this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2025

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Linux is now the best gaming system. (blog.fernvenue.com)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 days ago (3 children)

On the one hand, there absolutely are some places where Linux has so dramatically improved it's insane. Apps like Lutris have really blown me away, it's incredible how some popular multiplayer titles like World of Warcraft which used to take me hours to get running back in high school can now practically run out of the box.

On the other hand, one of the major gpu manufacturer's still has terrible driver support. Systems like Proton are imperfect, and seem to be depressing interest in making native Linux clients. Even though some things work out of the box, you can just as easily spend months failing to get a modern title running. To argue it's the best gaming system is just laughable. In some respects, it hasn't progressed at all in the last decade. When it gets to a point where users can run literally any game out of the box without any additional hassle, then it will be the best gaming system. Until then, this is a gross exaggeration at best.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago (1 children)

But it's not like Windows is necessarily better! I've spent far longer trying to get some games to work on there than I do on Linux. I've spent more time on random driver issues in Windows than I do on Linux. I'm quite technical, and Windows has been far more frustrating in the bad cases - especially when talking about older games.

When it gets to a point where users can run literally any game out of the box without any additional hassle, then it will be the best gaming system. Until then, this is a gross exaggeration at best.

No, that's ridiculous. It will be the best gaming system when it can run more games out of the box without any additional hassle than Windows can. I'm not sure we've reached that point, but we're damn close - since I switched to Linux full-time, there's been a handful of games that I've had trouble getting to work, but all of them were niche (or modded) games. All the big titles have worked flawlessly, and better than on Windows (since all the additional crap like launchers, background services etc. are contained to when the game is running).

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I've spent more time on random driver issues in Windows than I do on Linux.

I'd honestly be interesting to hear why this is, because it's the exact opposite for me. I can count on my hands the number of times I've experienced driver issues on Windows. Now, I typically only use stable updates, so I generally avoid the dreaded "new update breaking driver compatibility" or "new driver incompatible with old version" issues, but compared to working with Nvidia drivers on Linux? literal night and day difference. even trying to stick to the stable 535 drivers on Ubuntu 22.04 has been a huge nightmare, and many of my favorite titles are still unplayable after weeks of tinkering.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

On Windows, I've had countless instances where a game wouldn't start after updating NVidia drivers (updates recommended by Geforce Now, to simplify/streamline the process). I've also had cases where game A wouldn't start with driver X, and game B wouldn't start with driver Y, so I had to uninstall & reinstall when I wanted to play either. This has also bricked Windows installs before.

Compared to that I haven't had any NVidia driver issues on Linux, apart from (and since) the Wayland sync issues last year. But I also chose a distro that handles it all for me (first Fedora Kinoite through Ublue, later Aurora). It just works, especially since I'm not doing any driver installs or anything myself. It's just handled for me, I get a new image, and everything works.

The worst I've had were issues that were solved by doing a Flatpak update.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It's so wild, it's like we're in different mirror universes. That being said, I've never used either of the two distros you mentioned, which might honestly be my biggest issue; saying you have a problem with Linux, or trying to claim Linux as the best gaming system, is such a meaningless sentence because of the variety of distros available. I can absolutely believe that you've never had an issue with the distros you listed, but you have to also understand I've persistently experienced issues every time I've tried Mint and Ubuntu.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Oh, I definitely believe you regarding Mint/Ubuntu. I've had plenty of issues with Ubuntu (not with gaming, but regular applications). Inevitably, every install turns into a Frankenstein monster of deviations and abnormalities, especially after updates. While I've had good experiences with Debian, I'm still scared every time there's a big system update.

That's why I immediately jumped on the Atomic Fedora train when I first heard of it, and I couldn't be happier. That's because it actually fixes the issue by ensuring everyone has the same system. My Aurora install is pretty much exactly the same as anyone elses (except for 2-3 packages I've layered on top). That's because it's literally the same Docker image running on everyones PC, with the system itself being immutable. All my actual dev stuff, my application-specific things and everything non-default is running nicely contained inside distrobox containers, so my system isn't different from anyone elses install. It dramatically cuts down on the possible incompatibilities.

And if there's an issue, I just boot into an earlier version. That works even when there's been a major version update. It's amazing, I can't recommend it enough if you want stability.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

On my rog ally X no man's sky runs far better on bazzite than windows. On windows, it's unplayable

It's quite easy. Just don't buy NVIDIA...Consoles aren't using NVIDIA either and with the tariffs they make even less sense

My experience with Linux is that a lot of games tend to run better than windows these days

Not everyone wants to play AAA stuff

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (8 children)

The main game I'm having problems with is an indie online title whose recent update peaked at less that 150k players. I don't care for AAA either, indie games also break on Linux.

You can definitely say "Oh just don't support Nvidia," but I bought my card nearly 10 years ago, and at the time it was the best I could afford. Upgrading to an AMD card would be great, but absolutely not happening any time soon in the current economic climate. If your response to that is "oh well get fucked ig," pretty hard to argue Linux as a universal gaming solution.

On top of all of this, it seems like everyone in this thread who's had success with gaming on Linux is saying run Bazzite, an OS I'd never heard of prior to reading responses here. That's cool if there's a distro that's actually solved a lot of gaming issues, but if I haven't heard of it, the average user is never going to find it. Maybe the title of this article should have been "Bazzite is now the best system for gaming."

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

I second your feelings on bazzite. Last year when I switched to Linux I spent a while researching the best distro for gaming and what I could find pointed to PopOS or Mint. Never even heard of bazzite.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 days ago (7 children)

I just installed bazzite on a spare drive this week, trying to get off win11.

So far generally pretty impressed but hardware support is eh for some lesser known devices. For example my headset (Lucidsound LS50) detects the dongle but can't find drivers for the dedicated wireless channel and Bluetooth is patchy at best.

It's friction points like that that make migration from a lifetime of windows challenging.

Hopefully I'll figure out a solution that doesn't involve replacing the headset!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

@Mossheart @cm0002

If the pain is not enough to replace a headphone with a new one , you most likely aren't ready to change for linux right now. There will be more you need to learn, more which feels different and more which won't work first try or even requiere you to rethink or replace things.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Man if only Linux was open source and manufacturers could easily create drivers for it at any time...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

Sure but being able to and having a manufacturer actually do it are very different!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

Well, at least you got that far. Imagine if you tried migrating to MacOS.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

Not sure. Usually having BlueZ(Linux bluetooth audio stack) and glue in audio server or bluez-alsa should be enough.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago

Drivers

Linux has no problem with them. Unlike only one manufacturer, that breaks all drivers without holy blessing since late Maxwell era.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Not really. Linux is all about openness and choice, but going with Linux as the only OS will significantly limit what you can play. As a modder, I'm against EAC and and the like as much as the next person here, but ideally I want to be able to play anything that looks appealing, not have to skip games for no reason other than their anti-cheat solutions not being compatible with Linux. I agree that we shouldn't support those practices, but it's one thing to willingly boycott something and another is to not have that agency at all.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

Some anticheat work perfectly fine in some games

I believe it’s largely to do with devs that want to limit themselves to a sole demographic

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