this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2023
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Honest question - what is the current problem(s) in Linux gaming? And I don't mean that the way it sounds, I just haven't done it in a long long time. I mean back then it had to have a linux specific version and you had to deal with X11 mouse input.
Now with Wayland and things like steamdeck existing I'm surprised it's not more viable.
I'm sure it's a long list but what are the main factors? Just a curiosity. Unfortunately I just don't get to play games these days. Still GPU and sound driver issues? Publishers refusing to take the extra steps to make a multi platform engine work on it? Too many unknowns based on flavor of Linux installed?
I'm not the guy you asked but I can answer for myself - it's still not nearly as effortless to use for gaming as windows. I work with computers all day, so when I sit down to game at night I absolutely refuse to debug shit. For Starfield as an example, it works via proton, but the protondb page is full of "to get around X issue use the following workaround", and I just can't be bothered.
I use Linux for work and hobby software development, but for me to switch my gaming pc over would require it to not just be "viable", but effortless
Thank you, that's the perspective I was looking for.
And while i understand, it's certainly not limited to games or Linux. I too just want things to work and it's become a struggle for one reason or another. I can find a common thread on that but probably not the place for that.
I am optimistic though that gaming will continue to get better and that will be helpful. Despite all the faults it's at least going in the right direction.
I will say this - nowadays I have to figure out maybe 5% of games I play on Linux, and often times those games have issues with certain windows setups too
That's actually pretty positive. Probably a multitude of reasons but in my very limited experience with recent games they are pushed out with tons of problems on any platform. Sometimes the game was just rushed out and this is what turned me off of games for the most part. "It's online, we can just patch it later!"
Also not a fan of paying for the privilege of being a beta tester. Open betas used to be fun times.
That said, based on yours and others replies i think it seems worth it to dig up an old ssd and try some of my games out on Linux on my main. Honestly it seems way better than what it was years ago so I should go see for myself. Thanks!
Absolutely. It's honestly the older titles that tend to work better as well, perfect for an older setup. A nice static target for the conversion layer. Proton was pretty good 3 years ago, now it's amazing.
Lots of Devs I've noticed tend to be happy to tweak things on their end to get something to work better with Proton as well, or if we're lucky they just use Vulkan out of the gate and make it a very straightforward job.
A good benchmark is seeing how steam deck users get along with that game. If they don't hit any snags it's a very good chance you won't either
Great info, thanks. Most of my hardware is old. But that's actually a good thing I think. I have a Lenovo ideacentre i plucked back from a friend as it was gathering dust. I upgraded the ram and SSD and installed neon on a whim and it's amazing.
That's what sorta started tracking me back.. have continued using Linux for servers but i was impressed at that desktop. Now I know neon is a bit bleeding edge so any recommendations on a distro? I started with freebsd back in the day, then gentoo for desktop, then Ubuntu minimal for servers if that helps. Not afraid to get my hands dirty but prefer simplicity.
I found a 256GB SSD that should be enough for some testing. I need to grab some files off it but then it's ready to go. Distro advice appreciated. Remember i just want to test :) TIA