Linux gamers

[Alyxx Thorne]

Any fellow Linux gamers on the forums? How's your experience gaming on Linux? Which is your preferred Distro and software? Would love to hear from you!

[ScumCoder]

I’m your stereotypical Linuxoid and even I am not refined enough to use it for games.

IMHO it makes more sense to just admit that this is one (single) task which is better done by Windows.

 

In my opinion, an OS is (and should be treated as) but a layer between the hardware and the application. It’s the application that the user interacts with, not the OS. Hence, the quality of an OS is measured by how well it allows the application to run.

For most (I’d say the overwhelming majority) of applications, Linux does a better job at this. For games – no.

 

Thus, I do just that – treat Windows as a (thin) layer needed to run games. I have a separate SSD with Windows 10 installed, and on top of it, the only installed applications are games. Whenever I have spare time to play, I physically attach it to the motherboard, physically detach everything else (both operations boil down to pressing a button), and play the game.

 

Since I use Windows for nothing else – even the process of buying these games is done from Linux – it is physically unable to harm (e.g. spy on) anything important I do. Even if it breaks after one of the updates, the worst thing that will happen is that I won’t be able to play games. It won’t be good, but compared to the utter catastrophe that looms above anyone using Windows for crucial tasks like work, this is nothing.

[Generic-User]

On 6/19/2022 at 4:20 AM, ScumCoder said:

Thus, I do just that – treat Windows as a (thin) layer needed to run games. I have a separate SSD with Windows 10 installed, and on top of it, the only installed applications are games. Whenever I have spare time to play, I physically attach it to the motherboard, physically detach everything else (both operations boil down to pressing a button), and play the game.

Nothing like internally air-gapping your own system against Windows.

 

Long term I'm eventually looking to switch over to Linux, but haven't decided yet how I want to handle the whole gaming situation. If I go the dual boot route, might keep this idea in mind.

[Alyxx Thorne]

I've more or less permanently switched to Linux and so far gaming has not been a problem for me. Most modern games run fine with Proton/Wine through Steam or Heroic Games Launcher for Epic and GOG.

 

I run Windows XP in a VM for some older games that either don't have Linux source ports or straight up refuses to work through Wine but that's a very small number of games.

 

Naturally you won't get the same performance as on Windows so if that's a big concern then running Windows games natively is of course the better option. But I just can't stand Windows anymore so I'd rather take the performance hit since the compatibility has become so high at this point.

Edited June 26, 2022 by Alyxx Thorne (see edit history)

[dancingPelican]

tried mint for a while and, tbh, not that diferent, i was able to play on steam normally and emulating the ps1 was actually so easy i just couldn't bellieve it.
Got back to win10 because factorio ran like shit using linux (my pc is shit) but in win10 runs just fine

(even tho i have to debloat the SHIT out of win10, it's a process i actually enjoy)

[polymerize-finale]

I play basically all games on Linux now. So far, I have encountered exactly one game with issues running on Linux, an indie game called 

Dujanah. Every modern AAA game and every other indie game I've ever tried works great. I understand that some games-as-a-service multiplayer microtransaction trash games (e.g. Lost Ark, Genshin Impact) do not work on Linux since they rely on proprietary anti-cheat technology which doesn't work on Linux, but I don't play those games and thus don't really care.

 

There's a very good reason for this: Linux is now a serious gaming platform officially supported by a major gaming company, namely Valve. Valve decided they wanted to make a hardware gaming device for PC games: the Steam Deck. This device needs an operating system. Valve had two choices. They could license a mobile edition of Windows for use on the deck, probably have to pay Microsoft on the orders of tens of dollars PER UNIT, and then when it had bugs have a nightmare of a time getting Microsoft to fix them. Or they could pay a dozen guys to work full-time on making Wine (which was already quite good) better, shove it into a Linux distro, and be able to fix everything that went wrong themselves. Obviously, they went with option 2. They probably did this for the O($50 Million) which they'd rather keep than give to Microsoft, but they certainly don't mind making regular Linux gaming better.

And it is better. Proton (Valve's Wine distribution) is very smoothly integrated into Steam, to the point that it's just a few button clicks to use for basically any game. If you want to use a custom wine build (like the popular Glorious Eggroll Proton) it's no longer mindless, but it's still trivial for anyone who can read & follow a few simple instructions.

But even without Proton, lots of indie games are made for engines for which cutting a native Linux build is just one more build target to add to your CI pipeline. So for example Hollow Knight offers a native build for Linux. From the perspective of an engine developer like Unity, it makes sense to create an OS-independent abstraction for your users. And you might as well implement the Linux version of "load a game dll" in addition to the Windows one because it's really easy and it lets you advertise "every platform!" And from the perspective of the indie dev using the engine, you really want to stay within the abstraction provided by the engine developer rather than trying to get clever since basically everything you want to do will go much smoother that way. As a result, native Linux game builds are extremely common.

[kerdios]

just a bit of nitpicking, O(50 Million)=O(1)

Edited October 23, 2023 by kerdios (see edit history)

[ScumCoder]

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just a bit of nitpicking, O(50 Million)=O(0)

Uh... no. The O's argument is the upper bound function, in this case, a constant 50 million. O(0) would mean "for free" ("bounded by zero from above").

[polymerize-finale]

On the one hand, kerdios should have said `O(50M) = O(1)`, but also both of you are being needlessly pedantic.

 

The expression `O(N)` is typically read as "On the order of N." When used in the context of ordinary language, this means "about N" or "approximately N". Of course it means something much more specific in mathematics, but who thought I was doing math? I'm not seeing a lot of hands.

[ScumCoder]

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who thought I was doing math? I'm not seeing a lot of hands.

Who the hell uses Big O notation "in the context of ordinary language"?... I'm not seeing a lot of hands

[ScumCoder]

Also, if we are being pedantic, O(50M) != O(1). Both mean that the function in question is bound by a constant, but which constant is very much a big deal (that's the reason why a lot of times O(n) brute-force algorithms are much faster - because n is small, and for competing O(1) algorithms said constant is huge). The only reason why - in informatics! - the exact constant in O(1) case is not considered important is that it's hard to come up with a convenient universal unit of measurement for algorithmic complexity, so O(1) is supposed to mean "1 in whatever measurement units you want".

[kerdios]

fixed it, thanks for correcting me

[polymerize-finale]

 

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Also, if we are being pedantic, O(50M) != O(1). Both mean that the function in question is bound by a constant, but which constant is very much a big deal 

 

Oh for christ's sake....

 

We say f(x) = O(g(x)) if there exists constants C and x0 such that |f(x)| <= C*g(x) for all x > x0.

 

Let f(x) = O(M) where M is a constant and M > 1. Then |f(x)| <= C*M for x > x0. Then f(x) = O(1) because there exists a constant D such that |f(x)| <= D for all x > x0, namely C*M.

 

Let f(x) = O(1). Then |f(x)| <= C for all x > x0. If M > 1, C < C*M, so |f(x)| <= C*M for all x > x0, so f(x) = O(M).

 

Therefore, f(x) = O(M) if and only if f(x) = O(1).

 

Now that I've supplied a LITERAL FUCKING MATHEMATICAL PROOF of this, can we please get back to discussing linux gaming?

Edited November 19, 2023 by polymerize-finale
quote (see edit history)