Take a look at DRM-free games (ex. GOG) and then check their rating on ProtonDB. If you don’t want to use Steam, there is Bottles and Heroic Game Launcher. I’ve tried former and it has a “gaming” profile which will automatically add DXVK and VKD3D for you.
Is there a simple guide to Bottles? I have used Arch and NixOS, I use a tiling Window Manager, and I use the terminal daily, and even then, I still find Linux gaming to be quite confusing (probably related to the fact I’m not the paying type; I’m more of a “sail the seven seas” type).
For a long time I couldn’t get a stable distro working on my HP laptop with Intel 4 core & Nvidia 1660ti but after numerous successful daily driving on my desktops + steam deck of course I tried Bazzite which did the trick. Everything runs smoother & I haven’t encountered anything unable to run because the steam proton is mature. Lutris is perfect for anything to do with alternative launchers, roms, I even got modded black ops 2 working and I never thought that would be possible.
Are you using KDE? I’m on a fresh install of Arch with KDE Plasma on my gaming computer and I agree, it’s janky as fuck. I’ve gone through everything I can find about how to deal with the flicker, but it’s still there and it’s an awful experience.
I have none of these issues on my Arch laptop with Gnome, so I’m going to switch my desktop to Gnome too when I have the time. Plasma is not ready for mainstream use if this is the best that it gets. Gnome however is awesome!
So, I suggest changing your DE to Gnome. If that doesn’t fix the problem then switch to Pop!_OS. It’s a completely plug and play distro and I never had a single problem with it. I only switched to Arch because I wanted to get HDR support which requires Plasma. Well, it’s not worth it. I can’t even use adaptive sync which is a pretty big deal for gaming.
Good luck, we’re all counting on you.
Edit: otherwise Arch is an awesome distro. The power you have with all of the available programs is great! So, now it’s just about getting the screen rendering to be stable.
Edit: I just tried X11 and it seems a lot more stable. I didn’t have time to play a game, but I checked a few things that were causing flickering before and they weren’t flickering. On the login screen at the top left, pick x11 from the first drop down and then log in. Hopefully that works for you.
Original message below: If you installed your steam games on a separate partition. Otherwise unfortunately not. You can switch DEs without losing them though. The guy above this said that x11 KDE might fix the issue, and a new version of Plasma might also fix it. Check his comment. Overall though if you want a hands off experience then Pop is going to be a way better introduction to Linux than Arch. Although… Pop uses Gnome. So you would have to change the DE. There are some other distros that are pretty plug and play like Kubuntu or Mint that use KDE. I don’t think they’re as dialed as Pop, and IDK their Nvidia driver situation though, so check that before deciding.
The flickering thing is because you’re using Wayland and Nvidia GPU. If you switched to X11 (losing HDR support, unfortunately), the flickering goes away. However! I would recommend updating your system to KDE 6.1, which I believe has the explicit sync fix.
Edit: I just checked and I’m already on kDE Plasma version 6.1. And KDE Frameworks version 6.3. I wonder, do I need to undo some of the settings I made for KDE by following the Wiki if 6.1 was supposed to fix it?
I’ve thought about switching to x11 instead of going back to Gnome, but I haven’t decided yet. HDR is definitely not worth all of these other visual glitches and latency, so I need to do something. I don’t understand how the system can perform so poorly and be considered stable enough to be the default. At least half the people out there are probably using Nvidia cards.
Is there anything I should know before I switch to x11? Like, do I need to undo all these custom settings I made for the Nvidia driver, or use another driver? I’d appreciate the advice since this is one issue I’ve encountered that is definitely not resolved by reading the wiki.
KDE 6.1 just hit Arch repos like 3 days ago. You’re likely on 6.0.5. Switching between X11 and Wayland is effortless just change the default manager in SDDM settings.
Ah okay then. As user Russ said above it’s gotta be Nvidia drivers are still in beta with the fix from Nvidia side. I’m using an AMD card as well for this exact same reason. Wayland runs great on team red!
I’m pretty sure the explicit sync fix requires the 555 beta version of the Nvidia driver to be installed, as there’s a driver component that’s required.
