Well this article is pretty disingenuous…
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The distribution “managed by a single person” depends on hundreds of people working on different sofware to keep up. It’s not “one person doing better than the thousands of Microsoft employees combined” implication they are pushing
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Windows 11 beat the linux distros by up to 20% in 1% lows which are argued as much more important by most tech reviewers. It wasn’t consistant at all which means that there was a giant margin of error.
I love linux and linux gaming has gotten radically better, but I am tired of tech “journalism” literally just cherrypicking, misleading, clickbait trash.
Not to mention the major hurdle for Linux gaming is anti cheat software being brought over. Too many games are 100% unplayable because the devs don’t allow their anticheat to be installed on Linux systems
As if the anti-cheat even worked.
Client-side anti-cheat has always been a scam to offload server processing onto client machines.
This results in worse cheat detection and wastes client resources, but companies like EA can spend less on servers.
It also doesn’t work. I know that’s what the parent comment said, but it’s a total scam at the company level too.
“Oh, server networking is hard to do right. Let’s do it client side”
“Oh, people are cheating. Let’s add anticheat”
Ensue 3 years of fixing network consistency bugs and playing whackamole with cheaters
I’ve developed games where the client is the source of truth, and games where it’s the server. It is almost always better to do anything that will be developed for more than a few weeks serverside.
Also from an engineering perspective it makes LOADS more sense as you can apply patches to the servers instantly vs. requiring the users patch the game themselves.
Also, you can control the variables of the system it’s running on.
Of course, it means when you fuck up, it affects everyone at once.
But with journaling file systems and kubernettes orchestration it’s SO easy to revert changes with modern day Linux.
>client is the source of truth
>company doesn’t like the clients truth
In the defence of client side AC; if the entire game runs on the server, then network delay makes FPS:es awful to play. Being able to trust clients and let them do hit detection is quite important in making online FPS:es responsive. In addition, cheats that remove walls/grass, highlight players or even autoaim are near impossible to detect server side. One could try to use heuristics and statistics but it would be difficult to tell the difference between cheaters and players who are just good at aiming and map awareness.
Doesn’t matter if it’s a prerequisite
I really wish valve would make this more clear on steam store pages. It says games are “unsupported” on steam deck due to anticheat when really it should say something like “The developer of this title does not allow players using the steam deck” so that people are more aware it’s not linux or valve’s fault
Honestly I can’t say that I miss installing rootkits with terrifying privileges just to play games. I’d rather limit the privileges games have with Flatpak etc., not give them even more.
Sure but gaming is predominantly a social pastime. Meaning that most gamers will make the trade off between installing anticheat and not playing the game their friends are all playing, much like the overwhelming majority of people will trade privacy in favor of being able to send a message to friends on Facebook.
It doesn’t matter how much you value your privacy: most people don’t care and never will. So without the option to give away privacy to play the latest Ubisoft game they won’t be using Linux. Full stop.
Yeah, what the heck Valorant. I’m not installing that.
Which anticheat is a “root kit”?
All of them.
This is because most anti cheats for windows are kernel level rootkits that have full access to your entire system, and gamers just trust that known to be ineffective, scammy and profiteering, anti cheat companies software companies would /never/ do anything nefarious.
How can you trust them?
You can’t! Black boxed code, babyyyyyy.
Anyway yeah on linux systems basically the designs of all common anti cheat systems would be laughed at as hilariously insecure code that no sane person would allow on their computer because you would have to give it root level access.
This is basically insane as in the linux paradigm, root level access is reserved only for a bare minimum of system processes, whereas on Windows, well with the new Pluton tech in the latest lines of major CPUs, Windows has the ability to DRM literally anything you install on it and just get rid of your ability to run or install it, as they see fit, with a network enabled sub layer of the CPU that you as a user cannot override from within Windows.
The only hurdle for linux gaming is for more gamers and game developers to realize the truth of what I just said.
Its possible to do anti cheat in less invasive ways. But that requires more work from game development studios, and is costly.
