gaming on Linux

[JarylGaren]

ngl, playing videogames on Linux has come a pretty long way over the years.

full disclosure, I've only really started playing games on PC in general since around last year, and I moved away from Windows in favor of Linux around 2021, where official Microsoft updates kept BSODing a new(!) laptop I had only gotten a couple weeks beforehand. So with the guidance of a friend of mine I gave specifically Manjaro a shot at the time, because I figured I hadn't really much to lose anymore anyways, and I liked it! there's significantly less bullshit running in the background that slows down your system, and I also appreciate not getting nagged by Microsoft with ads and automatic updates that I was never really able to permanently disable.

last year I got a gaming PC with Windows 11, but I couldn't even make it through a full year with Windows 11 before deciding to get rid of it, because oh my god I heavily dislike Windows 11, lmao. So I put bazzite on it, which is a Linux distribution more heavily geared towards gaming, and so far things have been relatively smooth sailing for me!
on PC, I mainly play games on Steam, where Valve has been doing a lot of work with the Steam Deck and the Proton compatibility layer, so a lot of games you don't really need to tinker to get them to work properly, you just hit play. I don't have much experience with other launchers and how to get other services to work on Linux, though, so your mileage may vary in the case of Epic or GoG.

some games are just kinda weird and finicky, though, but that's also the case on Windows with a bunch of PC ports anyways. For instance, on Windows 11 I had driver timeout issues with Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered and Monster Hunter Wilds with the latest AMD drivers, where I had to downgrade to slightly older drivers in order to play them properly. And on Linux, long story short, I had to use a launch command for Horizon ZDR in order to be able to finish it without issues. Meanwhile, I haven't really stumbled into issues in MonHun Wilds yet, but I also haven't really been motivated to play it recently. the two, three hunts I did after swapping to Bazzite went without a hitch though, so I'd say so far so good?

if you wanna play games on Linux, protonDB and Are We Anti Cheat Yet? are *very* good ressources for checking if the games you play a lot work well or at all on Linux. like, for instance, if you play a lot of Fortnite or Apex, then you may want to think twice about swapping over to Linux, because the devs for those two games specifically lock out Linux users with the anti-cheat stuff. Meanwhile, other games like Final Fantasy VII Remake or the Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection have been very seamless affairs for me so far!
(funnily enough, games like the MM Zero/ZX collection, the Kingdom Hearts collections and Tales of Berseria ran way better on Linux for me compared to Windows 11. Funny how that works!)

if you do wanna give it a shot, it's also pretty easy to get started (though I do recommend putting it on its own SSD). here's a video from JayzTwoCents where he checks out Bazzite himself:



So yeah, anyone else on here who plays games on Linux?

[Cayman]

I'm gonna follow this topic because I'm using linux for my living room PC now, and it's been an ordeal keeping it consistently working while trying to game on it. Valve has honestly done a great job of supporting linux with Proton, but it can still be a crapshoot what's going to run on it. It's a little tougher dealing with indie games and VNs that are developed for windows natively--I've tried using wine and Bottles to emulate a windows environment to run them but have always fallen short.

Microsoft has determined that my CPU on my main pc isn't good enough for Win11, literally skipping over my model number, so I'm riding out 10 support for now, and eventually have to make the tough decision.

Emulating consoles on Linux is fantastic, trying to run even simple games off itch.io developed in ren.py or rpg maker is a nightmare.

[JarylGaren]

Emulating consoles on Linux is fantastic, trying to run even simple games off itch.io developed in ren.py or rpg maker is a nightmare.

I remember having a similar issue with an itch.io game on Linux, and I think I managed to solve that by adding it to Steam as a non-Steam game and playing around with the compatibility settings there.

but yeah, there is still a lot of work to be done for gaming on Linux to be as (generally) painless as it is on Windows. there's *a lot* of differing use cases and user experiences.

[Cayman]

Emulating consoles on Linux is fantastic, trying to run even simple games off itch.io developed in ren.py or rpg maker is a nightmare.

I remember having a similar issue with an itch.io game on Linux, and I think I managed to solve that by adding it to Steam as a non-Steam game and playing around with the compatibility settings there.

but yeah, there is still a lot of work to be done for gaming on Linux to be as (generally) painless as it is on Windows. there's *a lot* of differing use cases and user experiences.