What distro are you on? If it has a decent way to install the 555 beta that would probably be a good route to go with - but otherwise, no, switching to X11 shouldn’t require reverting any settings at all. I used to switch between the two sessions all the time, right before you enter your password on the login screen (you have to be completely logged out, not just at the screen lock) click the menu at the bottom right and it should have a “Plasma (X11)” option.
Thanks! I’m on Arch. I actually tried X11 last night after posting and it seems to fix the glitch. I’ll see if there’s a driver update for me. I appreciate the advice!
No problem! It looks like there’s an AUR package for it - though exercise caution since it is still in beta. That being said, 555 has been in beta for a bit now, so I expect it’ll probably be promoted to an official release imminently.
Definitely would give Wayland another try once the newer Nvidia driver is installed later on (either via the beta or the official release). I don’t use an Nvidia card anymore (this bug is precisely what caused me to switch, ironically - it has been around for a while and got worse for me when 535 came around) but I’ve heard from a lot of folks that it resolves the flickering issue.
Either way, I’m glad to hear that you’re glitch free now - and on a side note, it appears its your cake day so happy cake day!
Allow me to piggyback on this a bit, s’il vous plait.
Is there a Linux distribution that will run Adobe CC out of the box, games from Steam, and VR headsets? I need a new desktop badly, but I need to be able to use Adobe products as part of my job. (No, I can’t switch to GNU products, because I get files from clients, and I have to be able to work to industry standards.) I’ve used Tails before, which is not a user-friendly product, and it doesn’t play nicely with any other software.
Pretty much any major distro is going to have similar support for all of that. And for Adobe CC, that’s going to be limited at best. You didn’t specify which part of CC you need, but here’s an option for installing Photoshop 2022 on Linux. Trying to get the latest is likely going to be painful, since WINE would probably lag with supporting all the new updates.
Steam works pretty well pretty much everywhere. I’ve used it on Fedora, Arch, and openSUSE, and I’m sure it works fine on any Debian-based distro. VR support is similar, you’re going to have a much better time with SteamVR headsets. That said, here’s a guide to VR on Linux, stick to “confirmed working” sections for minimal tinkering.
Tails
Yeah, don’t use that for regular work, that’s an uber-paranoid distro that’s intentionally locked down, which means things are likely going to be more difficult to get working.
Try Linux Mint or Fedora (or Bazzite if you want gamer flavor), they’re both solid and tend to work pretty well out of the box. Software and hardware support doesn’t vary much between distros, so if it you can’t get it working with one of those and it’s not “officially supported” (i.e. instructions aren’t in one of my links), distro hopping probably won’t help.
I have to use Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Acrobat Pro every day for my day job. I have to keep up-to-date with my versions, because clients send me files that use features in the latest releases, and not being up-to-date means that things don’t render correctly. (I’m super-pissed that I have to update since Adobe dropped all support for Pantone colors abut a year (?) ago.)
I use Corel Painter 2022 and a Wacom pen display for fun. My guess is that a pen display might get a little weird in Linux, but the one I have is not cutting edge at least.
Yeah, don’t use that for regular work, that’s an uber-paranoid distro that’s intentionally locked down, which means things are likely going to be more difficult to get working.
I know, I know, but I liked being functionally untrackable online, and not getting ads shoved down my throat (…despite working in advertising…) all the time. It’s neat, but almost everything online seems to have privacy-invading features so deeply embedded that the browser built into Tails just can’t use them at all.
Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Acrobat Pro every day for my day job
Probably easier to run a VM or dual-boot then. Trying to keep those up-to-date is going to be a nightmare.
Honestly, if I were in your shoes, I’d probably get an Apple device. Adobe works great, and macOS isn’t as bad as Windows IMO.
I liked being functionally untrackable online, and not getting ads shoved down my throat
There are a lot of ways to get around that, such as:
uBlock Origin - blocks ads
use a VPN and switch locations periodically - limits efficacy of tracking
try Mullvad Browser - basically Tor Browser (i.e. the browser included w/ Tails), but without Tor, so fewer breakages
But honestly, the first two are really easy to do and solve 80% of the problem with a very small amount of breakage, and Firefox is installed by default in most Linux distros, and is available in the repositories on those where it’s not the default.
