Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

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Tempest
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Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by Tempest » Thu, 2. Sep 21, 12:33

there has been a lot of mentions of Linux lately (related to X4 for the most part ofcourse)

can people somewhat more "in the loop" provide any advice?

not a real stranger to Linux (can get a lot done with guides and whatnot) but gaming wise, not very knowledgable.

as per my own little research;

- POP! OS seems to be the "friendliest" to get working (with easy access to Steam via built-in "store")
- SteamOS 3.0? possibly the same version that is shipping with the upcomming steam deck
- discrete AMD GPU seems to be preferred in general (my 1080Ti will need to be replaced at some point)
- something else?

nothing is really keeping me tied to windows anymore, as probably most, i have most titles in Steam/Epic Games Store & to a lesser degree, Origin

thanks in advance for any thoughts.
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Panos
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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by Panos » Thu, 2. Sep 21, 13:21

Tempest wrote:
Thu, 2. Sep 21, 12:33
there has been a lot of mentions of Linux lately (related to X4 for the most part ofcourse)

can people somewhat more "in the loop" provide any advice?

not a real stranger to Linux (can get a lot done with guides and whatnot) but gaming wise, not very knowledgable.

as per my own little research;

- POP! OS seems to be the "friendliest" to get working (with easy access to Steam via built-in "store")
- SteamOS 3.0? possibly the same version that is shipping with the upcomming steam deck
- discrete AMD GPU seems to be preferred in general (my 1080Ti will need to be replaced at some point)
- something else?

nothing is really keeping me tied to windows anymore, as probably most, i have most titles in Steam/Epic Games Store & to a lesser degree, Origin

thanks in advance for any thoughts.
I use Manjaro several years now. Except some DRM-fested with kernel anti-cheat APIs, games (Destiny 2, Division 2 etc) most of the games you have in Steam will work as normal. Especially X4.
Manjaro even comes with Steam pre installed. You just click and download the game.

Using Linux on both laptop and PC and didn't have issues either with Nvidia (Laptop -6700HQ+GTX1060 6GB) nor PC (8600K+Vega 64, 3900X+5700XT)
You can only try. Get a second drive, even M.2 are cheap today, get a distro (I propose Manjaro KDE because looks more like W10 out of the box) and try.

With Nvidia use the proprietary drivers, with AMD just the normal opensource RADV
In both cases you will see even perf improvement around 15-20%.

Just remember in a distro like Manjaro, everything existing in linux is on the package manager. Open type the name, no need to search dozens of websites to put your software back in. Maybe activate AUR on the settings, if you need some extra packages. (just google search Manjaro how to add AUR and look for articles 2020 or newer).
Many will say to use an archaic distro like Ubuntu. You will always upgrade to Manjaro just do it from the get go :)
Just make sure you do not run wild with downloading stuff from AUR if not needed, which is the source code :D

Ah if you get KDE, make sure you try the theme manager, it allows you to just point and get any theme that could change the look of your environment to something more modern. :mrgreen:

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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by Tempest » Thu, 2. Sep 21, 13:41

Panos wrote:
Thu, 2. Sep 21, 13:21
Tempest wrote:
Thu, 2. Sep 21, 12:33
there has been a lot of mentions of Linux lately (related to X4 for the most part ofcourse)

can people somewhat more "in the loop" provide any advice?

not a real stranger to Linux (can get a lot done with guides and whatnot) but gaming wise, not very knowledgable.

as per my own little research;

- POP! OS seems to be the "friendliest" to get working (with easy access to Steam via built-in "store")
- SteamOS 3.0? possibly the same version that is shipping with the upcomming steam deck
- discrete AMD GPU seems to be preferred in general (my 1080Ti will need to be replaced at some point)
- something else?

nothing is really keeping me tied to windows anymore, as probably most, i have most titles in Steam/Epic Games Store & to a lesser degree, Origin

thanks in advance for any thoughts.
I use Manjaro several years now. Except some DRM-fested with kernel anti-cheat APIs, games (Destiny 2, Division 2 etc) most of the games you have in Steam will work as normal. Especially X4.
Manjaro even comes with Steam pre installed. You just click and download the game.