I've tried that with some games as well (Undertale Yellow, Spark Hearts, UnderHeaven, etc), but it is a struggle I'm not willing to put up with. Proton has been amazing if it's a game natively listed on steam, though--I got Sea of Stars working no problem.

[JarylGaren]

Emulating consoles on Linux is fantastic, trying to run even simple games off itch.io developed in ren.py or rpg maker is a nightmare.

I remember having a similar issue with an itch.io game on Linux, and I think I managed to solve that by adding it to Steam as a non-Steam game and playing around with the compatibility settings there.

but yeah, there is still a lot of work to be done for gaming on Linux to be as (generally) painless as it is on Windows. there's *a lot* of differing use cases and user experiences.

I've tried that with some games as well (Undertale Yellow, Spark Hearts, UnderHeaven, etc), but it is a struggle I'm not willing to put up with. Proton has been amazing if it's a game natively listed on steam, though--I got Sea of Stars working no problem.

Yeah, that's fair enough!
if you still need Windows to get certain stuff running, then you should still keep it.

[Cayman]

I remember having a similar issue with an itch.io game on Linux, and I think I managed to solve that by adding it to Steam as a non-Steam game and playing around with the compatibility settings there.

but yeah, there is still a lot of work to be done for gaming on Linux to be as (generally) painless as it is on Windows. there's *a lot* of differing use cases and user experiences.

I've tried that with some games as well (Undertale Yellow, Spark Hearts, UnderHeaven, etc), but it is a struggle I'm not willing to put up with. Proton has been amazing if it's a game natively listed on steam, though--I got Sea of Stars working no problem.

Yeah, that's fair enough!
if you still need Windows to get certain stuff running, then you should still keep it.

I'll keep it as long as I can until I'm deemed not worthy. T_T

[Pandro]

I've been running Linux now as my daily driver for... many (8?) years and dual-boot to Win10 only for VR-related things nowadays. Gotta agree with linux having come a long way. Setting up a wine prefix and finding out which winetricks to use was annoying and Steam made it pretty smooth

A resource I didn't see mentioned here yet is Lutris. I haven't had too much luck with it but it is a decent starting point and sometimes worth a shot when the game is not running via proton (steam) or wine immediately.

[JarylGaren]

A resource I didn't see mentioned here yet is Lutris. I haven't had too much luck with it but it is a decent starting point and sometimes worth a shot when the game is not running via proton (steam) or wine immediately.

right, I forgot about Lutris!
I've had mixed luck with Lutris so far. Like, when I tried to play the GoG release of Breath of Fire IV or Doom 2016 with it, I couldn't get it to work, but I do remember getting one of the Tomb Raider games I own on GoG to work there last year. But that might also be just me missing something obvious, and I'm probably gonna give it another go with a couple other games again eventually.

There's also the Heroic Games Launcher, which I've also seen recommended a bunch of times when it comes to playing games on Linux, but I haven't looked into it too much yet.

[linuxavali]

Honestly, Valve has been a great upstream contributor to the Linux kernel and the open source community. They have been throwing a unprecedented number of hours at open source projects they don't own to make gaming on Linux work and they deserve every bit of praise that get for it. We might be seeing more anti-cheat compatability with linux going forward though since Microsoft is now working with anti-cheat and AV providers to move their code out of the windows kernel and into user land, making it a lot easier to emulate under wine/proton. I don't want to say "X year will be the year of the linux desktop" but damn does it ever feel close. The Linux usage numbers are constantly creeping up on the Steam hardware servery which is a good sign.

[Pandro]

A resource I didn't see mentioned here yet is Lutris. I haven't had too much luck with it but it is a decent starting point and sometimes worth a shot when the game is not running via proton (steam) or wine immediately.

right, I forgot about Lutris!
I've had mixed luck with Lutris so far. Like, when I tried to play the GoG release of Breath of Fire IV or Doom 2016 with it, I couldn't get it to work, but I do remember getting one of the Tomb Raider games I own on GoG to work there last year. But that might also be just me missing something obvious, and I'm probably gonna give it another go with a couple other games again eventually.

