- cross-posted to:
- linux@programming.dev
- cross-posted to:
- linux@programming.dev
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It was written in the scrolls. The day prophezised for hundreds of years: the year of the linux desktop.
The prophecy is being fulfilled, and our prophet Gabe made it possible.
Anyone know if CP2077 runs better on Linux than Windows?
By much? With HDR?
Sorry for the drive by comment, but this is like the one game my 3090 can’t quite handle to my satisfaction. I’ve thoroughly disabled the thing from rendering in Linux and don’t want to undo all that… But if I could get like another 10% over Windows, that would be incredible. Even 5% would be awesome.
I think there’s huge variability, but as a gross overgeneralization AMD gpus run Cyberpunk 2077 a bit faster on Linux than Windows, and nVidia gpus run it a bit slower on Linux than on Windows.
If you’ve got a spare usb hard drive you could always install Linux there for a test drive though. You might be able to find a setup that gets you the extra performance you’re looking for.
I already dual boot CachyOS! In fact I spent a lot of time tweaking schedulers, power, undervolting the GPU and such for compute performance, but I think it’s well tuned for gaming too.
It’s just annoying because I beat the GPU into submission with tons of settings (as Nvidia is funny with Wayland), so its display out is totally disabled. It’s a lot to undo.
See, that makes it sound to me like you could probably come up with a setup that would do what you want, but that doing so would probably mean making it worse at some of the other things you currently use it for.
Which is where using an external drive for a third installation might be easier. Or at least easier to dispose of if you get sick of the project. But I am perhaps unusually lazy in that regard.
You raise an excellent point.
TBH I am both lazy, and a bit paranoid/afraid of dealing with Nvidia rendering issues (even if using my IGP for desktop work), but it would probably be fine and I’m… just being lazy and paranoid.
I don’t think it would make it worse for compute work.
An external 3rd partition does sound appealing, though one quirk is that CP2077 does really like SSDs. I have a slow external SSD, but it still might muddy an A/B test.
If you have a desktop, these work great for swapping SSDs out. Get a pair and swap them out whenever you need/want to. You just need a spare x4 (or larger) PCI-e slot, which is pretty common to have. (Technically they work fine with a x1 slot, but then you are slowing the SSD down.)
I’ve got an ITX mini PC with both nvme and the graphics slot filled, heh.
As I promised, my own Cyberpunk testing of Windows Vs Linux on mostly the same hardware (they are on different SSDs, but I don’t think that’ll have a drastic impact).
TLDR: Windows framerates seem inconsistent, it’s first benchmark I ran (the first Ultra without DLSS) was way faster with no explanation. Aside from that and Ray Tracing: Overdrive, Linux seems to win, and by a large degree (+28 FPS average on the Low preset seems ridiculous).
I don’t think these results are broadly applicable to more machines. You probably won’t get +28 FPS by switching to Linux.
My best guess is that the performance difference may have a lot to do with different power/thermal targets, or that Windows was doing a lot in the background (it was running an update, but I didn’t expect a huge impact).
I’m guessing that on most hardware the performance difference will be pretty small.
Hardware: ROG Zephyrus G15 GA503QR Laptop Ryzen 9 5900HS, 16 GiB DDR4 RTX 3070 Laptop GPU 2560x1440 screen, up to 165 Hz
All benchmarks: plugged into OEM power supply. I held the laptop vertically so there were no restrictions to its airflow.
Game: Cyberpunk 2077 V2.3 with Phantom Liberty DLC, fullscreen 2560x1440. Values are given as Min / Average / Max FPS displayed by the game’s built in benchmark.
Linux (Bazzite 42): NVIDIA driver 575.64.05 Samsung 980 Pro 2TB SSD Performance power profile
Low Preset ( no upscaling): 57.49 / 68.42 / 83.86 FPS
Ultra Preset(no upscaling): 32.91 / 39.27 / 49.71 FPS
Ultra (DLSS Transformer model, Auto): 41.11 / 48.70 / 61.30 FPS
Ray Tracing: Low Preset (DLSS transformer model, Auto): 44.12 / 51.70 / 61.63 FPS
Ray Tracing: Ultra Preset (DLSS transformer model, Auto): 29.24 / 34.26 / 39.81 FPS
Ray Tracing: Overdrive Preset (DLSS transformer model, Auto): 15.03 / 17.71 / 20.45 FPS
Windows (Windows 11 Home 23H2): GeForce Game Ready Driver 580.88 SK Hynix HFM001TD3JX013N SSD “Turbo” power profile (in ASUS Armoury Crate)
Low Preset (no upscaling): 35.68 / 40.68 / 45.17 FPS
Ultra Preset(no upscaling): 40.53 / 52.88 / 65 FPS
Ultra Preset (no upscaling, Round 2): 29.68 / 35.63 / 39.94 FPS
Ultra (DLSS Transformer model, Auto): 36.71 / 47.20 / 55.32 FPS
Ray Tracing: Low Preset (DLSS transformer model, Auto): 28.55 / 32.41 / 35.85 FPS
Ray Tracing: Ultra Preset (DLSS transformer model, Auto): 22.23 / 27.25 / 30.86 FPS
Ray Tracing: Overdrive Preset (DLSS transformer model, Auto): 17.74 / 19.96 / 22.64 FPS
Anyone know if CP2077 runs better on Linux than Windows?
