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What are your experiences using Linux for gaming?
(discuss.tchncs.de)
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Switched last year from Win 11. Had some previous experience with Ubuntu and Mint but wanted to try Arch. I ended up with EndeavourOS, which is Arch based. At that time I had some things to learn about making my Nvidia GPU run and run properly. But there were some new drivers coming out alongside Nvidia partially opening up to the Linux crowd. Together with further advancements in Proton it's been mostly smooth sailing I'd say.
Games on Steam mostly run out of the box. There might be some, that need another Proton oder GE-Proton version but those are easily switched/installed. You can always look up if games need certain tweaks on protondb.com I've even got Fallout 4 with 300+ mods (managed by Nexusmods / Vortex) to run. Currently playing Stalker 2 with some mods and "it just works". I even managed to manually inject DLSS 4 to Stalker 2 so the really bad ghosting is far less.
Lutris or Heroic Launcher work for GOG, Uplay and EA Access (or whatever it is called nowadays).
There are a few games, like Icarus, that run like shit generally but even worse on Linux. Also, when using Steam / Proton, every time you change shaders they need to be pre-rendered. Usually that also happens when there's been an update. Most of the time that doesn't take long but I had singular games where that took 30+ minutes. And then there is an increasing number of games that run kernel level anti-cheat. Games like CoD 7 (I think), Valorant or the upcoming Battlefield 6. They straight out can't be played on Linux. It sucks, because I wanted to play BF6 with friends but I just have to pass this one. Anticheat shouldn't run on kernel level anyways. Speaking of anticheat: I think (please correct me if I'm wrong) BattleEye also doesn't run on Linux. EAC does, but it needs to be enabled by the devs for Linux. Squad or Hell Let Loose run EAC and have it enabled for Linux and it runs fine. SCUM and Rust don't have it enabled so you either have to play on servers that don't use EAC or on specific linux compatible servers (there are some in Rust).
BattleEye and EAC have both worked on Linux since 2021. Any games that use those at this point but don't support Linux are choosing to block the platform (e.g. Fortnite).
Does BattleEye in general just work or does it require fiddling? One of my main games uses it, so that is a big factor in me not having made the jump yet. (The others are an NVidia GPU and my absolute dread to have to get around to actually clean up my files)
In my experience it either works or it doesn't, based on whether the devs have blocked it or not. The only extra step I've needed to do for anti-cheat on Steam games is installing a Proton runtime for the given anti-cheat, which are just in the tools section.