Anyone else remember when servers had like actual human admins that would respond to player complaints, and would work on the backend of a server to come up with their own ways to detect cheating server side?
Anti cheat = rootkit. You should not install it at all.
Once more someone who doesn’t understand what the fuck a rootkit is spews their uninformed opinions on lemmy.
Damn man, I know rootkits and your comment is a rootkit!
“Any software that has admin access is a rootkit!” -this entire website
If you compromise your system with software that you don’t know and potentially can introduce a backdoor (even involuntary via bugs), you have a rootkit installed.
If you don’t trust it, don’t install it with admin privileges. Maybe don’t install it at all. Anticheat is a shady business. And mostly not owned by the company that produces the maybe trusted product to be protected.
“A rootkit is a collection of computer software, typically malicious, designed to enable access to a computer or an area of its software that is not otherwise allowed (for example, to an unauthorized user) and often masks its existence or the existence of other software.”
That’s the Wikipedia definition, in CompTIA Security+ the concept of the malware masking itself is quintessential to the definition of a rootkit. I hear this shit all the time from people on here who think anything that gets elevated privileges is a “rootkit” and hasn’t the slightest idea what the fuck they’re talking about.
“But you don’t know if it could install a backdoor!”
You don’t know if half the shit you install is doing that either, or is Easy Anticheat known for doing this in some official investigation? Did someone find out that Activision is deploying malware in ricochet?
If not, you’re operating on suspicion that you don’t harbor for other software without evidence, based purely on things you’ve probably just barely heard about.
1% lows are way more important. I also think frame time is very important.
Yep. The world is full of trash, that’s for sure.
Yeah, the only time proton can actually outperform windows is when it spots a fundamental performance error that the app has made, and is able to optimize it out, AND no windows driver does the same. This is comparing Linux+proton at its best vs windows+native at its worst.
What we really want to see is Linux+native at its best vs windows+native at its best. Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of demanding games that natively support Linux.
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Wait, isn’t a lower frame time better? Why does their screenshot show windows having the lowest and say that it scored last?
Looking at the source article, windows did have generally better 1% lows except for Starfield, so I think this article has it backwards. They also cherry picked 2 results where windows was worse lol.
I’m all for pro-linux stuff but articles like this just reek of making shit up so it looks better.
I think FPS was actually selected, not frametimes. 1% low frametimes of 89 does not make sense.
There is an issue with the image in the article, but not the one that you might think it was. The FPS should have been more clearly indicated that it was the selected tab and then it probably would have been fine.
edit: I went to the base website https://www.computerbase.de/2023-12/welche-linux-distribution-zum-spielen/2/ it’s in German, but, it seems like the frametimes and frame rates are nearly the exact same values - which doesn’t even seem to make sense to me?
They probably didn’t label their axes properly. FPS is a clearly defined metric, and there, more is better. This indicates that the conclusion (Linux is faster) holds. Since frame times have an entry with value “100” and all other values are lower, I assume that’s in percent, i.e. Arch Linux is the fastest and picked as comparison point, and the others are shown with relative performance to Arch.
It says “Prozent” in the bottom left of the screenshot. You are correct. They use percent to compare them. So more is actually better here.
I’ll need to give Linux gaming another chance at some point.
All I know is that people were saying games run great on Linux a couple of years ago as well, but when I actually tried it for myself the performance was unusable.
Maybe that was my fault for over complicating my setup, but even when I tried a basic setup it still felt very janky.
Not sure if anyone’s able to advise, but does RTX and variable refresh rate work on Linux?
Those are absolute requirements for me.
All three major GPU manufacturers support ray tracing and variable refresh rate on Linux. When playing windows games, ray tracing has to be handled through VKD3D, which AFAIK supports most but not all DXR features. I haven’t had any problems with it though.
The one thing that can still completely make or break your (Windows games on Linux) gaming experience is anti-cheat software, since it’s up to the game developers to enable it for wine. The major anti cheat providers offer solutions for this, but not all game studios are interested in their games running on platforms other than windows. Games like valorant will probably never work. Good riddance though.
