To be fair there still is a lot of tinkering involved to get gaming on Linux working properly (unless you’re on the steamdeck, but even them you’ll have to tinker for anything that’s not verified). Switching proton runners, changing launch options, fighting updates. It’s definitely more than most people are willing to deal with. For me personally, I’ve had to stop updating my video drivers because Nvidia 555 causes all Proton games to crash for me.
I enjoy the experience of tinkering and troubleshooting, so I’m okay with all that, but I completely understand why most people wouldn’t want to use Linux for gaming.
I honestly cant remember the last time I bought a game and it didnt just work with no tinkering on proton. Though I am on AMD not Nvidia which makes things a lot easier.
Mostly that for me on Nvidia (proprietary drivers), although 555 broke my 2nd DVI-D monitor (which is admittedly old, but I don’t have any reasons to replace the little guy).
Nevertheless, I’m very set on getting an AMD GPU whenever I have to replace my GTX 1080 from 2017.
Speed. Unfortunately (at least the last time I looked into it) NVENC still beats the socks off of VAAPI in render times and I’m sure Nvidia likes it that way.
I guess this could also be based on the distro you use as well as your graphics card. For me, I use EndeavourOS, which is very close to base arch, so I had to do some extra setup to get proton working on it. For some reason, Proton refused to work on the Arch repo’s Steam package, so I had to use the flatpak version instead
The only thing really preinstalled is basic stuff like desktop environments and a few tools to help with updates and manage the system (eos-update, etc). Even almost all the package repositories are the ones maintained by arch.
I’m on EndeavourOS with an Nvidia gpu. I’ve not had to do anything extra for the the version of proton that comes with steam to work besides install the os with the Nvidia proprietary drivers. And then running eos-update --aur--nvidia
I did notice that I got a lot of screen tearing if using Wayland and that more recent versions of proton didn’t work if either Force Composition Pipeline or Force Full Composition Pipeline were enabled; which should have fixed the screentearing so I just use x11 for now.
There are some things I did to make my experience better however. Like installing an proton-ge. Here is a list of what I installed.
nvidia-dkms
nvidia-settings
libva-nvidia-driver # required by vlc to play mkv files with nvidia gpu
nvidia-tweaks # https://github.com/ventureoo/nvidia-tweaks
lib32-nvidia-utils
gamemode
proton-ge-custom-bin
lib32-libudev0-shim # fixes Steam runtime's super old 32 bit version of libnm
lib32-libnm # required if using systemd 253.5-2 or newer
I would also install nvidia-dracut-hook if you are using both Nvidia and dracut. Dracut is the default on recent versions on endeavorOS.
For proton ge, I also added myself to the games group with
sudo usermod $USER -a -G games
I also like to prepend the following to my games launch options in steam
Ive had a handfull of games that work on steam deck but had to tinker on my laptop. Cyberpunk would crash on the first splash screen and stormworks would only run on my igpu and not dedicated. But also im also using nvidia.
Yup. I know exactly what you mean. I bought Nobody Wants to Die, which is rated platinum on protondb, and it just crashes within 1 second of startup for me. 3h of fucking around with proton versions, launch arguments, even tried lutris, nothing. The only error I could see took me to a stackoverflow thread about vga to dvi adapter issues and the fix was not relevant. My protontricks is apparently also broken which I have no idea why or when it broke.
I got it refunded, it is what it is. I’ll look into fixing my protontricks when I have more time…
Funnily enough, I’ve had almost this exact same thing happen… On Windows. More than once. Spending days getting it to run hardly at all and weeks trying to figure out how to make it run well. On modern hardware, with both old and new games alike.
I’ve not had that much trouble yet with Linux gaming, with only a few exceptions where I needed to tweak a couple things stuff has pretty much just worked.
I made the same statement you did a while ago about having to tweak stuff to get it to work. I just don’t have the time and patience to do it, and I got voted down for saying Linux isn’t for me. I work tech, the last thing I want to do when I get home is mess with more settings and drivers etc.
The Linux and steamdeck forums EVERYWHERE constantly make apologies and excuses for having to tweak things to get gaming to work.
I just want Linux to be an out of the box great gaming experience, and I would sing to the rafters it’s praise. It just isn’t, and unless developers make their stuff work for 3-5% of an install base, I just don’t see it happening. I want it to, I really do, but it’s just not for the masses.
Linux isn’t for the masses because it was never meant to be and still isn’t made to be. You have to install it rather then it being installed by default and most Linux software targets power users who were disappointed by Windows.
I’m on Mint with a nvidia card, I haven’t really had to do any tweaks since I stopped trying to install games on an NTFS-formatted drive and nearly every game works perfectly out of the box. There’s a lot of very loud voices complaining about nvidia/tinkering but it’s definitely not universal; you won’t necessarily need to put in a lot of effort to get games to work on Linux.
To be fair there still is a lot of tinkering involved to get gaming on Linux working properly (unless you’re on the steamdeck, but even them you’ll have to tinker for anything that’s not verified). Switching proton runners, changing launch options, fighting updates. It’s definitely more than most people are willing to deal with. For me personally, I’ve had to stop updating my video drivers because Nvidia 555 causes all Proton games to crash for me.
