Everyone will have a different experience based on their hardware, distro, and game preferences; But for me Linux has been a far less headache-inducing gaming platform than Windows literally for years at this point.
I had this mindset for about 2 decades, from when I first played around in OpenSUSE and Compiz back in 2005 up to 2024 when I finally switched because of Windows 10 being put out to pasture by Microsoft. But since I’m now in my early 40s and no longer play competitive games as I used to 15 years ago, I’ve had zero problems with Linux and gaming.
So I totally understand your mindset as I too once thought the same.
Problem with waiting is of course that developers don’t favor linux due to lack of people on linux playing game, so it’s a vicious circle:
not playing on linux because it’s not well supported by games
game devs not making games for linux because not enough players are there.
Its mostly there if your ready to dump your League addiction. Proton Db has guides for the games that don’t just work first try and most of the fixes are select a different launch option from a drop down in Steam.
Ironically, from what I understand (haven’t done direct comparisons myself), a lot of games written for windows run just as well or better on linux.
DOTA 2 is just noteworthy to me because it’s an exception to the “other than competitive games” exception. And while I can’t say for sure that no one is hacking on there, I have yet to see any blatant cases of it (though admittedly it might be difficult to tell in a game where it’s normal for some players to snowball significantly over others).
Ironically, from what I understand (haven’t done direct comparisons myself), a lot of games written for windows run just as well or better on linux.
Yes, Wine/Proton translates DirectX calls to Vulkan calls, and Vulkan is so efficient that native Windows games sometimes run better on Linux than they do on Windows.
I discovered that Helldivers 1 ran fine on Linux despite having an anti-cheat, because when the anti-cheat fails to launch the game just says “fuck it” and runs anyway. Though other games like PUBG refuse to run when their anti-cheat fails. I love PUBG but not so much that I’m willing to let some shady publisher from the other side of the world run unknown and unrestricted code at the lowest level of my home computer just to play it. That will never be a worthwhile trade.
So far it’s working fine, yeah. No need to choose among a zillion distros someone swears is the best, I know for a fact there are first-party drivers for everything, no need to fiddle around with CLI, it plays everything my graphics card can muster, and I don’t need to worry about game compatibility or whether Nvidia deigned to support my OS.
Windows has a lot of problems, but if you’re just looking to play games without too much complexity… It’s as close to “it just works” as I can imagine getting without switching to a console (or limiting myself to the few games that work on Apple devices, I guess).
Plus, big argument, it’s familiar. You can forgive more annoyances when you’re not learning something new. Humans are just lazy like that.
First and foremost, I do think Windows is the better choice for most people to play games on, mostly due to vendor support.
However, I’d say that a lot of people have some sort of issue with Windows, albeit probably less than they would have with some Linux distributions. I just wanted to express that “without headaches” is a goal that is maybe higher than necessary.
Let’s at least not exaggerate, because it’s not particularly useful if you’re trying to get someone to switch. If someone is on the fence about it and sees comments like yours, they’ll be more likely to go “oh well I don’t have those kinds of issues with Windows, so it must just be them.” The vast majority of Windows users (office workers, people using it to check emails and browse Facebook, people just using it for Steam, etc) will literally never need to use CLI.
If you’re needing to use CLI every hour or two on Windows, that sounds more like you’re using the wrong tool for the job. Essentially, you’re trying to use a drill when you need a hammer. A drill may function as a hammer… But it’ll probably take a lot of extra effort. And it’ll likely end up damaging the tool, because you’re using it for something it wasn’t designed to do.
I was a windows sysadmin doing mostly software deployment and automation. I was definitely an edge case. Point is, windows has a command line and requires it for a lot of tasks.
Yea, but the issue is, Windows works because others don’t, like linux. Windows gets preferrential baby treatment from all consumer tech manufacturers… A perfect example is my laptop. I have ubuntu on it. NOTHING works right because Lenovo decided to only support linux and my employer didn’t check and neither did they agree to invest some of my hours to investigate. Now I’m stuck with it. So i ask: is that Linux’s fault, or Lenovo’s, or whose is it?.. Either way it’s not Linux’s fault…
Had this conversation with my brother the other day…I’m all for Linux gaming and he is staying with windows because learning something new is antithesis to his having fun. I totally get it.
One day, Linux will be ready for a no-headaches gaming PC. Genuinely looking forward to it.
Everyone will have a different experience based on their hardware, distro, and game preferences; But for me Linux has been a far less headache-inducing gaming platform than Windows literally for years at this point.