Honestly, if I were in your shoes, I’d probably get an Apple device.
Sadly, I also don’t like spending money. :P You used to be able to make Hackintoshes, but Apple tends to break them with every software update.
I had been thinking about getting an IoT Enterprise LTSC release of Windows and manually adding the components that I needed. Might still do that with dual boot.
There are a lot of ways to get around that, such as:
I’m doing all of that except the last one already. As has been noted in many other places, Windows itself is now in the business of serving ads directly, and it looks like that’s getting harder and harder to disable. I managed to mostly lock down the Pro release of Win 10 that I’m on right now, but Win 11 will make that much, much harder. If it weren’t for security issues surrounding end of product life, I wouldn’t switch versions at all.
C’est la mort.
But yeah, I’ll def. look for a user-friendly version of Linux when I build my next system in a few months.
Good luck! I also don’t like spending money, so I don’t blame you. Definitely consider a dual-boot w/ Linux though, it can at least help you separate work from play. :)
I’ve been using Nobara 39 for the last month and it has been a smooth ride. I’m playing Elden Ring with 0 issues and no tweaking needed on my part. The only friction I had was with the installer because I have a Nvidia card but once installed and got drivers updated all issues were gone.
I installed Bazzite on my gaming computer and it just isn’t great, there is screen flickering and occasional crashes:( I am not going back to Windows but it has required more emotional energy to troubleshoot than I wanted
I probably should get an AMD card, but I am going to try Nobara next to see if it just works…
I switched my gaming PC to Linux a few months back. I distro hopped for a while due to various issues, and landed on openSUSE Tumbleweed. Everything just works (except for the occasional bug in the updates where I have to wait for the next snapshot for a fix, but that’s NBD).
Caveat: I’m all AMD so no Nvidia stuff to worry about. YMMV.
Same here except I stuck with leap as the newer kernel does not play nice with the suspend function. My little travel laptop has tumbleweed on it no problems. I’m surprised I haven’t seen more suse recommendations because it’s the only one that mostly “just worked” out of the box.
with the issues you’ve had i think it’s perfectly understandable, but I’ll agree with other commenters that arch is not a good choice for a first distro. i recommend trying dual booting windows and a more "beginner " distro like Linux mint or pop_os
the reason why arch gets recommend a lot as a gaming distro is that it is bleeding edge. Their for has very up to date drivers and parches that can help gaming. But with the current state of gaming on Linux this is a bit less of a requirement. most distros are new enough for most games. Exception might be debian LTS or something.
So i totaly agree that choosing something other then arch for gaming is a good option if you are rather new to linux.
As a longtime Debian Stable user, I can attest that gaming on it works just fine, whether via Proton or natively.
It was rough at the first half year or so after Steam Linux client launched where system libraries were simply too old and one had to smuggle in libc from Ubuntu, but that got solved by the next Debian release, and it’s been smooth sailing ever since. :)
Of course, I wouldn’t recommend Debian for a gaming system for a newbie. It’s just what I’ve been using as my daily driver for decades, so I did not want to switch to something else just for something as unimportant as gaming.
Bleeding edge should still work though. KDE Plasma does not seem ready for Nvidia. They should have a big-ass banner on the wiki that says “this DE will be janky as fuck if you have an Nvidia card”.
I’m saying that it doesn’t work. At least not without some pretty serious bugs. Perhaps there are some magic fixes out there that I haven’t found, or perhaps I have some taboo combination of hardware, but so far I haven’t been able to fix the visual and latency bugs that are present with KDE Plasma and an Nvidia GFX card. I’ve followed the wiki thoroughly, and some instructions on some forum threads, but none of it helped.
Thanks for the recommendations everyone! I plan on keeping Linux on my second drive to continue playing around with it, but my gaming will probably go back to Windows. Might give bazzite or popos a try next.
My bad, that’s what I mean. Whatever drive bazzite is not installed on is difficult to deal with when it comes to flatpak steam. There’s a bunch of mount params you are supposed to use but for me they didn’t work whatsoever on bazzite.