Using Linux on both laptop and PC and didn't have issues either with Nvidia (Laptop -6700HQ+GTX1060 6GB) nor PC (8600K+Vega 64, 3900X+5700XT)
You can only try. Get a second drive, even M.2 are cheap today, get a distro (I propose Manjaro KDE because looks more like W10 out of the box) and try.

With Nvidia use the proprietary drivers, with AMD just the normal opensource RADV
In both cases you will see even perf improvement around 15-20%.

Just remember in a distro like Manjaro, everything existing in linux is on the package manager. Open type the name, no need to search dozens of websites to put your software back in. Maybe activate AUR on the settings, if you need some extra packages. (just google search Manjaro how to add AUR and look for articles 2020 or newer).
Many will say to use an archaic distro like Ubuntu. You will always upgrade to Manjaro just do it from the get go :)
Just make sure you do not run wild with downloading stuff from AUR if not needed, which is the source code :D

Ah if you get KDE, make sure you try the theme manager, it allows you to just point and get any theme that could change the look of your environment to something more modern. :mrgreen:
oh, steam preinstalled does sound rather nice. have a 250G m.2 nvme that can be repurposed (just had X4 on it anyways)

much appreciated,
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BaronVerde
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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by BaronVerde » Thu, 2. Sep 21, 15:11

Tempest wrote:
Thu, 2. Sep 21, 12:33
- POP! OS seems to be the "friendliest" to get working (with easy access to Steam via built-in "store")
- SteamOS 3.0? possibly the same version that is shipping with the upcomming steam deck
- discrete AMD GPU seems to be preferred in general (my 1080Ti will need to be replaced at some point)
- something else?
Debian Bullseye with XFCE Desktop is my OS of choice. It has the largest software base and is fully open source. No problems encountered with latest hardware (b550 board, ryzen 7 5800x, nvme-ssds). But I still use my old gtx970 for now because of the messed up market situation. Will not pay more than double MSRP for a graphics card that's possibly obsolete at the end of the next year anyway.

I've played KSP, factorio, lately X4, but playing is not my obsession with PCs and i am not on steam or any such platform and I don't use any additional software, clients, emulation layers, etc. So that's not a requirement for me.

You surely know there's a variety of window managers and dektops to choose from when using Linux.

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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by pjknibbs » Thu, 2. Sep 21, 17:30

I've done some experimentation with running Steam on Linux. There are obviously some games with a native Linux version, and those work fine. Anything that's Windows-only and you have to run via emulation (e.g. the "Proton" thing on Steam) I find to be rather a crapshoot if it's going to work or not, although admittedly that might be partially down to the relatively low spec hardware I'm testing this on...unfortunately I can't really test on *decentish* hardware without switching my main gaming PC to Linux or else the PC under the TV I use for video streaming and light gaming. I might well do the latter at some point, although I'm not sure Linux is particularly happy at running at the 1366x768 native resolution of my TV--I know the Raspberry Pi I tested on it once definitely didn't.

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red assassin
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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by red assassin » Thu, 2. Sep 21, 17:34

Linux gaming is in a better state than it's ever been with all the work Valve have put into Proton for the Steam Deck, but you will still trip over things that flake out a bit, so I don't want to promise a 100% trouble-free experience.

If you ask ten Linux users for a distribution recommendation you'll get about seventeen recommendations, so I hesitate to add another, but: I use Ubuntu LTS releases on all of my systems at this point. It pretty much always just works out of the box but is easy to customise as necessary, it's got good hardware support and supports proprietary drivers where necessary/better for given hardware (e.g. Nvidia graphics cards), it's got the right balance of getting software updates and not getting so many software updates that stuff breaks. I've burned out every time I've tried to use something with a rolling update model like Arch/Manjaro because it breaks too often, and Debian and the like are too slow at getting updates. (Caveat: I run a bunch of systems, including a personal desktop and laptop, work dev machine, random Raspberry Pi projects, and production web servers, and having a single distro that works for all of my use cases is a factor in my choice.) As ever, YMMV. The latest Steam OS (which is Arch based) might not be the worst choice at this point given Valve should be invested in keeping it stable, although I'd worry about hardware compatibility issues if they're very focused on the Steam Deck in particular.

