Dual-booting Windows 11 and Fedora 38. Gaming on Win 11 is, as expected, most times great. I want to migrate to Fedora and use it as a daily driver, and while it does a damn good job at doing just that, it's disturbingly aweful at gaming. I've installed Steam and I set out to try a couple of games to see what it would handle.
It should be noted that I'm not a hardcore gamer, and I've historically not gamed on PC (but PS and Xbox), so I don't have quite the extensive library of games on Steam like many others do. I've got Game Pass, but that won't help me here. Anyhow... the games I've tried to run are games that I currently have on Steam.
Hardware:
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CPU: Ryzen 5 4600G
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GPU: RX 6700 XT
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RAM: 32 GB 3200 MHz
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SSD: 4 TB M.2
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I expected Civilization VI to run fine, and... it did. although anti-aliasing decided not to work.
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Humankind, does not run. At all.
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Broforce does in fact run perfectly fine!
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F1 2015 (don't laugh, it was free), does run and it does in fact run at max settings, but the controls (keyboard + xbox) are fucked, so that's also a no go.
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Red Dead Redemption 2, hahaha no.
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Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, hahah no, for some reason.
While I "love" and support "Linux", this doesn't cut it. Why am I even "here"? I've been using "Linux" for at least 15 years (incl. Windows),but if I want to play a God damn fucking game, I want to play it now, not tomorrow, or after I've googled a fucking hack that'll break x amount of shit and take me hours to get running. This is why I'll still use Win 11 as my daily.
Fedora as an OS is smooth, quick AF and I very much like it. Gaming on it? God no.
My point is, while Win 11 is basically "don't worry, it'll run!", Linux (or Fedora at least is "I don't know... maybe?". That won't convince a lot of people, and currently not me.
EDIT: THIS IS WHY LEMMY IS BETTER THAN REDDIT. HUMAN CONVERSATION. THANK YOU ALL
I agree that the experience on Linux is quite variable; I set up my Linux installation to play games once 3 years ago (it didn't take me hours) and my Steam games are plug and play. I don't play all the games from those lists but RDR2 plays perfectly fine for me. Occasionally, there would be updates that would introduce a regression for some games (DX12 is still a bit hit or miss on some titles) and it would take a few searches to find a workaround, but I can accept that, since I can stay on an OS I trust and would rather use. Rarely, there would be a serious bug or issue that I find difficult to triage because I can't tell whose fault it is between Proton/Wine, Steam, Nvidia etc. But this happened once in the past few years.
I think what would help is Steam making their own Wiki (with contributors) on gaming on Linux for its own platform for players who just want a streamlined experience.
But communities like /c/linux_gaming (or its orange site equivalence) are ways to get support and help one another. You could even see it as the "friends you make along the way".
I would say gaming on Linux has come a long way since, but depending on how much time and energy one has for the occasional tinkering, one might need to exercise more patience. Sounds like Windows gives you what you need, and that's okay.
I’ve gone through about a dozen distros over the last year since I decided to use Linux exclusively, finally landing on EndeavourOS as my current home distro.
You know what I’ve found? I don’t play games nearly as much, because due to whatever the hell is wrong with my brain, I enjoy the troubleshooting as much or more than the gaming. It’s become an unexpected weekend joy to find some random game from my past have an absolute ball tinkering to make it work only to finally launch the game and say “alright, that was fun” and go to bed.
I should probably see a professional.
You and I both ;)
Yeah me too
Okay I thought I was the only weirdo who had more fun installing and tweaking a game than playing it.
This is exactly what set me on my career path from my time as a teenager finding games on the seven seas. I found that I enjoyed doing all of the service administration, hacking, tweaking, and troubleshooting to get the games working, managed, and distributed more than actually playing the games.
I spent more time on ripping and copying PlayStation games than I did playing them.
A+ reply. I totally agree. I'll say that the platform is NOT the problem, but the approach. What is "Linux" these days? A colleague who've been using Windows for all his 35 years asked my yesterday about Linux. "What's the best Linux-thing (distro) for a noob like me that's used to Windows?", was basically his question.
My question then is "Well, do you game?" Of course, he games. He just bought Baldur's Gate 3. He's set for "life" (cough 1-6 months?). Anyhow, knowing he's playing Baldur's Gate 3, LoL, and WoW (yup), I don't dare push him on his "linux quest" quite yet.
Linux is fantastic if you know what you want.
Also worth noting that the fact that Linux gaming works at all on many "Windows-exclusive" titles is an absolute magnificent feat of engineering. For the longest time we've been working to get games working on Linux despite both game developers and engine makers historically expressing anything between disinterest and antagonism towards supporting games on Linux.
But I also get that the final product is still not all that smooth from a user's perspective. Just be sure to put the blame on where it belongs (definitely not Linux, or Wine who has been bending over backwards for over a decade to swim against the flow).
Much appreciated! Hope to see you around here again.
LoL and WoW basically work perfectly on Linux (platinum rated). As for BG3, it works fine for the most part with Proton-GE / Proton Experimental. But since it's still very new though, expect bugs, but also expect the compatibility to get even better within the next few weeks.
Really though, the question shouldn't be "do you game", but "do you like tinkering around, fixing things, troubleshooting, and learning new things, in your free time? ", or, "do you like major changes, and having the patience to make a major change in your life work, or would you rather prefer familiarity and stability, a mindset of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'?"
If someone has been running Windows for 35 years and hasn't checked out Linux already in some capacity, I doubt they're the kind who likes change, the kind of person who likes to experiment and tinker. Personally, I wouldn't recommend Linux to them based on that reason, unless they're also the non-tech-savvy kind who have very simple requirements - like my Mum and Dad, who've been running Linux for over a decade now without any issues (because their requirements are very simple, so Linux fits their needs perfectly).
Wait, but the three games you listed all work great on Linux. I'm confused. I am a few hours into BG3, I play LoL a few times a week, and I know WoW works because I played a ton of Hearthstone and Overwatch a few years back and those were some of the first games working well with DXVK. So I know Battle.net games usually work great.
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My response to his question is usually linux mint