The majority of problems Linux has with gaming are intentional decisions on the part of the studios at this point.
I keep what I think is a pretty healthy gaming diet, which tends to steer me away from the megacorporate shit and into smaller studios and indies, and games just tend to run.
Even AAA games are fine, as long as they don’t have intrusive anticheat. If you’re after SP, non-VR gaming, Linux is ready today. If you want VR, you need to be more flexible with headsets. If you want MP, you need to be really flexible since devs intentionally block Linux for whatever reason.
I can install and play pretty much any single player game I want, even new releases, and I am confident I will be able to play it with no significant/noticable issue… and on the offchance there is one, it will most assuredly be fixed within a couple days with a proton update… and honestly its been like 2 years since that last happened to me.
The only time I even have to think about installing a game, and thus have to check protondb, is when I want to install an MMO or Multiplayer game…and a shocking amount of those work, too. Just not all of them, because of invasive anticheat.
I don’t think you need to be super flexible with Multiplayer as long as they aren’t competitive games. Here’s some multiplayer games I’ve played flawlessly in the last 12 months: Baldur’s Gate III, Webfishing, Deep Rock Galactic, Atlyss and Stardew Valley. It really depends on the genre I think.
I’d say the peripheral situation could be better too, such as sim racing gear. Logitech support is solid and looks decent with Fanatec at least, but there’s a lot of options out there that are unlikely to have good Linux support.
I tested out Monado recently with the Reverb G2 and it’s coming along nicely. It’s definitely not ready yet, but hopefully it will be within a few years.
Meh. Most games, I’d say. Couldn’t get Cyberpunk 2077 to run on Mint.
--launcher-skipshould fix it, according to ProtonDB.I looked on protondb of course. The issue isn’t the launcher, it does boot into the menu and freezes once I load a game.
Ok, then it’s probably some kind of system resource setting or something. I had an issue with Hogwarts Legacy freezing after an hour or two, and it was fixed by this setting change. Maybe that or a similar tweak is all you need. Or maybe just a GPU driver update.
I haven’t tried that game, but I will say most of the games I’ve tried work fine without any tweaks.
I love that you tried to help though. Thanks anyway.
I’m happy to. If you ever want to give it another try, there are tons of there willing to help as well.
Yes.
I have no problem playing games on Linux. Currently playing Baldur’s Gate 3. Only thing I had to was turn on compatibility in the steam settings.
Ugh, that’s too much work. I’m going back to Winblows
I’m playing Hogwarts Legacy and needed to tune one system setting to fix occasional crashes. That’s it, and that’s the most trouble I’ve had in a few years.
Which one? Maybe it can help my audio issue who brings random audio glitches
I think it was increasing vm.max_map_count. I had some weird glitches and it would crash after an hour or so, and this seems to have fixed it.
Thanks
I hope that fixes it!
Arch Linux already incremented vm.max count in a recent update, it seems fixed using these launch options:
DXVK_MEMORY_LIMIT_MB=14384 PROTON_ENABLE_NVAPI=1 DXVK_ASYNC=1 PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=30 gamemoderun %command%With latest Proton-GE
Do you mind me asking you which distro you use? I’ve tried running BG3 on Linux Mint and I can’t seem to get the game to ever load into the world. I get all the way to the in-game menu and into the loading screen after that and then it hangs and crashes. Every time. I’ve tried using a couple different versions of Proton, tried out a few different versions of Nvidia graphics drivers… No luck yet.
It runs fine on Linux Mint Debian under proton for me.
I’ve been gaming soley on linux since 2020 or 2021.
Yeah, its definitely ready now, most straggler games are basically massively overproduced and massively MTX exploitative team based shooters using kernel level anti cheat that are designed for children with mom’s credit card.
So what you are saying is “no, linux doesn’t let you play the games you want to play, especially the extremely popular ones”.
You can play most of the games you want to play, with the main caveats being VR and anti-cheat. If it’s SP and on a regular screen, it’ll probably work.
Pewdiepie apparently confirms that it is, atleast according to his latest video and his comment in the comment section.
Could you link them? That would give a massive boost in getting more people to sign up for Linux.
For example: https://phtn.app/post/lemmy.ml/26299109
There are a couple of other posts, you’ll find them quickly if you search for Pewdiepie.
I’ve been gaming on Linux exclusively for 5 years now. I have waited for some games to run better but it’s been generally great for me.
Which ones in particular? I have this issue on windows 10 as well. I’ve still not touched city skylines 2 and stalker 2. I just tried Jedi survivor, and honestly it was a mistake.
Might sound funny it’s usually the older titles. The longest I have waited for was Spellforce Platinum Edition. It always ran sluggish, now it probably runs better than on Windows. Another one was Agarest, it was kinda playable but with too much hassle. Well, I usually play older stuff anyway. Surprisingly I almost never had problems with new games. Maybe only Hell Let Loose but it was an anti-cheat issue.