I got StarCraft 2 and FFXIV to run with it. Although for StarCraft 2 (and other Blizzard games) I had to fiddle with the wine prefix every now and then to keep it working when they changed something in the launcher. Has been a while though since I played either of them

[JarylGaren]

Honestly, Valve has been a great upstream contributor to the Linux kernel and the open source community. They have been throwing a unprecedented number of hours at open source projects they don't own to make gaming on Linux work and they deserve every bit of praise that get for it. We might be seeing more anti-cheat compatability with linux going forward though since Microsoft is now working with anti-cheat and AV providers to move their code out of the windows kernel and into user land, making it a lot easier to emulate under wine/proton. I don't want to say "X year will be the year of the linux desktop" but damn does it ever feel close. The Linux usage numbers are constantly creeping up on the Steam hardware servery which is a good sign.

speaking of Valve, I still am kinda kicking myself for not getting a Steam Deck a couple years ago when I was looking to get a small Linux computer. I remember at the time being like "Ok, sure, you can do desktop stuff on it too, but I'm not interested in PC games, I'm a console gamer".
And sure enough, that changed last year, so I'm like "well crap xP"
especially since the mini computer I ultimately went with cost like €1000, and the Steam Deck is available for far less. with both devices being about equal in terms of processing power.

*sigh* hindsight is 20/20, I guess

I got StarCraft 2 and FFXIV to run with it. Although for StarCraft 2 (and other Blizzard games) I had to fiddle with the wine prefix every now and then to keep it working when they changed something in the launcher. Has been a while though since I played either of them

Oooo, neat! :O
I think if I'm ever gonna give FF14 a try, it's gonna be through the Steam version. That just seems far simpler to set up, especially since I don't even know if I'm gonna stick with the game or not.

[linuxavali]

speaking of Valve, I still am kinda kicking myself for not getting a Steam Deck a couple years ago when I was looking to get a small Linux computer. I remember at the time being like "Ok, sure, you can do desktop stuff on it too, but I'm not interested in PC games, I'm a console gamer".
And sure enough, that changed last year, so I'm like "well crap xP"
especially since the mini computer I ultimately went with cost like €1000, and the Steam Deck is available for far less. with both devices being about equal in terms of processing power.

Oh yeah, I got mine as soon as it was available. I actually used it as a travel computer until I got a new laptop. I used an original nexdock with it to get a mouse, keyboard and bigger screen on the go. It defiantly wasn't ideal but it worked pretty well.

[JarylGaren]

speaking of Valve, I still am kinda kicking myself for not getting a Steam Deck a couple years ago when I was looking to get a small Linux computer. I remember at the time being like "Ok, sure, you can do desktop stuff on it too, but I'm not interested in PC games, I'm a console gamer".
And sure enough, that changed last year, so I'm like "well crap xP"
especially since the mini computer I ultimately went with cost like €1000, and the Steam Deck is available for far less. with both devices being about equal in terms of processing power.

Oh yeah, I got mine as soon as it was available. I actually used it as a travel computer until I got a new laptop. I used an original nexdock with it to get a mouse, keyboard and bigger screen on the go. It defiantly wasn't ideal but it worked pretty well.

to be honest, I still feel like a Steam Deck would probably service my particular use-case perfectly fine (as in: playing videogames, browsing the web, watching youtube videos and listening to music), but I already got my gaming computer for bigger games that would be unfeasible for the Steam Deck last year.
And I'm also currently looking for a new job, so at the moment it does feel like a bad idea to spend money on a Steam Deck.

at some point I'm gonna try to get one, though.

[Loosf]

my main experience with gaming on linux has been with linux handheld things like the r36s and


yeah it is mostly just older games emulated, and some shit with portmaster. Does suck that anbernic and others are pirating new shit for newer releases but lol

also i fucking hate retroarch

oh yeah and a steamdeck

i have played more with my steamdeck than with my desktop pc the last couple of years, fantastic device

[Loosf]

speaking of Valve, I still am kinda kicking myself for not getting a Steam Deck a couple years ago when I was looking to get a small Linux computer. I remember at the time being like "Ok, sure, you can do desktop stuff on it too, but I'm not interested in PC games, I'm a console gamer".
And sure enough, that changed last year, so I'm like "well crap xP"
especially since the mini computer I ultimately went with cost like €1000, and the Steam Deck is available for far less. with both devices being about equal in terms of processing power.

