I used linux in the past, both privately and work-related, but the last time was over 10 years ago, so I'm a bit out of touch. I am in need of a new PC, but it'll be a good year before I have the funds, so for now I am making due with an i5 7500 and a gtx 1660. I do have 32 GB so there's that. I finally feel confident enough to make the permanent switch to linux from windows as all of the programs I use are either available on linux or have a good/better equivalent. The only thing I fear will hold me back is games. I know Steam has Proton now which will run most games, but how does it compare? The games I play most are Skyrim (heavily modded) , RDR2, Witcher 3, Transport fever, Civilization, Crusader kings 3 and Cities Skylines (uninstalled atm waiting for 2). I'm on the fence to either wait until I can afford a new PC and dual boot or make the switch now and deal with a few gaming problems. Thing is, what kind of problems may I expect? Anyone able and knowledgeable to give me some advice?
EDIT: Wow, those are a lot of replies; thank you everyone! You really helped me. I will make the switch sooner rather than later.
Check out https://www.protondb.com, to see which games work well on Linux. Games that are platinum should work out of the box, ones that are Gold might need some tinkering. Most games work great, but a lot of multiplayer games aren't supported.
In general gaming on Linux has been a pretty smooth experience lately. Games on Steam usually just work, but IMO running games outside of Steam is pretty hit or miss. They sometimes need following a guide or trying to fix an obscure issue that only like 2 other people have.
The thing about Linux is that you might have some issues outside of gaming. Things you might not expect like Discord not being able to screenshare audio or that one program you need not working on your distro properly. Also you should know games on an NTFS drive don't work well on Linux, so you can't expect your drive full of Windows games to just work if you have them on a 2nd drive. In general I still think you need some patience if you're going to settle on a Linux desktop, it's not entirely a bug free experience yet.
It depends. Do you play stuff with kernel level anticheat? If no, then the current state of Linux gaming is, by and large as good as, and occasionally better than, Windows - even on games that don't run natively.
Proton is astounding, and the state of Wine is amazing compared to 10 years ago (and it wasn't bad then). Get Bottles or Play on Linux going, plus Steam, and there's very little you can't do…
Except kernel level anticheat.
(To be 100% transparent, there are other issues. I have a couple games I can't get to run reliability, but they're all obscure edge cases. But like 90% of stuff without anticheat just works at this point.)
Edit: proofreading
The only experience I have is with Steam Deck and it's fantastic! I love it so much that I've decided to build my next PC as a Linux only box. I am a refugee from /r/patientgamers though. I don't play the new hotness unless it's first party Nintendo stuff.
I'm also so fed up with Microsoft's anti-consumer practices and disastrous updates, so it makes it an easier decision.
If a game doesn't work on linux, I don't buy/play it until it does. End of story. There is plenty of choice and time is limited, so having an extra filter is just helpful.
protondb.com will tell you how well each game works. There's also an icon on Steam, if it says it's certified for the Steam Deck that's also good.
I've installed Manjaro in 2020 during covid specifically for gaming and never looked back since.
We're living in the golden age of Linux gaming right now, get yourself a piece of it.
For me it reached a point where I now expect a new game I'm trying to just work. This was a monumental shift when I first realized that a few months ago.
Your best bet is Steam/Proton, since Valve stands behind it and development on all the Proton components (Wine, DXVK, VKD3D, Gamescope, ...) is very active.
If you get games outside of Steam (I often prefer GoG if that's an option, plus I have some itch.io bundles purchased a while ago), some tinkering may be necessary. For those, I like to go "vanilla" with Wine(-GE-custom usually), plus DXVK or VKD3D on top. There's also Lutris to help with these scenarios. Works great too.
Another topic is native Linux games. There are some gems which work beautifully. I recently finished native Celeste from itch.io and it was flawless. Another great Linux port is Bastion. But some older titles may have compatibility issues - missing or incompatible libraries, broken gamepad support or stuff like that. For those, the Windows version via Proton may actually work better than the native version. Luckily, we can now pick either one.
The whole reason I kept Windows around was for Genshin Impact. At compete random, the game silently added proton compatibility with their anti cheat, so now I never have to boot into Windows anymore. I was never expecting it to actually happen lol.
Wait, when did that happen?? That's great! I always was playing it with the sneaky secret way that shall not be named lol.
So that's not necessary anymore?
Yup, I just run the exe thru Lutris as is. No modifications. Happened randomly like 5 months ago or something.
They do. It's a matter of assumed additional dev time and library lock in. Actively fighting proton efforts is stupid tho
Have you heard of ProtonDB? It rates the current state of games and recommended fixes.
Gaming on Linux has improved a lot over the years. It's typically only multiplayer games with Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) that you'll run into major issues with. Mod managers frequently require a fair amount of extra work and reading but I think a lot of Bethesda games have easy work arounds and documentation.
Thanks, I didn't know about ProtonDB. I never play multiplayer so that won't be a problem.
If you never play multiplayer, you're probably fine. Though the only issue with that is triple A games not letting Anti-Cheats work on Linux for whatever reason.
Other then that, you'll only run into issues when modding Skyrim for the most part. Here's a github page with a step-by-step guide on how to do it; although, far as I can tell it's four years old and might be obsolete.
There's also this post in the Steam Community forums which is two years old at the earliest.
For Skyrim I've had pretty good luck with just adding Vortex mod manager as a non steam game, running it with Proton and using mods that way
One other website I'd check out if you are getting into any obscure/older games that might not have a lot of comments on ProtonDB is the PCGamingWiki. Lots of fixes are listed there
It's good now: https://www.protondb.com/
Go with an AMD graphics card, they work right out of the box in Linux so it's just that much easier.
I started using Linux maybe 5 years ago, just before DXVK and proton became a thing. The difference between now and then for gaming is night and day.
If it's on steam, there is a pretty good chance it'll work. If it's not on steam, it still might work through lutris.
There are some holdouts like Riot games, but I haven't owned windows in almost two years.
Most games work perfectly, it really is just the 'live-service' games that simply don't work in Linux thanks to kernel-level shenanigans. If you plan to play games like Valorant/LoL/Genshin, it will be a nightmare and i don't even recommend trying to make them work.
But then again, you can always have a separate SSD with Windows installed just to play those games. I'd honestly recommend you having Windows just to play games and Linux for everything else.
Genshin is actually really easy thanks to a certain launcher someone made.
LoL works and they continue improving it or at least did a few months ago back when I still played.
1650ti most certainly does support Vulkan. However there may be problems if you have switchable graphics.
Indeed, i have to use optimus manager in X11 in order to let my graphic card process games and other things
Can be pain free but it can also be painful. Some things straight up won't work because of anti cheat and unsupportive developers. I'd say give it a try. Gotta bump up the market share so Linux support actually matters in developer business cases.
I've been having a great experience. I am on an all AMD system, which generally has better support than Nvidia, so ymmv. The only thing I occasionally miss is Xbox game pass, but I didn't use it a ton to be honest so I guess Linux just saved me 15 bucks a month.
Most games I've played have been a literal cakewalk, just install and play. Stuff that uses the ea launcher acts a little strange on launch but has worked fine so far - just have to not panic when you see a blank ea window sit there for like 10-15 seconds and have faith it will move passed it, lol.
