cross-posted from: lemmy.nz/post/29912814
Some shitty games will hold out, but as long as the majority works better under Linux, I’m fine with it.
Nearly 90% of Windows Games now run on Linux, latest data shows — as Windows 10 dies, gaming on Linux is more viable than ever
Submitted 5 months ago by fin@sh.itjust.works to games@lemmy.world
Comments
Treczoks@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Drbreen@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
I’m trying to get into Linux atm. Working at the kinks and work flow. I will dual boot for the exception that I really want to play that doesn’t run on Linux.
MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Be careful, windows can fuck up some dual boot setups and make the Linux side worse
imetators@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
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.
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
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.
desertdruid@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
in my experience it’s the exact same situation on Windows
Jeffool@lemmy.world 5 months ago
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.
brachiosaurus@mander.xyz 5 months ago
You have thousand of other games you can play that don’t require kernel level anti cheat, don’t be a fool
Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
You can run them alternative ways usually. Fortnite works with mouse and keyboard through gamepads, although gamepads is a shit deal just for fortnite.
I know a lot of people dual boot or us a virtual machine with windows on it too.
Ganbat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
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.
Bunbury@feddit.nl 5 months ago
Can confirm the viable gaming. Some need fairly annoying workarounds that require some regular fiddling to adjust (looking at you EA/Origin with your silly launcher), but in the end it’s definitely playable.
spirinolas@lemmy.world 5 months ago
There are still lots of reasons that stop people from jumping 100% into Linux. Gaming is less and less one of them.
addie@feddit.uk 5 months ago
True, but network effects are important to that.
There were huge numbers of people that wouldn’t move to Linux because it didn’t support all of their games. Now it does, and lots of people are moving.
There are lots of people that won’t move to Linux because they have a random bit of hardware that’s not supported, or a highly-specific bit of software they need to do their job that only runs on Windows. The manufacturers wouldn’t support Linux because not enough people used it. Ah, but now we have all the gamers, so there are quite a lot of people using it.
Each domino that falls encourages the rest. Steam Linux users are more than 3x Steam macOS users, and we’re not that far from overtaking it for general desktop usage. In some regions, that’s already the case, and while the Windows 10 exodus can move to Linux easily, they’d need to buy new hardware fo use the Mac operating system. Not many companies would question providing Apple support; once Linux has a comparable share, it would be foolish to leave that out of consideration as well.
Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
The problem is that he biggest networked games, I.e. those with the most players online, won’t work on linux. Until fortnite or apex legends or LoL allow linux machines, people will be stuck on windows so they can still play with their friends. The same thing happens with most of the sports games except those players are almost entirely on console, and they are locked in there.
heyWhatsay@slrpnk.net 5 months ago
Rip Microsoft
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 5 months ago
trying to force AI into windows 11 isnt helping MS.
Aggravationstation@feddit.uk 5 months ago
I can not understand why they made that decision.
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 5 months ago
The end user is seen as nothing but an exploitable resource. If a few thousand nerds don’t like it, they don’t give a shit. Until the general public wakes up to the shitfuckery, nothing will change. Just ask your mom, what she thinks about Microsoft’s data collection.
bampop@lemmy.world 5 months ago
To be fair it’s not just Microsoft doing that. I was looking at gym equipment the other day and some idiots were trying to build AI into a fucking home gym. Like I really need AI in my weights. AI is the product that everyone wants to sell and nobody wants to buy*
- not 100% sure about that, maybe it’s just me and everyone I know
Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Because it allows them to collect and process more data, which can be used or sold, increasing their profits.
AmbiguousProps@lemmy.today 5 months ago
They think line won’t go up if they don’t shove it down every user’s throat. They’ve put most of their eggs in that basket.
drmoose@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I’ve converted all my gaming to linux including vr and couldn’t be happier! Even hardware works flawlessly these days with the exception of VR. I’m still struggling to get No Man’s Sky to work on my quest 3 and linux VR and thats really the only thing I’m missing but it seems close to working just needs more fiddling.
ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
It is a perfect baseline OS. It gets people connected to Steam faster and easier to Windows, which is the main access to most games.
Biggest obstacles to venturing out in Linux is the documentation for everything is not built or assuming normie users. The default assumption of competancy does not exist in Windows manuals.
But even so using Homebrew in Bazzite is no more complex than in Windows.
drmoose@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Been a while since I used windows but afaik docs are much worse on that side of things. At least on Linux you find some command or smt that could fix your issue, many windows problems are unsolvable and completely undocumented. There isn’t even a centralized log system like journalctl on windows so every error is just an alert pop up that says nothing or just complete silence.
Drbreen@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
I’ve installed Bazzite myself. What do you mean by immutable? I ran into an issue trying to install VPN the other night. Something about the fs being read only. I’m still yet to look into it.
