I’ve been debating making the switch for a long time, but after spending like a week researching Proton, Lutris etc. on Linux, I decided to try it out and nuked my entire Windows 11 drive. :)
So far, every game I threw at it works perfectly fine, including Elden Ring & Cyberpunk.
I had to spend a little time troubleshooting some small issues but it’s part of the fun!
Specs are in the neofetch, my compositor / WM is Wayfire (Wayland) :)
Installed Linux on my gaming rig, now it’s a rig.
I use Arsch btw
Welcome to the club :) true freedom will feel great!
It already feels amazing! I feel ike my ultrawide display is actually being used properly. Same for my PC hardware, it feels 10x snappier and it was already super fast :)
This is why we can’t stand windows. Everything is laggy and filled with ads. Wtf. :)
For sure, no telemetry, no ads, no tracking. I even use DuckDuckGo and some privacy plugins for Firefox. Debating building LibreWolf but it takes like, an hour.
Always happy to see another user join the ranks of gamers on Linux. I’ve been gaming for years now since proton came. The fact that it’s just a checkbox in steam to use proton is fantastic.
C’mon you’ve ditched windows but your wallpaper is full of them… /s
Gaming on Linux has improved so much it’s come to the point I only need windows for one game, that game being beamng.drive, and the only reason I ztill need windows for it is because for complicated reasons (that only the Dev team fully understands) the windows build runs like shit on proton, and the multiplayer mod for it won’t run on Linux, or at least haven’t figured out a way to make it run. Everything else? Perfect
Happy to have more Linux gamers on board
I know it’s not perfect yet, which is why when i built my PC, I went with Windows (I’m usually a Linux & macOS user), even if I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to waste my 2,000$ gaming PC by not being able to game well. Well, I’ll eat my words because it runs all my games perfectly fine. I just need to figure out Skyrim modding with MO2 but I’m told it works :)
Hopefully all your games work fine someday!
I just yesterday decided to give Linux a try and quickly switched back to Windows. The 2 main things preventing me from switching to Linux is the lack of proper HDR support and poor refresh rate support. I’m honestly bewildered that Linux doesn’t have proper support for relatively common things that have been around for pretty much 2 decades. Hope those things get added soon
For VRR, using Plasma on Wayland seems to work just fine for me (after you enable it), as long as the game in question is in full screen; it doesn’t seem to trigger otherwise. I think I ran a mixed refresh rates setup once too (165hz and 60hz) and didn’t have any issues. Idk how X11 handles mixed refresh rates (if at all), but it definitely didn’t support VRR well if at all when I tried.
Re: HDR, yeah. Color management is also missing in Wayland (but present on X11) iirc.
(In case you didn’t know, there’s currently two display “servers”/protocols that are in popular use, X11 and Wayland. X11 is old and has screen tearing issues, but greater support in general. Wayland is newer and has far more isolation between programs, and aims to replace it (and Fedora already has made it default, iirc))
I game in 120hz on a 30 inch 4k screen. Are you on Wayland? Xorg is old and have issues. Also avoid Nvidia at all costs. Get amd.
Beautiful build! I heard people talking about gaming on linux but actually seeing you talking about running triple A games that weren’t made with linux in mind made me get filled with joy, I can’t wait to play Stray.
Thank you! I was super excited too when i did my research :) And Stray is actually what I’m playing right now ! I’m seeing some slight stutters but I haven’t configured anything or tried other Proton versions yet.
I wish, but all I play right now is Diablo IV and COD:MW2 (2023 version) and neither works on Linux. Maybe in the 2030s.
Diablo IV definitely works in Linux. I played Sorc all the way to level 75 just fine. You can install Battle.net via Lutris, Bottles, or even directly via Proton Experimental in Steam and then install Diablo IV from there.
Oh, interesting! How is performance compared to running on Windows?
It seems to work great at least in my experience on Manjaro. Lutris is also great at what it does and makes the setup relatively easy.
Hmm, what issues did you have with D4 on Linux? That’s been my preferred way of playing it since the beta.
Not sure about MW2 unfortunately though.
The last time I bothered to try was a few years ago. I didn’t realize it was possible to install Battle.net now. I’ll have to take another look at it on my laptop with Manjaro installed.
