7 ms·

Feels like there is some real momentum on linux gaming now. I mostly play older games but I've gotten most of them working acceptably in proton on my old syste

Feels like there is some real momentum on linux gaming now. I mostly play older games but I've gotten most of them working acceptably in proton on my old system 76 laptop (oryp5, with a nvidia 2060; ~7 years old). The laptop actually has plenty of power for the games I play, but I underclock to keep the heat/fan speeds down (been doing the same on the win10 install on the same system), still getting acceptable framerate in proton for most of the things I do in game, non intense stuff. Decades ago I ported some games to linux but I do think proton is the correct approach now. One underappreciated advantage is you get most of the mod environment too. In ESO for instance, there is an addon (tamriel trade center) which lets you download item prices, but it requires a windows client exe to do that. That client works on proton. I also do some modding myself and can cross compile my rust code to windows with cargo xwin, and run it right away in proton, which is fairly amusing to behold. I actually don't mind windows generally (been a MS user since DOS 5), but Win11 is a game changer, pun intended, and not in a good way.

ToucanLoucan 5mo ago
I'm looking to finally get off Windows for good. My experience with the SteamDeck started me, later I upgraded to a ROG Ally X for beefier performance but found Windows insufferable on a handheld, and installed SteamOS. I was blown away by the performance gains. A few months later I installed Kubuntu for the first time since 2013 or so, Steam shortly after, and while the desktop linux route is definitely more taxing (manually installing things like Mod Organizer 2 instead of Vortex, for instance, and all of that needing to run differently as opposed to Windows where it's all just .exe's) I've been absolutely blown away by the performance gains again. Mind you this machine is no slacker, it's a GE76 Raider from MSI, 3060 under the hood, but games just run smoother in Linux. And the alt-tab experience is untouchable, Fallout: New Vegas hates it and crashes, but everything more modern utterly doesn't care. I can alt-tab in and out, check messages, desktop composing works great no matter what game I'm playing, no more issues in modded games where the game completely locks the machine as Linux just doesn't seem to allow it, it's fantastic. I have a couple more things to figure, I need XBox authentication to work for Halo Infinite and Sea of Theives, among others, and I need to figure out some solutions for some ancient software I have to run, which will probably end up being a Windows 11 VM. But as for my daily driver OS, I am so excited to get off Windows once and for all.
- foo12bar 5mo ago
  What do you plan to do about firmware updates?
  - cogman10 5mo ago
    Believe it or not, it's actually easier to handle on linux than it is on windows now [1]. Normal caveats apply, it depends on your HW manufacturer. However, a lot of them are participating which makes it pretty slick. And, assuming your are doing x86, you probably already have an EFI partition so even doing motherboard bios updates isn't much of a big deal. You just drop the update in the FAT32 EFI partition, reboot, and point the motherboard at that location. Some motherboards even support just doing that as part of an online update. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Fwupd https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Fwupd
    - hypercube33 5mo ago
      For a hot moment Windows would just update firmware for big vendors as an update. Worked slick. I think vendors are bailing out on this though. That said some Linux distros can do the same now though I've used so many the last few months I don't know which.
      - isityettime 5mo ago
        All the distros that support it use the same system, fwupd: https://fwupd.org/ https://fwupd.org/ It's the same tool the person you were replying to was pointing at via the Arch wiki. It's pretty standard. I'd expect most distros to support it by now.
- beart 5mo ago
  There were specific games keeping me on windows, mostly online PVP. At some point I switched anyway and I don't regret it at all. Now when my friends suggest a game and I'm not able to play it, I just do something else or we choose a different game. There are so many great games out there now, and more release every week. Plus, as I've gotten older, it has become more apparent the fun is in socializing, not the game itself. My point is, you may find the one or two games holding you back won't be missed much.
Quekid5 5mo ago