I enjoy the experience of tinkering and troubleshooting, so I’m okay with all that, but I completely understand why most people wouldn’t want to use Linux for gaming.
I honestly cant remember the last time I bought a game and it didnt just work with no tinkering on proton. Though I am on AMD not Nvidia which makes things a lot easier.
I’m on Nvidia and have had the same experience as you. Everything just works.
Mostly that for me on Nvidia (proprietary drivers), although 555 broke my 2nd DVI-D monitor (which is admittedly old, but I don’t have any reasons to replace the little guy).
Nevertheless, I’m very set on getting an AMD GPU whenever I have to replace my GTX 1080 from 2017.
I’m unfortunately stuck with Nvidia for the time-being because I need NVENC.
What does NVENC do that VAAPI doesn’t?
Speed. Unfortunately (at least the last time I looked into it) NVENC still beats the socks off of VAAPI in render times and I’m sure Nvidia likes it that way.
Isn’t that only on NVIDIA cards?
I guess this could also be based on the distro you use as well as your graphics card. For me, I use EndeavourOS, which is very close to base arch, so I had to do some extra setup to get proton working on it. For some reason, Proton refused to work on the Arch repo’s Steam package, so I had to use the flatpak version instead
Pure Arch here, no issues with Proton whatsoever.
Any chance this could have been related to EndeavourOS in any way? Like with something pre-installed?
I’m just being curious and throwing ideas here.
The only thing really preinstalled is basic stuff like desktop environments and a few tools to help with updates and manage the system (eos-update, etc). Even almost all the package repositories are the ones maintained by arch.
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I’m on EndeavourOS with an Nvidia gpu. I’ve not had to do anything extra for the the version of proton that comes with steam to work besides install the os with the Nvidia proprietary drivers. And then running
eos-update --aur --nvidiaI did notice that I got a lot of screen tearing if using Wayland and that more recent versions of proton didn’t work if either
Force Composition PipelineorForce Full Composition Pipelinewere enabled; which should have fixed the screentearing so I just use x11 for now.There are some things I did to make my experience better however. Like installing an proton-ge. Here is a list of what I installed.
I would also install
nvidia-dracut-hookif you are using both Nvidia and dracut. Dracut is the default on recent versions on endeavorOS.For proton ge, I also added myself to the games group with
I also like to prepend the following to my games launch options in steam
gamemoderun PROTON\_CONFIG=dxr11,dxr PROTON\_ENABLE\_NVAPI=1 PROTON\_HIDE\_NVIDIA\_GPU=0 VK\_ICD\_FILENAMES=/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/nvidia\_icd.json VKD3D\_CONFIG=dxr11,dxr VKD3D\_DISABLE\_EXTENSIONS=VK\_KHR\_present\_id,VK\_KHR\_present\_wait VKD3D\_FEATURE\_LEVEL=12\_1 VKD3D\_SHADER\_MODEL=6\_6And I set proton-ge as my default proton version on the steam options.
Ive had a handfull of games that work on steam deck but had to tinker on my laptop. Cyberpunk would crash on the first splash screen and stormworks would only run on my igpu and not dedicated. But also im also using nvidia.
Yup. I know exactly what you mean. I bought Nobody Wants to Die, which is rated platinum on protondb, and it just crashes within 1 second of startup for me. 3h of fucking around with proton versions, launch arguments, even tried lutris, nothing. The only error I could see took me to a stackoverflow thread about vga to dvi adapter issues and the fix was not relevant. My protontricks is apparently also broken which I have no idea why or when it broke.
I got it refunded, it is what it is. I’ll look into fixing my protontricks when I have more time…
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Funnily enough, I’ve had almost this exact same thing happen… On Windows. More than once. Spending days getting it to run hardly at all and weeks trying to figure out how to make it run well. On modern hardware, with both old and new games alike.
I’ve not had that much trouble yet with Linux gaming, with only a few exceptions where I needed to tweak a couple things stuff has pretty much just worked.
I’ve
neverrarely ever had that except one or two games in the last 15 years…I made the same statement you did a while ago about having to tweak stuff to get it to work. I just don’t have the time and patience to do it, and I got voted down for saying Linux isn’t for me. I work tech, the last thing I want to do when I get home is mess with more settings and drivers etc.
The Linux and steamdeck forums EVERYWHERE constantly make apologies and excuses for having to tweak things to get gaming to work.
I just want Linux to be an out of the box great gaming experience, and I would sing to the rafters it’s praise. It just isn’t, and unless developers make their stuff work for 3-5% of an install base, I just don’t see it happening. I want it to, I really do, but it’s just not for the masses.
Linux isn’t for the masses because it was never meant to be and still isn’t made to be. You have to install it rather then it being installed by default and most Linux software targets power users who were disappointed by Windows.
I’m on Mint with a nvidia card, I haven’t really had to do any tweaks since I stopped trying to install games on an NTFS-formatted drive and nearly every game works perfectly out of the box. There’s a lot of very loud voices complaining about nvidia/tinkering but it’s definitely not universal; you won’t necessarily need to put in a lot of effort to get games to work on Linux.
On my Ubuntu system, I installed Steam. That was it, the things I want mostly work.
agree