Meanwhile nearly 60% of Windows Games now run on Windows.
nice
I made the switch almost a year ago when they started announcing all the spyware coming to win11. The distro you choose matters a LOT. After several that were buggy and frustrating I landed on Garuda dragonized. Setup was easy with their assistant finding the drivers I needed and I have yet to have any system breaking updates. Better track record than windows TBH. Performance is great, and steam integrates so well with proton that my experience is honestly just as good as windows native. I should probably go make a donation to the Garuda project, now that I’m thinking about it.
dfsdfsdfsdf
And how many run on linux via a well documented way?
I’ve been playing around with bazzite a bit, and for sure, i can run a lot of games on it, but you often end up googling which launcher to use, which settings to use, … And then even if you find something, it doesn’t always work.
Linux is making good progress in this regard, but this title feels a bit over optimistic (or at least, users who take it at face value will quickly be disappointed when they can’t get 90% of their games to work).
I’m installing Mint for the first time at this very moment. So far, it’s easier than I anticipated. Fuck You Microsoft.
Edit: bro, firstly, what the fuck and where did all this performance come from?!?! I vastly underestimated how many resources windows was hogging. I downloaded Steam (easy-peasy) and then Project Zomboid just as a test. This game runs like butter now. I was having major problems with it before. To the point I basically stopped playing. I know its just one example but I haven’t had my machine run this well in several years, I feel. Also, got Spotify running. Super easy. I need to figure out how to get my VPN set up (ProtonVPN) but so far, I’m kind of in shock. I can’t wait to actually dig in and see what I can do with this new setup.
I am a PC gamer and I exclusively use Linux. It’s completely viable for gaming, I can say for a fact.
How is device support? Direct drive steering wheels, gamepad, VR, status LED or info displays (ie. Making your keyboard glow red on low health) and bunch of other things like my Sound Blaster G6
Hit and miss since those tend to not have actual standards and generally do their own thing. If it’s popular, there’s a decent chance someone has reverse engineered it and there’s at least partial support (mostly applies to simpler things like steering wheels), but there will be concessions to make until device manufacturers officially support Linux.
If you’re willing to replace equipment, there’s something that works for most of those categories, if not all.
Direct drive steering wheels
Which one? Support varies wildly depending on manufacturer.
gamepad
I have never seen a gamepad that doesn’t work on Linux. You may not be able to update their firmware if they only provide a Windows tool but they work perfectly fine.
VR
Valve Index and HTC Vive work out of the box. SteamVR is pretty rough in Linux and plagued by issues but it works.
For any other headset you will have to depend on community support. Some work, some don’t.
There’s lots of info on https://vronlinux.org/
status LED or info displays
Which ones? They usually use completely proprietary protocols.
Sound Blaster G6
It will work like any other bog-standard sound card has for years. You will lose any features that are custom to the sound card (dialogue mode, virtual surround, equalizer, …) but those are rarely necessary because there is lots of other software that achieves this for every sound card.
I recommend you boot Linux from USB and take a look. No need to install anything, just boot from USB and take a look if your hardware works.
I can’t say for certain if steering wheels or LEDs work, but I know gamepads work better than on Windows, especially Sony ones. DuelSense works perfect. It only works if plugged in but as far as I’m aware that’s how it works on Windows.
Status LEDs/displays likely won’t work unless the manufacturer makes a Linux driver, publishes driver documentation, or it’s a super popular device. Reverse engineering USB is possible but very much a passion project. Most gamer hardware hasn’t had to care about Linux users till the last few years. Input devices at least are usually normal HID devices which are standardised.
Me since 2017 when I stopped dual booting. Never looked back thank goodness
I kept a dual boot windows 7 around for a loooong time. I booted it up like once every 2 years or something.
I have you beat by a few years.
me since dec 2024, i usually use Linux for gaming(thank you Valve for Proton) but i may still spin up a Windows VM to flash roms to my Samsung Phone(grimlers fork sucks).
apps are also pretty alright on Linux but would love this area see some improvement.
i also feel like FOSS works the best on Linux cause duh Linux itself is foss, incl apps.
Well, I’m 90% proud of Linux!
In my personal experience, the only games that don’t work are those that explicitly choose not to :
- Fortnite
- PUBG
- Roblox
- Valorant
I’m not much into competitive games myself, so the only one that’s inconvenient in this list to me is Roblox. There are a few really fun games on their platform that I wish I could play on Steam Deck, as used to be possible.
You can play Roblox through Sober. It runs the Android version directly so it’s pretty similar to what an official port would be, in terms of performance
Sober is awesome, and I can actually have Roblox LAN parties with my son thanks to it.
I believe Destiny 2 also doesn’t work. I just don’t play it anymore lol
Not too surprisingly, you can add League of Legends (another Riot games title) to the list. While I’m not a fan of kernel level anticheat, I do love most of these games, and it’s really frustrating how I don’t see any change in the future. After more than a year of struggling, I finally managed to get my Mint working (turns out my old mobo was faulty), but it looks like I will still have to keep Windows for basically all multiplayer titles I play.
really sucks that League doesn’t work . . . I know some people who play and the fact that it used to work just sours the pain.