Yeah, I've been playing BG3 on Linux[0] for about 2 years at this point (using a Lutris "recipe" or whatever they call it). Ironically, the biggest issues have been with some of the modding tools needing specific versions of DotNet and whatnot. The game itself runs flawlessly. [0] Arch Linux, btw, because that must be mentioned.
- Fnoord 5mo ago
  Actually, I have been having a specific issue with pickpocketing in BG3. On native Windows and native Linux, the client crashes if I pickpocket too quick. One time, on Linux, it even made my whole OS crash (and then some weird error BIOS error). But specifically with Wine on Linux, it does not occur. The only reason I even tried with Wine on Linux is because I wanted to try some mods unavailable otherwise. It does seem the native port has better latency, but latency in a game like this is pretty irrelevant. I have been using Linux for nearly 30 years now, including running CS (HL1) via Wine with better performance and stability than Windows 9x on a LAN party. Good times. Sometimes native ports don't get updates, while Windows port does. If you can then run it via Wine, you may have a more stable/less buggy experience. Note I use both Wine and Proton. BG3 I run with Proton. But Proton is 'just' a fork with (neat) improvements which also partly got backported. Oh, and I have to mention, I don't use Arch Linux.
  - brandnewideas 5mo ago
    Huh, I was unaware that BG3 had a native Linux release, as it's not listed on the Steam store page. Turns out that they released it only for the Steam Deck. Strange
    - frameset 5mo ago
      Yeah there's some weirdness too, it's heavily optimised for the Deck, low rez textures, low shadow quality etc. So if you force it to run on your Linux desktop you don't get an experience commensurate with your hardware.
    - Quekid5 5mo ago
KolibriFly 5mo ago
This is exactly why Proton feels like the pragmatic path. Native ports are nice in theory, but PC games are rarely just one clean executable anymore
- rightbyte 5mo ago
  EA's horrible launcher comes to mind.
- imtringued 5mo ago
  Yeah, PC games are like console cartridges. You plug them into a compatible slot and they work.
  - wing-_-nuts 5mo ago
    What? Look, things have gotten much better, but pc gaming, esp via proton is no where near as seamless as playing on console. In fact, I went with console + linux laptop for ages simply because that combo excelled at their respective roles, were cheaper together than a gaming pc, and it 'just worked'. I did eventually cave and build another gaming pc, but that was after I acknowledged that I could push out on the price / perf curve to something less 'optimal' (and it let me play with local LLMs)
- sph 5mo ago
  I have stopped playing native ports and just prefer Proton when I have the choice. Many devs using Unity & co. just tick the "export to Linux" option and never try the build, which is often much slower or bug ridden. I was playing Project: Gorgon recently, I was about to refund because it ran terribly on my machine (despite the low end graphics), when I noticed it was using the native build, switched to Proton and got a 200% FPS boost. As long as I can play on Linux, I don't care what translation layer it goes through.
- needle0 5mo ago
  And exactly why Apple's push for Mac gaming (which still puts native ports as the ultimate goal and treats things like GPTK, despite having made it, only as "ways for developers to preview how the port would end up" and not intended for general consumer use) is never going to work, no matter how much cash they throw at it.
liamgm 5mo ago
Yes , Win32 / DirectX in common HAL for games now , just compile your game for windows/steam , you can run everywhere , minimize the headache of doing native game development , like breaking with X11 / wayland kde / wayland gnome / wayland mutter . For the OSes runtime side you can depend on SteamOS / Apple's Game Porting Toolkit / Crossover / Proton / DWProton / Wine / and Android's Winlator/Gamehub/Gamenative . For DirectX compatibility you can depends on Apple's D3DMetal , DXMT , VKD3D , DXVK and WineD3D .
Gareth321 5mo ago