That’s entire dependent on a whole host of things. CPU, GPU, distro (mostly kernel version), open source vs proprietary drivers, proton version etc. Also some numbers can artificially look better if the feature is just straight up ignored by proton, or just broken. If you’re looking for some bleeding edge features then probably not.
7800X3D, Nvidia 3090, CachyOS, the latest arch kernel with whatever tweaks they have, I assume git Proton and all the distro’s riced settings. On CP2077’s side I’d like RTX reflections and DLSS as the only exotic settings, though I did run a mod that hacks in FSR 3.1 framegen.
I realize I probably have to test this myself, heh. But from what I gather (and past experience on a laptop 2060 with Linux) is that Nvidia is disadvantaged on Linux in this scenario.
I am not sure, as I’ve actually only played it under Linux. I have a laptop with an RTX 3070. It’s able to handle the raytraced low setting at 1080p, but I just run High instead so that the fan isn’t as loud. And in my opinion that even looks pretty good. I might try start it under windows and run its benchmark because I’m curious now! I’ll update here if I remember to do this test.
Also, you might be able to fix that!
I clock limit my 3090 to like 1700MHz-1750Mhz with Nvidia-smi (built into the driver) since any faster is just diminishing returns. You might check what “stable clocks” your 3070 runs at, and cap them slightlt lower, and even try an under volt as well.
Be sure to cap the frame rate too.
Do that, and you might be able to handle RT reflections and otherwise similar settings without much noise. The hit for just that setting is modest on my 3090 but much heavier with full “low” RT
I’ll have to look into seeing if I can mess with that! It’s a laptop 3070, so they:'ve already made some changes (fewer cores, lower boost clocks). My laptop sets a 100 W max TGP for it.
TBH though I’ve found myself caring more about the convenience of playing games (comfort, portability, ease of interrupting) more than graphics settings. Yeah it’s very pretty with ray tracing and all, but I’m totally fine with playing on medium or high.
Thanks for the ideas! Hopefully I can push the graphics up without turning into a pile of lava. I need to figure out how to record graphics power consumption for me to reference to evaluate changes.
Thanks for the ideas! Hopefully I can push the graphics up without turning into a pile of lava. I need to figure out how to record graphics power consumption for me to reference to evaluate changes.
It’s far more efficient to just TDP limit your GPU rather than lowering settings to try and get power consumption (and laptop fan speed) down. It will stick to slightly lower clocks, which is exponentially better since that also lowers voltage, and voltage increases power consumption quadratically.
Otherwise it will always try to boost to 100W anyway.
You can do this with MSI Afterburner easily, or you can do it in Windows with just the command line. For example,
nvidia-smi -pl 80will set the power limit to 80W (until you restart your PC).nvidia-smiby itself will show all its default settings.I do this with my 3090, and dropping from the default 420W to 300W hardly drops performance at all without changing a single graphics setting.
Alternatatively you can hard cap the clocks to your GPU’s “efficient” range. For my 3090 thats somewhere around 1500-1700 MHz, and TBH I do this more often, as it wastes less power from the GPU clocking up to uselessly inefficient voltages, but lets it “power up” for really intense workloads.
FYI you can do something similar with the CPU too, though it depends on the model and platform.
Thank you very much, kind graphics wizard. I will put this knowledge to good use saving my ears from that fan. This is exactly what I was looking for!
this is like the one game my 3090 can’t quite handle to my satisfaction
Nvidia and Linux don’t have the best history. Their driver are not open source, so Valve developers have no means to improve performance and fix bugs on a driver level.
Success stories of Linux gaming are usually about Radeon and Arc GPUs whose drivers are fully open source.
This is what I was afraid of, and reflects my experience in the past, unfortunately. I am intimately familiar with Nvidia’s drivers and my random Linux black screens…
I would have gotten a 7900 TBH, but prices were terrible at the time.
I don’t run any hardware with an NVidia GPU on Linux any longer, so I don’t have recent first hand experience but I do follow Linux news and every year or so it’s announced that Nvidia is working on the last feature that’s holding back perfection on Linux. NVidia drivers don’t support implicit sync but now that the Linux graphics layer supports explicit sync, the NVidia drivers make the “Final Steps Towards Ultimate Desktop Experience”. Same BS every year. Nvidia is always lagging behind on Linux.
I’ll consider using NVidia with Linux, should NVidia ever enter upstream kernel and Mesa development the same way AMD and Intel do.