I used what was there. From precious experience with auroraos I assumed it must have been flatpak steam, that’s my bad. Either way, even after following bazzite’s own instructions on auto-mounting drives to a T, external drives still had all sorts of issues. Link to the docs: universal-blue.discourse.group/t/…/970
I recommend trying another linux distro for a while. Arch has a pretty steep learning curve. So big respect for getting it to work as a first distro, but there is a lot of stuff you have to setup manually that just works on other distros. If you got more stuff working and get a little more familiar you can always go back to arch.
I use arch nowadays, but the first time i tried to install it i basically gave up a few times. If you just want to try it out in order to learn then it’s perfectly cool to take some time. But if your goal is to play games then arch is just a means to an end. Then it becomes really annoying, because you cannot reach your goal.
Good luck! Linux is sadly not quite yet for everyone, but it’s so much further along than it was when I started in 1999.
I bounced between Linux and Windows for decades, but when the Recall debacle happened, it became clear that Microsoft have lost their collective minds. I wiped my system, put Garuda Linux on it, and everything works quite well for me with no tinkering except with user-level KDE settings. I also changed from an NVIDIA RTX 3070Ti to an AMD RX 7800XT just so everything related to graphics would just work and I didn’t have to wait and hope that explicit sync really does fix everything for NVIDIA on Wayland.
I also use proton-ge for everything (in Steam as well as in Lutris which uses umu-launcher) and every game I’ve attempted to run (thus far on the order of 35+ games), has run great, including Elden Ring. I’ve found in my 25 years experience, the trick with Linux is two-fold: researching hardware to guarantee full Linux support…and having patience. And I’ve fell victim to that last one dozens of times over the years which led me back to windows each time.
Wayland and Plasma have not been good experiences for me. Gnome on Pop was awesome. I can’t get the flicker to stop. So I’m going to try Gnome on Arch and see if that fixes it. Unfortunately I think it also uses Wayland, so I may have to go back to Pop. I’m not spending another $1000 on a GFX card when I have a perfectly fine 3070 ti already .
First of all nothing to apologize, no one should be forcing anyone to use any OS.
Secondly, you shouldn’t start with Arch, it’s a very manual process that has several small things that can be done wrong. I recommend you try Mint, Pop or any other beginner friendly distro, you can still tinker and customize them as much as you want, but you will be starting from something that works instead of having to build a working system from the ground up without knowing what that looks like.
Terraria and deep rock galactic are good starters, but this post sounds insanely paranoid for the wrong reasons. Just because you got infected with malware in the past doesn’t mean you need to lock down your internet access. You’ll gain nothing from it. All you need is an adblocker (+ something that blocks trackers) and not running suspicious files.
Just because you’re connecting to a remote server (like any website ever) doesn’t mean you’re susceptible to attacks. Ditto for almost any modern video game, there are protections in place so nobody can run code or send you harmful files on your machine.
If a curious desire for awareness of the the details that surround me is somehow offensive or off putting I apologize. I find it is a catalyst for learning and contextualizing information in several areas of personal interest and plugs some holes in my ignorance.
As someone who recommends Arch to new users that have some familiarity with CLI AND also likes to tinker, I will always advise to check their wiki and forum. Check for the very specific problem you’re having. Even the model sometimes helps. From other comments, I see you’re mentioning logitech, maybe this wiki entry will help, but maybe it won’t. In which case, search for more information. Check their wiki entry for other logitech mice, for wireless mice, for general mice.
Now, onto the next issue, what do you mean by not launch right? From there, maybe I can help with the issue.
This is also why I recommend this to someone that would like to tinker with their system. Arch requires a lot of reading. But once you understand it, it becomes “yours” and you obtain a lot of knowledge about the system that you’re using.
Now, for everyone who doesn’t like to tinker, use bazzite. I heard that it just works™.
My main issue is stuttering with baldur’s gate 3 and elden ring, both performing worse than their windows equivalent installations. Also I got HDR working in the desktop with KDE plasma, but the option just isn’t available in games.
Finally, the brightness on my monitor seems to be all over the place.
For now I plan on keeping Linux on one of my drives (maybe try another distro, or just stick to less demanding games) and using Windows for AAA games.
