I have a nVidia card. Is that bad?
Comment on Best Linux Distro For Playing On Steam?
DerisionConsulting@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
As long as you don’t have a Nvidia card, choose whichever functional and complete distro (some people call these “beginner” distros).
MintLinux and Pop!OS are normally the two front-runners for new users. Basically, if you use Steam and you don’t play online-only games with bad implementations of anti-cheat software, you are good to game on either.
Make a USB that you can “live boot” from, so you can test out how they work with your hardware before you actually install the OS. Generally speaking, Mint works better with AMD, and Pop! works better with Nvidia.
Here’s the official basic guide for Mint:
…readthedocs.io/…/latest/
And here’s the official basic guide for Pop!:
support.system76.com/articles/install-pop/
iMastari@lemmy.world 8 months ago
DerisionConsulting@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
As a general rule for Linux; Yes, Nvidia hates linux, and the drivers cause issues in a lot of cases.
But Pop! has specifically worded to try to deal with Nvidia, so it might be smooth sailing, depending on which card you have.
Eeyore_Syndrome@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
rem26_art@fedia.io 8 months ago
Nvidia can be tough sometimes with linux, but not impossible. Seems like Linux Mint has a Driver Manager program that can install Nvidia's proprietary drivers for you. When you first install the OS, it'll just use the open source drivers, but those usually don't perform as well while gaming as Nvidia's own drivers, so you'll have to switch them after first boot.
protondb is a website that crowdsources how well specific Steam games work, and any workarounds that may be needed, if you'd like to check game compatibility. You can set it to show only reports from PC users, rather than PC and Steam Deck users.
seaQueue@lemmy.world 8 months ago
AMD/Nvidia hybrid user here. I’ve had more breakage in the amdgpu driver than Nvidia by far. I think a more fair comment is “drivers break on Linux occasionally and it’s a good idea to learn how to roll back package versions.”
Kory@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
Not at all, in Linux Mint for example I simply picked the recommended driver and I had no issues with that.
seaQueue@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Nvidia drivers are largely reliable these days. I’ve daily driven AMD/Nvidia hybrid setups since ~2020 and have only occasionally had Nvidia driver issues. I’ve actually had more breakage in amdgpu due to insufficient testing and code churn - I think I’ve reported close to two dozen regressions over the last 4y.