I am intimately familiar with Nvidia’s drivers and my random Linux black screens…
Same here. At one point I was very versed in reinstalling the entire Linux graphics stack because the NVidia driver’s kernel module decided that it is no longer compatible with the lastest kernel update.
I’ll consider using NVidia with Linux
Screw Nvidia.
I’d be on AMD if they weren’t price gouging just as bad (or worse), or on Intel if they offered 24GB+ cards for less than a car.
What? I have a 2060 and shit runs fine. Nvidia’s drivers have improved a lot since the 2010s.
What? I have a 2060 and shit runs fine.
Of course. There’s always the ones for whom everything runs fine. These are the ones who aren’t affected by bugs in power management caused by Nvidia drivers because they use desktop PCs and not laptops. These are the ones who still used X11 five years after the rest of the Linux world moved to Wayland and when Nvidia drivers got good enough for Wayland, it’s always “see, how much Nvidia’s drivers have improved a lot since the 2010s!!”
Nvidia is lagging years behind on adopting newer technologies in the Linux graphics stack.
Edit: These days it’s “HDR can cause game-breaking graphical artifacts”.
I didn’t say there are never any issues I said it’s fine. The idea that “success stories” are only amd is silly. 90/100 times unless you’re using bleeding edge hardware or pathologically fussy you just hit play and stuff works. 9 out of the remaining 10 times you tweak a proton version or wine setting, the other time it’s a driver bug.
The idea that “success stories” are only amd is silly.
Luckily I didn’t write that.
Sometimes you don’t know what you’re missing though.
As an example, I figured out (on a 4900HS CPU/2060 GPU) that Stellaris and modded Rimworld game ticks are on the order of 40% slower running linux native, and still slower (but less dramatically so) in Proton. There was zero public information on this until I tested it myself.
As another example, modded Minecraft is dramatically faster on linux.
They run fine, yeah, but one’s game settings are kinda capped by CPU performance in all these titles. I don’t have to know the difference, but would like to, hence I’m wondering about CP2077 from the opposite side: am I missing out on a boost from linux?
Another good nugget, thanks (as I’d like to play in HDR).
And Directx 12(VKD3D) as of writing this has issues on Nvidia
Thanks, these are the kind of nuggets I’m looking for.
Not that I blame the vulkan translation layer at all. It’s incredible it even works on Nvidia.
Ig the fix came out?
Hey there! Recently downloaded Cyberpunk again to test my graphics card out.
openSUSE Tumbleweed, a 144hz 1080p ultrawide monitor (21:9), i9-10850K, nvidia 5080, raytracing and all settings on ultra, no DLSS fake frames only DLAA
I was getting from 75-120 (120 could be lower or higher as I can’t get to my computer right now) depending on what was on screen. In the city with lots of neon and ads going while driving around? 75-80 fps
Inside a building or not near any of the reflective causing lights? 90-120
I’m pretty sure my CPU is bottlenecking me for the most part, but it has never sweated on anything I threw at it, so didn’t see the need to upgrade just yet.
Hopefully that helps you out a little! I’ve got a lot of games I can report back on too, if needed! :)
Thanks! Though it doesn’t mean much without a windows reference :P
I’m pushing my poor 3090 to 4K with just RT reflections but a bunch of mods, and I’m generally getting over 60 with no framegen (which is my target).
FYI I found the game actually looks better with most of the RT disabled:
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RT shadows tend to be blocky and flicker, while raster shadows “miss” more shadows but are razor sharp and stable.
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RT lighting is neat for, say, reflecting a neon billboard, but I find it often clashes with built in raster lighting. For instance, it turns neon signs into blobs and messed up the Arasaka atrium in the intro.
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RT reflections look incredible, especially in rain. No downside as far as I can tell.
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Path tracing is a whole different ballgame my card can’t handle. But (when modded to fix it) it’s apparently extra incredible, and basically disables all the other in game settings.
Check out the digital foundry video too, which shows some of this
Good point about the Windows reference!
I will boot into Windows when I can and see the performance there I’ll report back after I run around the city and outside the city for a little bit!
I am curious to try out NexusMods Linux compatibility with their new modding app, so I haven’t gotten to mod the game yet. I wasn’t going to play through it again (4th playthrough lol) just yet.
I just remember in the “cutscenes” like driving with Panam or Takamura, the RT looking better than the baked lighting. My 2080ti on Windows wasn’t able to handle that all the time (less than 60 with medium RT, no DLSS) but the way the “cutscenes” looked was just so much better with RT on that as soon as they started, I’d turn it on. :O
Its RT reflections are doing most of the lifting driving around, I think, but they only take like 1/3 the FPS, while RT lighting and shadows are more subtle.
The settings may have been different in the past, can’t remember… I was playing on a laptop 2060, heh.