I think Linux needs a few things before it will be ready for mass consumer adoption. 1. An equivalent of kernel level anti-cheats. Cheating really sucks. It ruins online games. Kernel level anti-cheats aren't perfect, but they're much better than user-space or server-side anti-cheats. Maybe in the future AI solves this, but inherence-based anti-cheats are likely going to be a cat-and-mouse game. Valve have stated they are working on this problem and I think if anyone is going to solve it, it's them. 2. Immutability. Right now distributing games on Linux isn't distributing games "on Linux." It's distributing games to 12 different distros with a hundreds different configurations and a thousand customisations. This is impossible to support. When SteamOS gains traction, developers will be able to target exactly one distro with fixed configurations and limited customisations. Valve will set the standard for other distros. 3. An enforced equivalent of .exe. One of the most wonderful parts of Windows is the near universal acceptance and use of the executable installation method. You just double click the file and install it. Linux is an absolute clusterfuck of installation manuals and scripts and competing app stores with their own repos and permissions and packaging methods. If Valve were to mandate the use of, for example, flatpaks in SteamOS, that will become the universal standard. I think this is one of the most frustrating parts of using Linux for regular people. 4. Better hardware support. My Fanatec peripherals don't work well in Linux. Fanatec doesn't offer drivers and open source options are limited in functionality (and stability). There are many products for which drivers support sucks in Linux. I think AI will solve many of these issues over the next few years. Unless the manufacturer has gone out of their way to encrypt of obfuscate the communication layer with the product, you can basically point Codex at the peripheral and tell it to build an interface driver. Within a few years, I imagine operating systems will have this kind of functionality built in. If the OS encounters a peripheral it doesn't recognise, it will just build its own driver on the fly. I am more optimistic about all of these than ever before. Linus Torvalds famously said it will take Valve to fix this fragmentation problem for us, and that looks like where we are heading. No doubt there will be Linux fans who lament the loss of diversity and competition, but I think we end up with a true competition to Windows for gaming. That's when I will make the jump.
- rowanG077 5mo ago
  > 2. Immutability. Right now distributing games on Linux isn't distributing games "on Linux." It's distributing games to 12 different distros with a hundreds different configurations and a thousand customisations. This is impossible to support. When SteamOS gains traction, developers will be able to target exactly one distro with fixed configurations and limited customisations. Valve will set the standard for other distros. Steam has already solved that problem. You target steam (not steamOS) and all other distros will do the work for you.
rkagerer 5mo ago
Thank you for sharing that last paragraph. It's nice to know I'm not the only one out there who feels let down by the trajectory Microsoft has taken. I've likewise got a lifetime of experience on the Windows / MS stack, decades of custom tooling I've adapted or coded from scratch, etc. It's frustrating to see so many great advancements to core fundamentals like the kernel, tracing tools, I/O performance, etc. get completely overshadowed by such chronically user-hostile and frankly stupid business decisions. I wish I could have the good bits without all the nasty cruft. I wish they stopped assigning junior devs who haven't even heard of Win32 to work on UI touched by millions of end users. I wish they hired back QA staff and rediscovered proper quality control methodologies like, say, regression testing. I remember a story from back in the day when they bought up one of every software title from the local tech store and had staff each pick one to dogfood on their prerelease OS. That passion to ensuring a good user experience. I don't look forward to the time it will take to recreate all my infrastructure in Linux (including no doubt several detours tinkering into source codes to fix little issues and upstream little enhancements). But I fear Microsoft as a whole will never get their heads screwed on straight in time for me to avoid having to do so. I would pay good money for something like ReactOS, Wine, or whatever, to offer the equivalent for business applications as Proton is for games. I applaud all the hard work done by people on those projects. I expect one day when kids have never heard of the word Microsoft, the code those heros wrote will still be in use by some grateful beneficiaries. Anyway, that's the end of my rant. And in the meantime, just in case you haven't tried it yet... Windows 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC is the least offensive flavor I've found, and works as a daily driver.
d3Xt3r 5mo ago
How is ESO these days? Wondering if it's worth getting into from a solo (or finding some random party) gameplay/questing perspective.
tempaccountabcd 5mo ago
[dead]

