this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2023
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
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Fortunately majority of games work on linux. The major pain point now is the anticheat used by multiplayer games. Single player games more or less work out of the box
To add on here, you can use the Are We Anti-Cheat Yet? site to track which games are not working due to anti-cheat. In my experience it's extremely rare for "Linux" (aka Wine/DXVK/VKD3D/et al) to not support arbitrary games. If a game is not working on Linux it's almost certainly because of an anti-cheat or some bloated/obscure DRM telling Linux "no you cannot run this".
Sadly anti cheat is much cheaper for devs than fast manual moderation. And a cheater infested game dies off much faster.
And client-side anticheat solutions aren’t great at preventing cheating, anyways. Anticheats are still bypassed by smart software design or by using third-party devices, like the Cronus. COD’s intrusive newer anticheat didn’t stop hacking in ranked play this past year, for instance.
I recommend this video from Serious, who has experience with modded clients and developed a patch to secure BO3 when it was unsafe to play.
I really want to switch to Linux, but I’ve been told this before and then ended up spending hours trying to get everything to work, and usually give up … but it’s been a couple of years since I tried the last time, so is this the right time?
I have zero interest in the technical parts of Linux or setting things up. I want things to work out if the box. I may have to dual boot because of WoW and MS Flight Sim, but if everything else works it may be worth it.
Edit: wow thanks for the answers. You may have convinced me to try again.
Check out protondb to see how your game collection fares on linux. I personally just buy games without checking these days and play on linux but then again I buy older games. Although AAA games also tend to work these days within days of release
And TBF, Far too many AAA games tend to not work well on Windows within the first few days of release either. Even a few like elden ring that worked better on Linux before Windows. Though I still avoid getting games on their release date. You are generally going to have a far better experience on either system by waiting a bit and seeing what others say about it.
It greatly depends on the type of games you play, the vast majority of things I play I just hit play on Steam and that's it. Sure I had to do some setup, i.e. install Proton-GE and set Steam to use it as default for all games, otherwise only some games that Valve tested are available, but all in all it's almost 0 setup.
That being said that's been true for years, so I doubt that if you had a bad experience in 2021 it's going to be much different now. Also you need to realise that not even Windows is out of the box, you had to install drivers and programs, PCs are not consoles and with customisability comes the need to setup. And even though you don't have interest in the technical part of Linux you'll need to learn some of it, just like you did for Windows, and most importantly you'll need to forget the technical parts you know of windows that are different on Linux, that's usually one of the biggest problems I see, people trying to use Linux as if it were Windows and having a bad time.
You’re right - but I’d say things on newer windows versions are pretty much out of the box. It may ask for driver installs, but that’s often just pressing a confirmation box.
It’s not that I’m afraid of the technical stuff - I am a windows sys admin and software developer. I just have bad memories of hours of getting drivers to work on Linux. I’m sure, that if I make the change and are happy, eventually I’ll take a deeper dive. But it takes a good first time impression to get there.
Well the game is purposefully built for windows. It is not a surprise that it is out of the box. What is pleasantly surprising is that this is also true for linux - a platform which most of these games do not support
Maybe i am getting old, but if someone says they used something a couple years ago, then i dont assume its two years ago. more like 10 years or so. Dont have a problem with the rest of your comment
If you have AMD, for most titles it is as simple as installing a distro and then installing Steam. Then on Steam you will have to enable the compatibility tools, that is it. For Nvidia, setting up the drivers is a bit more finicky, however some distros will preconfigure it for you (such as Nobara, although personally I had a couple issues with this distro, YMMV)
You can search for games status on Linux via ProtonDB. In my experience they just work.
For WoW you might need to look up a YT tutorial to figure out the file paths, but the tldr is you need to install Battle.Net as a Non-Steam game, then launch it through Steam. This is generally a good, easy method for most non-steam titles, just installing it and adding it as a non-steam game.
According to ProtonDB flight sim should work, I habe no personal experience here.
Thanks for the answer - I’ve usually just gone with Ubuntu. Would that still be the recommended distro for gaming?
If you're unsure and just want something easy, my recommendation is Pop OS. I think it has replaced Ubuntu as the generally recommended works-out-of-the-box distro.