I guess, at least Dota 2 works? I know they are very different, but I’d say similar enough and worth a shot so long as one isn’t too tied to LoL.
Thanks for the tip, I should give it a try. I’m not sure I still have the energy to invest months until I start to understand stuff while sucking and losing all the time, but I will get there eventually.
I play a lot of Space Engineers, and it randomly crashes… No idea what’s causing it.
And Space Engineers 2 just doesn’t launch for me.
There’s likely a config option that could fix things, but I don’t know it.
Every other game I play is fine.
You know about protondb already? Gives a good list of potential fixes if you come across issues, it’s been a godsend on the rare occasions something doesn’t work first try
I know. Tried a few things from that site, but no luck on SE, and SE2 is under active development so I’m waiting on it for a bit.
Fair, good luck with it. Just had to figure out that a drive from a windows install was causing huge permissions issues and any game installed on it wasn’t executing. Sometimes the problems can be really obtuse.
Check the Lutris website, there may be a custom install script there
Have you changed which version of proton it uses? It’s in the compatibility options for the game, sometimes going to an older version solves some issues.
For SE2, it’s likely a version issue. But that game is under active development, so I’m waiting on it.
For SE1, well that one is a bit of a mystery… It probably isn’t. I have a few mods.
Rocket League as well; it’s the only reason I haven’t gone full Linux for gaming.
…you’d think after 8+ years of playing I’d be bored, but it’s just fun.
I played Rocket League yesterday on Bazzite through Steam without issues
Whaaaaaat
Bazzite here I come
Heroic Launcher (frontend for Epic Games Launcher) also worked for me on arch linux
Rocket League works on linux? Unless something changed recently, because I used to play it on my Steam Deck all the time.
Rocket league is inside fortnight now.
Basically they want fortnite to be a complete (malware) gaming package with every game inside it sp youre tied to epic.
Fortunately it’s still up on Steam for us (few) legacy players
Had to install it twice because it first installed the linux native, Proton version runs fine might need to give it an input to get past the welcome screen which was blacked out for me.
Try wine bottles, Im using that for games on Linux Mint, havent found any issues yet. You may also need flat seal to make it accessible outside the flatpak environment.
The distro really matters as far as Roblox goes. I tried Arch, Manjaro, Garuda and couldn’t get it working. Ended up back at Ubuntu and it works fine now
For Roblox you have to use Sober
Linux doesnt have games that install kernel-level spyware under the guise of anti-cheat. Hopefully never will, but I don’t underestimate gamers who love think spyware is a good idea. Stay away from linux if you want kernel anti cheat please, its ruining computers
I mean companies could probably already create perfectly good kernel level anticheat on Linux if they really wanted to through eBPF programs.
That would not require permanent changes to the Kernel and games would only need root rights at install time. (Like most software already does)
I wouldn’t even have a problem with that kind if a solution.
Breaking News:
This just in new game requires sudoers access to play!
What’s hilarious is that is par the course on windows to run Steam as an admin. In fact that fixes a ton of bugs for people, so any executable the steam process spawns, like game executables, has admin rights as well.
You are not in the sudoers file, this incident WILL BE REPORTED. ಠ_ಠ
I’m confused, first you say that Linux doesn’t have anti-cheat, and then you say you should stay away from Linux if you want anti cheat.
No I think you got the message of what they were saying correct. Linux doesn’t have kernel level anti-cheat at the moment, and they’re saying that if you are a proponent of it, then don’t use Linux because it’s something we’d like to continue not having.
There are layers of abstraction between the kernel and the userspace, and few applications need kernel level access. Anti-cheat poking around in the kernel is very invasive. I know plenty of people who equate it to spyware, myself included.
Can you prevent cheating without it?
Yeah, there’s anti cheat software that doesn’t run in the kernel. You can bypass that and still cheat, but if you’re insistent you can do that even with kernel-level anti-cheat. There’s a whole big debate on this, lots of differing opinions.
Linux doesn’t have kernel level anti cheat and I hope it remains that way, but I fear my opinion will be in the minority soon if not already.
Who would be against that? And why?
Kernel level anticheat. There’s very effective anticheat that is not kernel level and therefore works fine on Linux.
Ah thanks!
No worries buddy 👍
if i cant run something at linux i’ll just do without it. Might try virtual machine if its something really crucial but might not care to even bother. Fortunately any games i know that will not run are kind of games that i wouldnt want to touch anyway.
The only ones that wouldn’t work are probably the ones with kernel level anti cheat. Maybe if I would be much younger, I might have had different opinion, but, as of today, I believe that all these games that wont run on Linux due to anti-cheat are cancer anyway.