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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by pjknibbs » Thu, 2. Sep 21, 18:20

red assassin wrote:
Thu, 2. Sep 21, 17:34
If you ask ten Linux users for a distribution recommendation you'll get about seventeen recommendations, so I hesitate to add another, but: I use Ubuntu LTS releases on all of my systems at this point.
I prefer Linux Mint with the Cinnamon desktop myself--it's based on Ubuntu so updates at about the same rate, but I prefer the UI.

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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by jlehtone » Thu, 2. Sep 21, 23:42

I don't game on Linux; it is for work. Some years ago my distro did not support Steam. Have upgraded since, but not rechecked.

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felter
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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by felter » Fri, 3. Sep 21, 03:03

I stumbled upon this a few weeks back. I currently don't have a Linux setup, so I cannot tell you if it works or how it works, but if you want to play games on a Linux system then I would say it is probably the way to go. It even allows you to instal and play games from the Epic store. If anyone wants to try it out, It would be interesting to hear what you have to say about it.

Lutris, a gaming client for Linux.

A video of it being used to instal and play Rollercoaster tycoon on Epic.

An Epic instal.
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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by Tempest » Fri, 3. Sep 21, 11:45

many ideas that warrant a test-drive, something for the weekend i guess (with 1 eye on the F1 GP :wink: )

thanks people, for chipping in so far.
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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by pjknibbs » Fri, 3. Sep 21, 12:28

I decided to bite the bullet and install Linux on that TV PC last night, since I was waiting around for the district nurse to come with my injections, and I'd forgotten what a ballache that process can be. Took me an hour and a half to get the thing to run reliably at an effective resolution of 1366x768 over HDMI, for a start, and even then that's actually 1920x1080 with a fractional scaling factor applied...couldn't get a native resolution of that to work at all. (And no, I can't just run it at 1920x1080, the TV's native resolution is only 1366x768 so 1920x1080 is almost unreadable). Got some tests going and 3D benchmarks are showing good results, the only game I tried is an old one that would probably run on a calculator and that worked fine apart from the video cutscenes not playing at all. More experimentation will happen over the weekend, I expect.

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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by Tempest » Fri, 3. Sep 21, 12:52

i could never get fully comfortable gaming from the "couch" even though i have a 65inch 4K OLED here. even tried the "lapboard" thing. probably me though.

X4 would be qualified as couch friendly i suppose, when you choose not to get into combat situations, heh. i dabbled a bit with the shield TV + geforce now (when it still supported 4K)
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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by Praefectus classis » Fri, 3. Sep 21, 14:42

pjknibbs wrote:
Thu, 2. Sep 21, 18:20
red assassin wrote:
Thu, 2. Sep 21, 17:34
If you ask ten Linux users for a distribution recommendation you'll get about seventeen recommendations, so I hesitate to add another, but: I use Ubuntu LTS releases on all of my systems at this point.
I prefer Linux Mint with the Cinnamon desktop myself--it's based on Ubuntu so updates at about the same rate, but I prefer the UI.
Same here. :)
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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by pjknibbs » Fri, 3. Sep 21, 15:44

Tempest wrote:
Fri, 3. Sep 21, 12:52
i could never get fully comfortable gaming from the "couch" even though i have a 65inch 4K OLED here. even tried the "lapboard" thing. probably me though.
Never used to do it myself, but I was kind of forced into it when I wanted to play Persona 5 Royal, which was (and still is, at time of writing) a PS4 exclusive, so I had to get a Playstation, and it just made sense to attach it to the TV. I had to move my armchair a bit closer to the TV to be able to read everything, but it worked well enough. The PC I added later primarily as a video streaming device, but it's a halfway capable gaming PC (i3-3225 CPU, GT1030 GPU and 12Gb of RAM) so I did some experiments with gaming and found it works fine with stuff that isn't too new and doesn't require mouse and keyboard controls (XBox 360 controller attached, of course). Of course, that was when it was running Windows, how well that goes now it's on Linux is another question!

I have no intention of switching my main gaming PC over to Linux, though!

[EDIT] OK, reporting back on my next experiment. I put Fallout 4 on the TV PC--I know that worked OK in Windows. It also works *mostly* OK under Proton on Linux, with one exception--no sound apart from in the SPECIAL videos that sometimes play at the start! Went onto protondb.com and found this is a fairly well known issue, and can be fixed by updating the command line launch parameters for the game. Once I did that I got sound again, although with some unexplained popping now and again that didn't happen when I ran the game in Windows. Overall, not a terrible experience but still not quite as seamless as I'd like it to be.