Pop is Ubuntu based and inherits most of its good qualities. I consider it mostly an improvement, especially for gaming.
It doesn't really matter which distro you use for gaming, just get one that is popular and well-supported such as Kubuntu or Fedora or Pop!_OS or whatever. Ones like Arch and Gentoo would be pretty complicated so I wouldn't recommend those until you feel comfortable.
Ubuntu was kind of dethroned in the last several years (Canonical has shit the bed a bit). For a gaming focus, I'd rather suggest Bazzite (SteamOS alternative), or ChimeraOS.
If you want something a bit less gaming focused and traditional: Try Pop! Os
Pop! OS lets you try out a tiling windows manager as well without having to fully comit to it right away. Once I got used to it I loved it, so much easier to set up an efficient usable display layout.
Ubuntu is the best bet for a distro to just work well out of the box.
Granted I have still had a fuck ton of issues, errors, etc, but Ubuntu is the only distro that has worked the best out of the box. Fedora was a broken mess, and Mint was in between.
So if you want anyone to not give up on Linux, direct them towards Ubuntu first. You can always switch distros later, but spending 3 days trying to fix issues on a different distro isn't fun.
That's not accurate anymore. Canonical has dropped the ball lately (one word: snaps). Pop OS is way more sensible for gaming.
I can't speak for both games you listed, however for WoW - Blizzard games tend to have a good reputation for running on Linux (one of the few good things I like about Blizzard). Sometimes there are a few bugs here and there (OW had a mouse cursor locking problem) but generally they're pretty good.
I have been playing Diablo 3 on Linux for as long as I can remember, even before the massive rise of Linux gaming from the introduction of VKD3D/DXVK/Proton. I know D4 was working in Linux even during the betas, and I've heard StarCraft players who've said the same.
Of course, the system requirements never mention Linux as an officially supported platform, but I can't say I've ever heard of a Blizzard game that doesn't work on Linux (games they develop - games like CoD and originally Destiny 2 where they were only the publisher/launcher host is a different story) so I'd be very surprised if WoW doesn't work.
IIRC Blizzard's anti cheat ("Warden" I believe) is mostly server side which makes things way easier - I mean hell I know a lot of their games even supported Mac OS.
And as the others have linked, for MSFS you can check Proton but I hear the reception is good there too since it's rated as Silver on there.
These days I'm usually just playing the Diablo games from them, and I just use the Bottles app which makes it really easy to play non-Steam games. It even has an option to install the Battle.net client for you, then you login, install the game, and click play - it's super simple.
Thanks for the feedback - I've installed Pop OS tonight and installed bnet, wow, unreal engine, rocket league and steam.
Battle.net had a few problems because of the host file, and Vulkan apparently needed some fiddling - but at apart from that, I must say everything runs smoothly.
I look forward to test a lot of things deeper - but for now it very much seems like an experience I could get used to.
Glad to hear that its working smoothly there! Definitely don't hesitate to let us know here if you have any questions about anything! There is also [email protected] for a more gaming-centric Linux community as well.
Yeah it has improved massively in the last year's, what games do you usually play?
Apart from wow and flight sim, I play rocket league, satisfactory, old school monkey island (and other point and click games) and FIFA from time to time and I make small game projects in unreal engine.
Can't promise anything, but a few years has made a pretty huge difference here. If the game you want to play is on Steam and doesn't have weird anticheat, it'll likely just work. If it's not on Steam, try Lutris.
If the game you want to play still doesn't work, post here and say "LINUX BLOWS BECAUSE IT CAN'T PLAY THIS GAME" and then you'll get a dozen different ways to make it run
Cunningham's Law to the rescue!
Lots of good games are still not working properly (e.g. Nioh), also modding support is very lacking and cumbersome.
I had some trouble with Nioh, but I remember it working perfectly after trying a few things
That was last year though, I don't remember what exactly I did to make it work
You can see other people's issues on ProtonDb https://www.protondb.com/app/485510
Basically no attacking with controller without workaround, movies not playing for some and performance/stability issues.
Oh right, the light attack not working unless left-clicked once. Yeah, that's a weird one. Cutscenes were borked every now and then, true.
But all in all, I had a good time playing it, which is probably why I remember it having less issues than it actually does.