iirc Garuda Linux defaults to it, and is gaming focused distro of arch. Whether its worth it is up to you, but there are already users who daily drive it that way.
BTRFS is worth it. It’s a bit faster than ext4. And with BTRFS assistant or snapper, you can configure automatic snapshots of your OS partition. And grub-btrfs will allow to integrate them to the boot menu. Once you are booted via snapshot, there is a way to replace / file system with that snapshot permanently, or you can boot to another one.
And remember, snapshots in BTRFS is just a formal thing, use them only if you specifically need their features, like read only sub volumes. If you just need to backup some directory, for example with steam games, no need to do the actual snapshot. You can easily backup large amount of data with just cp -dr dir dir_backup no matter how large is it, it will be done immidetelly and without taking additional space.
I’ve been happy with btrfs. No issues with gaming. There’s even a pretty good Windows driver, which I’ve used successfully to transfer data between Linux & Windows. Though I haven’t installed Windows itself to btrfs, which is apparently possible!
Worry less about benchmarks, and more about stability, compatibility, configurability, and sanity. Amd should be your first choice, then Intel Arc (may see some performance issues, but easier than Nvidia at this point), then Nvidia as an absolute last resort.
AMD and Intel open large parts of their drivers to be included in the mainline kernels releases and tertiary support packages which drive graphics in Linux, so any fully featured kernel will support either right out of the box, with no fiddling needed. You can tweak the drivers and overclock stuff as well if that’s your jam.
Nvidia doesn’t do any of this, and only allows individual installs of it’s proprietary driver on a per-kernel basis. To simplify, you’ll have issues getting it running under almost any conditions aside from a very Vanilla LTS install of a distro from a year ago unless you get REALLY good at doing the dance with their terrible package management issues and DKMS compilation craziness.
Both AMD and Nvidia GPUs work well. There is mainly a philosophy difference where AMD GPUs work particularly well with open source drivers whereas Nvidia still mostly depends on its proprietary drivers (though they work fine on Linux too).
Phoronix is a reputable website when it comes to benchmarking on Linux. Here is a previous benchmark with Nvidia GPUs, as an example:
Of note: when people complain about nvidia on Linux, you need to determine whether they complain about open source or proprietary drivers.
I have been running Nvidia GPUs on Linux for years and have had no issue with the proprietary drivers, both for an old and recent GPU. Of course YMMV.
Edit: my personal recommendation though would be to stick with AMD which offers more memory and bandwidth compared to similarly priced Nvidia GPUs (Nvidia uses 8GB for many of its GPUs which is quire disappointing these days). And with open source drivers it may be easier to get issues fixed and find support.
Which GPU do you have? Which drivers are you using? are you sure you’re using those drivers and they’re not just installed but unused? My first guess is that you have an Nvidia and are using open source drivers (nouveau).
Some performance difference is expected, after all most games are being run through a compatibility layer, and many others were ported as a second thought so they’re not optimized on the same level. Also note that lots of us don’t use Windows, so we’re not comparing experiences, if it runs at an acceptable frame rate with an acceptable graphics settings for what I would expect the GPU to be capable of, then I don’t bother benchmarking it.
Another consideration is whether they are plugged into the graphics card. Common performance “problems” arise when somebody tries to plug into the video-out on the motherboard, so they could be accidentally forcing the use of the iGPU, if present.
If using a somewhat modern distro, this isn’t an issue anymore (unless you run a really old OpenGL game).
I run my PC in this way with little to no performance degradation: monitors go to my motherboard (r5 2400g CPU with vega11 iGPU) and games use my RX 5700XT without having to do anything at all… Pretty smart handling tbh
I just remembered that that package isn’t compatible with Plasma 6 (yet), so maybe it got dropped from the official repos when they officially released 40.
Go AMD. The open-source drivers already provide the best performance compared to the closed-source ones, and are included in the kernel and Mesa, which means the cards will work out of the box. For the best performance and latest drivers and optimizations you should switch to a distro with more up to date packages than Debian if you plan on buying a current gen card tho. For example, Fedora is a very good mix between working OOTB, ease of use and bleeding-edge packages.
nVidia is… difficult. The open-source drivers are getting better but are still way behind closed-source drivers, and each closed-source drivers version only works with a single kernel version. It might work OK as long as the drivers and kernel are kept in sync (I think Pop! or Nobara have nVidia specific versions for this reason), but otherwise each kernel upgrade is a risk. Plus nVidia drivers are basically shit with Wayland and cause a ton of issues.
Intel has a good track record with iGPUs so discrete cards should be as trivial to use as AMD ones, if more at the entry-level performance-wise.
Second for AMD. Team Red is bringing it right now anyway, the only card that doesn’t have an AMD equivalent is the 4090, anything else you can get an AMD equivalent for basically half the price. I run the 7900XTX and I can’t find anything that stalls this card.
Caveats, if you want to do AI/ML stuff, NVidia is the way to go. Ray tracing is also about a generation behind, but it’s not really noticeable to me. Instead of 4000 series ray tracing you get 3000 series ray tracing (roughly). Even with those caveats, it’s the best card I’ve ever owned.
For the best performance and latest drivers and optimizations you should switch to a distro with more up to date packages than Debian if you plan on buying a current gen card tho.
This is misleading. OP may have chosen Debian for a reason, as most Debian users do, and they don’t have to give it up just because they’re gaming.
Even with Debian Stable and a very recent AMD card, they would just have to grab a newer kernel (the easiest would be from Stable Backports) and maybe new amdgpu firmware (from here). Everything else would be covered by the Steam runtime (or Flatpak, if they use that). It’s not all that difficult. Performance is comparable to other distros.
Source: I game on Debian Stable with a recent AMD card.
and each closed-source drivers version only works with a single kernel version. It might work OK as long as the drivers and kernel are kept in sync (I think Pop! or Nobara have nVidia specific versions for this reason), but otherwise each kernel upgrade is a risk.
Are you sure this is true? I make no attempt to keep my kennel and driver in sync and have never had any problems at all. I’m pretty sure you’re wrong about this
Plus nVidia drivers are basically shit with Wayland and cause a ton of issues.
This is kind of true, but overstating. I use nvidia with Wayland also the time and, apart from some games, it works really well. Many of those issues will be fixed when explicit sync is released.
That all said, is she that AMD is currently best for Linux.
Have always run AMD, and I have had 0 issues, from arch to fedora to Debian. Gaming, CAD, video editing, not once have I had to use anything other than the open source drivers that are bundled with the distro. I currently have a 6700xt running Debian, and the only games I have issues with are the ones that just came out where they are squashing bugs anyway. Three weeks later, it’s running better on Linux than windows.
Even on nvidia, it’s been near perfect for me. I’ve heard that some higher-end features are missing, but with a 1080ti and the 550.78 driver, I really can’t complain for my own use
I had a 1080 Ti, and while my issues weren’t as bad as what I see others face, my 6800XT has had absolutely zero issues whatsoever, I don’t even have to think about drivers at all, ever.
Had a few issues with high frame times and flickering on nvidia / latest 550.x driver on wayland/hyprland. No issues on x11 though. But it needed some additional configuration which is readily available in the arch forum.
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