This has been the exact same story for decades. Linux is great for certain professional endeavours/for work, but it doesn’t really have the ecosystem for gaming that exists on Windows. You can run Linux from inside Windows if you just need a few applications. But sadly, beyond a few publishers who make their games Linux compatible, if you want to game without hassle then Windows is your best bet.
I hate the input delay on cloud gaming. It’s just not something wish to deal with in action games. I used it on my phone to play persona but killer instinct on Streaming is suffering.
It’s tolerable on a lot of games but anything that requires fast responses can feel pretty rough at times. Anything more chill or turn based runs just fine though!
That’s true, but even streaming locally from my series x to stream Deck really degrades the image quality and introduces input delay (which of course could also be caused by my network idk) so I’m not too keen on streaming games
I exclusively play Steam games on my Ubuntu machine because I don’t have to do anything, it just works for me (only had to set up proton once on Steam and I was done forever).
There are sim games that I just boot into Windows to play them.
The boot up time of programs and privacy is worth it in my mind.
Even with Steam there can still be some strange issues. For example, Far Cry 4 will crash with no error messages if it can see more than 31 logical CPU cores. You have to use the WINE_CPU_TOPOLOGY environmental variable to limit it to less cores. Apparently, windows has been programmed to limit the number of CPU cores in certain games to work around bugs that the game developers should have fixed instead. I guess Proton should start doing that too since high core count CPUs are becoming more common.
Are you on Wayland or X11? And have you tried switching it?
I also totally get your point and agree. I started using Fedora this year as well and especially Wayland is driving me nuts but X11 isn’t a great alternative either, at least on a notebook. For example: you lose a lot of useful touchpad features, if you go back to X11.
For me the biggest issue with X is that it can’t do per-display scaling, which makes it pretty annoying to use with one 4k and one 1080p display.
The only workaround that I’ve found so far that sorta works is just scaling everything up to where it looks good on the biggest screen, and then scaling the other screens down using xrandr.
Then again the only reason I haven’t committed to Wayland is because the issues I’ve had there have been much worse.
Fedora 38 specifically is terrible for gaming. Google and you’ll find out how bad. Ubuntu and derivatives still seem to be the best supported for most gaming applications, especially Steam.
I think it mostly centers around the specific implementation choices the Fedora maintainers made with regard to libraries and kernel modules. Nvidia drivers causing lots of issues, people complain about performance degradation after kernel patches…etc. Reddit is full of users complaints, and if you dig in here, you’ll see lots of posts asking for help with issues mention F38.
Nobara is gaming centric, so no. Glorius Eggroll codes on a version of Proton and is the developer of Nobara. However, when I gave it a go I found it to be a bit buggy. YMMV though. (Nobara I mean. His version of Proton is amazing.)
I found Nobara ran pretty well but maybe 5 % of my library wouldn’t work on Nobara but runs on Debian and arch based distros as well as solus on the same hardware.
Diablo 4 runs well 60-40fps in the open world 60fps in dungeons on a mix of low/med settings. I play it at 50fps cap for smoother pacing and it’s a great experience.
Eh… just lower your expectations and dive in. Not like theres any “Wowzers AAA+” game to play nowadays. If anything, its a great way to exercise your braincells and “the future you” will definitely appreciate what you’ve done today.
You didn’t mention it in your post, did you make sure you set proton to run for non-verified games in steam settings? Also did you try proton experimental and/or Proton-GE?
HUMANKIND seems to be a mixed bag but the others are reported to run well.
I did indeed try Proton. Proton is basically why I even bother to install Steam on Linux these days, but Humankind, a game I very much enjoy, does “almost” run. It’ll go to a black screen, and then it’ll freeze. I’ve tried different combinations of games and settings (incl. Proton settings)and launch settings, but not a lot seem to want to launch or work.
Again, I’ve been a general Linux user for years, and I’ll keep using it, but the dream is to completely ditch Windows. It doesn’t look like we’re quite there yet (to me, at least).
Note that I’m not making this post to hate on Linux or Fedora, even though it may seem a little… ya. I just want to game without booting into Win 11, and it doesn’t let me - yet.
Also, since you’re already on Fedora, you should check out Nobara, which is gaming-optimized Fedora-based distro made by GloriousEggroll, the guy who makes Proton-GE.
I have a very similar system to you (Fedora 38 + AMD 5800X3D + AMD 6900 XT) as my daily driver and out of the games you listed I can only tell you that Red Dead Redemption 2 worked out of the box with no tinkering.
One thing that comes to mind, maybe it’s using the integrated GPU of your 4600G?
Do you have Proton installed, and did you tell Steam to run games using it? Go to Steam -> Settings -> Compatibility. Make sure Enable Steam Play is checked for both Supported and “Other” titles, and the drop down has a Proton version in it. I personally use Proton Experimental for everything.
I can’t help but notice that Civ VI, F1 2015 and Broforce which all work for you are all native Linux titles, and all of the ones that don’t work don’t have Linux versions and would therefore need to be run through Proton. ProtonDB lists all of them as Gold tier titles, so they should generally work okay with only minor issues. Steam doesn’t do great messaging and prompt players to do this from what I remember.
Appreciate the reply! Yeah, you’re right, the games that should run, run (even though Civ VI is having some issues with AA). I do have Proton enabled, and I have checked ProtonDB (and read comments for tips and “run-commands”, but I’m still stuck.
It should again be mentioned that I’m on Fedora 38, but that shouldn’t have any impact right? I’m aware that PopOS is the “go to” distro when you wanna game on Linux, but is that actually true?
Regarding the distro, definitely not the case. Steam Deck runs on Arch for example. Years ago I played on Fedora just fine.
If you don’t mind elaborating, what are the issues you’re seeing? I absolutely get your frustration, but I think many of us would be happy to help you and hopefully it’s a quick solution!
Any distro should work provided you have the right packages. The package maintainers will ensure the versions play nicely together. What matter a bit more is X11 vs. Wayland, and Nvidia vs AMD, but in general, I’m fairly confident you should be able to play on any distro through Steam. Some distros come packed with drivers/wine/etc. for convenience, some you might have to compile them. The former will advertise their “gaming-readiness”, I would stick to those. Outside of gaming, you will get the same smoothness you find with Fedora with other distros.
Excellent reply! I’m just running stock Fedora Workstation 38 on an all AMD-system. On paper, this should not be a problem. Maybe I’m missing a teeny tiny detail, but that’s part of the game I guess,lol. I’ll keep using Fedora as a daily and boot into Win 11 when I wanna game. Proton is moving fast though, so hopefully I’ll run “pure linux” soon.
I’ve been gaming on fedora for 2 years now, and it’s worked perfectly for me every time. Civ 6 has working AA for me, and even most ray traced games I have run with ray tracing. I can’t recommend pop these days because it is fairly old, and in its next version will get a whole new desktop which may or may not work well.
Thanks for your input! Much appreciated, and I’ll definitely keep using Fedora. A world where Windows isn’t the only proper OS for gaming would be awesome, but I honestly beleve we’re heading towards that world in the near future. Valve is working hard at Proton and things are only getting better.
There’s actually a distro based on Fedora called Nobara that is gamer focused. It’s maintained by a well-known Redhat employee who also maintains Proton-GE.
Nobara KDE has been my distro of choice for a while. Everything seems to just work for me.
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