this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2024
480 points (98.6% liked)

Linux Gaming

18019 readers
17 users here now

Gaming on the GNU/Linux operating system.

Recommended news sources:

Related chat:

Related Communities:

Please be nice to other members. Anyone not being nice will be banned. Keep it fun, respectful and just be awesome to each other.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I recently spent some time with the Framework 13 laptop, evaluating it with the new Intel Core Ultra 7 processor and the AMD Ryzen 7 7480U. It felt like the perfect opportunity to test how a handful of games ran on Windows 11 and Fedora 40. I was genuinely surprised by the results!

...

The Framework 13 is perfectly capable of gaming even with its integrated graphics, provided you’re willing to compromise by lowering the resolution and quality presets for more demanding games. (It’s also a testament to how far AMD’s APUs have come in the past decade.)

Summary of results:

  • Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Linux wins
  • Total War: Warhammer III: Windows wins
  • Cyberpunk 2077: Linux wins
  • Forza Horizon 5: Windows wins

These results are an interesting slice of the Linux vs Windows gaming picture, but certainly not representative of the entire landscape. A few shorts years ago, however, I never would have dreamed I’d be writing an article where even two games on Linux are outperforming their Windows counterparts.

Archived Link

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 63 points 9 months ago (2 children)

When I started using linux 15 years ago, my friend recommended to keep a windows partition for gaming. At least for me, I have deleted windows a few years ago and I'm not looking back.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 9 months ago (2 children)

If you play DRMed AAA stuff, that's still true unfornately (if you can't do VM with PCIe passthrough).

Personally I just opt to not play these games. The market dicides in the end.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Some of the "anticheat" systems straight up decide not to work on VMs even with PCIE passthrough et. al. For example, I cannot run Elden Ring with its trash DRM because it says it cannot run under VM. I have PCIE passthrough, and the CPU id also passes through. Only the chipset reports anything VM, yet the "anticheat" decides not to run.

Fuck DRM. It has done nothing except push me to pirate more when I LITERALLY AM buying the games. Fuck those greedy actual morons (corporations who deploy DRM, not FromSoft specifically).

[–] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago

Elden Ring does run quite nicely on Linux via Proton, though.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago

My gaming PC was the last one I had running Windows. I couldn't take it anymore and this year I switched that one too.

Now if only I could run (my perfectly legal copy of) SOLIDWORKS decently, it'd be great.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's just easier to get old windows games running on Linux.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

For some reason I just can't get warcraft 3 and StarCraft 1 running through wine

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Try Bottles! Available as flatpak so as long as you don'y have hate for flatpak, Bottles is there. All the normal flatpak benefit + a pretty great UI.

Not sure to WC3 suppose to run, but SC1 I owned on Bnet and I can tell, it works well with just a standard b.net install button in Bottles. SC2, HotS, D2R, D3 and so on I own run just fine, and fast too

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 45 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Suprised that forbes is reporting about linux

[–] [email protected] 35 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's their community blog. This specific person has been writing there about Linux gaming for a long time now.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

ah alright, thank you

[–] [email protected] 43 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I think it says a lot more about how much recent versions of Windows have bogged down the whole gaming experience.

Microsoft seems to have forgotten that people want an operating system that works, not something bloated with bullshit like telemetry, advertisements, tracking cookies and artificial intelligence. The only reason they even have a market lead in the desktop space is due to marketing and monopolistic practices.

[–] fernlike3923 15 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I wonder how Windows would perform against Linux with all bloatware removed and telemetry disabled.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago (1 children)

would there even be an OS left?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That's not an OS, that's three spywares in a trenchcoat!

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

I don't see a problem with anonymozed telemetry. I see a problem with it when it's used for other things than making your own software better directly though.

At this point Windows should be free of charge.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

Oh, they know what people want in an OS, the thing is that they don't care. People who know better can complain all they want, normies and most corpos will get windows anyway

[–] [email protected] 30 points 9 months ago

Im so glad I fully switched to Linux. I was amazed how good the gaming performance have come nowadays. I tried out Ubuntu back in 2007 and have tried some other distros too during the years, but always went back to Windows because of games. Not anymore.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago (9 children)

What I'm still missing unfortunately is how seemingly all modern online games require stupid kernel level anti-cheats that don't work on Linux.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Yea, but honestly that's not a Linux problem imo. Invasive anti-cheat has been a deal breaker for me since its inception. It started as "I don't want to deal with your shitty software always running in the background eating up my CPU cycles, need maximum performance baby" and then quickly became "I'm not giving your shitty software kernal access to my entire machine, I don't trust you".

It's made so much worse when you realize it doesnt even actually stop cheaters...

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I must admit that my evil self impatiently waits for a crowdstrike-like event, but with a kernel-level anti-cheat instead. On the more serious side, it baffles me how much the vast majority of people don't care about privacy or security problematics. They literally don't give a f**k.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

They probably don't even know it's happening.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (2 children)

You’re right it’s not a Linux problem but it is a problem more to the point it’s our problem and anyone who would want to switch

Cold hard fact is that people just do not care what causes the problem and people do not care if something is %1 worse or %1000 worse they will always pick the one slightly better that’s why monopoly’s are an inherent part of nature eventually competition is unviable.

The only hope is that either Linux crosses the critical threshold of being slightly better than Windows or windows gets so invasive and counterintuitive that even normies can’t use it for productivity

I use Linux all the time I have three physical servers running probably 20 or 30 VM’s and containers but even I am hesitant to switch my gaming Pc because even though I can play everything I want now what if tomorrow something comes out I really want to play but it’s locked down to windows?

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (2 children)

If Microsoft makes good on their threats to cut off all kernel-level access to third party applications, that might help with that

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (7 replies)
[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago

I'm more surprised by the ease of use than the performance, honestly.

[–] azvasKvklenko 15 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Oh, the article is written by Jason Evanghelo. Of course, he’s a giant Linux shill working at Forbes :D

Still great to see such press

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (10 children)

Aw, I can't get cyberpunk to run on my mint install - it gets the logos and stops responding.

Some people read about performance, sometimes I'm just motivated knowing someone on the internet did get a game running in the first instance! :)

I will say though, Baldurs Gate 3 works perfectly, as does anything else I throw at it! :)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Cyberpunk worked out of the box for me, but senua 2 absolutely refuses to start no matter what kind of voodoo I try ("fatal error"). I seem to always be on the opposite spectrum of protondb mint users I swear.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

It wouldn't run for me until I got the Steam version (in Tumbleweed). Works great now.

It would have been better if it had worked with just one copy though. At least I got it on sale.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (9 replies)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Sometimes i feel weird and impressed with Microsoft that allow third party to create windows emulation system that beat original windows in many ways

[–] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (5 children)

It is mostly a translation layer -- WINE is Not an Emulator (WINE). The reason Microsoft 'allows' this is because they have no choice. WINE hasn't broken any laws or violated any copyright or trademarks. Same goes for Proton with DXVK of course.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

Fun fact: With those 4 games it looks like a tie, but weighed by Steam scores, Linux wins. (Warhammer has like 3/5).

(Disclaimer: I have never played any of those 4 games and don't plan to in a forseeable future. I also realize full well how ridiculously insignificant a sample of 4 is.)

load more comments
view more: next ›