- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
You must log in or register to comment.
I was having some issues when I updated to Nobara 41 as Hell Divers 2 failed to load in the textures. So it still has hiccups.
Hell Divers 2 has had a rocky relationship with Linux from the get go. Hopefully, as Linux gains market share, game studios start to include Linux testing.
helldivers 2 works great for me with nixos. Both native package and flatpak.
I don’t play it, but I remember that with each update, it sometimes broke for Linux, and sometimes it would fix the breaks. That was especially true closer to launch, though maybe some of those issues have been ironed out.
Are you using a Nix config you found, or is it something you cobbled together yourself? Gaming on Nix seems like a challenge!
Been using nix to game on for 2 years. My config is a bit out of date, I haven’t really taken the time to update and optimize it.
What will itsfoss.com say? I’m on the edge of my seat
An article similar to this is posted by itsfoss every week.
What about flipping the question. Making modern games available on more platforms?
Not yet, in order to be ready for mainstream gaming, the gaming experience has to be smooth (As in easy to install, Mod & patch)
It’s smoother than Windows gaming was when I started Windows gaming (win 95).
For reference, to play Warcraft 1 multiplayer you joined a chatroom on Battle.net and the chat channel gave everyone a
terminalMS-DOS command that you had to copy/paste into the terminal. If anybody had any network more complicated than computer -> modem then it would fail. If anyone failed to connect your game would crash. I was gaming like this at around 10 years old.Obviously, comparing 2025 Linux to '90s Windows isn’t exactly fair… but gamers are not incapable of dealing with complexity.
Sure, don’t tell your 8 year old cousin to swap from Windows to Linux. But if you’re a smart high school student then you can learn. Like anything, it’ll take some getting used to and you’ll have to deal with frustrations but knowing how to use Linux and, probably more importantly, how to research and solve problems is well worth the effort.
Oh yeah. I remember watching my older brother try to set up that kind of connection. I was never allowed under threat of capital punishment to touch anything of course. Good times.
Haha, yes. It was trying times.
But, if you’re reading this, you’re probably already more than qualified enough to use Linux for gaming. Obviously you’re going to have to learn things but it is very much worth it. Also, the desktop environments look much better imo.
Great article and also outlines why I’m not switching today. I already have to deal with plenty of shit during my work hours, gaming is a way for me to relax and wind down. I don’t want to think or deal with a sub optimal gaming experience, to then have to bug fix in my spare time.
You can say all the negative stuff you want about Windows, but it does run games well. The moment I can expect to have the same experience on Linux, I will switch, it’s that simple.
Honestly this is already my daily experience with Windows : having to figure out why my controller doesn’t work on a small selection of games when it’s in wireless mode, having to install a third-party patch to run a game in an exotic definition, fix a game not launching on the right monitor even though it’s set as main display, installing a mod just to bring controller support to a game that lacks it, etc etc. and I could go on all day. Personally my Windows gaming experience has been sub-par for years now, looking forward to switching (again) later this year.
That’s fair. I feel like it’s well worth it, but I do get a kick out of bug fixing and tinkering too.
From the article
gaming on Linux has come a long way in the past few years, and I can confidently say that Linux is ready for mainstream gaming in 2025.
So the writer concludes it works
Concludes that it works, but it’s not quite there yet. And looking at other replies here, it’s even more challenging if you want to play competitive multiplayer games that use anti cheat software. Which are games I still enjoy to play.
Doesn’t actually matter with the way Windows performs, these days.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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’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
🤮
Ugh, that’s too much work. I’m going back to Winblows
No.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yes.