Kernel level anti-cheat is what’s probably going to keep me on Windows for a while. I get those games aren’t for everyone, but I like them well enough, and that’s what my friend group plays. Warzone, DMZ, and going to try RedSec tomorrow. Kind of a shame. Otherwise I’d love to make the jump. As it is I’ll probably see about dual booting when I get my next PC in a year or two.
You have thousand of other games you can play that don’t require kernel level anti cheat, don’t be a fool
I respect where you’re coming from, but a) “fool” is literally in my name. And b) you’re saying “there are other good games, leave those games you’re enjoying.” But you’re also saying “there are other people, leave your friends and family that you play with.” And that’s a little different.
More like Jeffcool
You should try to strengthen your relationship so that they don’t spin around a specific videogame. What happens if you get banned or the requirements for playing the game becomes even more stupid?
You can run them alternative ways usually. Fortnite works with mouse and keyboard through gamepass, although gamepass is a shit deal just for fortnite.
I know a lot of people dual boot or use a virtual machine with windows on it too.
Fortnite works with mouse and keyboard through gamepass
Only local streaming from an Xbox. Streaming from their website requires a controller and I’ve never been able to get a controller to work with a browser on Linux. Well, on Bazzite at least.
Ive literally done it, but thats not to say it might not work all the time or under all configurations. I was using I think librefox.
Done what? Used mouse+keyboard for streaming without a console at xbox.com/play? If so, I dunno what to say, I tried on both Windows and Linux under two Firefox browsers on Windows and Firefox and Chromium on Linux. Booting any game presents me with a console UI and doesn’t respond to any keyboard input.
It only worked for fortnite, I thought I made that explicit but if I didnt, my bad. For some reason fortnite console version allows mouse and keyboard, at least thats why I think it works.
I use a Microsoft Xbox One controller I use to play game pass games on Edge. I use Debian, but it was recognized and worked when I paired it in Bluetooth
I tried Floorp and Ungoogled Chromium, and I could only get them to detect my controller if I plugged it in while on the page. If I already had it plugged in, it just wouldn’t work. Tried some online HID testers and determined it wasn’t specific to the website. IDK.
That’s strange. I definitely figured bazzite would have much better device support for game controllers out of the box.
Yeah, idk. I tried both a PS4 and Xbox One controller, too, but it was all the same.
In my experience AAA games from around 2000s and early 2010s often have problems running in Linux, especially if they have DRM.
In some cases a pirated version will run just fine whilst the official one won’t.
in my experience it’s the exact same situation on Windows
i wonder how these numbers change if you weight by active players. like sure, Shooty Guns 2 (2008) running on linux is a good thing, but if it has a grand total of 5 people in the world playing it, it won’t really do much for linux adoption as long as games like league of legends, apex legends and fortnite still don’t work
(for the record i don’t play any of those games and i’ve been happily daily-driving linux with no windows intervention for the last 4 year)
Very fair argument. This way the statistics would most likely be considerably worse. Though personally, I couldn’t care less about games like League, Fortnite or FIFA. A case could be made thay they’re almost always harmful, so them being unavailable isn’t an issue.
I seem unable to find this Shooty Guns 2 (2008) you speak of.
It’s the sequel to Shooty Guns (1992), one of the first games to come in two separate floppy disks.
I’m pretty sure that’s a mock-buster title so they don’t piss any fandom off.
I’ve yet to find a game that I couldn’t play (though knowing me I probably forgot one or two). It’s mainly mods that I’ve not been able to implement, as some of them require running an exe file.
However I’ve had very helpful people tell me I can do all that in a wine instance or something similar so mainly it’s just my own laziness (and lack of understanding about how to “do it in a wine instance”) that’s holding me back from installing fancy modpacks or playing the latest Stalker gamma version.
Also i don’t play multiplayer stuff so the anti-cheat thing issues don’t usually apply to me. So there’s that.
Lutris for mods. You can point it at the game exe downloaded by steam in many cases (not all), and then run arbitrary exes inside the same wine prefix.
FYI: That’s more Windows games than run in Windows!
WTF? Why? Because a lot of older games don’t run in newer versions of Windows than when they were made! They still run great in Linux though 👍
There is like a good chunk of an entire decade’s worth of games that can’t be played on PC legitimately due to either expired licenses for music (e.g. EA Trax) or lack of support for older, disc-based DRM (SecuROM etc.).
That’s before factoring older titles that no longer work due to arbitrary changes to DirectX and the Windows kernel, which break backwards compatibility.
Huh wonder whether shadows of destiny pc port works on proton.
Might be worth checking ProtonDB, or WineDB if it’s not on steam.
It wasn’t on proton but there’s a very old entry on wine. Looks like my boy Jeff’s last entry was quite recent in 2023, he rated it a silver. There’s a known bug from some graphical glitch during certain events like the protagonist meeting himself back in time and others which may prevent completion. I wonder how it works now, tempted to test it out.
2026 will be the year of the Linux desktop!
Every year
The time is near