AmbiguousProps@lemmy.today 5 months ago
That’s what immutable means in this case. You can’t modify outside of your user directory, at least not directly, on immutable distros. The files outside of your
~home path are read-only. You can override that a few different ways, however. If your VPN has a flatpak, that’s the easiest way to get it up and running. If you don’t care about more space (minimal, if you only do it for your VPN) being used, you may be able to follow your VPN’s fedora instructions, replacingdnfwithrpm-ostree. That will likely allow you to install as you can in other distros.Feel free to ask any questions if you have any, I’m happy to help.
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Cachy does everything bazzite does but better less complicated and more friendly to new users coming from windows.
Immutable distros just add endless headache for new users and are a pain in the ass to look things up for if you don’t explicitly understand what your os is.
drmoose@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Immutable distros just add endless headache for new users
I disagree here. Sure it makes copy/paste computing a bit harder but it also prevents newbies from working themselves into a dysfunctional operating system which happens way more often than you’d think. People open a port or set some system variable for one thing and never set it back breaking everything else. With immutable system new users are forced into sustainable, reversible and transparent solutions.
The issue is that immutable linux is still pretty new so some mutable solutions aren’t adapted in immutable ways yet but if you’re just gaming you should never be on that side of the bleeding edge anyway.
Wispy2891@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I use cachy on my laptop but I wouldn’t call friendly an arch based distro that during setup asks the user “which of those 19 desktop environment do you want? Choose wisely only one”
It doesn’t even have a gui to install new software (at least, I am not an expert, I chose hyprland and it didn’t install that, and when I manually installed KDE Discover and the GNOME software manager, they only show and install flatpak apps - but because I’m not an expert I might have messed something up)
j_0t@discuss.tchncs.de 5 months ago
In my opinion this the unique milestone linux has to achive to be declared as a total winner vs windows, in the near future I would like to see non tech industries using linux instead of microsoft spyware.
Wispy2891@lemmy.world 5 months ago
There’s a chance it will happen outside the USA.
Deciding to send to the landfill every PC sold after 2018 is a decision that they saw analyzing only numbers from big American corporations. “Anyway they lease the computers and have a refresh every 3-5 years”
But the rest of the world?
Here in Italy I still see people on Windows 7
When I traveled in southeast Asia I saw people using windows XP
Or Brazil, where the import taxes make a windows 11 compatible PC ultra expensive
Regular people and small businesses , especially outside the USA won’t simply buy a new PC just because Microsoft and Intel needed the line to go up.
Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
Even in the USA, although probably not at the rate of other countries, a lot of individuals (especially ones who don’t have enough disposable income or are retirees) will also keep their system configs no matter what Microsoft says.
InTheTreetop@lemmy.zip 5 months ago
If we could get just one of the big tech suites to support it, I think that would help to finally break the dam and get some serious migration.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Mechanical/civil engineering software, music production, and digital art. Those are the big ones.
Invisius@lemmy.world 5 months ago
2026 will be the year of the Linux desktop!
fin@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Every year
j_0t@discuss.tchncs.de 5 months ago
The time is near
Echo5@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Had no major issues with Steam games so far on Linux mint, but I like owning my games, so I buy as much as I can from GOG, and Lutris and Heroic both have not given me exactly easy experiences :L
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
You own your games on steam just as much as you do on gog for like 99% of them. The majority of steam games have no form of drm.
Out of my 2000 ish steam games less then 50 actually use drm that ties them to steam and those are basically only triple A games that arnt on gog anyways.
Just remove the overlay and the VAST majority of games just work with out steam entirely.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Is there a tool you can use to check that against your own library? I never got the sense it was anywhere close to a majority of my library, but years ago, I was just cross checking my then-small library against a hand-maintained list.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Heroic has gone pretty well for me. I’ve found a few exceptions that are solved by the same trick though. If you’re running a game like The Thaumaturge, and it doesn’t boot on the GOG version, take a look at SteamDB. SteamDB’s entry for the game has a “depot” for VC 2019, VC 2022, and DirectX 2010. If you run winetricks on The Thaumaturge via Heroic and install those three dependencies, it works.
julysfire@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Linux Mint here. I have had only 1 issue with a game on Linux and honestly, it was an easier fix then getting some games working on Windows which I have experienced plenty of as well. Linux really is just as easy as “Install from Steam, play”.
Drivers are easy now today too, just like Windows. Honestly, if you gamed on Windows, you have all you need to game on Linux.
Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
I’ve found Bazzite and Arch-based distros like SteamOS tend to have better fare when it comes to gaming (probably due to their update model compared to Mint), but if what you’re after is stability and familiarity and don’t play super new games, Mint’s awesome. Glad you’re having fun with it :)
psx_crab@lemmy.zip 5 months ago
Tried switching to Mint yesterday, it’s a struggle as the guide kinda failed to mention some detail that i have to google a bit, and the result is it fail to boot(not a bootable drive error). Might try again tonight or this weekend. Honestly i can’t see mass adoption if it’s this PITA to get it working(not plug and play like windows), unless it’s provided by the manufacturer.
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
The windows installer is exactly as complicated and even uses the same termino of primary and logical etc.
You literally just click the next button like 7 times. Ignore everything and it sets it all up correctly by default.
Why would you screw with advanced options for your first go. You would have the exact same problems if you did that on windows.
This just sounds like you purposefully made it harder for yourself so you could bitch.
psx_crab@lemmy.zip 5 months ago
Do you have anything else to add? Because being unhelpful doesn’t solve my issue, but to inflate your ego. Others tried, and i acknowledged my problem and will try other way to see if it helped. And you’re here to bitch about my unsuccessful attempt.
emeralddawn45@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
Theres literally an option in the linux mint installer to just wipe the drive and install, and it creates all partitions for you, if you dont understand what a partition is. You literally dont have to do anything except click the bubble and choose next.
altkey@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
Idk what was your problem, but mine was not reading on filesystems when the choice occured and not knowing how awesome BTRFS is with incrimental backups.
RedGreenBlue@lemmy.zip 5 months ago
There was not an option to autopartition the drive you picked? Having to manually make efi partition sounds suspect to me.
psx_crab@lemmy.zip 5 months ago
I tried installing it on a new ssd so to separate window and linux stuff(and also upgrade from a bunch of very old hdd), the guide recommend me to select “something else” and create the partition accordingly. I follow their official guide here
…readthedocs.io/…/install.html
At the time i’m installing, i still have my old drive plugged in so in fear of messed thing up badly and had my whole data erased, i chose to manage the partition myself. Should i unplug everything other than the new drive, and have the installer do it automatically?
dubyakay@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
There’s some information missing. What is saying “not bootable drive”? You should make a primary partition on the target drive.
Also, even if you don’t have tpm, you may have some sort of secure boot preventing non-windows drives from booting.
psx_crab@lemmy.zip 5 months ago
What is saying “not bootable drive”? You should make a primary partition on the target drive.
When booting, after the bios screen it give me a black screen with that message, and refuse to boot.
Also, even if you don’t have tpm, you may have some sort of secure boot preventing non-windows drives from booting.
How do i navigate this? My machine is build around 2012-14 so not sure what its in. I had someone build it for me so i’m not sure what’s in it.
AndyMFK@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
One of the most frequently suggested beginner distros is Linux mint. It’s great, it’s stable, it’s what I use and while it’s not exactly cutting edge, or necessary the prettiest distro, it’s great for beginners and will feel pretty familiar coming from windows.
Pop_os! And bazzite are more “gaming focused” if that’s more your style, but I’ve never had an issue gaming with Linux mint.
Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter terribly much. Pick one, install it to a new drive and try it out. If you don’t like it, pick another one.
kittenzrulz123@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
Linux mint isnt just not bleeding edge, its significantly more stable than Debian. Its so much incredibly more stable that they still use X11 and probrally will for the foreseeable future.
Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Tech-idiot, here, but Linux-curious and running Windows 10 with an ardent refusal to change it to 11.
I know there are a ton of different versions of Linux, ‘Ubuntu’ and such, but I don’t know jack about any of them… which would you recommend that’s best suited to someone who’s only ever used Windows? Looking for the most idiot-proof option. Gaming and office style work are primary use.
Emphasis on the idiot proof. I am really anxious about switching from fear of jacking up my computer, but am so sick of Window’s bullshit… probably as good a time to dive in now than any point going forward.
bookmeat@lemmynsfw.com 5 months ago
Most good Linux releases (distros) have a Live CD/usb boot option. Do try that out! It doesn’t mess with your existing setup and you can see how it feels.
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
If you need a computer that’s reliable for office work, use Debian, if you want a more console-like experience and less likely it’ll break your computer, use bazzite, if you want to be able to use new hardware, the moment it’s released to the market have the best compatibility with all games and software and the widest range of supported hardware and software use cachyOS.
Debian is stable because it updates so slowly. It makes sure everything works under pain of death. So having compatibility issues, new hardware being supported, having to do weird little things for a less than popular application is pretty normal. But if it works, it’s literally the most stable thing you can possibly put on a computer.
Bazzite it’s kind of your middle ground. It’s up to date in 95% of all cases while support. Basically everything but it is immutable which makes it hard to tinker with or change things should you need to. Which is both a benefit and a downside. Does mean you’re less likely to break your computer while you’re learning on the flip side.