Oh yeah, I got mine as soon as it was available. I actually used it as a travel computer until I got a new laptop. I used an original nexdock with it to get a mouse, keyboard and bigger screen on the go. It defiantly wasn't ideal but it worked pretty well.

to be honest, I still feel like a Steam Deck would probably service my particular use-case perfectly fine (as in: playing videogames, browsing the web, watching youtube videos and listening to music), but I already got my gaming computer for bigger games that would be unfeasible for the Steam Deck last year.
And I'm also currently looking for a new job, so at the moment it does feel like a bad idea to spend money on a Steam Deck.

at some point I'm gonna try to get one, though.

steamdecks are very fucking worth it but yeah, sort out your situation first, once you do getting one is such a good idea. They are fantastic devices.

[JarylGaren]

also i fucking hate retroarch

BIG SAME

When I tried to set up Dreamcast emulation on it at some point, I somehow managed to make it so I couldn‘t load any Dreamcast games and thus access the core settings anymore, which to my knowledge are *only* in the quick menu that you can access only when a game is currently playing, so I had to figure out where the settings were stored in retroarch‘s files and delete them from there to fix that.

also, the UI is awful and confusing to navigate, which is an impressive feat, considering how they cribbed it just straight from the Switch (which imo also isn‘t winning any awards in terms of UI design, tbh)

[linuxavali]

Yea, retroarch is kinda rough to set up. Usually when i use it, it is because some other application is using it under the hood, like parallel launcher and that does work okay since it's all preconfigured, but retroarch by itself needs some serious work.

[JarylGaren]

speaking of Parallel Launcher, that reminds me that I recently tried out some of the NSO controllers I still had lying around, and I really like that you can just connect them with Bazzite over Bluetooth out of the box, and everything works as it should.

the official Gamecube Controller adapter that Nintendo made for the Wii U also works right out of the gate, without having to fiddle around with any driver nonsense like you'd have to do on Windows. Which kinda rules, ngl.

though from what I've looked up, the GC controller adapter doesn't seem to work natively on Steam Deck/SteamOS, which is a bit of a bummer, but I'm also not really sure how much use I'd get out of a Gamecube controller nowadays anyways. It's a nice controller and I grew up playing stuff like Zelda Wind Waker and Smash Bros Melee with it, but it's defintely only made with Gamecube games in mind. Trying to play other stuff with it is awful, lmao

[CoyAutumn]

Honestly, Valve has been a great upstream contributor to the Linux kernel and the open source community. They have been throwing a unprecedented number of hours at open source projects they don't own to make gaming on Linux work and they deserve every bit of praise that get for it. We might be seeing more anti-cheat compatability with linux going forward though since Microsoft is now working with anti-cheat and AV providers to move their code out of the windows kernel and into user land, making it a lot easier to emulate under wine/proton. I don't want to say "X year will be the year of the linux desktop" but damn does it ever feel close. The Linux usage numbers are constantly creeping up on the Steam hardware servery which is a good sign.

Every year is the year of Linux on desktop if you're not a coward.

[Dreynbolt]

I made the swap away from Win 11 earlier this year to Bazzite on pretty much all my devices after playing with it for quite a while on my Steam Deck and it has been surprisingly painless compared to all the other times I'd tried in the past! Once some of the Nvidia issues had been relatively smoothed over, it was nice to finally make the switch and I haven't really been looking back towards Windows at all. Anything I personally need to do in Windows (mainly work stuff) I can just run a quick VM for and pop into and out of.

It's been very pleasant and there's lots of Bazzite documentation and help out there. I really like the containerized approach Bazzite takes. Always have a rollback for updates and it's relatively hard to screw up the install at a base level if you follow their recommended hierarchy of how to install programs and the like that they outline.

[Weasel]

I switched to Linux as a daily driver about two years ago, a confluence of being tired of Microsoft's everything and coming to realise I have no interest in upgrading to Windows 11 (even if I could, apparently my 2021 prebuilt gaming rig isn't Win11 capable. Guess they made the choice for me!).

So, decided to dip my feet in the paddling pool by dual booting Mint and after a couple of weeks of running to a Linux friend going "um, how do I" ending up pretty much only booting to Windows for VR, the Linux experience is just so much chiller.
I've since switched to Fedora (KDE) a few months back, because I upgraded to an AMD GPU and Mint's kernel was too old to have support for it yet. Whoops.