Nah I get that, I’m glad that it’s improved so much over the years. I’m excited to build a new PC and never have it touch windows tbh.
Yeah, it’s been great. When Valve release Proton 10 soon, it’ll get even better (Wine 10 is awesome). It’s really cool to owning your system to full extend. With ads and telemetry stuff Windows has, I’m sure they cause your hardware to wear off lot faster. Hell they even require you to buy new hardware just to install their new OS.
That’s also my experience: there’s a certain generation of games, around 10 - 20 years old which have more likelihood of problems running in Linux than both older games and newer games.
I suspect it’s partly to do with the kind of DRM used by AAA publishers back then - for example the Steam Windows version of The Sims 3 will simply not work in Linux but a pirated version will work fine with no tweakings needed whilst other AAA games from that era need a lot of tweaking to get to work in Linux.
Meanwhile the most recent stuff just works with no need for tweaking.
I also noticed that these kind of games usually have problems on newer Windows versions as well. Not sure what causes this though, DRM is usual suspect. For me most of the time it’s some Japanese game that uses a weird custom engine. No problems with the ones that use Unreal Engine or Unity.
Same here.
In my transition from Windows to Linux on my main machine, one of the more funny discoveries I made was that for many older Windows games, Linux with Wine has better backwards compatibility than Windows.
What about flipping the question. Making modern games available on more platforms?
Why is the penguin holding it like that??
maybe its ai slop
because the pinguin is the linux gaming pc handing you the controler
Nice!
Have you tried to play with one without thumbs?
I will test this theory and report back
This illustration is triggering me
Pretty much, yeah. Only thing not 100% yet are some of the more obscure peripherals. Example: Eye and head tracking. While sticks can and do work in Linux, it would be nice if VKB, Virpil, etc had native Linux calibration tools.
Not until they implement 3D Settings page in the Nvidia control panel, and improve upon HDR support. Do those two things, and I will finally stop having to dual boot.
Edit: And yes anticheat needs to be sorted as well, as others have pointed out.
That’s nvidia’s proprietary software, only nvidia can add stuff to it.
As for anti-cheat, kernel level anti cheat is not going to happen on Linux, nor should it (or continue being used in Windows)
Yes, we know, but it’s still part of “Linux being ready for mainstream gaming”. If the average person (the mainstream) has to worry about stuff like that, then it isn’t ready for the mainstream.
Well I doubt the mainstream actually tweaks 3D settings in nVidia control panel. Anti cheat making some online games not work is a bigger issue but still not worth it.
Ahh, my apologies. I thought you were referring to the Nvidia drivers being proprietary in general, not just the lack of 3D settings in the control panel. I totally agree that those settings are not needed by mainstream users.
Or switch to an AMD GPU.
AMD can’t compete in the high end GPU market, but their CPUs kick ass. I play in 4K 144Hz with Ray Tracing. Find me an AMD GPU that can handle that, and I will glady sell the 4090.
You are like th 0.01% of gamers dude. 4K ray tracing is borderline luxury category.
In 30+ years of PC gaming, I’ve never had anything beyond a xx70 (midrange) GPU, so when I saw that the 4090 was actually considerably more powerful than the next card down (unlike the xx90tis and GTX Titans of the past), I decided to splurge for once in my life.
I promise you I’m not rich. I just had some extra life insurance money to spend.
Sorry, I did not mean to attack you personally. Te high-end GPU market is clearly NVidia territory and in my opinion so few people are using theses cards with Linux, the issues related with them might not get as much attention as the more mainstream stuff. No suprised AMD not even trying to compete with these cards and want to stay in mid-high range.
Thank you. But yes it gets tiring constantly getting berated for still using Windows. I’m aware that I’m a minority, but it is frustrating that Lemmy users love to attack me for using the OS that has the features I need as my primary platform. Believe me; I’d love to move to Arch full-time, but it’s just not capable enough yet for the high end.
I’ll probably still be using the same hardware 5 years from now, so I have my fingers crossed that Linux will eventually have better support for Nvidia GPUs and HDR displays by then.
the best card of the previous generation was probably the 4080 or the 7900xt. the performance per dollar is just not there for the top end. i bought an xtx for productive work and it benches very close to the 4090 in most things, only losing out in rt and xformers, but it also benches only a few percent better than the cheaper options. i just wanted the ram.
Sorry I’m not a fan of having a company create both the problem and the solution and then forcing the industry to go asking with it.
And fix issues with anticheat.
