this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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Linux Gaming

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Experience: I have a bit of experience with Linux. I started around 2008, distro-hopped weekly, decided on Debian until around 2011, when I switched to Windows as I started getting interested in gaming. Tried switching back around 2015, this time using Arch Linux for about a month, but had some bad experiences with gaming and switched back to Windows. I have had a Debian and Arch VM in Virtual Box since then for testing different applications and a more coherent environment to work with servers.

Understanding: Which brings me to now, I am really interested in using Linux for gaming, I know there is Proton from Valve and that they have been really pushing Linux gaming forward with it.

Thoughts: I have been contemplating dual booting by installing Debian to an SSD and simply using the UEFI boot menu to choose instead of having to install to the EFI of Windows.

I guess, I should just do it, as it won't affect my Windows installation, and I could test different games and if all works well, move over. This would also allow me to try different distributions, though my heart is for Debian, I even like Debian Unstable.

Note: I am sorry for the wall of text, I am just kind of anxious I guess.

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[–] Anomandaris@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

To provide a different perspective to everyone else, I would say that it's not the right time if you want everything to "just work".

I tried out Ubuntu 22.04 just a couple of months ago, and only one game of the several I tried "just worked". Everything else either didn't work at all, or required hours of searching and troubleshooting and problem solving, with mixed success. And I'm not a technophobe, I'm a software developer with experience in system support.

People keep saying there's lots of guides out there for most things, and that's true. But that doesn't necessarily mean the guide will work for you. I tried multiple "guides" to get my games working and most of them didn't help. Either they were too old, or there was a step that I couldn't complete, or I completed the guide and there was an error that isn't mentioned in the guide. Or any number of other problems.

Regardless of what people say, it may not be as simple as "switch to Proton and install Lutris". In the end I just got frustrated with having to work so hard to get my own computer to do the things I wanted it to do, and so I reverted back to Windows and had all my software working as expected within a couple of hours.

[–] mouse@midwest.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thank you for the experience that you had. That's why I will use my spare drive to test it, this will allow me to experiment with it and see how it performs.

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[–] DontBlameMe@fosstodon.org 1 points 1 year ago

@Anomandaris @mouse Interesting. For me it just was "enable proton for all titles", "enable proton for the game", "launch" and "play". That's it. But I don't know what you had tried to play🎮🫤

[–] Thad@brontosin.space 1 points 1 year ago

@Anomandaris @mouse My experience has largely been that games Just Work if you stick with Steam, but that running games from other sources is a lot more hit-or-miss. Lutris and Heroic are great but can be really fiddly.

Dual booting is a great way to start. I did it for years. Linux gaming eventually got good enough that I don't need to dual boot anymore, but YMMV; your use case may be different.

(I still keep a Windows machine around for TurboTax and Comic Collector Pro, but not for games.)

[–] SlamDrag@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

As a non-technical user, I think if you have a modicum of technical knowledge it's easy to switch to Linux. But it still takes time and patience. I'm using Linux now on all of my devices (if you count Android as Linux). There is still a lot of idiosyncracy to the ecosystem but overall it's usable. I've found Vanilla OS to be a great experience overall. I had some troubles with Pop_OS! On my Nvidia GPU, that was because it's still using x11 and I use a 4k monitor with a 1080p monitor and needed fractional scaling. Haven't had any issues on Vanilla OS because it uses Wayland. But boy, I had a hard time figuring out what was going on and why my apps were blurry and games weren't displaying properly. Took a lot of googling and perseverance to figure it out, as I didn't know what a display server.

[–] dandroid@dandroid.app 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Imo the only thing better about windows is its support for gaming. But Linux has been getting better and better about that.

I'd bet that Linux will be almost completely caught up when support ends for Windows 10 in two years. That's probably when I will make the switch for my gaming PC.

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[–] ivanafterall@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Astrologically speaking? Probably not, no. I'd consider waiting until the time is better.

[–] BaroqueInMind@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

My astrology sign is a Ford Taurus, is it a good time for me?

[–] ivanafterall@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

You're looking better than you've looked in years. All signs point to yes. Unfortunately, you're still a Ford Taurus.

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[–] NaoPb@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I am in doubt about running Linux on my gaming system. As I need it to be as close to 100% compatible as possible for running games. Because I still have a lot of games on Steam that I haven't finished. So I don't want to lose the ability to play some of them.

[–] Morgikan@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

One option if you still want to use both, is a Linux laptop. You could use that as your daily driver and then use Moonlight/Sunshine to stream from your gaming rig to laptop. Use a loopback HDMI plug on the rig and you largely have what amounts to a gaming server on your network.

Average added latency on my setup is 4ms so this works very well. I stream games at 120FPS at 1080p. Then when I'm done playing, I close the window. No dual booting annoyance and fully functional Windows 10.

[–] kratoz29@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I have heard this is the year of Linux, so I'd say yes /s

[–] cucufaiter@mastodon.social 1 points 1 year ago

@kratoz29 @mouse Every year is the year of Linux. Poor Windows, let's see when it's his turn.

[–] tizan@mastodon.social 1 points 1 year ago

@kratoz29 @mouse I have heard this for the last 20 years..but i don't care . it has been for me since 1995 (when it was really hard to get x-windows going)...started with slackware..

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[–] warmaster@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've been trying Linux since before Ubuntu existed. I switched this year to Crystal Linux (arch based), to make it short: I'm not going back to Windows ever again.

It all just works. There's minimal tweaking.

[–] Thad@brontosin.space 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@warmaster Interesting. I've been using Manjaro as my primary for a while and I like it a lot but I've had some unpleasant interactions asking for help on the forums so I keep an eye out for other options.

[–] warmaster@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Crystal has a Discord server and a bridged Matrix room, support is instantaneous and people are awesome. I'm super happy with it. I also tried Manjaro, I don't like their GUIs, and their work ethics.

[–] bigblekkok@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

To answer the title of this post... Yes, yes it is.

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