Thanks! I am curious, though I am glad to hear RT and such works well on Linux.
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With path tracing it runs significantly worse than it does on Windows. Without it, it runs roughly the same. RTX 4060 Ti.
Awesome, thanks!
I’ve been running Bazzite OS on my living room big screen gaming PC since May. It’s a really slick fedora-based distro that installs out of the box with Steam, proton, and graphics drivers ready-to-launch for gaming. It was really easy to use, and my games worked perfectly.
My high school age son got a new AMD proc/mb for his birthday, and I was surprised when he said he wanted to try dual booting Bazzite and Windows when we set it up. 2 weeks later, and he decided to kill the Windows boot and just use Bazzite full time. He has no linux experience and just figures it out.
Windows 11 is shit and Linux alternatives are prettier, easier to use, don’t shove AI down your throat, and don’t steal your data for profit. The time has come.
This is good. This data will eventually help influence game developers to support Linux. It won’t happen over night, but we this trend continues, it’ll eventually start getting some attention.
I’ve been running Linux on my desktop for more than 30 years, so I’ve switched for a while. And while I’d certainly like to see it become more commonplace, I’m not sure a few decimal points are really going to change anything. It’s nice that it’s making progress, of course, but all in all, it’s rather insignificant.
While it’s under 10, or more likely 15%, nobody will care about it.How do you know if someone owns a Steam Deck? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.
So anyway, a couple years ago I bought a Steam Deck. And since I bought it, virtually all of my gaming is on the Deck. Prior to that, virtually all of my game time was on a Windows PC. So, for me personally, there’s been a big shift towards Linux for gaming.
The other big change that’s coming for a lot of people I know: end of Windows 10 support. Honestly, the majority of people I know who still have a traditional Windows PC are using machines that can’t be upgraded to Windows 11. These computers are perfectly functional and do everything the users need them to do, and they have no inclination to go out and buy a new computer just because. Especially in this economy. Additionally, there are quite a few people with computers that are capable of running Windows 11, but they have no desire to upgrade to a worse experience and an experience that is randomly different in a myriad different ways for no good reason. Both groups are ripe for the picking in terms of a switch to Linux. No, the year of the Linux desktop is not here, but the conditions for such a change are building. And this Steam data may present a picture of the larger trend. Who knows?
I ran a dual boot back in college to dabble with Linux a bit but gaming support back then was literally nonexistent. The Deck and Proton really reinvigorated that drive nearly a decade later.
This past winter I started a huge degoogling push and trying to replace big tech platforms in general, and I’d also recently quit the only the game I regularly played that didn’t run on Linux due to anticheat bullshit, so I said fuck it and set up a CachyOS dual boot and I haven’t looked back since.
The dual boot is just there in case I ever need it for some odds or ends, or in case I break Cachy, but so far I’ve booted windows maybe 4 times since January.
This last try at gaming under Linux (about a year ago with a desktop PC and Pop!OS) was a pleasant surprise given that my previous try (same machine, around 5 years before) was an exercise in frustration and I just gave up on it and that partition just stayed there in a dual boot config without being used until I nuked it in this latest try.
This time it went so well that I’m now full time gaming in Linux and even though Windows is available as dual boot, I haven’t booted it in many months. Granted, I don’t do online multiplayer so don’t suffer from Wine not being compatible with the Windows rootkits used for cheat protection in some of those games.
And this high success rate is not even exclusively with Steam and Proton - I get about the same rate of success for games from GOG with Wine under Lutris.
The ease of gaming in Linux seems to have advanced massively in the last few years.
They all can upgrade to win 11. Nothing is stopping them. But you have to do a couple of steps.
Either way, Linux is better and Microsoft is playing stupid games.
Unless their hardware doesn’t support it. A lot of people are going to be tossing out perfectly good systems because they don’t have a TPM.
Excellent, I’ve been looking to upgrade my setup
You can bypass that requirement. The hardware is fine you just have to tell windows to ignore it.
2 registry keys if I remember correctly.
Windows also said they don’t support it and may stop it from working at any time. I have already had a problem because Windows System Image tried to restore something as UEFI when I only had BIOS so forcing my BIOS system to something that technically only supports UEFI seems like an awful idea.
Windows says lots of things. It is surprising how conflicting they are internally.
The thing is, there are a lot of ways to install windows 11. You have a lot of versions to choose from and more options than you think.
Anyways, I think it is all beating a dead horse, although you can get around windows requirements the best thing to do is not play the game.
Switch to Linux and be done with the bullshit.
Not in all cases. My desktop PC came with windows professional (10), back in 2021. Upgrading to windows 11 is not included for free (not even to windows 11 “basic”), I need to pay a new license.
You still can upgrade for free and use a registry setting to take off the nag screen.
But I really was commenting on people who think they can’t. You can too by buying windows11.
Well, windows didn’t allow me to do that, so I might have to do a manual process maybe.