[EDIT 2] Well, despite the utter lack of interest, thought I'd report back on two more tests...this time, I downloaded a couple of GOG game installers and installed them via Lutris (Might and Magic VIII and The Saboteur). Pre-downloading the installers like this does make the installation process a bit more of a faff, but both games appear to work fine.

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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by Tempest » Sun, 5. Sep 21, 21:43

started my testing with Manjaro 12.1.1

ran into a little snag on the steam side, TLDR:enable steam beta update

had black screens all over the place after a fresh install

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/09/s ... eres-a-fix

fixed with the beta toggle.

so, steam AND x4 are now running in beta mode :lol:
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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by felter » Sun, 5. Sep 21, 22:52

pjknibbs I'm just curious, are they Linux enabled games to start with or are they Windows games that you are running on Linux.
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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by pjknibbs » Mon, 6. Sep 21, 07:05

felter wrote:
Sun, 5. Sep 21, 22:52
pjknibbs I'm just curious, are they Linux enabled games to start with or are they Windows games that you are running on Linux.
Windows on Linux. Wouldn't be much point testing Linux games on Linux because you kind of expect those to work!

By the way, there is an issue with Might and Magic VIII I hadn't noticed earlier--it starts up fine, but when you actually get into the game there's a bright graphical splodge superimposed over the display. Apparently a common issue, I'll see if I can find a fix.

Oh, and did another test, this time installing a game from GoG directly in Lutris by linking it to my GoG account, and for some reason that really didn't work so well. It was a DOSBox game (Duke Nukem 3D) and for some reason there were two required libraries (libopusfile and libSDL_2) that weren't already installed and didn't get installed by the installer, so I had to manually find the packages to install those. Not so impressed there.

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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by felter » Mon, 6. Sep 21, 17:04

pjknibbs wrote:
Mon, 6. Sep 21, 07:05
Windows on Linux. Wouldn't be much point testing Linux games on Linux because you kind of expect those to work!
You would be surprised at the amount of people who would do this. While I didn't think you were one of them, it is always safer to ask than presume, and there is never no harm done in asking. :)
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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by Panos » Sun, 12. Sep 21, 09:38

felter wrote:
Sun, 5. Sep 21, 22:52
pjknibbs I'm just curious, are they Linux enabled games to start with or are they Windows games that you are running on Linux.
Windows games running on Linux is the easy answer :D

The technical answer is, all Vulkan & OpenGL-(please die) API games run on Linux like native games made for Linux. Like X4 Foundations, X Rebirth VR etc.
The rest, due to the work of a brave and crazy person, written for DirectX are using a Vulkan-based translation layer for Direct3D which is called DXVK. Initially started with DX11 and moved to DX9, 10 and now working on 12 to translate.
Since DXVK came to be, the Linux Gaming made a HUGE leap forward as did with Vulkan API.

And all this because one man had serious desire, nothing could stop him :lol: , to play NieR: Automata on Linux and created the DXVK project. (now is working for Valve - Steam).
:lol:

(FYI DXVK works on Windows too and improves the perf on many games, even current AAA titles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comme ... n_windows/
)

And on personal note. Since I am using Linux since 1998 (alongside windows due to work) that bit extra tinkering required to do things, is making me to connect with my system.
Good example today, created the vkbasalt configuration file to use the Real Space reshade on Linux :D

I have posted it here.
viewtopic.php?f=180&t=414524&p=5079293#p5079293

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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by Panos » Sun, 12. Sep 21, 09:42

Tempest wrote:
Sun, 5. Sep 21, 21:43
started my testing with Manjaro 12.1.1

ran into a little snag on the steam side, TLDR:enable steam beta update

had black screens all over the place after a fresh install

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/09/s ... eres-a-fix

fixed with the beta toggle.

so, steam AND x4 are now running in beta mode :lol:
Hahaha :lol:
Yeah, some Manjaro update broke Steam runtime last 1 week. Installed the Steam Native from AUR (didn't uninstall previous version or games) and all worked fine.

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