TL;DR; tried gaming on Linux again after not having done so for ~10 years and am absolutely blown away by how much improved it is
Today I decided to get some use out of an older/leftover PC that I had laying around after upgrading. My plan was to plug it into the TV in our lounge room so that my 5 year old can play some of the less demanding games she enjoys from my steam library (stuff like Slime Rancher 2).
Originally my plan was to install Windows on it only to discover I couldn’t do this due to TPM / secureboot requirements that the older hardware couldn’t handle, this was infuriating and felt like I couldn’t use my own machine which used to run Windows fine.
To understand where I’m coming from; I’ve been a Linux user on and off for more than a decade and in the past had been able to play some games using Wine but it was often fiddly or simply wouldn’t run the game well enough which is why I generally just dual boot Windows for gaming.
I decided to give Linux a try as I’d heard steam has made gaming on Linux much more approachable than it once was using a proton compatibility layer (which under the hood uses Wine but making it a bit easier to use).
After installing Ubuntu 23, Steam and then enabling the proton compatibility in Steam settings I am absolutely amazed at how easy it was to get most games working!. My daughter has been playing Slime Rancher 2 and it works really well and I’ve also tested a few other games such as Cult of the Lamb and Dredge and they also worked well. This is such a leap forward to how I remember the state of things back ~10 years ago when I last played games on Linux.
From recent developments it seems like gaming on Linux is really beginning to pick up momentum and I look forward to the day game publishers place great import on releasing native Linux ports but until then am super grateful for the work the good people at Wine have been doing as well as Proton and Steam for making it easier to use.
I was able to play a game that wouldn’t run well on my laptop after switching to Linux. It’s wild. Never going back
Many games even run better on linux with proton than on windows, due to package bundling and stuff. Though the games I play the most already have native linux support.
I keep hearing this, but I personally have yet to see it. Definitely most of my games run just as well on linux, but otherwise some of them are still glitchy.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll never go back to Windows, I love Linux, but what are these games that run better on Linux?
top of my head, sekiro.
was on windows getting about 30fps and struggling to run, so I used a ported dxvk dll someone mentioned, it is on github (I’ll post the link when I find it)
straight to 60fps, no more frame drops. it was crazy.
edit: I was on an AMD gpu, iirc I don’t think people on nvidia had the same problem
update: found the post
With the success of Steam Deck it will only get better and better.
As a Linux user, the Steam Deck is an amazing system to work with. I kinda dropped off with gaming in the last few years and the SD really rekindled my desire to game both solo and doing cozy co-op with my partner.
Truly a game changer and I’m so happy it’s supporting Linux while doing it
I only game on linux and regret nothing.
Glad it worked out for you!
The improvements in the last 5 years or so have been dramatic. When I switched to Linux ~12 years ago I had to give up gaming. Now, we can get the best of both worlds.
