Linux distro for gaming

redspark said:
Interesting. I'll give Manjaro a spin.
Click to expand...
If you game, make sure to choose the steam-manjaro package which has been compiled for improved performance on manjaro, it will be in your "add./remove" programs... along with everything else.
 
Isn't this a bit like asking which is the best washer-dryer to mix concrete in?
.
 
ginggs said:
Yes, most people are happy with whatever Linux/BSD/UNIX-like operating system their PlayStation, Nintendo, iPad, or Android phone comes with.
Click to expand...

OMG. I had no idea. I just googled and... My apologies. Gaming is huge on BSD Unix and Linux derivatives. I guess I should have updated my circa 2000 AD knowledge before posting, but in truth, the analogy was too funny once I thought of it, so I may not have been able to resist even if I'd known.
But thanks for insight.
.
 
Mint works fairly well for most things.

I had some problems running Icewind Dale 2 (very old game) on Windows a while back so got it working on Mint through WINE / Playonlinux.

The Steam games are fine for me as I'm not a big gamer, Civilization V will keep me busy enough until I don't feel like gaming for months again.

If you like playing games daily and different games at that then perhaps Windows is a better option for you.
 
bar1 said:
I am also a Linux guy, but for my gaming machine i use windows.
however in the next few weeks i am planning on giving steamOS a try.
Click to expand...

SteamOS is awful, don't bother with it IMO.

--

I've been using ElementaryOS, it's an Ubuntu derivative, It's super clean and minimalist, just the way I like it. I also like Fedora, although don't have much experience. Waiting for Black Friday to build a Ryzen VFIO setup, I've been wanting to do one for a while. Absolutely need to use windoze for something? Just load up the VM, and close it when you're done.

I'm disappointed that AMD backpedaled on their VEGA supporting SR-IOV stance. A consumer card that can be used on a host and guest OS at the same time would really help push VFIO into the mainstream. Linux has pearmented everything except the desktop because it's an objectively better OS for everything except trational PC gaming and photo / video editing, having the best of both worlds... that's the dream.
 
I tried witcher3 on my laptop, my intel graphics card (512mb) could handle the cinematic but not the game play.

Busy installing the Eve Online client via proton, see how that is. Looks like it has a gold rating on protonfb.
 
I tried going to SteamOS as a test as most games i play are on steam but it was the worst experience I've ever had with an OS. You can't get by the big picture mode natively, and to run it in "Desktop mode" you have to run a few terminal commands, the fun thing with that is the terminal doesn't open so you have to fix that first through Xterm, which is awful!

So SteamOs can be considered a no go for sure, might be better to try something like ElementaryOS mentioned above, or some other minimalist Linux Distro.
 
ginggs said:
From: https://store.steampowered.com/about/
View attachment 580740
Click to expand...
There is also a Manjaro installer in the Manjaro add/remove programs.

Installed part of Eve last night. My download got stopped for some reason, but the bits I did test of the game it worked. It is rated as Gold on Protondb and not platinum because you have to run one winetricks command to put the game into a container and in my case I also needed gecko for the launcher. Other than that, I was impressed

For my pos laptop, I am able to game a little faster on Manjaro then Ubuntu, but I think thats just because my hardware is so terrible.
 
Last edited:
R4ziel said:
So SteamOs can be considered a no go for sure, might be better to try something like ElementaryOS mentioned above, or some other minimalist Linux Distro.
Click to expand...

Manjaro Gnome looks pretty nice as well. Was trying it out in a VM, might switch over to it. I'm not familiar with arch at all, so there's a lot I could learn. :)

inb4 KDE fanbois cry about Gnome. :P
 
Has anyone switched over yet and experienced proton through the steam client? I would like to know how your experience is going because I tried Ark on Ubuntu through the steam client proton and got much less fps than I get on windows. I'm all for switching over, but don't want to lose performance of course!
 
R4ziel said:
Has anyone switched over yet and experienced proton through the steam client? I would like to know how your experience is going because I tried Ark on Ubuntu through the steam client proton and got much less fps than I get on windows. I'm all for switching over, but don't want to lose performance of course!
Click to expand...

You're almost always going to lose performance. Anywhere from 10 to 30 percent. In the case of Proton, it's a compatibility layer of Wine and/or DXVK, its "translating" the DirectX API to Vulkan. You can't expect it to be identical to native windows performance. For OpenGL or native Vulkan games, the performance loss is much less.

For native Linux games, there are other issues such as GPU drivers still not being as mature as Windows ones (although massive progress is being made, especially with AMD who are pushing MESA, their open source driver, while Nvidia's is still propriety), which impacts performance. There are also a number of really shitty Linux ports, or ports that are heavily based on wrappers instead of being natively written.

It's a catch 22. No one wants to use Linux for gaming because it has several problems. Linux for gaming has several problems because the userbase isn't there. That's why VFIO is the best of both worlds. You can just load up a VM for Windows when you want to play games.
 
The_Imp_ZA said:
For native Linux games, there are other issues such as GPU drivers still not being as mature as Windows ones (although massive progress is being made, especially with AMD who are pushing MESA, their open source driver, while Nvidia's is still propriety), which impacts performance.
Click to expand...
I recall reading some time ago that the Linux port of Left4Dead was outperforming the Windows version on the same hardware.

The latest comparisons I've seen show Nvidia's Linux drivers still outperforming AMD's.
 
The_Imp_ZA said:
It's a catch 22. No one wants to use Linux for gaming because it has several problems. Linux for gaming has several problems because the userbase isn't there. That's why VFIO is the best of both worlds. You can just load up a VM for Windows when you want to play games.
Click to expand...

This is exactly my problem, I would like to be part of the people who switched to Linux and helped the userbase grow, but I don't want to lose performance because of it of course. I think ill just go Dual boot for now on a secondary SSD and test some of my games, if it runs acceptable then Ill try to stick it out.

Another thing I was wondering about, not being a Linux user myself, what benefits does Linux have over Windows as an OS, apart from the fact that its free? I mean why would someone use Linux over Windows, assuming Windows is the main platform they've worked on forever
 
R4ziel said:
Another thing I was wondering about, not being a Linux user myself, what benefits does Linux have over Windows as an OS, apart from the fact that its free? I mean why would someone use Linux over Windows, assuming Windows is the main platform they've worked on forever
Click to expand...
I think that's a question for its own thread.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X