machine it has better performance than on Windows (I made the comparison a couple of months ago, so pretty recent)
- andrepd 7mo agoIt works better lol. That being said CS2 runs substantially worse than CSGO. It at least kicked my addiction when it released, since it no longer ran at acceptable framerates on my laptop ahaha
- LollipopYakuza 7mo agoIt depends what are your expectations. I thought it was fine, until a competitive player, friend of mine who has a machine comparable to mine saw the game running on mine and noticed a lot of stuttering and framerate loss. I don't believe it is a machine performance issue (Threadripper Pro 3XXX with a 3080p), and I was running a pretty standard Gnome Fedora 43 with NVIDIA drivers. So if you are into competitive gaming, I guess it is debatable.
- dminik 7mo agoThis is a pretty interesting topic. For GO, switching to Linux (with an AMD card) was a free performance boost. I gained like 30fps. For early CS2, the performance on Linux was terrible. Now, the peak fps is slightly worse, but the frame pacing is much more stable. Eg: you get less fps, but also less fps drops.
- nwallin 7mo agoWithin the past month or so there was a fix for rtx cards that should unlock a massive performance increase for certain games. Only applies to rtx 30xx, 40xx, and 50xx. Search terms are "vulkan descriptor heap" if you would like to know more. It's very fresh so you'll need an up to date distro.
- sorbusherra 7mo agoFor me the biggest surprise was that old ps2 usb racing sim wheel+pedals just worked instantly with linux, and I could use it in dirt rally without any pains. It felt amazing. oculus quest 2 also works very well with alvr, even wirelessly.
- vinc 7mo agoI got a Quest 2 recently and Steam Link would not connect, ALVR would crash after a while, but WiVRn work perfectly on my Arch Linux with a AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT. It's nice that we have multiple options. I assembled a PC last year from used parts specifically to try gaming on Linux after two decades with only the occasional FreeCiv or MineTest, and the experience with Steam is mostly painless. Impressive!
- pjmlp 7mo agoPlaying Linux or Windows native games, because that is the whole issue, it is hardly any different than asserting there are Linux games when they are actually Amiga games running with UAE. Those games running on Proton are still produced on a Windows factory.
- satvikpendem 7mo agoI wonder if there actually are any native modern Linux games, I don't recall any.
- pjmlp 7mo agoLoki Entertainment in the good old days, anything Android NDK, which uses OpenGL ES/Vulkan/OpenSL/Open MAX.
- red-iron-pine 7mo ago[dead]
- tpxl 7mo agoSlay the Spire 1 (Java) and 2 (Godot). Ironically, StS1 ran better under wine than natively. Anyhow, there are plenty of native games, we just don't notice, because running them tends to not be any harder than running Windows games these days.
- lionkor 6mo agoThere are a suprising number of games with a native Linux version, like ArmA 3 (which is an ancient, broken, outdated port, but it exists and used to install by default), or Minecraft, and plenty of other games have native linux versions that aren't advertised anywhere. Vintage Story is native and runs super well. Due to a lack of testing on all parts of that pipeline, it's usually better for performance and stability to run the Windows version via Proton anyway.
- Goronmon 7mo agoAll games I want to play run very well and mostly the process is just "install -> play". This is largely true for games running directly through Steam, it can get pretty annoying for games that exist outside Steam. Especially when you have to do things like apply an ".msi" style patch to a game . It's doable, but the number of steps and tools you may have to pull in (such as protontricks) does get to be a bit of a pain at times.
- andrepd 7mo agoLutris recipes often work out of the box as well. It's as simple as hitting "install" on the Lutris app.
- freedomben 7mo agoAgreed, but people should definitely try Lutris. It's nearly as painless as Steam now for GOG and many other stores.
- ecshafer 7mo agoThe trick I have is that I add the game and all related windows exes to steam in the same file system. When you run a game on proton through steam, it makes this virtual file system thats matches a game appid, or a uuid. So youll get a folder somewhere thats like 12345566778. You can add that file to an override for a different application, and have it run on that application file system. So if you add a patcher, mod tool etc, you can use it just like its in windows. For example: Add Diablo 2 exe to Steam. Run Diablo 2 in proton. This creates a folder like 123455 /home/user/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/123455/. Then Add LOD to Steam, add this to the system launch STEAM_COMPAT_DATA_PATH=/home/user/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/123455/ and you can run the installer on the older file data. Do the same for a mod patcher, etc.
- bcjdjsndon 7mo ago> Things run very well out of the box. > a good number of wheels, pedals, joysticks, VR headsets, and other wild and wacky input devices might not work that well or not at all > If a game has an aggressive anticheat, like Battlefield 6 or Valorant, it will not work and you can forget about it > Not sure about VR, but I know it was a bit dire 1-2 years ago The determination of the average Linux user to ignore the faults of Linux is something to behold
- craftkiller 7mo agoAggressive anticheat not supporting Linux is not a fault of Linux. It is a fault of the aggressive anticheat and the games that decide to use it.
