Hi all, I have been PC gaming for a long time (30+ years), but specifically gaming from the couch for 10+. I'm now going to be having a nice workspace in another part of the house so I'm building a second system.
I have two main goals: I want to set up my flight sim stuff (= yoke, throttle, etc) permanently in the workspace, and I also want to play strategy titles in there, in particular ones which have text that can be a bit small on a TV from the couch. I imagine I'll still play a lot in the front room, mostly titles with full controller support, so I think it is fair to say that strategy (4X, RTS) and flight simming (X-Plane primarily) will be the focus where I need a monitor.
I was considering targeting 1440p, but 1080p is probably also fine.
Thing is, I haven't been monitor shopping in a long time. Curved screens? Ultrawides? None of that existed when I last was using a monitor.
So I wanted to ask the community here for their recommendations or ideas. Pretty open ended I guess (modulo a couple questions below) but anything would be helpful.
Not sure it matters, but the workspace system will be:
- Ryzen 7 9700x
- RX 7800 XT
- running Linux (probably Pop! since I have used it for years on the other system without issue), using Proton for anything without a native binary
Are there any pitfalls with ultrawides? If a game doesn't support the resolution, do I just get bars on the side? Does Linux / Proton handle it significantly differently versus Windows?
I also did consider having the flight sim setup and more standard setup be on different desks (thus multiple screens but not next to each other). This might make sense in terms of the flight equipment but then again it might just be a good way to waste space.
To anyone reading this thinking "once SteamOS comes out, I'll switch", you should know:
Gaming on Linux is already here. Pick a distro and game. You can take advantage of Proton right now. You don't need to wait for one specific distro.
I've personally been gaming on Linux exclusively for about 3 years. Windows games, not Linux games.
Edit: based on other commenters' suggestions, I'll give you some.
I have gamed for those three years on PopOS. It is a distro based on Debian, ultimately, which means it's also related to Ubuntu and Mint. Realistically, you can pick any of those 4 and you should have a nice experience.
Arch is popular with the übergeeks, and I do use it on my laptop, BTW, but you shouldn't use it as a first distro.
The concept of "distro" doesn't really exist for Windows, because you pretty much get one monolithic product. But basically, it is a specific mix of software that works together and relies on the Linux kernel. Imagine it as a "version" of Windows with specific goals, some of which are overlapping (e.g. Mint and Ubuntu tend to cater to the same audience).
If you get far enough into it, the freedom that Linux allows means that you can turn any distro into any other distro.