I would say mainstream should become this: game has client-side kernel level anti-cheat? Goes right into trash bin
Hell, I do not need any kernel-level third-party hacks to literally spend money on the Internet, and some company wants system-level access to my computer when I want to just have fun and do pew-pew? Lol, good luck with that
Get VR working without having to compile from source and it will be
VR is not mainstream gaming.
VR is a minority of a minority of a minority of gaming.
In addition to what others have said… It is?
I can plug in my index, open steam, and run VR games, just fine.
My HP Reverb G2 V2 isn’t.
What’s your point?
That microsoft didn’t enable the necessary software components to run windows mixed reality HMDs on linux?
The reverbs never natively supported any open standards like SteamVR or OpenXR.
WMR headsets are the ones that have been the hardest to get going with open VR systems like Monado, but that doesn’t mean that hardware that implemented sane standards isn’t already working great, which it is.
That said, WMR is partially working at this time.
Bottom line, if you use something that is actually supposed to work, it does. If you don’t, then yeah, the volunteer-created hacks to get things to work are still in progress.
What’s your point?
“Get VR working and it will be.”
“It is!”
“No, it is for your specific hardware and use case.”
That microsoft didn’t enable the necessary software components to run windows mixed reality HMDs on linux?
No - that’s a given. It’s that nobody has working third party software for my hardware yet, hence the “VR isn’t ready on Linux yet” statement.
The reverbs never natively supported any open standards like SteamVR or OpenXR.
I know.
WMR headsets are the ones that have been the hardest to get going with open VR systems like Monado, but that doesn’t mean that hardware that implemented sane standards isn’t already working great, which it is.
I know.
That said, WMR is partially working at this time.
I know.
Bottom line, if you use something that is actually supposed to work, it does. If you don’t, then yeah, the volunteer-created hacks to get things to work are still in progress.
I know.
My VR hardware is still not working, and Linux is clearly not “VR ready”.
By that logic android doesn’t work because you can’t use it on a iPhone.
Android doesn’t pride itself on its incredible hardware compatibility to the same extent that Linux does.
I realize that I am in no way entitled to other people’s labor to get WMR working on Linux, of course, but until this significant category of VR headsets does work on Linux, it is not VR ready.
And that justifies the double standard?
Who decided this is where the goalpost is, except for you?
Counter point: VR is working. It’s not working for your specific hardware and use case.
My Oculus Dev Kit 1 and 2 don’t work properly on Windows anymore. Does that mean Windows isn’t ready for gaming because my specific VR hardware doesn’t work on it? Or does it mean that “VR ready” doesn’t have to include every VR headset.
Counter-counter point: some VR is working. It’s not working for a significant portion of VR hardware, so it is not VR ready.
Windows isn’t ready for much of anything these days, so I’m not really sure why you’re trying to make that comparison with Linux, an OS that prides itself on openness and getting an insane variety of hardware working on it.
I agree that “VR ready” doesn’t have to include every single headset, but that’s pretty disingenuous when a significant number of VR headsets use(d) WMR. Linux will not be VR ready until WMR is working.
The number of different branded headsets using WMR doesn’t make it significant in any way. Based on Steam hardware survey, WMR headsets only account for 2.84% of VR headsets. Index, Quest 2, Quest 3 account for ~70% of VR headsets in use, and they all work on Linux. Index just naturally in SteamVR and it’s my understanding that setting up ALVR for the quest ones isn’t that tricky (but I’ve also never tried). And much of the remaining 30% other headsets work with ALVR too.
And the point of comparing things to Windows, is that if we’re stating “Linux isn’t ready for gaming because not every VR headset works”, then by that definition Windows isn’t either. Which you probably agree with, but generally speaking “people” / society view Windows as ready for gaming despite it not supporting every headset.
It’s basically getting into the “Fortnite doesn’t work on Linux” type of situation now. Some things are just never going to work, and it’s because of the creator of those things and not Linux itself, and who cares. Even if the things that don’t work are popular, that doesn’t mean that on the whole, the OS isn’t ready.
Also, according to steam only 1.9% of accounts have a VR headset. That alone makes VR an edge case. but 2.84% of 1.9% is 0.05% of overall steam accounts using WMR. I think Linux can be ready for gaming without WMR support.
it doesn’t work on windows anymore either
Then I’m really confused about how I was playing Beat Saber on my Windows partition last night.
Also, I’m not sure “it doesn’t work on Windows” is the standard the Linux community should be trying to live up to. My old laptop doesn’t work on Windows 10 or 11, but it runs modern Linux just fine.
Unless you’re just playing dumb, you should be aware that it has been removed from Windows 11. You can hold back the update for now at least (or stay on Windows 10).
Anyway Monado is coming along nicely, but unless Valve and the other companies they are involved in it start throwing more devs at it, there’s not much more that can be done.
I am aware of that. It was part of my decision to move to Linux (and to keep my Windows 10 partition).