ToucanLoucan 5mo ago

I'm looking to finally get off Windows for good. My experience with the SteamDeck started me, later I upgraded to a ROG Ally X for beefier performance but found Windows insufferable on a handheld, and installed SteamOS. I was blown away by the performance gains. A few months later I installed Kubuntu for the first time since 2013 or so, Steam shortly after, and while the desktop linux route is definitely more taxing (manually installing things like Mod Organizer 2 instead of Vortex, for instance, and all of that needing to run differently as opposed to Windows where it's all just .exe's) I've been absolutely blown away by the performance gains again. Mind you this machine is no slacker, it's a GE76 Raider from MSI, 3060 under the hood, but games just run smoother in Linux. And the alt-tab experience is untouchable, Fallout: New Vegas hates it and crashes, but everything more modern utterly doesn't care. I can alt-tab in and out, check messages, desktop composing works great no matter what game I'm playing, no more issues in modded games where the game completely locks the machine as Linux just doesn't seem to allow it, it's fantastic. I have a couple more things to figure, I need XBox authentication to work for Halo Infinite and Sea of Theives, among others, and I need to figure out some solutions for some ancient software I have to run, which will probably end up being a Windows 11 VM. But as for my daily driver OS, I am so excited to get off Windows once and for all.

foo12bar 5mo ago
What do you plan to do about firmware updates?
- cogman10 5mo ago
  Believe it or not, it's actually easier to handle on linux than it is on windows now [1]. Normal caveats apply, it depends on your HW manufacturer. However, a lot of them are participating which makes it pretty slick. And, assuming your are doing x86, you probably already have an EFI partition so even doing motherboard bios updates isn't much of a big deal. You just drop the update in the FAT32 EFI partition, reboot, and point the motherboard at that location. Some motherboards even support just doing that as part of an online update. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Fwupd https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Fwupd
  - hypercube33 5mo ago
    For a hot moment Windows would just update firmware for big vendors as an update. Worked slick. I think vendors are bailing out on this though. That said some Linux distros can do the same now though I've used so many the last few months I don't know which.
    - isityettime 5mo ago
      All the distros that support it use the same system, fwupd: https://fwupd.org/ https://fwupd.org/ It's the same tool the person you were replying to was pointing at via the Arch wiki. It's pretty standard. I'd expect most distros to support it by now.
beart 5mo ago
There were specific games keeping me on windows, mostly online PVP. At some point I switched anyway and I don't regret it at all. Now when my friends suggest a game and I'm not able to play it, I just do something else or we choose a different game. There are so many great games out there now, and more release every week. Plus, as I've gotten older, it has become more apparent the fun is in socializing, not the game itself. My point is, you may find the one or two games holding you back won't be missed much.

Quekid5 5mo ago

Yeah, I've been playing BG3 on Linux[0] for about 2 years at this point (using a Lutris "recipe" or whatever they call it). Ironically, the biggest issues have been with some of the modding tools needing specific versions of DotNet and whatnot. The game itself runs flawlessly. [0] Arch Linux, btw, because that must be mentioned.

Fnoord 5mo ago
Actually, I have been having a specific issue with pickpocketing in BG3. On native Windows and native Linux, the client crashes if I pickpocket too quick. One time, on Linux, it even made my whole OS crash (and then some weird error BIOS error). But specifically with Wine on Linux, it does not occur. The only reason I even tried with Wine on Linux is because I wanted to try some mods unavailable otherwise. It does seem the native port has better latency, but latency in a game like this is pretty irrelevant. I have been using Linux for nearly 30 years now, including running CS (HL1) via Wine with better performance and stability than Windows 9x on a LAN party. Good times. Sometimes native ports don't get updates, while Windows port does. If you can then run it via Wine, you may have a more stable/less buggy experience. Note I use both Wine and Proton. BG3 I run with Proton. But Proton is 'just' a fork with (neat) improvements which also partly got backported. Oh, and I have to mention, I don't use Arch Linux.
- brandnewideas 5mo ago
  Huh, I was unaware that BG3 had a native Linux release, as it's not listed on the Steam store page. Turns out that they released it only for the Steam Deck. Strange
  - frameset 5mo ago
    Yeah there's some weirdness too, it's heavily optimised for the Deck, low rez textures, low shadow quality etc. So if you force it to run on your Linux desktop you don't get an experience commensurate with your hardware.
  - Quekid5 5mo ago

KolibriFly 5mo ago

This is exactly why Proton feels like the pragmatic path. Native ports are nice in theory, but PC games are rarely just one clean executable anymore

rightbyte 5mo ago
EA's horrible launcher comes to mind.
imtringued 5mo ago
Yeah, PC games are like console cartridges. You plug them into a compatible slot and they work.
- wing-_-nuts 5mo ago
  What? Look, things have gotten much better, but pc gaming, esp via proton is no where near as seamless as playing on console. In fact, I went with console + linux laptop for ages simply because that combo excelled at their respective roles, were cheaper together than a gaming pc, and it 'just worked'. I did eventually cave and build another gaming pc, but that was after I acknowledged that I could push out on the price / perf curve to something less 'optimal' (and it let me play with local LLMs)
sph 5mo ago
I have stopped playing native ports and just prefer Proton when I have the choice. Many devs using Unity & co. just tick the "export to Linux" option and never try the build, which is often much slower or bug ridden. I was playing Project: Gorgon recently, I was about to refund because it ran terribly on my machine (despite the low end graphics), when I noticed it was using the native build, switched to Proton and got a 200% FPS boost. As long as I can play on Linux, I don't care what translation layer it goes through.
needle0 5mo ago
And exactly why Apple's push for Mac gaming (which still puts native ports as the ultimate goal and treats things like GPTK, despite having made it, only as "ways for developers to preview how the port would end up" and not intended for general consumer use) is never going to work, no matter how much cash they throw at it.

liamgm 5mo ago

Yes , Win32 / DirectX in common HAL for games now , just compile your game for windows/steam , you can run everywhere , minimize the headache of doing native game development , like breaking with X11 / wayland kde / wayland gnome / wayland mutter . For the OSes runtime side you can depend on SteamOS / Apple's Game Porting Toolkit / Crossover / Proton / DWProton / Wine / and Android's Winlator/Gamehub/Gamenative . For DirectX compatibility you can depends on Apple's D3DMetal , DXMT , VKD3D , DXVK and WineD3D .

