TL;DR; tried gaming on Linux again after not having done so for ~10 years and am absolutely blown away by how much improved it is
Today I decided to get some use out of an older/leftover PC that I had laying around after upgrading. My plan was to plug it into the TV in our lounge room so that my 5 year old can play some of the less demanding games she enjoys from my steam library (stuff like Slime Rancher 2).
Originally my plan was to install Windows on it only to discover I couldn’t do this due to TPM / secureboot requirements that the older hardware couldn’t handle, this was infuriating and felt like I couldn’t use my own machine which used to run Windows fine.
To understand where I’m coming from; I’ve been a Linux user on and off for more than a decade and in the past had been able to play some games using Wine but it was often fiddly or simply wouldn’t run the game well enough which is why I generally just dual boot Windows for gaming.
I decided to give Linux a try as I’d heard steam has made gaming on Linux much more approachable than it once was using a proton compatibility layer (which under the hood uses Wine but making it a bit easier to use).
After installing Ubuntu 23, Steam and then enabling the proton compatibility in Steam settings I am absolutely amazed at how easy it was to get most games working!. My daughter has been playing Slime Rancher 2 and it works really well and I’ve also tested a few other games such as Cult of the Lamb and Dredge and they also worked well. This is such a leap forward to how I remember the state of things back ~10 years ago when I last played games on Linux.
From recent developments it seems like gaming on Linux is really beginning to pick up momentum and I look forward to the day game publishers place great import on releasing native Linux ports but until then am super grateful for the work the good people at Wine have been doing as well as Proton and Steam for making it easier to use.
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Many games even run better on linux with proton than on windows, due to package bundling and stuff. Though the games I play the most already have native linux support.
Not to mention older games run better on Linux because of better compatibility than on Windows.
It is so bad that sometimes certain games even use Wine’s DirectX dlls are used to improve performance on these older games, lol
I keep hearing this, but I personally have yet to see it. Definitely most of my games run just as well on linux, but otherwise some of them are still glitchy.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll never go back to Windows, I love Linux, but what are these games that run better on Linux?
As I understand, it’s not common, but when it does happen it’s really because vulkan is just that much better than the original directx implementation, even with DXVK working to translate all the system calls.
It’s honestly gotten to a point where I don’t even check ProtonDB anymore unless it’s a brand new game. Generally things just work.
Yeah - I’d narrow that down to brand new AAA game (likely to have Denuvo) or multiplayer, as some anticheats don’t work. Basically everything else now? Perfect.
I took the day off work to play Elden Ring when it first came out, and was gutted when it didn’t start on Linux. Glorious Eggroll had the fix up about three hours later, after which it’s been absolutely perfect.
Anti cheats one of the more stubborn hurdles left
With the success of Steam Deck it will only get better and better.
As a Linux user, the Steam Deck is an amazing system to work with. I kinda dropped off with gaming in the last few years and the SD really rekindled my desire to game both solo and doing cozy co-op with my partner.
Truly a game changer and I’m so happy it’s supporting Linux while doing it
Haha forreal, my Steam Deck is the primary thing getting me to play through my backlog of single player games. Spent the past 2 weeks playing a ton of Yakuza 0 and will now probably go back and play the rest of the series in order on this thing. What a beautiful device
All because some weeb wanted to play Nier: Automata.
2B’s bum has been a major contributor to Linux gaming.
Too be fair it’s an excellently modelled bum.
The game’s director seems to agree:
Because of the brouhaha over 2B’s butt, there are loads of rude drawings and whatnot being uploaded [online]. And since going around and collecting them is a pain, I’d like it if I could get them sent in a zip file every week.
For real, the world of Linux gaming owes a lot to Valve and to Proton’s contributors. The last five years have taken gaming on Linux from a fiddly nightmare to, in many cases, performance as good as native. There has never been a better time to run Linux as your primary operating system.
I only game on linux and regret nothing.
Yeah I am currently using my steam deck as a main desktop drive, I was blown away at how good this operating system is. I can’t go back. I just can’t. The only thing that pisses me off is that I can’t use adobe software, but hey my wallet is thanking me.
What really makes me happy, is no ads. No store, no xbox icon, no bloatware, no <activate windows>, no edge being like a jealous gf, no programs to install programs, no windows defender making me paranoid, no firewall, no forced graphics chosen for me by microsoft, no ten ways to do the same action…
Honestly I don’t know why I didn’t switch. I remember trying to get a computer without windows and my brother advising against it, I want to go back in time and slap him from depriving me from such a well conceived experience.
Proton is so great that I buy a few games, play them for hours, just to realize there wasn’t a native Linux version. I don’t even notice.
I know I’m super late to this post, but I just bought a brand new gaming laptop that came with w11. Was installing games to play and installed days gone. It refused to launch. Went over to my steam deck, installed it, and it ran flawlessly.
Moral of the story, w11 is so bad that sometimes games work better on Linux! 😂
What fascinates the most about desktop Linux and gaming on Linux is that all of that was achieved with limited funding compared to the Microsoft ecosystem. Imagine what could be possible with more market share and more companies investing in the space. The current state is already great, but I believe we are just getting started.
Years ago I moved to Linux and one of the reasons was to not spend as much time gaming. Nowadays if I wanted to do the same I would have to move to BSD.
IIRC PS5 is BSD based, so don’t hold your breath.
Big thank you to all outsourced and Steam developers. Steam is the one of a few companies that most of the time actually do great things for their player base
It’s crazy. I’ve tried 100s of games on my Steamdeck, and I can’t think of a single example where one straight up failed to run. The most I’ve had to do is change the Proton version after a bit of Googling. Best of all, it doesn’t feel compromised - it feels like you’re running natively.
(I should say, I don’t do much online gaming, so I haven’t been thwarted by anti-cheat)
I realised the other day how ubiquitous Linux has become in my life. I have a Steamdeck, I run Mint on my laptop. I have numerous Pis around the house doing various things. For emulation I have a MiSTerFPGA and a Miyoo Mini Plus. My arcade cab runs RetroPie. It all just kind of sneaked up on me…
It’s wild to me how native proton feels in so many games. Though, I’ll still have a special place in my heart for Super Tux Kart, Warsow, Armagetron Advanced, 0 A.D. et al. Not to mention all the ports Feral Interactive has done over the years.
