5 ms·

You are lucky. A lot of the games I play with friends use kernel level anticheat crap that doesn't work on Linux

connicpu 4mo ago
I'm somewhat lucky in that I didn't have to be the one to force that issue, another friend in my gaming group already made the decision that he would switch to Linux and no longer play any games that did not work on Linux/Proton. So it was pretty easy for me to just switch last year.
- dd8601fn 4mo ago
  My thinking was that I’ll use the Steam Machine for whatever I can. If there’s some title that friends really want to play and that requires kernel anticheat, and it exists in geforce now, I’ll do that from the steam machine. If it’s something even less doable than that… well I’ll do without.
dijit 4mo ago
I work in AAA; more people using Linux means we'll actually get buy-in for working with Linux as a platform. Right now Producers and HQ don't want to support it because "theres no money there" and they're bolstered by a crew of developers who have only ever touched Windows who will reinforce the notion that Windows is all you need (because they've sunk their entire career into the platform). I remember bringing this topic up a decade ago and basically being laughed out of the room, slowly those laughs will become uncomfortable silences, then token support from the passionate, then proper initiatives. It takes time, yeah, but we're so much further today already than we were 10+years ago.
- Atotalnoob 4mo ago
  Even if AAA supports Linux, it’s got to be without kernel anticheat. That’s a non starter for myself and many others
  - grimleech 4mo ago
    it's a non starter to even have kernel level anticheat, it's the worst idea pushed on the consumers since browser level drms.
    - Gareth321 4mo ago
      I strongly disagree. There have only ever been a handful of data exploits attributable to kernel-level anti-cheats. On the other hand, developers report that they significantly reduce cheating. As someone who plays online games, this is a tradeoff I gladly make. I often feel these comments are made by people whose preferred games are not ruined by cheaters. This is happening right now in Arc Raiders, and it's really sad to watch. The developer, Embark, is now investigating using KLAC to reduce the number of cheaters.
      - allarm 4mo ago
        As someone who doesn't play online games this is not a trade off I gladly make. Fortunately, however, KLAC will never become part of the Linux kernel, because adding it to an open-source system simply doesn't make sense.
        Gareth321 4mo ago
        If it doesn't, Linux will always be a second-class platform for gaming. Valve is currently working on solutions beyond user-space, and I hope they succeed. I would like to move to Linux but I'm not willing to give up online games, and I hate playing with cheater.
        allarm 4mo ago
        As I've already said, I don't play online games, and I'm not particularly concerned about all the fuss surrounding anti-cheat measures, so I don't think that suddenly makes Linux a "second-class gaming platform." For the games I do play, it's a first-class platform.
  - 4mo ago
- DanielHB 4mo ago
  How much do you rely on Steam hardware survey? I am doing my part reporting my Linux usage.
GZGavinZhao 4mo ago
*sad poro noises
marcus_holmes 4mo ago
But you're playing with friends, right? So you don't actually need anticheat at all. Or are you playing with friends and random assholes from the internet? I'm curious because if a game requires anticheat that means there's an intention that I'd be playing with people who would cheat if they could. And I don't want to have anything to do with people like that. I don't really understand why anyone wants to spend their time playing games with assholes from the internet.
- theshackleford 4mo ago
  > And I don't want to have anything to do with people like that. And nobody is forcing you too. > I don't really understand why anyone wants to spend their time playing games with assholes from the internet. Maybe your experience and preference is not shared equally by all? HN users in particular to seem to struggle with this concept for some reason.
  - deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
- vel0city 4mo ago
  > But you're playing with friends, right? So you don't actually need anticheat at all. There are a lot of games out there where a group of friends parties up and then goes against other parties of friends out there. Sometimes I want to play with my friends against others instead of only against my friends. Its been a pretty common kind of game style for decades. > I don't really understand why anyone wants to spend their time playing games with assholes from the internet. Yeah, it'd be nice to somehow exclude those assholes who would cheat. Maybe if there was some kind of technology which could limit the ability for people to use cheats, some kind of "anti-cheat". It would probably have to be pretty low level in the system to properly enforce this "anti-cheating" integrity, maybe in the kernel and hardware level?
- gonzalohm 4mo ago
  That's assuming the game you play allows custom servers. That's pretty rare in 2026
frollogaston 4mo ago
I've only ever played a couple of games with kernel-level anticheat. The rest have some other reason they don't work in Linux.
- TonyStr 4mo ago
  I'm curious which ones you had trouble with? I switched last week, and have been testing all the games in my library. I'm quite impressed with how all of them just work with zero or little tinkering. The only games I haven't been able to play are the ones with anti cheat that explicitly deny Linux.
  - frollogaston 4mo ago
    In Proton: Age of Empires 2 DE multiplayer went out of sync which ends the game. BeamNG Drive (now Linux native but wasn't a year ago) took 20min to preprocess shaders, then was laggy compared to Windows on the same machine, then reproducibly crashed from a memleak. Both were known issues on ProtonDB, but the rating still said "gold," so I stopped trusting the ratings. Dolphin is Linux native. Works fine except for the huge input lag using GameCube controllers (via wii u adapter which is the only solid way), which means I can't really use it. Known issue with some driver, I tried a kmod to overclock it but no dice.