- satvikpendem 7mo agoIt doesn't matter whose fault it is, I go where the games actually work and are playable, which is still Windows today for many games.
- craftkiller 7mo agoIt doesn't matter to you, but other people care about false accusations.
- satvikpendem 7mo agoWho is accusing Linux as the cause of anticheat not working? I haven't ever seen that, I see people blaming the anticheat creators for not supporting Linux, they know Linux is not the one at fault yet they still want to play games therefore they use Windows instead.
- craftkiller 7mo agoYou didn't read the thread? It's the comment I was replying to: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47718255 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47718255 They quote "If a game has an aggressive anticheat" and then state "The determination of the average Linux user to ignore the faults of Linux", which is accusing Linux of being at fault for the aggressive anticheat not working.
- satvikpendem 7mo ago> If a game has an aggressive anticheat, like Battlefield 6 or Valorant, it will not work and you can forget about it. Yeah this is why I stick with Windows. Unlike it seems a lot of people on HN I don't really see any issues with it that would want to make me move away, especially as I already have WSL if I do need Linux, as WSL has GPU passthrough.
- freedomben 7mo ago> I don't really see any issues with it that would want to make me move away If you don't care about privacy issues or ads in your face, then yeah Windows is pretty good. I care a lot about that (and open source in general) so for me it's way worth it. But everyone is different and that's ok
- satvikpendem 7mo agoI don't, no (otherwise I wouldn't use Google and their ecosystem either). I also don't see any ads people talk about either, I run ad blockers everywhere so maybe that's why. Vague concerns about privacy are not strong enough reasons for me and most others, based on OS market share, to move away when the concrete reality is we can simply play more games on Windows. The only reason Linux gaming is getting good is because of Valve funding it heavily in the past few years for their own products like the Steam Deck, and to move away from an OS they have no control over in Windows, not because of privacy concerns which I guarantee you 99% of Steam Deck users don't give a shit about, they just want to play their games.
- freedomben 7mo ago> not because of privacy concerns which I guarantee you 99% of Steam Deck users don't give a shit about, they just want to play their games. I actually agree with everything you said except the above. Valve (and their employees) do actually care about privacy concerns, regardless whether their users do or not. I agree that's not the primary reason they did it (it was because of Windows control as you said), but it isn't a non-zero factor.
- 7mo ago
- embeng4096 7mo agoYep, my casual Steam games run well out of the box. I don’t even use a gaming-focused distro like Bazzite, just EndeavourOS. Helldivers 2, No Rest For The Wicked, Slay The Spire 2, even modded Lethal Company with friends using r2modman (also worked OOTB). And of course Discord works, including streaming when friends want to watch If I really want to play Apex or Battlefield I’ll fire up my dual drive dual boot Windows, and in the meantime, no more Microsoft spying on me, forced Windows updates and reboots at random times, ads in my Start menu, Xbox apps and other bloatware, etc
- red-iron-pine 7mo agowhy even use custom ones like Endeavor? steam works fine on basic fedora and arch -- have tried on both.
- embeng4096 7mo agoI did consider Fedora, just was intrigued by EndeavourOS, being Arch-based but with default settings that work totally fine for a casual like me, not having to fuss about setting up a DE or WM+addons, firewall, WiFi, Nvidia GPU worked out of the box, etc
- Farox 7mo agoI have 3 4k monitors. Windows drives them without a problem. Linux still can't. I tried for a whole day and eventually gave up.
- smusamashah 7mo agoThe DB lists popular games, what about indie games coming out every day?
- ahartmetz 7mo agoThese are often in the database as well. Indie games also have a very good chance of working without any changes in Proton, IME. They usually aren't very "high tech" and I suspect that at least some of their creators test them with Proton.
- lionkor 6mo agoIf they are built on Godot, Unity, Unreal, or are built with SDL+OpenGL or SDL+DirectX or C# MonoGame any kind of combination that is reasonably common in the last 20 years, it'll run well
- exiguus 7mo agoI have been running Steam on a Fedora Sway spin on a ThinkCentre M75q Gen 5 for nearly two years now, playing Hades or Hollow Knight. Before that, I ran Steam on Debian on a ThinkPad T14/P14s to play Cities Skylines. I usually use an Xbox or PlayStation 3 controller. It works great!
- mastermage 7mo agoI think Marvel Rivals works fine so its not all Competitive Shooters ä.
- Wowfunhappy 7mo agoMy concern has long been, what happens when I want to do something weird? I have a projector that supports stereoscopic 3D. Sometimes I use things like HelixMod to add 3D to games. What would that look like on Linux? Sometimes I use GPU driver settings to force games to use higher render resolutions (above my monitor's resolution), or better anisotropic filtering. What does that look like?