Arch and other Linux operating systems Beat Windows 11 in Gaming Benchmarks::ComputerBase benchmarked three different Linux operating systems and found that all three can achieve better gaming performance than Windows 11.
Gonna fire the first bullet:
(I also use Arch btw)
to be fair if you use windows its expected and normal, its the regular thing that come with the computer. you dont really need to talk about it because everyone is already using it.
if you use a linux distro its different and you are probably doing it for a specific reason. you might recommend it for people who would benefit because they didn’t even think of it as an option.
I always assume people use daily either mac or linux. I am always genuinely surprised when they mention they use windows. I live in a tech bubble where unix is the norm, and I find instinctively strange otherwise. Then I think about stats, and I remember we are the exception
Crazy how far Linux gaming has come in the past 5 years. From practically non-existent, to now often running games better than the actual OS and graphics API they were designed to run on.
The only major roadblock is some anticheat software requiring highly invasive Windows rootkits to function, which Linux doesn’t really work with.
(btw has anybody noticed how people on Reddit/Lemmy are pissed off about Philips, with the financial backing of Sony, doing this on CDs in the late 90s, yet they’ll happily install half a dozen other rootkits and data harvesting programs when they install a video game? What’s up with that?)
The only major roadblock is some anticheat software requiring highly invasive Windows rootkits to function, which Linux doesn’t really work with.
I consider that more of a feature then a bug
But good would we go about getting rid of those invasive species? They can just use a VPN making any societal pressure we put out pointless.
also Proton-GE with AMD FSR is basically just like downloading more FPS no matter which game you’re playing
I don’t understand why new Linux folks immediately go for Arch-based distros and insist on using Nvidia GPUs. Like, are you guys into suffering or something?
I used endeavorOS (basically pure Arch with a GUI installer) and I have had 0 issues with Nvidia GPUs, in fact it was a smoother experience than anything else.
Ugh, I got a 2080 years ago and it’s been such a pain in the ass. Never again.
Yeah that’s a bummer, but in Windows that’s still a good card for gaming/CUDA. Nvidia, unfortunately, is a lot like Apple. They do have some neat tech, but they lock it behind both price and exclusivity. That’s great for C-Suite pockets, but very anti-consumer at its core.
When I started using Linux circa 2008 Nvidia was the way. ATI/AMD would never work as well. Fast forward and I still use Nvidia because of cuda cores and davinci resolve for video editing. I’ve just been on the Nvidia card game for a long time. I have no problems with it still.
As for arch base, I started that in 2015. Just found it more flexible and AUR is awesome. So much more software that I could not get on a debian based system.
I never understood what you people do with your machines, through the years i must have used at least half a dozen nvidia gpus and never had any real issues.
Of course early on you had to compile your drivers in the kernel yourself, but then I’m not even sure ati had drivers at the time. And that’s how you configured the kernel anyway.
I think a lot of users kinda jump in the deep end, which is fine, but expect their experience to be flawless. Then when it inevitably isn’t they get upset and disheartened. I get that.
Why I eventually settled on Ubuntu. I did Red Hat 5 in the 90s, built a Linux From Scratch system, and daily drove Gentoo for a number of years. Got sick of solving NP-complete problems in Gentoo package management. Combine that with lots of documents saying “this is how it works in Ubuntu, and everywhere else you’ll have to figure it out for yourself”. I don’t have time for that shit.
Hell, Ubuntu is more straightforward to get TensorFlow working with Nvidia GPUs than it is on Windows. Nobody uses TensorFlow on pure Windows; you want to use WSL. To do that, you have to setup a passthrough layer to give WSL direct access to the GPU. There have been like three ways to do that over the years, and if you hit the wrong instructions in Google, you’ll have to back out everything you did and make sure you start again clean. Which might mean a full reinstall. On Linux, you install the Nvidia drivers, install TensorFlow with the GPU flags, and you’re done.
The reason is very simple, Arch has tons of software & all available in it’s repository (need more software you can check AUR)
The other reason is flexing to other users
For NVIDIA case it’s not that hard especially if you know what you doing, if you’re newbie you can use Garuda Linux & it will detect and install NVIDIA driver it self for you
NVidia has a pretty good capture on the gaming market. Especially during the 980/1080 generations. I’ve also seen a ton of non media people insist on NVidia cuz of shadowplay.
This is speculation, but I don’t think most new Linux users are building computers specifically for Linux. They’re letting their computers age, then considering Linux when they see the cost of the new generation of NVidia hardware.
Let us not overestimate the general publics knowledge of hardware compatibility and operating systems in general. I think they conceptualize it like replacing a brick in a Lego wall. They’d have no reason to suspect it wouldn’t work.
Do you know of any guides to getting started with Arch?
I’ve been wanting to switch for a while but the challenge is daunting and I am very tech literate.
I moved from a gtx 1060 to an RX580 and it has been terrible, recording in obs is horrible to the point that the cpu yields better results and now a recent kernel version broke the power meter on all the polaris gpus.
Damn, sorry to hear that, my experience with the 480 was really good. Admittedly AMD wasn’t quite caught up yet with hardware video encoding at the time that card was designed (basically a reskinned 480). Specifically, hardware video encoding has gotten drastically better since then on AMD cards.
Three gaming-focused Linux operating systems beat Windows 11 in gaming benchmarks
Arch is a gaming-focused Linux OS now lmao
I mean, it can be, if you do the right fine-tuning.
But yeah, I think they kind of missed the point. Arch seems to work pretty damn well for gaming with a completely vanilla, standard configuration.
No mention of important metrics like frame times, and 1-0,1% fps lows. You can feel these in game, even if you have 200+ fps.
I found the original study in the article, it’s in German. Here it is (Linux Gaming: Test Results and Conclusion), it looks like most Linux distros have worse lows and frame times than Windows 11, other than Arch Linux which seems to be a tossup.
Interesting, the article isn’t working well under translate and I can’t see the frame time graphs on my phone. Does it state which kernel their running these games under or if these are x11 / Wayland?
If their just using the stock kernel there are probably some gains (even just minimal) using another with some tweaks.
FH5 is awful on Linux. Even after I switched to an AMD card it’ll cause system-wide crashes.