Anyway, I am not interested in upgrading, I am just saying that I can’t upgrade (click button, couple of steps), without buying a new copy. We can argue about the semantics of what “upgrading” means, but effectively there are going to be plenty of people in my situations, which is why I brought it up.
The other big change that’s coming for a lot of people I know: end of Windows 10 support. Honestly, the majority of people I know who still have a traditional Windows PC are using machines that can’t be upgraded to Windows 11.
The average person just simply won’t upgrade. These are the people who find regular updates or shutting of their PC already a pain, what makes you think they would switch to a completely different OS?
Microsoft Recall and Steam Deck and Proton are why.
Won’t miss those years tweaking Windows to uninstall or disable bloatware and malware. I don’t mind if more or less people migrate to Linux, I’m just grateful to those who are making and improving such amazingly good distros. 💪💛
Instead you’ll spend your time littering your own computer with bloatware!
I’m doing my part! Moving to a new country in a few days, part of the prep for that was to ditch my Windows desktop and I’ve been setting up a Linux laptop. Arch with KDE Plasma is so far the most enjoyable experience I’ve had with an OS
I’ve tried at various times to switch to Linux in the past. I’m enough of a turbo nerd you’d think it would have been easy for me but it was never quite there for one reason or another. This latest attempt though hot damn it’s all smooth sailing. I’ve even converted one of my friends to Mint and making progress convincing people who don’t want to use Windows 11 to just make the switch
If all you do is game, outside of a few key games (Destiny 2, uhh,couple others) the experience on Linux is better for many folks.
For flat games this is true, there is still work to be done for the VR side of things, even that has advanced by leaps and bounds in just the last 2 or 3 years
Yeah that’s the biggest reason I haven’t pulled the trigger on a VR set.
The pace of hardware for the last few years has been crazy rapid with almost zero thought given to non-windows OS’s. The people working on reverse engineering drivers for headsets get one operable just in time for it to be out of date.
Are there really people playing VR stuff regularly? I only know 2 people in my circles that bought equipment for it, and both of them got sick of it after a couple weeks.
I don’t know, what I’ve tried was fun for about 10 minutes, but that’s about all I could take before the headache starts.
I have put over 9k hours of play time since i got my vive in 2018. usually play for about 2h at a stretch 7 times a week. VR has destroyed my ability to play flat games, I just can’t put more than a half hour into them these days. Usually load a game, look at the main menu, may start the game then in a few mins, turn it off.
I play mil sim, zombie shooter, vr mods of flat games I have enjoyed in the past like raft and The Forest.
When I first started there was a time i couldn’t play long but after a month 2h was no issue except for tiredness.
Your brain acclimates to being in VR the more you play so the headaches should disappear after a few sessions.
I’d say the issue these days is there aren’t enough fresh VR titles coming out.
on a vr headset for everyday for the past 3 days. Each day around 4 to 5 hours
check out https://lvra.gitlab.io/ for information on linux VR
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I never had a single issue so far. Actually, performamce is better on Linux every single time for me. I finally got rid of Windows since I have zero use for it. The only problem could be games with anti cheats.
I’m always surprised when I hear people claiming they work in IT and find Linux to be complicated. I just installed Fedora on two of my friends’ machines. Both are cluless about computers and they are doing perfectly fine. Now for basic tasks including gaming, a granny could use it without much issues if any.
When was the last time you tried Linux? If it has been a while, you might be surprised how it has changed recently. Proton made everything so much easier.
I’m not a technical person by the way; just a normal dude who uses Linux now.
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A decade ago you tried Linux and it was hard, try again or butt out. Windows has become even more of a privacy violating, data snorting, market manipulating whore in that time and it will not stop.
I’ll bet they roll out subscription based drivers before you make a legitimate atempt.
Dude, you need to chill. Why not take a break and unclench you jaw and fists for a while?
This conversation doesn’t deserve this level of blood pressure.
2015… I was there back then, and let me tell you, the distribution landscape is very different. You don’t have to rely on package managers to get your apps anymore because flatpaks and appimages are ubiquitous. Games went from having maybe a 50% chance to run with opengl to 98% running with vulkan ootb. Desktop environments have improved across the board with stuff like wayland and plenty of other good shit. And finally, linux itself has gotten much better hardware support. Seriously, you’re doing yourself and everyone else a disservice by using 2015 as a comparison point.
It’s probably because I’m using an NVIDIA card but I switched an SSD to arch Linux because that’s the only thing I could get to actually run a game and not a black or grey screen. Once I finally got steam and heroic launching games I will say only about 60% of the games I’ve tried work but that’s because I’m trying to keep up with some newer games and play Jedi Survivor, The Last of Us part 1 and the Mass effect Legendary Edition and half the time it won’t boot or has HDR issues or something. But all my indie or smaller games that are verified I’m surely installing and only playing them there.