I'm somewhat lucky in that I didn't have to be the one to force that issue, another friend in my gaming group already made the decision that he would switch to Linux and no longer play any games that did not work on Linux/Proton. So it was pretty easy for me to just switch last year.

dd8601fn 4mo ago
My thinking was that I’ll use the Steam Machine for whatever I can. If there’s some title that friends really want to play and that requires kernel anticheat, and it exists in geforce now, I’ll do that from the steam machine. If it’s something even less doable than that… well I’ll do without.

dijit 4mo ago

I work in AAA; more people using Linux means we'll actually get buy-in for working with Linux as a platform. Right now Producers and HQ don't want to support it because "theres no money there" and they're bolstered by a crew of developers who have only ever touched Windows who will reinforce the notion that Windows is all you need (because they've sunk their entire career into the platform). I remember bringing this topic up a decade ago and basically being laughed out of the room, slowly those laughs will become uncomfortable silences, then token support from the passionate, then proper initiatives. It takes time, yeah, but we're so much further today already than we were 10+years ago.

Atotalnoob 4mo ago
Even if AAA supports Linux, it’s got to be without kernel anticheat. That’s a non starter for myself and many others
- grimleech 4mo ago
  it's a non starter to even have kernel level anticheat, it's the worst idea pushed on the consumers since browser level drms.
  - Gareth321 4mo ago
    I strongly disagree. There have only ever been a handful of data exploits attributable to kernel-level anti-cheats. On the other hand, developers report that they significantly reduce cheating. As someone who plays online games, this is a tradeoff I gladly make. I often feel these comments are made by people whose preferred games are not ruined by cheaters. This is happening right now in Arc Raiders, and it's really sad to watch. The developer, Embark, is now investigating using KLAC to reduce the number of cheaters.
    - allarm 4mo ago
      As someone who doesn't play online games this is not a trade off I gladly make. Fortunately, however, KLAC will never become part of the Linux kernel, because adding it to an open-source system simply doesn't make sense.
      - Gareth321 4mo ago
        If it doesn't, Linux will always be a second-class platform for gaming. Valve is currently working on solutions beyond user-space, and I hope they succeed. I would like to move to Linux but I'm not willing to give up online games, and I hate playing with cheater.
        allarm 4mo ago
        As I've already said, I don't play online games, and I'm not particularly concerned about all the fuss surrounding anti-cheat measures, so I don't think that suddenly makes Linux a "second-class gaming platform." For the games I do play, it's a first-class platform.
- 4mo ago
DanielHB 4mo ago
How much do you rely on Steam hardware survey? I am doing my part reporting my Linux usage.

GZGavinZhao 4mo ago

*sad poro noises

marcus_holmes 4mo ago

But you're playing with friends, right? So you don't actually need anticheat at all. Or are you playing with friends and random assholes from the internet? I'm curious because if a game requires anticheat that means there's an intention that I'd be playing with people who would cheat if they could. And I don't want to have anything to do with people like that. I don't really understand why anyone wants to spend their time playing games with assholes from the internet.

theshackleford 4mo ago
> And I don't want to have anything to do with people like that. And nobody is forcing you too. > I don't really understand why anyone wants to spend their time playing games with assholes from the internet. Maybe your experience and preference is not shared equally by all? HN users in particular to seem to struggle with this concept for some reason.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
vel0city 4mo ago
> But you're playing with friends, right? So you don't actually need anticheat at all. There are a lot of games out there where a group of friends parties up and then goes against other parties of friends out there. Sometimes I want to play with my friends against others instead of only against my friends. Its been a pretty common kind of game style for decades. > I don't really understand why anyone wants to spend their time playing games with assholes from the internet. Yeah, it'd be nice to somehow exclude those assholes who would cheat. Maybe if there was some kind of technology which could limit the ability for people to use cheats, some kind of "anti-cheat". It would probably have to be pretty low level in the system to properly enforce this "anti-cheating" integrity, maybe in the kernel and hardware level?
gonzalohm 4mo ago
That's assuming the game you play allows custom servers. That's pretty rare in 2026

frollogaston 4mo ago

I've only ever played a couple of games with kernel-level anticheat. The rest have some other reason they don't work in Linux.

TonyStr 4mo ago
I'm curious which ones you had trouble with? I switched last week, and have been testing all the games in my library. I'm quite impressed with how all of them just work with zero or little tinkering. The only games I haven't been able to play are the ones with anti cheat that explicitly deny Linux.
- frollogaston 4mo ago
  In Proton: Age of Empires 2 DE multiplayer went out of sync which ends the game. BeamNG Drive (now Linux native but wasn't a year ago) took 20min to preprocess shaders, then was laggy compared to Windows on the same machine, then reproducibly crashed from a memleak. Both were known issues on ProtonDB, but the rating still said "gold," so I stopped trusting the ratings. Dolphin is Linux native. Works fine except for the huge input lag using GameCube controllers (via wii u adapter which is the only solid way), which means I can't really use it. Known issue with some driver, I tried a kmod to overclock it but no dice.