Hello r/linux_gaming!
Long story short, I’m tired of Windows, lately it’s been giving me problems after problems and after talking to a friend of mine that uses Fedora Linux, it caught my attention more than ever.I was already interessted in switching to Linux for the longest, but now that I’ve been having tons of problems with Windows, this might be the right time to do so.
After searching a bit, I’ve came to the conclusion that I might switch to Linux Mint (more specifically, the Cinnamon Edition).I have some questions that I’ve been searching but never got a consistent answer (since it’s probably more of personal preference).
Performance wise, does anyone know if Linux is actually better than Windows?
I’ve seen some videos and benchmarks and it looks like it really depends on the title, but overall, do you know if it’s actually better than Windows?
So, to people who are familiar with Mint, or actually use Mint, what Edition would be the best for me?
I’m currently using a laptop as my main device:
- CPU - I5-12450H
- GPU - RTX 3050 Mobile
- RAM - 16GB
Does anyone know the current state of VR Gaming in Linux?
I play a lot of VRChat, and I just wanna know how the current state of VR Gaming is on Linux.From a friend of mine, he says that due to how Linux handles games overall, he has a way better performance than when we was on Windows, but I don’t really have no way to prove that since I can find little to no benchmarks (on VRChat).
Where can I download Steam games in Linux?
I can’t really find a consistent answer on this one…
Is it a good idea to Dual Boot between Windows and Linux?
Sadly, I can’t fully switch to Linux, since I still have tons of stuff that I’m too used on doing in Windows. So, what are your thoughts on Dual Booting between Windows and Linux?
I’m sorry for the amount of questions, I’m just really tired of the OS I’m currently using and I’m just really looking for something fast and lighter, but thank you for reading my post, have a good day :)
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Performance on almost any OS comes down to 2 things: driver support, and OS optimization. Windows uses a shitload of resources at idle and it just gets worse from there, but it’s the first stop for driver support.
Linux has been getting vastly better with driver support and third party translation layers, a lot of this being driven by Valve and various efforts related to valve (proton for instance) but it’s also much more optimized. The places where Linux folks will say it’s unoptimized is still much more clean and fast than windows, and as such you get a weird seesaw of “this” not working or working worse, and “that” working better that averages out to “same or better, when it works”.
Vr: it depends
What headset do you have?
Performance wise, does anyone know if Linux is actually better than Windows?
It really depends on the title.
what Edition would be the best for me?
Better start with the official one - Cinnamon Edition.
Where can I download Steam games in Linux?
In Steam. Just like you do it in Windows.
Is it a good idea to Dual Boot between Windows and Linux?
Yes. Just try to use Windows only when necessary. You can always drop Windows when you feel like you don’t need it anymore.
Does anyone know the current state of VR Gaming in Linux?
Don’t bother.
I heard there have been some improvements with wayland and steam-vr 2, but that’s dependend on the DE, your Setup, new drivers etc. Overall, my Valve Index either shows image but no sound, or sound but no image. Beat Saber launched, SPT didn’t, Alyx did once, but never after that.
I’d STRONGLY recommend keeping a Windows partition around for VR Gaming.
Thank you for sharing your experience, I’ll have that in mind!
Hey,I bought a quest 2 recently and I game on Linux,can keep you updated via DM on how it goes if you’d like
Hey hey! First of all, congrats on buying a Quest 2!
And please, if you have any updates in the future, please tell me. :)
Performance in Linux is better overall but not gaming. Gaming on Linux is a hellhole and I really recommend you don’t get into it because it’s a far cry from what’s being promoted on Linux subs. I use both, Windows on my Laptop and I keep Pop!_OS on an external HDD. Out of the 3 distros I used, it gives you far less headache especially if you have Nvidia GPU. I also tried dual booting before but it’s not a very good experience especially during updates.
I’ve seen other replies that tell the same, that performance should be better but not for gaming, I might dive in multiple distros with a VM to really get a feel of it.
I’ll probably never get fully rid of Windows, nor I really want to, at least right now, but I just really wanted to get this main question out of my head which was gaming on Linux.
And thank you for your time to reply :)
Just wanted to chip in that I’ve been using linux for 3 years and it’s been rare that a game just doesn’t work. Even when pirating.
Rare that a game doesn’t work after at least 3 hours of tinkering*