That doesn’t change the fact that it also doesn’t work on Linux, which was the point of my original comment.
I look forward to Monado progressing, but in the meantime Linux is not a solution for gamers who care about VR and own a WMR headset.
With how long VR has been around, I can still count on one hand the number of people I know that have an entry level Quest, let alone good VR gear. For that reason, I dunno if I’d include VR in the definition of mainstream.
Its not mainstream. probably never be mainstream… Just like 3d TVs.
Its a rich mans hobby.
the only reason the quest is “cheap” in comparison is because its facebook and when it comes to facebook… you will always be the product. Its sold to you “cheap” compared to others, because they make that back and more on harvesting and selling the data they collect from you using it.
overwhelming majority of gamers use gaming to escape and relax. Jumping around a room exhausting yourself is kind of the antithesis to that.
Jumping around a room exhausting yourself is kind of the antithesis to that.
A coworker said he watches movies and stuff more than playing games, partly because of this. He was clear that he has VR games, but the required physical movement is sometimes not what he wants, and there’s the issue of lag-induced motion sickness besides.
Yep
There are people that want to interact with the movie, like those rocky horror special showings.
but the vast majority of people just want to sit back, relax, and enjoy.
Which is half the reason why VR will be a minority of gaming, and not mainstream. the other half, of course, being the insane costs.
Jumping around a room exhausting yourself is kind of the antithesis to that.
I’m not sure what games you’re playing, but most are what would be considered light to moderate exercise (unless you’re playing fitness focused games at a high level), hardly something that is going to exhaust yourself. I’ll add that many VR games are standing or sitting experiences (or are room scale but require nothing more than walking).
Nevertheless, there are barriers like the weight and heat of the headsets (and the price) so I don’t disagree that it’s not mainstream.
If you package it, they will come
A lot of people use Quest standalone, but the PC VR experience is much, much better if it can be setup right. Eliminating the major issues that hold it back from working would make a big difference.
That and a whole smorgasboard of Windows MR headsets will be useless bargain bin items soon, as Microsoft is pulling support for those headsets entirely, and I know the linux community has added support for Windows MR in Linux. They’re not bad headsets, and being super cheap would let a lot of people try out VR, even if the experience is a bit behind compared to the modern headsets (Index, Quest 3, etc.)
I know what you’re saying, and i kinda agree, but even including Windows, the share of VR users is still small, and that’s making use of drivers that generally work ootb. VR just isn’t as popular (yet?).
I didn’t know about Microsoft pulling away from MR. I would love to have a MR headset, so I’ll have to keep an eye out. Thanks!
About two years ago, Microsoft axed the entire MR devteam, and a few months back announced they will remove MR entirely in a future update to Windows.
I once had a Samsung Odyssey (not the +), and while the Quest 2 has a better screen resolution and much better controller tracking (and the 3 improves on both again), the Samsung’s OLED displays have way better contrast ratios, which makes it much better when running games that have dark scenes.
Steam VR mostly works. It’s one of the areas that takes a massive stinky performance hit, and there is no motion smoothing yet (somehow), but it does work. I’ve put thousands of hours into vrchat in it, played through all of Alyx, etc. all on Linux.
I recently switched my VR PC from Windows to Bazzite. No compiling necessary.
I played through HL Alyx on a baremetal PopOS! system and Valve Index, with no need to compile a kernel from source … in 2022.
Unless your using something like a Pimax its there. Have a look at Envision. You can install it from the AUR or a appimage from git both allow you to avoid having to compile from source. Envision allows you to use Monado if you have a wired headset or WiVRn if you have a quest or other wireless headset and can also install WlxOverlay or Stardust as overlays.
This page has whats compatible with what headsets https://lvra.gitlab.io/docs/hardware/
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It would be nice but according to Steam only 1.9% of users have VR headsets. So it’s naturally a slow development.
Gamers on Linux have minimal setup overhead.*
*as long as you stick with Steam. Anything else means going to Lutris, Heroic Games Launcher, etc which is far more hit or miss.
Added the missing qualifier to one of the articles bullet points for them.
In my experience running non-steam games through steam with proton is the best way to play those games too. The only time I’ve ever had to use lutris was when I had to install some DLC for a GOG application on the same prefix as the game because it had a separate exe installer for that DLC. I haven’t been able to figure out a way to do that through steam. But once I got that done I just ran the game through steam and it worked perfectly. The heroic games launcher gets suggested a lot too but I literally have never been able to get it to work for a single game.
With Heroic for what its worth, I have had some luck on difficult games going into the settings for the troublesome game, going to the “other” tab and ticking the box for “Use Steam Runtime”.
What will itsfoss.com say? I’m on the edge of my seat
Doesn’t actually matter with the way Windows performs, these days.
