Linux is now the best gaming system.
Linux is now the best gaming system.
When it comes to gaming on Linux, many many many people’s understanding stil remains in the Jurassic era. For the past few years, I’ve been using Linux as my main operating system for both work and gaming. From my personal experience, the gaming experience on Linux is far superior to that of macOS a...
Linux is now the best gaming system.
I'll just share how my latest bout with gaming on Linux looked like, compared to Windows.
Install Anno 1800 on Windows:
- Start installation in Steam
- Ubisoft Launcher installs
- Anno 1800 starts
- Enjoy the rest of my evening
Install Anno 1800 on Linux:
- Install Anno 1800 in Steam
- Research how to start game
- Enable Proton compatibility layer
- Game fails to start due to missing Ubisoft Launcher
- Install Ubi launcher using method 'add installer as game, set compatibility layer, install and change executable for application executable'
- Game fails to start due to missing Ubisoft Launcher
- Try with different Proton versions, fail each time
- Install Lutris and install Ubi launcher through that
- Game fails to start due to missing Ubisoft Launcher
- Give up for the evening
Next day:
- Read up some more
- Install Protontricks
- Encounter weird errors when starting it
- Try to find out what is going on
- Suppress tendency to just say 'fuck it' and start Windows
- Install Protontricks through Flatpack instead of system package, as the Flatpack version is slightly newer. Accept that this will result in a much larger installation due to not using system-provided libraries.
- Add Ubi launcher through protontricks, ignoring out-of-date instructions on the Internet
- Start game
- Cry at slideshow performance
- Give up for the evening
Next day:
- Research possible causes of performance issues
- Try multiple ways of enabling Nvidia GPU instead of integrated graphics
- Fail each time
- Turn off Secure Boot
- Correct GPU now available
- Better performance, although still not great
- Feel no enjoyment anymore at getting it to run or while playing
As much as I want to like it, this experience makes me feel that Linux is not fully ready for the masses yet.
As a happy and satisfied Linux gamer I disagree.
Linux is the best OS overall, at least for me, but not the best for gaming for most people. Not yet.
Emulators Xenia (xbox 360 emulator) was not mentioned, because it is Windows only. There is no Xbox 360 emulator for Linux.
Game compatibility 80% are platinum or gold on ProtonDB https://www.protondb.com/
This is impressive, but you can't claim that a system that can't play up to 20% of game titles is better. Not to mention that some of the other titles might need some tinkering as well.
Conclusion Linux gaming is now a great and viable option for most people. But it still isn't better than Windows if you don't care about bloatware, security or privacy, and just use your machine exclusively for gaming.
Bonus: Linux is free, so you could maybe also get slightly better hardware by selecting it over Windows.
The author lost me when they showed the terminal command to install Nvidia drivers on Debian. Yes, it's one sentence. That's still extremely daunting to the vast majority of computer users. It undermines the author's own thesis.
Linux is a better gaming OS for some (myself included) but there is still a small learning curve. It's nowhere near as bad as it's made out to be, but it's not nothing.
I'd have softened the title and focused on the ways Linux shines as a gaming OS: compatibility with older games (1990-2010 in my experience) that dont work on modern Windows, the ability to get more performace out of older hardware, consistent behavior, and a much more pleasant desktop experience.
Windows is a better choice for many people, but Linux is just as good for many and a better choice for some.
Lots of people comment on this subject pointing out that some games don't run on Linux, and conclude that Linux is still behind Windows. This fails to recognize a distinct advantage that Linux has: More efficient use of hardware.
If your system doesn't have an especially fast SSD or lots of RAM, you might find that Linux gives a better gaming experience. It can often do more with less.
Edit to add: When I consider the fact that we're mostly talking about games designed and built just for Windows, I find this really damn impressive. And it just keeps getting better.
On the one hand, there absolutely are some places where Linux has so dramatically improved it's insane. Apps like Lutris have really blown me away, it's incredible how some popular multiplayer titles like World of Warcraft which used to take me hours to get running back in high school can now practically run out of the box.
On the other hand, one of the major gpu manufacturer's still has terrible driver support. Systems like Proton are imperfect, and seem to be depressing interest in making native Linux clients. Even though some things work out of the box, you can just as easily spend months failing to get a modern title running. To argue it's the best gaming system is just laughable. In some respects, it hasn't progressed at all in the last decade. When it gets to a point where users can run literally any game out of the box without any additional hassle, then it will be the best gaming system. Until then, this is a gross exaggeration at best.
I just installed bazzite on a spare drive this week, trying to get off win11.
So far generally pretty impressed but hardware support is eh for some lesser known devices. For example my headset (Lucidsound LS50) detects the dongle but can't find drivers for the dedicated wireless channel and Bluetooth is patchy at best.
It's friction points like that that make migration from a lifetime of windows challenging.
Hopefully I'll figure out a solution that doesn't involve replacing the headset!
Until people can click install and never have to use terminal like they can in windows for 99.9% of their games and drivers windows will stay the king of gaming...again with these bait posts...get back to reality...most teens can't even use command prompt you think they are gonna wanna game on Linux? Hell most teens wanna game on a cell phone as is. Your target market should be the young so they grow and live with your products but Linux target market is the guys who were 20 when hackers came out in 1995.
I want to move to Linux, I tried a few months ago with a few distros but ran into two issues. One, I'm a content creator so easy access and use of my digital tools is paramount.
Secondly I make extensive use of VR and the support for VR graphics drivers was not good. I heard many duct tape and bubble gum solutions to run virtual desktops but I can't mess around with my operating system every day when I need my machine to run and do what I need it to do without lots of little roadblocks.