The things that keeps me coming back to Windows in my gaming rig is mostly VR, which I haven’t been able to get working on Bazzite.
Though I steam my games with Apollo/Moonlight to Mac’s and handhelds, so I rarely need to look at Windows at all.
Yeah, that is fair. I personally don’t know much about VR so I wound’t know.
I admit it might be a a bit more complicated when it comes to make VR or things like a racing wheel work without having to dig around.
I had to move back to windows on my son’s computer because of VR… But we now have the quest 3 and most things I want to run just work on that now anyway. It’s for the kids really, it’s gives me a headache
But year vr on Linux doesn’t really work from what I can tell.
I have VR running in Kubuntu using the sigh “official” nvidia drivers for my 4070ti super. Many of the games work from (I have over 100 in my library) ok to real good. It is just some of my peripherals have no drivers or software to configure them. I am no expert, but I might be able to assist you in your vr on nix issue, feel free to dm
Thanks, kind stranger, and I might take you up on that, in the days ahead.
I get that it won’t be turnkey like in Windows and that I’ll probably need a Windows partition (or a dedicated system) for some time longer.
Just so we are clear, you are able to play Steam PCVR games and use the SteamVR environments on your Kubuntu system?
Added monkey wrench, I just use ‘Virtual Desktop’ for streaming 100% of my PCVR content to a Quest 3 wirelessly. I assume handling the controllers and telemetry is all software for Steam and not needing obscure system calls or api’s that will have driver complications?
'Cause in hella ignorant. Lol.
I get that it won’t be turnkey like in Windows
actually, for my vive, the setup was EASIER than on windows as steam does all the heavy lifting and I didn’t need to install the vive software, and didn’t have to pair my controllers, room setup is simple same as windows.
Just so we are clear, you are able to play Steam PCVR games and use the SteamVR environments
I only do pcvr, and the steam overlay works for LOOKING at your desktop (sadly can’t interact with desktop through steam, it just closes, but there is an easy to install app that is kind of like Desktop+ that gives desktop control with a double press of a button on your controller) or using the steam launcher. I stopped using their environments (I had the basic and some Dr Who ones, some star wars ones like the cantina and millennium falcon) on my older pc cause the environment was adversely affecting performance(don’t think it was shutting off completely, I now simply use the empty space on the round grid with mountains in the distance and bring up my steam menu from the controller.
I just use ‘Virtual Desktop’ for streaming 100% of my PCVR content to a Quest 3 wirelessly
I never used VD and the people I know that do are only on windows.
I assume handling the controllers and telemetry is all software for Steam and not needing obscure system calls or api’s that will have driver complications?
I wish I had an answer for this one. Can quest use the steam backend like vive/index? if so should be good. I know vive and valve worked together on the software so are compatible that way. Like I said above wrt controllers they just worked with no pairing, both my index controllers and vive wands (I did a quick test for someone who was having issues with vive wands “stuck on the floor while in their hand”
Just make sure you use the steam installer from the steam site, not the flat pack or snap or whatever, they don’t have the correct screen lease thing (whatever it is called) and I used Kubuntu simply because when I started my journey KDE was the preferred DE, I personally prefer Gnome but VR dammit, and wayland was the better choice for VR x11 maybe better now for VR but wayland is the future from what I read.
Thanks for sharing all of this and I’ll have to take it for another spin.
Quest is a whole SOC, a beefy Snapdragon computer that has its own environment, and needs software to link it with the desktop housing SteamVR.
I’ll have to try Steam’s maybe platform and see if I can forego Virtual Desktop. Or at least dual boot
I recently got a new work laptop with Windows 11. It’s just different enough from Windows 10 that it pisses me off to try to find the stuff I need. I end up hunting and grumbling and searching the web for answers to simple things.
If you’re going to do that anyway, just try Linux. It’s free and easy, and it doesn’t steal all your private data, sell it, and use that money to corrupt your government to steal your rights and give them to corporations.
It’s often easier for those that have few technical skills to learn new things. Simple because they need to unlearn so little. Experts have to put forth much greater effort to forget the “I have always done it this way” an “Why doesn’t this respond exactly the same way I’m used to.”
It takes far more effort to unlearn years of skills and replace them with new ones.
While This is true, AS long AS you weren’t a Windows power User and stick to Distros like Mint with cinnamon The experience will be almost the same and you dont have to relearn that much.
So non-experts have an easier time switching vs a Windows power user?
Depends on what you used to do with your PC. If you are used to writing power shell scripts for doing stuff on your PC, it might take a bit longer to adapt to Linux. If you mainly used GUIs to do small stuff it is much easier to adapt.
So in conclusion yes, as long as the non Power user has some technical knowledge and doesn’t get scared away, if the UI looks slightly different.
lol anyone who works in IT and finds Linux too complicated should not work in IT. Then again, most people who work in IT should not. It’s complex, but all you need to do is learn. People who can’t learn more all the time don’t belong in a field where things change and improve all the time.