Ah fair enough! If you do end up giving it a try, my preferred method is via Bottles - but I’ve heard other people recommend Lutris as well.
I have an Nvidia 2080 and for me the game plays just as well in Linux as it does Windows. From what I’m aware, most of the Blizzard games play on Linux - I’ve personally played D3, D4, and OW/OW2 (which is coming to Steam to make it even easier) on Linux without problem.
howwwwww. i have a pretty nice amd chip and radeon graphics card, on arch with wayland. i get stuttering, which i read was normal, on my more intensive games like dead space. deep rock galactic i can’t play with my friends and it also stutters…what were the small issues you troubleshooted?
Yeah, the linux-zen kernel is a good alternative to linux-tkg for gaming that’s available in the official repos. What most likely makes the biggest difference and is probably the issue for @inurblacchole is the lack of gamemode. Depending on the cpu and the default governor used it might not boost enough in games where performance or schedutil is needed.
Actually phoenix showed that the zen kernel has slim to no advantage compared to the vanilla kernel for gaming. But I use it anyway because it’s not worse.
Yeah, I would even say that most custom kernels have a very negligible advantage in gaming. I know the zen kernel aims to reduce latency but I would say it comes more down to compatibility and features. For example one rather recent thing I remember since Fedora changed this as well is that the vm.max_map_count is already set on linux-zen to the same value the SteamOS kernel uses (I think it’s just INT_MAX) that helps with game compatibility on Wine/Proton.
How long have you been using Linux for?
Hey! It’s been a long time since I’ve used it as my main OS, but since Ubuntu 11.04, I’ve been on and off on Linux. I’ve tried many distros, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Arch, Manjaro, Antergos, elementaryOS, Fedora, Solus… I’ve tried pretty much every “mainstream” distro, and always come back to Arch.
Whoo!!! Congrats, that looks great!
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Hey there! I’ve tried many distros in the past and always come back to Arch :) I’m pretty familiar with how it works, where to find information, the AUR, etc.! Thanks!
That’s a nice config you have there and despite what others say, Arch is an excellent choice for starter. Have a nice ride!
Thank you. For sure, I could recommend Arch to beginners. I used to recommend Ubuntu but I’m not so sure about it anymore, it seems to have gone corporate with Caninocal’s “Ubuntu One” etc. Linux Mint is also another distro I’d recommend to beginners.
I tried pop os a while ago and it wasn’t enough to ditch windows, but I wanted to come back to it in the future. Well … the future is now - do you know about how Pop os looks right now?
Well, I haven’t used Pop!_OS myself, but it’s all Linux, so the concepts are the same. You’ll have Steam, Lutris, Proton, it’s all applicable. And it uses ubuntu/debian as a base, so you should have all your apps available, or good alternatives.
I went to Arch and haven’t looked back. It’s a great distro!
It really is!
Isn’t it a lot of effort to set up the games, though?
It depends and I’m not going to sugarcoat it.
You can look up the ProtonDB pages for the games you plan to play, and see how they fare. Some will work out of the box, some will require some tweaks, some will require MAJOR tweaks (I’ve yet to encounter any of those), and some will just flat out not run.
So far, the most “configuration” I’ve had to make was changing the Proton version used by same games. Example: Cult of the Lamb has major issues on the latest Experimental build of Proton, but on 7.0-6, it runs perfectly.
It depends if you’re ready to spend a bit of time on getting bigger games working.
As an addition to what he said. Some game will not work no matter what you do mainly because of anti-cheats. Some examples would be R6S, Destiny 2, any recent COD game, the site AreWeAntiCheatYet shows that list.
My man just went from 0 to hero in one single tap! Nicely done.
It took me like a couple months (4’ish) to start using Arch Linux.
It’s not my first distro, as mentioned below, I’ve tried pretty much every “mainstream” distro. I tried Arch on a pal’s computer a few years ago, practiced installing it in a VM and kept it for a few years. I went back to Windows when I built my gaming PC before I didn’t know how far Linux gaming had gone. :) So i’m already very familiar with Arch, just not with Window Managers like Wayfire or Hyprland, learning one config file at a time!
