I wanna talk about Linux on lost_saves, too, as part of intentional and mindful gaming means using a platform that respects you, as the user. Here’s 5/6 myths that I wish people would stop peddling about Linux gaming.
“I can’t play ____” FALSE. You can play MOST games just fine, only a handful of live service slop games give you trouble. Check ProtonDB to see which of your games are supported and any fixes that might be needed.
“Performance sucks on Linux” ALSO FALSE. Nvidia users can lose up to 10% of frames (on high-end cards) compared to Windows, but in plenty of games the performance is equal - there’s even a couple where Linux performs better! It’s fiiiine.
“I can’t use Nvidia with Linux”
I’ve been using Nvidia with Linux just fine for YEARS. It’s FINE! There’s some open source philosophy issues, but support for Nvidia is just fine.
“Linux gaming means tinkertown” NOPE on most modern distros, everything is only a few clicks away and mostly GUI-based.
“Linux can’t handle HDR/VRR/HFR/4K/etc.” ALSO FALSE. Most modern distros handle 4K/HiDPI just fine, VRR and HDR are supported in Wayland most of the time.
Good vid! Linux is the way to go in my opinion. It’s reliable, doesn’t work as spyware and definitely does not ask more of you than you can/want to give it. It just works, and it works the way you want it to.
A few months ago I switched to Linux Mint myself and haven’t look back since. At first I was a bit scared about the fact that I had an NVIDIA card and that it would require a niche and complex setup, but this were all myths. I had to do some tinkering and had to fix a problem with drivers for my Xbox controller (xpadneo caused problems) but this was like half a day of work max. It’s also fulfilling, fun and very rewarding to learn and fix these problems yourself.
So to anyone reading this who wants to switch but is a bit scared, I can assure you that nothing can go wrong and you won’t regret it. The community is also very open and helpful, so if you encounter a problem or have a question, you can just search it and the chance is big someone has already encountered and fixed this. Otherwise you can ask anything on any Linux forum and lots of people will help you.
Btw, how do you get the wobbly windows? I need those badly
I think part of the issue is a bit of confirmation bias.
PC gaming isn’t perfect, that’s the price of freedom at the end of the day, so if someone who expects Linux Gaming to have issues comes across a problem that might just be a general PC Gaming thing (like a game not running properly) they might be more inclined to blame Linux.
True that. A console works out-of-the-box while most PC’s don’t. When they do, they’re bound to encounter some kind of problem at least once in their life span. Windows gave me as much (if not more) problems than Linux does at the moment tbh (I’ve only used Linux for a couple months though, so knock on wood).
Even just like… the idea that you have to do complex things in the terminal for something like installing drivers. People get REALLY worked up about GPU drivers in Linux.
Why? I HAVE NO IDEA. For as long as I can remember, back to Ubuntu v10 and earlier (I think) GPU drivers are found via a “Drivers” software menu, wherein it detects your graphics hardware, you pick a driver and restart. That’s it.
Meanwhile on Windows at minimum you have to navigate to the GPU vendor site and download the auto-installer, and back in the day you had to manually pick out your specific GPU and everything.
And now with the gaming GPUs, the drivers are preinstalled when you install the OS.
Myths get conjured, people don’t think about it, they get perpetuated, and then something basic and universal (like controller issues lol) get made out to be big scary Linux things. All while putting up with new AI stuff shoved in, forced update reboots, BSODs, etc. and saying “this is fine.”
In KDE, it’s under System Settings > Desktop Behavior > Desktop Effects > Wobbly Windows
for other DEs you’ll have to look around and see if Desktop Effects are made available, or if “compiz” is a package you can install. (Back in the day, Compiz was the package for cool effects like this, and some systems have a compiz-effects package to install that kind of stuff again. But for KDE it’s built-in.)
The only time I have ever had a GPU issue with Nvidia on Linux was when I was on a more cutting edge distro and, after an update, something about my specific setup caused the graphics to break. But a situation like that could just as easily happen with an AMD card or on Windows. Computer hardware is a broad spectrum and not everything can be accounted for.
I have since switched to a more stable distro, but that’s purely because my needs don’t require being on the cutting edge.
Windows gave me as much (if not more) problems than Linux does at the moment tbh
Ultimately this is what drove me to Linux as well. I was spending so much time fighting against Windows, and using scripts to rip out all the copilot and other needless resource hogging aspects of the OS that at a certain point, I just figured my time would be better spent learning & problem solving on Linux then fighting against Windows.
There’s really been only a few games that I’ve had issues with, or have had to find workaround for— but the vast majority of games have simply just worked. I really don’t regret the swap at all, and will likely look to completely wipe my Windows install sometime this year, I haven’t booted into it since December.
This was indeed my main reason. It started to feel like this mal/spyware that was forcing me to use AI. I even live in Europe, where privacy regulations are pretty strict, and I still felt “unsafe“ and spied on. Also the learning aspect was a nice bonus, always fun and rewarding when I figured out a fix to a Linux problem myself