I had this mindset for about 2 decades, from when I first played around in OpenSUSE and Compiz back in 2005 up to 2024 when I finally switched because of Windows 10 being put out to pasture by Microsoft. But since I’m now in my early 40s and no longer play competitive games as I used to 15 years ago, I’ve had zero problems with Linux and gaming.
So I totally understand your mindset as I too once thought the same.
Problem with waiting is of course that developers don’t favor linux due to lack of people on linux playing game, so it’s a vicious circle:
I hope you enjoy linux when you’re ready.
already is for me!
Its mostly there if your ready to dump your League addiction. Proton Db has guides for the games that don’t just work first try and most of the fixes are select a different launch option from a drop down in Steam.
Though on that note, I started playing a lot of DOTA 2 on linux without issue.
It is native on Linux, just like most of Valve’s catalog, so it should run as well as running a Windows game on Windows.
Ironically, from what I understand (haven’t done direct comparisons myself), a lot of games written for windows run just as well or better on linux.
DOTA 2 is just noteworthy to me because it’s an exception to the “other than competitive games” exception. And while I can’t say for sure that no one is hacking on there, I have yet to see any blatant cases of it (though admittedly it might be difficult to tell in a game where it’s normal for some players to snowball significantly over others).
Yes, Wine/Proton translates DirectX calls to Vulkan calls, and Vulkan is so efficient that native Windows games sometimes run better on Linux than they do on Windows.
I’m deeply sorry for your loss.
Except games with shitty anti-cheat like Battlefield. Those are just unplayable.
Good.
I discovered that Helldivers 1 ran fine on Linux despite having an anti-cheat, because when the anti-cheat fails to launch the game just says “fuck it” and runs anyway. Though other games like PUBG refuse to run when their anti-cheat fails. I love PUBG but not so much that I’m willing to let some shady publisher from the other side of the world run unknown and unrestricted code at the lowest level of my home computer just to play it. That will never be a worthwhile trade.
Well, is Windows?
So far it’s working fine, yeah. No need to choose among a zillion distros someone swears is the best, I know for a fact there are first-party drivers for everything, no need to fiddle around with CLI, it plays everything my graphics card can muster, and I don’t need to worry about game compatibility or whether Nvidia deigned to support my OS.
Windows has a lot of problems, but if you’re just looking to play games without too much complexity… It’s as close to “it just works” as I can imagine getting without switching to a console (or limiting myself to the few games that work on Apple devices, I guess).
Plus, big argument, it’s familiar. You can forgive more annoyances when you’re not learning something new. Humans are just lazy like that.
Nowadays most people just recommend Bazzite if you just want to game
First and foremost, I do think Windows is the better choice for most people to play games on, mostly due to vendor support.
However, I’d say that a lot of people have some sort of issue with Windows, albeit probably less than they would have with some Linux distributions. I just wanted to express that “without headaches” is a goal that is maybe higher than necessary.
I supported windows for a while… I’m not sure I went more than an hour or two without going to command line to fix something or another.
Let’s at least not exaggerate, because it’s not particularly useful if you’re trying to get someone to switch. If someone is on the fence about it and sees comments like yours, they’ll be more likely to go “oh well I don’t have those kinds of issues with Windows, so it must just be them.” The vast majority of Windows users (office workers, people using it to check emails and browse Facebook, people just using it for Steam, etc) will literally never need to use CLI.
If you’re needing to use CLI every hour or two on Windows, that sounds more like you’re using the wrong tool for the job. Essentially, you’re trying to use a drill when you need a hammer. A drill may function as a hammer… But it’ll probably take a lot of extra effort. And it’ll likely end up damaging the tool, because you’re using it for something it wasn’t designed to do.
I was a windows sysadmin doing mostly software deployment and automation. I was definitely an edge case. Point is, windows has a command line and requires it for a lot of tasks.
If something is broken in windows, tough luck. I always find if something is broken in Linux, someone has a fix
Yea, but the issue is, Windows works because others don’t, like linux. Windows gets preferrential baby treatment from all consumer tech manufacturers… A perfect example is my laptop. I have ubuntu on it. NOTHING works right because Lenovo decided to only support linux and my employer didn’t check and neither did they agree to invest some of my hours to investigate. Now I’m stuck with it. So i ask: is that Linux’s fault, or Lenovo’s, or whose is it?.. Either way it’s not Linux’s fault…
Lenovo decided only to support linux? What?
Had this conversation with my brother the other day…I’m all for Linux gaming and he is staying with windows because learning something new is antithesis to his having fun. I totally get it.