Alright, the stuttering is not my forte for troubleshooting. It could be from the driver but it could also be just the compatibility layer or myriad of other factors. I don’t play those games myself too. However, you can try searching for protondb to see the state of the game support on linux. Here is for Elden Ring for example. And be sure to actually check the review as it really reflects the state of games. You can also try looking for those with the same hardware and see if they comment on any issue. That can at least help weed out some potential problems.
Lastly, the brightness issue. Can you describe it in more detail? Like, does it happen when you are turning HDR on or is it happening regardless of HDR? And what does it mean the brightness is all over the place? Is it happening when you are consuming video content? I have an OLED for example, and the black is always the same regardless of the brightness. So are you sure it isn’t from the content itself?
The stuttering is probably the compatibility layer, it doesn’t do it in helldivers, for instance. So I think it’s game specific
Thanks for the Hdr link. I have enabled it for desktop but didn’t realize steam was different.
For the brightness, HDR is enabled, but it seems like it “forgets” what brightness is supposed to be until I wiggle the slider. And every time I boot the pc the brightness needs to be at a different number to match my non HDR monitor. Probably just growing pains with a beta feature, I would guess.
Yep, the problem with the compatibility layer is that a game can be very particular about the version too.
You’re very welcome. This is after all, the essence of Arch. Now you know what is happening and why HDR is not yet widespread on other linux. On the other hand, you get to experience HDR gaming when other distros may not yet support it.
I can confirm that I do have the same issue regarding brightness. However, I never tried to investigate further as my mechanical keyboard has a fn keys to adjust brightness (fn + f1/f2) so I don’t need to open settings to wiggle the slider. I can understand that it can be an issue for others. I suggest reading more regarding display and monitor. If all else fails, try asking the forum. I think it is DE specific (because wayland).
That’s exactly the reason you shouldn’t recommend Arch for new users. New users, even those who like to tinker, don’t want to read pages upon pages of wikis to get basic shit working. They want something that works that they can tinker with.
90% sure OP installed the wrong drivers, probably because he missed some note on which to install or a configuration to switch them. Also very likely the mouse issue is related to some random udev rule or package he installed trying to solve something, Logitech mouses just work out of the box.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Arch, have been using it as my main distro for over 15 years, but it’s definitely NOT for new users, even those who like to tinker with their system, Ubuntu is just as tinkerable, but Arch you need to build up. Imagine someone saying they are interested in decorating their home and you recommend them to build their house from scratch while having nowhere to live. This is why it’s important that new users have a comfortable place they can go back if things don’t work, and if you don’t give it to them they’ll obviously return to Windows.
Yeah, I may need to rethink my recommendation for the future. Especially their willingness to read and patience. I am happy to guide anyone if they asked and hence why I usually recommend it.
Regarding the random udev rule, I doubt it was that. Cooler Master mouse has known issue in Linux in which they don’t wake up from sleep when using the dongle. So it could just be the mouse regardless of the distro.
As for the wrong driver, the OP stated that he experiences stutter for certain games but not for others. As I said, I am not an expert for troubleshooting stutter as it could be from a lot of factors. But I doubt OP installed the wrong driver. Wrong drivers usually lead to more uniform glitches across the board.
The mouse is Logitech, which afaik doesn’t have any issues (at least all of my Logitech mice have always just worked).
The drivers can impact performance worse on some games and cause glitches in others. I remember a while back getting some texture issues on Nvidia but not on nouveau (even though the performance was worse).
Well, “just works” depends on how you define it too. But yeah, most of the “basic” stuff just works. But I will not rule out the possibility of unsupported HW just because I have my fair share of it too. For example, I’d say a keyboard is working if they are able to be used as an input device. Even without the customization or sleep, or wake from sleep. Granted, the issue being unrecognized or not working at all is very much borked tho. Hence why I request the details of the mouse itself.
Now you mention degraded performance and glitches. Yes, I do know that. But as I said, my statement regarding the wrong driver usually entails a lot more dramatic bug than a stutter on only known 2 games. Further investigations are needed to correctly decide if it is the driver or not since we know that a compatibility layer is also playing a part here. It is also why I suggest searching the protondb to check the current support for the game. Linux gaming, as good as it is now, is not perfect yet.
linux_gaming
Active
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.