Gareth321 5mo ago

I think Linux needs a few things before it will be ready for mass consumer adoption. 1. An equivalent of kernel level anti-cheats. Cheating really sucks. It ruins online games. Kernel level anti-cheats aren't perfect, but they're much better than user-space or server-side anti-cheats. Maybe in the future AI solves this, but inherence-based anti-cheats are likely going to be a cat-and-mouse game. Valve have stated they are working on this problem and I think if anyone is going to solve it, it's them. 2. Immutability. Right now distributing games on Linux isn't distributing games "on Linux." It's distributing games to 12 different distros with a hundreds different configurations and a thousand customisations. This is impossible to support. When SteamOS gains traction, developers will be able to target exactly one distro with fixed configurations and limited customisations. Valve will set the standard for other distros. 3. An enforced equivalent of .exe. One of the most wonderful parts of Windows is the near universal acceptance and use of the executable installation method. You just double click the file and install it. Linux is an absolute clusterfuck of installation manuals and scripts and competing app stores with their own repos and permissions and packaging methods. If Valve were to mandate the use of, for example, flatpaks in SteamOS, that will become the universal standard. I think this is one of the most frustrating parts of using Linux for regular people. 4. Better hardware support. My Fanatec peripherals don't work well in Linux. Fanatec doesn't offer drivers and open source options are limited in functionality (and stability). There are many products for which drivers support sucks in Linux. I think AI will solve many of these issues over the next few years. Unless the manufacturer has gone out of their way to encrypt of obfuscate the communication layer with the product, you can basically point Codex at the peripheral and tell it to build an interface driver. Within a few years, I imagine operating systems will have this kind of functionality built in. If the OS encounters a peripheral it doesn't recognise, it will just build its own driver on the fly. I am more optimistic about all of these than ever before. Linus Torvalds famously said it will take Valve to fix this fragmentation problem for us, and that looks like where we are heading. No doubt there will be Linux fans who lament the loss of diversity and competition, but I think we end up with a true competition to Windows for gaming. That's when I will make the jump.

rowanG077 5mo ago
> 2. Immutability. Right now distributing games on Linux isn't distributing games "on Linux." It's distributing games to 12 different distros with a hundreds different configurations and a thousand customisations. This is impossible to support. When SteamOS gains traction, developers will be able to target exactly one distro with fixed configurations and limited customisations. Valve will set the standard for other distros. Steam has already solved that problem. You target steam (not steamOS) and all other distros will do the work for you.

rkagerer 5mo ago

Thank you for sharing that last paragraph. It's nice to know I'm not the only one out there who feels let down by the trajectory Microsoft has taken. I've likewise got a lifetime of experience on the Windows / MS stack, decades of custom tooling I've adapted or coded from scratch, etc. It's frustrating to see so many great advancements to core fundamentals like the kernel, tracing tools, I/O performance, etc. get completely overshadowed by such chronically user-hostile and frankly stupid business decisions. I wish I could have the good bits without all the nasty cruft. I wish they stopped assigning junior devs who haven't even heard of Win32 to work on UI touched by millions of end users. I wish they hired back QA staff and rediscovered proper quality control methodologies like, say, regression testing. I remember a story from back in the day when they bought up one of every software title from the local tech store and had staff each pick one to dogfood on their prerelease OS. That passion to ensuring a good user experience. I don't look forward to the time it will take to recreate all my infrastructure in Linux (including no doubt several detours tinkering into source codes to fix little issues and upstream little enhancements). But I fear Microsoft as a whole will never get their heads screwed on straight in time for me to avoid having to do so. I would pay good money for something like ReactOS, Wine, or whatever, to offer the equivalent for business applications as Proton is for games. I applaud all the hard work done by people on those projects. I expect one day when kids have never heard of the word Microsoft, the code those heros wrote will still be in use by some grateful beneficiaries. Anyway, that's the end of my rant. And in the meantime, just in case you haven't tried it yet... Windows 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC is the least offensive flavor I've found, and works as a daily driver.

d3Xt3r 5mo ago

How is ESO these days? Wondering if it's worth getting into from a solo (or finding some random party) gameplay/questing perspective.

tempaccountabcd 5mo ago

[dead]