I got started with tech starting from when I was like 7 yo in 1980 and ended up in IT since it was a passion of mine and I have an affinity for it. Working as a professional, I saw - DAILY - morons in the field who were bungling every other task they had. They didn’t think the right way, they didn’t understand it, they didn’t love it, and screwed up every other thing they did. DAILY I saw this from techs whose work I was called in to fix after the fact.
lol ya
except not, not at all
Saying that there is a gaming focused linux distro is like saying there’s a cliff-climbing focused dolphin.
I’m sure the delusional believe in it, but actual reality says otherwise.
Yeah see, based on your other comments on this post, I don’t feel obliged to take anything you say about Linux seriously
Do you think I posted this to somehow convince you of something? I don’t even know who the fuck you are
Name checks out
I should be allowed to ban every hundredth person that replies like this, instead I’ll just block you
“FINISH HIM!”
The only delusional one here is you. Yell all you want angry boy, it doesn’t change reality.
It’s better by every metric except anicheat, which is malware anyway.
Maybe depends on what distro you are using. There are ones dedicated for gaming.
Well I tried redhat ubuntu gentoo fedora knoppix mint arch MEPIS and even fucking slackware because apparently i am a masochist
And you will say ‘Oh but those are old distros, now they’re much betterer!’
Nope the weeks of frustration aren’t worth revisiting. You really don’t understand how much PTSD I got from the linux forums
Get a techie to set gaming distros for you. My brother installed Bazzite for me and troubleshoots. Speaking of which, Bazzite is meant to be for average users who are less literate on computers. I have rarely had issues on Bazzite unlike with other distros. Indeed, newer distros are better.
I understand. Linux can be daunting for us average Joes. Plenty of information i see on the internet are either outdated, or simply doesn’t work.
Bazzite feels so close to feature complete, but there are still corners I stub my toes on.
I have to care about whatever Wayland is, because RustDesk on Bazzite fights me (it’s my backup for remoting to fix a machine when moonlight or Steam Link is misbehaving), and I miss Steam PCVR hosting, but both of those are edge cases for most folks and I can forego on most systems.
Meanwhile, the lean, light, singularly focused environment is great and I really do like not having to bother with Windows. I never want Edge to barge in on my day again. I will never subscribe to OneDrive. I don’t want an AI companion modem Bonzai Buddy to “help” me remember anything, and memorize my SSN or Birthday along the way.
… us average joes…
Son I’ve been an IT admin since the early 90s
I doubt the quality of your work.
The great news is that all you really need to do to use bazzite is click on things in the gui so your skill set will be a perfect fit.
💀💀💀
Your unwarranted sarcasm is delicious, I mastered CLI before you were even born
Still, Bazzite is pretty much one of the best Gaming distros out there. All drivers are included with the installation (you select which Hardware you have before downloading) and the OS itself is immutable, so you don’t have to worry about damaging the OS in any way. The only downside is that it exclusively uses Flatpaks, which does have a few problems regarding interoperability between programs (e.g. Firefox doesn’t allow KeePassXC to interact with the KeePass add-on). However, I would recommend Flatpaks either way, since it adds better security and reliability, since you don’t have to worry about an update breaking programs.
However, if you don’t need that interoperability, I’d say there is little reason not to use it if you want to play games. And when a game doesn’t work, protondb usually gives enough hints to how to fix these issues. Generally, I had less issues with games on there compared to other distros (e.g. OpenSUSE).
I don’t think you want the targeted hate that will ensue when I try your suggestion and get stuck on some ridiculous thing with no solution for days.
Just like the other 12 times I tried some rando cultist’s ‘sure bet’ suggestion in a forum
You clearly see my disgust for the OS and entire community, yet still you proselytize. Do you not even get a tiny glimpse why most normal people can’t deal with your kind?
And yet, here we are. What are you even doing, responding to everyone on this group, if you just want to do work and just want to use Windows?
How is this informative, edifying or fun for you?
Your experience isn’t normal, I give fedora to the elderly and they have less problems than on windows. You also aren’t saying what any of your problems are, bad trolling.
The success of Steam Deck has helped a lot. Prior to that Linux ports tended to be very perfunctory and they weren’t tested or supported very well. I guess that now there are actual Linux gamers (via Steam Deck), that support has improved. That said, I think outside of Steam Deck and SteamOS, your experience of gaming is going to be extremely dependent on your GPU, driver support and a number of other factors. Things are far more likely to work well on Windows than they would for Linux.
I could drill down into the work that went into DXVK before Proton came about, enabling the Steam Deck, but that’s a boring history lesson. I will concede that newer bleeding edge hardware is far more likely to be plug and play on Windows, but one of the leading reasons I transitioned was Windows removing support for the audio chipset on the motherboard for my Ryzen 1600. Every time I rebooted, I’d have to unpack a zip file and reinstall the audio drivers, it was maddening.