Gaming has been pretty smooth sailing, honestly the most stressful parts were upgrading to a brand new AMD GPU and having everything break (say what you will about binary blob drivers, at least they're not kernel dependent), and getting SAI2 to work (thank you, Bottles!).

[Mandrake]

I'm planning to get into Linux this year since Microsoft is killing support for Windows 10 and I have more reasons to not upgrade to Windows 11 than to do so (my nine-year-old PC isn't officially supported, Windows 11 offers nothing that I'm interested in, Microsoft keeps inserting AI crap/adverts and are complicit in the Gaza conflict). The last time I considered switching to Linux was over a decade ago, when the most recent version of Ubuntu was v14.04 LTS. Back then, Linux gaming seemed like an ordeal and you'd end up spending more time dealing with driver issues and fiddling with Wine than actually playing anything. Nowadays, I hear that you can just download Steam or Lutris and they'll often sort everything out for you.

I'm planning to set up a dual-boot with Linux Mint so that I can have a shiny new OS for daily computing (typing, browsing, light gaming), while keeping Windows 10 for compatibility reasons. Perhaps if I have time this weekend, I'll boot from that USB stick I created the other day...

[plumpan]

I'm not a heavy gamer but have had very few issues with games in Linux. I've been using Linux as my primary OS for around a decade now, 10 was my "no way, I'm out" similar to everyone's feelings about 11 now, and it's gone from "Well I'll figure out how to do GPU passthrough" to "It just works" for me. I mostly keep to steam, the occasional other thing I'll fire up via Lutris and it all pretty much just works.

At this point I consider a lot of stuff which is "intentionally" broken on Linux due to anti cheat or explicitly denied Proton/Wine support to be a feature, not a bug. Usually a sign that it's not a game I want to spend time or money on. But those are rare cases for AAA/Live service games which are not my bucket of fish to begin with.

I admittedly have no interest in VR. I wish things were better about VR because that seems to be one of the last big hangups for a lot of people. But that's just based on second hand information, I've never seriously looked into how VR support is on Linux.

[WISH]

Personally I picked up Linux two years ago because I had a spare laptop I felt like reviving and some software on the platform that looked really interesting ("Wait, there are cool distros other than Ubuntu and UX I like better than GNOME???"). Fast forward to "Mono makes his first real forum posts" era and I can't remember the last time I booted up my Windows dualboot partition; I enjoy fighting Proton for less time wasted and a better result than fighting my entire computer for something ultimately disappointing

I admittedly have no interest in VR. I wish things were better about VR because that seems to be one of the last big hangups for a lot of people. But that's just based on second hand information, I've never seriously looked into how VR support is on Linux.

As it stands currently I'm rocking a Meta Quest 3 with WiVRn (through Envision) and the performance has been good (at least, on the games that don't crash over Proton). There's a bit of jank I don't like in getting to a wired connection (wireless connection to my headset is an issue on my setup, but this isn't platform specific), but as soon as I'm there, it feels incredible; I've got wlx-overlay-s booting when the headset connects, so I don't have to take my headset off until I'm done for the night. It's nice and feels comparatively so lightweight I think

[Berto, un huargo]

I've been using a Raspberry Pi as my daily driver for about, what, maybe 7 years now? So, basically, I've only tried stuff that works natively under 64-bit Linux ARM (i.e. AArch64, deffo not to be confused with Arch Linux). And most of what I have installed can be found via Flathub's games section. So far I've just used RPiOS, though I may get around to trying other distros made for Pi.

The Sonic Robo Blast 2 set of games, including Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers, are on there, though I really should play through them more.

I've actually explored more of SuperTuxKart so far. On a Pi 5, if I were to turn all graphical settings to their absolute lowest, the game can run smoothly at my monitor's native resolution of 2560x1440. Thing is, I actually prefer having as high graphical settings as I can enable, for that full experience, and then bump the resolution down. Editing the config.xml file, I've gotten the rendering resolution down to like 20%, or 512x288, for the game to still be somewhat playable -- and yet, for some of the more detailed maps, at times the framerate can still dip into the teens. I... could probably optimize the settings much better, hah.


Anyway! I've finally gotten around to installing Box64, and so I'll likely try some hopefully-low-spec Linux x86_64 games with it, to see how well they work. I'll also see how well my system works with whatever Windows software interpreter I can get running.