I want to move to Linux but I do not think it's where it needs to be yet to take me off of Windows :(
While I agree, the article mostly explains how Linux is almost caught up to Windows for gaming. For me, Linux > Windows, so if Linux can play enough games to keep me occupied, it's a better "gaming" system. This was true for me before Steam even came to Linux.
That said, this article completely ignores the fact that many of the most popular games rely on anti-cheat w/o Linux compatibility, so that right there kills Linux as a contender regardless of its many other merits.
I guess my point here is to please don't oversell Linux. You want someone's first impression to be positive, and if they run into game compatibility issues at the start, the experience will be far from positive. I would much rather see a section right at the top about how to check game compatibility, since that's what most people would want to check before looking at the various other things that are awesome about Linux.
Epic Games
...
We also don’t have to worry about download speeds, as they’re even better compared to the Windows client.
Is this true? If so, it's very surprising.
By the way, I always encountered risk control and couldn’t enter the game when playing Rogue Company on Windows. I don’t understand why the anti-cheat component considers me a threat, but after switching to Linux, I no longer faced this issue; it has been much smoother than on Windows.
Anecdotal. I doubt this is a Linux vs Windows thing, but more that they saw different OSes being used by the same account and flagged based on that.
Some of these emulators also have versions for Windows or macOS, but on Linux, we can directly download and install them from the store, without the need to worry about dependencies or version issues, making it a lot easier compared to Windows and macOS.
Good point. Package management is really nice on Linux. However, if you don't know what you're looking for, you're in a similar camp as on Windows.
Games on the Android platform can also run on Linux. In addition to virtualization ways like Windows and macOS, Linux can run without virtualization by using namespaces. If you’re interested, you can check out my previous article on Android Application on Linux without Virtualization.
Huh, neat!
Besides Steam, we can also use cross-platform tools like Flathub: Parsec to control Windows hosts directly on Linux. This means that even games that can’t be run through the aforementioned ways can still be played on Linux, completing the last piece of the puzzle.
So you'd need a second PC? That hardly seems convenient.
Actually, I also wanna introduce some advantages of the Linux graphical interface over Windows in terms of gaming experience. For example, GNOME’s Do Not Disturb botton allows me to toggle all notification alerts with a single click.
Yeah, this is certainly neat. I'm actually surprised Windows doesn't have something similar, but maybe each app handles notifications itself there?
Additionally, I have never encountered the issue on Linux where I can’t temporarily return to the desktop during fullscreen gaming, which is something I often face on Windows, where the taskbar pops up but returning to the desktop is impossible. On Linux, regardless of which game I’m playing, whether in fullscreen mode or borderless window mode, I can freely switch between windows.
On the flipside, I've had a lot of really odd problems switching applications on Linux. I don't know if it happens on Windows too since I haven't used Windows in a decade or so, but I'm guessing the Linux experience here is worse.
I also sometimes have games completely lock up Linux, which I'm guessing is probably the Wayland compositor crashing. That used to happen to me on Windows, but again, this is from >10 years ago, so I'm not sure if it applies today.
Hah. Nope.
Man, I would look like much less of a hater if people didn't keep making demonstrably incorrect claims.
No, installing Nvidia drivers wasn't a one line affair for me last time I tried (which was just this year, btw), and even after I got things set up it was a toss-up whether features would work, work but perform horribly or not be available at all. That includes HDR, VRR, DLSS, DLSS transformer model, DLSS frame gen and Ray Reconstruction. On Windows some of the newer versions of those can be a hassle to set up in old games and necessitate forcing in dlls using third party applications, but at least official support works reliably.
Some distros do come with Nvidia drivers prepackaged and that's fine, but all the feature issues remain. If you want a gaming-first distro there still isn't semi-decent game mode support for SteamOS or Bazzite.
Intel GPU support is slightly better but a bit short of hassle-free. You probably don't have an Intel GPU anyway, so we can let that one pass.
HDR support in applications is still sub par. That includes gaming and is true regardless of GPU brand, as far as I can tell.
Anticheat support is still poor and it still prevents many very popular games from running. At this point nobody has anything close to a solution to this, even conceptually. Yes, some anticheat providers have some degree of Linux support, but there is nothing close to kernel-level anticheat from Windows. Yes, this is a genuine problem.
Performance is... trading blows, I'd say. In some games you can get much better frame pacing and better overall performance. In others, particularly when using newer functionality it can go the exact opposite way. This is very situational. If you want cutting edge stuff and paid to get the hardware to run it, Linux is probably not for you. Salvaging weaker or aging hardware for older games is a better use case.
Gaming on Linux is much better than it was and it likely will keep getting better. That's good news in itself, getting hyperbolic just triggers flamewars and negativity on something that should be a pretty clean net positive. It really doesn't help.
Not really. Linux is all about openness and choice, but going with Linux as the only OS will significantly limit what you can play. As a modder, I'm against EAC and and the like as much as the next person here, but ideally I want to be able to play anything that looks appealing, not have to skip games for no reason other than their anti-cheat solutions not being compatible with Linux. I agree that we shouldn't support those practices, but it's one thing to willingly boycott something and another is to not have that agency at all.
Drivers
Linux has no problem with them. Unlike only one manufacturer, that breaks all drivers without holy blessing since late Maxwell era.
Not true. There are still a lot of games which don't just run on Linux. Or if they do, it doesn't run out of the box. I'd like for that to be the case however