1 wk. ago • 97%

Gamers Nexus might start including Linux gaming tests in their hardware reviews

Pretty exciting times ahead as Valve might finally release SteamOS to more hardware. This amount of Linux desktop coverage would be unimaginable few years ago.

Linux Gaming @lemmy.world Gamers Nexus might start including Linux gaming tests in their hardware reviews

39 comments

That's great news! Linux gaming is increasingly taken more seriously.

70
I remember back in the day, running Quake3 on linux provided better FPS than on windows. I haven't compared the two since then on any game.

Is it still the case? And is this difference (mostly) there in other games too?

50
- On AMD, it’s not uncommon for games to perform better than on Windows.
  
  For Nvidia, games almost always perform worse than on Windows.
  
  38
  
  Well, no surprise, AMD's cooperation with Linux/Mesa/etc. devs is longer and deeper than Nvidia's. In fact, when Linus Torvalds was asked about how cooperative Nvidia are, he gave them the finger.
  
  14
  
  Your nvidia information might be outdated since driver version 560.x. And I'm getting tired of the anti nvidia circlejerk in the Linux communities on lemmy.
  
  At least Shadow of the Tomb Raider (+20fps) and Cyberpunk (+5fps) run better than they did on windows with the same settings, for me. And those are the only games I tested, because they are the only AAA titles I own that come with a performance test.
  
  I'm not defending nvidia here, there are still issues like missing multi monitor vrr or a few (!) titles that are too broken to play. And it's not as much of an out of the box experience as it is with AMD.
  
  But for most people that own an nvidia card it's probably already a good idea to make the switch from windows.
  
  So, to anyone owning a nvidia card having doubts: feel free to try things out!
  
  7
  
  To provide some additional anecdotes to support jul's comment. I've personally been experiencing better performance than windows even with nvidia. Though it does vary per game, with the occasional workaround especially when going outside the realm of plug and play to mod games.
  
  I'd say most games are great, the "10% low" games are still good, and the "1% lows" where things just don't work are pretty rare but sometimes there is a fix. Proton.db is a good resource for those instances.
  
  And being honest... windows has those moments too, people just ignore them because windows is the ubiquitous gaming OS.
  
  It's a lot better than when I had last "tried" and it may be more impactful to bring up that this time I haven't gone back even once, and I actually went ahead and pulled the plug on my windows partition.
  
  Linux is just better now, there's one thing windows had but I gave it up. Linux is just better for most things now and to make that win even better.. windows has increasingly been becoming worse than itself.
  
  2
  
  Borderlands 3 performed better on Linux for me with a 1650
  
  1
- there are edge cases where linux performa better, especially with older apis because dx9/dx11 to vulkan allows for more draw calls than thr native language can do.
  
  then you have rare situations like elden rings launch ehere shader caching was broken on windows and vulkans shader caching on linux worked making elden ring play better on linux
  
  16
  
  Do you think most games might perform better on linux in the future? When game makers put more effort towards optimising for linux considering linux has less bloatware etc?
  
  2
- The Sims 2 performs better on Linux than it ever did on Windows.
  
  Y'know, for what it's worth.
  
  10
  
  Mad Max too, my computer doesnt heat up and the framerate is smoother when I'm not running 6gb ram worth of bloatware before the game
  
  1
- Quite a few games work better on Linux now than windows.
  
  10
  
  World of Warcraft was a big one, it was faster on wine than native windows
  
  5
- I remember playing Neverwinter Nights and running it on Linux providing a more stable and clean experience than on Windows. Even modding it was easier.
  
  6
That would be great.

17
Finally!

14
SteamOS is going to have to do a lot of heavy lifting. I reckon there are quite a few people who are waiting for its release before trying Linux.

Does SteamOS even have functional desktop, or is it just Steam big picture wrapper thing?

11
- It uses KDE for that
  
  24
  
  Yep. What I was meaning, will SteamOS boot right into KDE and be a computer operating system first, or boot into big picture mode and be a gaming system first.
  
  1
- Yes, on the Steam Deck you can restart into KDE.
  
  12
- Yes, but it is also set up as an OS image.
  
  I think there is a process for persistence, but without some effort, changes are lost for OS updates.
  
  6
  
  Changes aren't lost on update. If you enable a sudo user/password, and make changes to the system that way, those changes can be lost when applying the new system image.
  
  Its an immutable Arch-based distro and you have full readwrite to your home directory and all config, settings, and files within persist.
  
  9
- I reckon there are quite a few people who are waiting for its release before trying Linux.
  
  I always recommend against it people wanting a gaming linux desktop
  SteamOS being an immutable operating system works a bit different to most well known operating systems
  albeit this also makes any breackage almost impossible
  
  4
  
  I am pretty sure even LTT Linus said he was waiting for a SteamOS release before trying again. I was thinking, like damn dude, if you can't use PopOS, how will this be any different for you.
  
  albeit this also makes any breackage almost impossible
  
  Maybe, just maybe, this will stop people like him from catastrophically uninstalling their entire desktop environment.
  
  2
- It boots into Game scope (as others said, it's not "big picture mode" it's a compositor stack tailored for high gaming performance) but it's nothing more than an immutable arch distribution (and immutability can be disabled for tweaking) so you could definitely swap the defaults if someone has documented how.
  
  Would be a nice feature to have once SteamOS becomes independent of the deck.
  
  3
- Does SteamOS even have functional desktop
  
  Unlike Windows, yes. It does.
  
  2
Steve's so based.

10
Can't wait, bazzite is niffty but In my exp SteamOS worked best.

5
It's the right thing to do. Windows isn't nearly as stable or reproducible as a testing platform anymore and I imagine it's a PITA to handle for benchmarking dozens of not hundreds of hardware configs.

Of course they'll still do those Windows tests, not suggesting they won't, but Linux may become a more useful benchmarking platform for reviewers thanks to the control and automation it provides.

A whole host of configurations can be quickly booted and tested on a benchmark suite to confirm performance of older hardware and provide context, whilst newer products can get a bespoke review on all platforms. If a new benchmark game comes out, it'll be way easier to insert into the Linux setups than Windows.

4
Windows gamers and reviewers seemed to not realize AMD cpu performance was nerfed on Windows until the latest gen AMD release. From time to time there have also been issues with Windows scheduling for Intel cpus. Including a competing OS in comparisons allows reviewers to sanity check stuff like that. Wendell had the most balanced reviews because he was presenting cross platform and productivity along with Windows gaming performance. When Microsoft held a monopoly that sort of reviewing wasn't possible. You had no idea if Windows was nerfing particular platforms or why.

Overall Linux gaming might be worse or some titles really bad but lets get it out in the open. It will be good for all consumers because it will drive improvement.

4
I think they should at least do an annual "Year of the Linux desktop!" episode!

1

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