In my experience (so, totally anecdotal), my hardware is stable longer on Linux than Windows.
Every time I rebooted, I’d have to unpack a zip file and reinstall the audio drivers,
The OS would autoremove them?!
Yeah, it was super fun. I tried reformatting, I bought a new drive and put new Windows on it and the same thing happened.
It’s probably Windows update “fixing” you drivers by updating them to the Windows version because it is newer. I had to turn off Windows driver updates, because it kept updating my already fully working 5.1 Dolby digital driver to a newer one that only has dual channel audio, and it also broke the optional optical out my sound card supports (and has installed).
My experience with Linux with Nvidia drivers was basically - hey execute this “.run” file and you get drivers. Okay that worked but then if the kernel updated, the drivers broke and had to be reinstalled. And if the dist upgraded to a new version then the drivers broke completely. And NVidia gave up providing drivers at all for their older GPUs and I was stuck with Noveau which is better than nothing but useless for gaming.
Conversely, some dists are supported by graphics manufacturers with proper packages but there is always that gap where the driver dependencies and the kernel dependencies are out of sync. Or the graphics driver only works on the last couple of dists and support disappears after that. Or you upgrade the dist and then discover there are no drivers for it yet.
I know it rankles some purists, but really there should be an long term, versioned ABI for graphics drivers on Linux. There is sort-of is one with Gallium3D but it’s still not supported properly by all vendors.
I just took an old Optiplex with a GTX1650 and got it going with Ubuntu 24.04 and my experience was mostly okay but I saw a number of issues which could confound a newbie. Firstly, I had to go to the command like to run the ubuntu-drivers auto install because the card wasn’t set up properly. If I hadn’t then games wouldn’t run properly. But then I was able to install Steam and get some games going. Acceleration looked okay and I tested games which were running under Windows emulation and natively with some success - however there was a long delay launching some games, like it was having to transpile shaders or something. Still, when they worked they seemed to work well.
The most egregious issue I had is that Ubuntu defaults to an X11 desktop and the desktop is slightly off but the games work well. If I change to a Wayland desktop, then the desktop is buttery smooth but the games are very choppy. I suspect that’s the driver for this old card just doesn’t work properly with the window manager for some reason in that mode, that the wm is not giving the game a proper surface to render in or is somehow interfering with performance.
I do a lot more than that, so, hard pass.
Is it all in your browser, because pretty much everything is a web app now.
I mean, yes, but I also do dev coding work, run AI models, produce audio and video content from my machine. But years ago I adopted a ‘No BS’ software approach and rid myself of software that was deliberately getting in my way so transitioning to a fully *Nix workflow wasn’t an issue for me.
If anyone working with aggressively anticonsumer software right now tried to switch, it’s a nightmare.
Removed by mod
Switched rest of the house to Linux due to win10 bullshit. Not going pretend like this is something that everyone can do but if you can do it for yourself, it takes only on Linux zealot per household ;)
Same here, except for my mom’s computer, because she needs a program for embroidery design that doesn’t work well on Linux despite being in the AUR. It’s called “Embrilliance”, and for some reason the cursor disappears whenever you try to draw freeform, so if anyone has any guidance on that, hit up my DMs, I’d love to solve it for her!
Sometimes switching DEs resolves these glitches for me.
But not sure if that’s a solution more like well around and that’s no good for non nerds
I could try it in another DE on my machine to see if that helps first. Maybe Cinnamon or XFCE would be good enough for her needs, I’d set her up with Plasma previously, which she liked but it’s a no-go without Embrilliance. If nothing else, it’s just one air-gapped Windows PC in the house, ultimately it doesn’t matter too much.
This is a great use-case for a live Linux environment. Throw one onto a drive and see if it works well, and if not, just restart and go back to what you have.
But, like you said, not a big deal either way.
Very true, if I find a DE that works with Embrilliance this weekend, I could use my Ventoy stick and see if she vibes with it. Good call!
Ventoy even supports persistence! It’s a bit poorly documented but you download the 1-2GB persistence volume, configure ventoy to include that feature and which ISOs to associate with which persistent volumes and you’re off to the races
Nice! That’s good to know for other things!
Valve put together a good product this time compared to the first steam machines push. Most games work without fuss and it’s priced well. They didn’t start the handheld PC market but they sort of Apple’ed it by taking something other companies had been doing and streamlined it enough to get mainstream copycats, Lenovo/Asus/etc. Plus SteamOS/bug picture looks a lot better today than 10 years ago. So proven market/platform that can again try to undercut Windows machines in price because Linux is free and leverages the work of open source developers
Neigsendoig and I happened to be Linux users since 2020. We’re actually glad to see that people are noticing the writing on the wall.
It was inevitable.
Steamdeck
Yeah, by a whole permille I bet.