CachyOS is based on Arch the most up-to-date core that you can have for any computer. It’s what steamos is based on in many other bleeding edge options. It has a focus on hardware support, gaming support, software support doing so as up-to-date as physically possible. If you need something to be supported, it’s more likely to be supported here than anywhere else. While the old joke Arch likes to randomly break itself isn’t untrue. It’s also about 15 years out of date in how true it is. Modern Arch rarely ever breaks and when it does so will every other option barring debian almost exclusively.
Realistically speaking, when it comes to actually installing and using any of these options day-to-day, they’re completely identical. Typically, if you have the ability to rub two brain cells together, read and have even a 5th grade level of critical thinking skills. If you’re planning on gaming as your main use of your computer not work, not art, just gaming, just use cachyOS.
There is one last thing to be aware of when choosing any option. If it’s based on Arch, it’s going to have the best documentation in the most user-friendly possible way. Arch has the single. Best, wiki there is. Which for a new user can be a godsend if you actually know how to read.
wavebeam@lemmy.world 5 months ago
despite your weirdly hard-line anti-bazzite stance elsewhere, this is an excellent expansion on some of the other comments in this thread.
jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 5 months ago
How new is your computer?
I found Pop!_OS worked out of the box fine on my new desktop.
Mint had problems, but worked fine on my older computers.
Back up any important software (like, on a separate drive or online). Get a couple flash drives. Try out mint, popos, bazzite. They’re all free so it doesn’t matter that much if you don’t like one.
I don’t recommend trying to dual boot on one drive because windows is a rude room mate.
Shroomshroom@lemmynsfw.com 5 months ago
I am running Pop!_OS, too. Really easy to get in. For most parts entering code isnt needed. And when its just installing packages.
For Singleplayergames i dont have any problems. Its just install and play.
If someone just multiplayer games it can be hard time. Many anticheat wont work
balance8873@lemmy.myserv.one 5 months ago
Depends on how much you care about security. Some distros are still very focused on “I operate my desktop in my locked house and don’t expect police to knock” use cases.
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Rule 1 you do not get better instructions, manuals and documentation then arch and it’s family. Full stop. It’s great
mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
If you want a windows-like experience, Linux Mint is hard to beat. It will feel very familiar.
If you enjoy gaming (which I’m assuming you do, considering the article) then maybe Bazzite would be a good option. It comes with GPU drivers (which have historically been a giant pain in the ass for Linux) ready to go. It’s an immutable distro, which is… Contentious in the Linux community. It means you won’t be able to accidentally break your OS, but it also means it isn’t as customizable. The newer users appreciate the safety net, but the experienced power users see it as overly restrictive coddling.
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
It also pisses off new users frequently when they start to try to use any community tools for most games… Bazzite is a fucking nightmare for gaming because of it. It’s God damn funny counter productive issue.
The steam deck has the same problem to be fair.
Also historically is right, installing drivers has been trivial on every distro I can possibly think of for the last fuck, almost 20 years.
There have been one click gui installers for fucking ever at this point. Lol
saltesc@lemmy.world 5 months ago
It’s really easy and quick to install a distro so you can just test them out. Get three you think you’d like, try em out, you’ll probably like all of them, but you get to pick your fav.
There is no “best”, just “best for you”.
If gaming is your focus and you just want to go into Linux without research, I’d start with Ubuntu or Mint for a couple weeks. If you’re liking it, check out some others, but don’t be surprised if you go back to Ubuntu or Mint simply because you found them easy and working just fine. There’s no wrong choice, just lots of good ones. It is all up to how you like it with no anxiety of making a bad choice 😁
pivot_root@lemmy.world 5 months ago
For gaming, you can’t go wrong with Bazzite. It’s meant for gaming to mostly just work out of the box, so you likely won’t need to tinker with anything.
It’s that tinkering that introduces stability risks. Adding third-party package repositories and trying to install newer software on top of older LTS distros is what tends to end up breaking them.
knatschus@discuss.tchncs.de 5 months ago
Just made the switch, surprised how smooth the transition went so far.
avatar@lemmy.zip 5 months ago
But what percentage of games that use anticheat?
hopesdead@startrek.website 5 months ago
Okay, but how far back does this go? It can’t really be that all games in existence that ran on Windows is being counted. Is it?
deczzz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
While this is awesome we still need to have the same performance on Windows. Yes, some games run better through proton for some reason, but that’s the minority. Hopefully, proton will not be needed for new games in the future and we get native builds like CS2.
riskable@programming.dev 5 months ago
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 👍
Sauvandu60@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
This is great but my MSI laptop wasn’t very compatible with Linux.
fin@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Like how? You may need some proprietary firmwares.