Valorant is a fucking awful game with über ban techniques when you force quit a game for some reason, like needing to go to the bathroom in middle of game play.
I can’t understand anyone can accept such a thing.
Valorant is a trash tier game and I can’t believe anyone plays it
Game is decent; anti-cheat is invasive Orwellian piece of trash.
Why are you force quitting a game to go use the bathroom? Just step away for a few minutes.
Thanks, I’ll definitely need to give Linux gaming another shot then.
The last bit that might hold me back is getting my Hue Sync stuff working. It sounds silly, but it really makes games feel so much more immersive that I don’t want to be without it.
There’s a GNOME extension called HUE lights that allows you to control everything from your tray, entertainment zones and all. Similar probably exists for KDE/etc.
OpenRGB can handle a ton of stuff like this if I recall. I dont know if its hue extension is any good as i havent used it, but ive seen videos.
Home assistant is probably your friend with hue.
What about hdr. I saw it mentioned for the Steam Deck update, so wondered if that is finally working on Linux. I do like taking advantage of HDR on the TV.
That’s in the works still right now, steam deck has it and I think it’s possible to get it working on other distros but isn’t on by default in most I don’t think
nvidia is always hit of miss
I’m sure there’s lots of solutions, but Steam with Proton for any windows only games has generally worked great for me.
Where I encounter issues, the Lutris flatpak install has worked well for me.
Both I believe use wine, but it is probably easier use downstream solutions like the above when getting started, instead of learning wine. Not that there aren’t benefits to learning it, just in a immediate issues -> lets go back to windows VS it just kind of works pretty good comparison.
Steam having a fair number of games that are directly Linux compatible now days is nice too.
A typical Linux distro, especially lightweight and simpler ones like Arch, will of course be better than a bloated OS, like Pop or Windows. The only problem with Linux distros might be the choice of tools - X and AMD will work much better overall than Wayland and Nvidia.
Just that many people may have an Nvidia GPU before deciding to use Linux, and some people just prefer to use Wayland over X for literally everything else.My PC with Wayland + Nvidia has so many problems with gaming, especially flickering and performance, while my Laptop with Wayland + integrated Intel graphics has no problems at all - even in games, that I wonder if Nvidia + Wayland still really sucks ass or if my GPU is just broken. Currently there’s a bug where frames are ‘switched’ somehow, so it’s not Frame 1, Frame 2, … Frame n, but Frame 1, Frame 3, Frame 2, Frame 5, Frame 6, Frame 4 etc.
I expect it to be fixed by an update of nvidia in the future, but there are always such bugs.That frame issue is because of the fact that Nvidia uses “explicit sync” and AMD/Intel use “implicit sync” - XWayland is built to only support implicit syncing for now (Nvidia is trying to get it changed), and since most games right now run under XWayland… Along with a ton of apps of course.
Until then, that issue won’t be resolved sadly. It’s what finally pushed me to get an AMD card since the issue has been open for over a year with a ton of back and forth.
especially flickering and performance
If my experience is any indicator, your GPU is fine :(. Any chance you’re using mixed display scalings? I’ve got an RTX 3050 eGPU for my Plasma/Wayland laptop, and for the most part it actually works fairly smoothly (albeit more slowly compared to windows), but if I try to run a game at a higher resolution than my monitor (used by Plasma for mixed scaling) I get constant flashing/frame shifting, but when I drop it down to the native 1080p it starts working again
As a side note, X and eGPUs do not play well together, but Wayland is literally plug and play after installing the drivers–I can even hot plug/unplug as long as nothing’s using the GPU!
I played around with scaling a bit, but removed the commands in my sway config afterwards. I do have different screen resolutions tho.
How your performance with X11?
the proprietary drivers work pretty great on X11 for me
Same, except the most recent update causes random bouts of lag, but rolling back to 535 works for now.
Just curious about the other persons since they only mentioned Wayland
Real question- I have a steam deck and am incredibly pleased with the playability. I also have a desktop with a newer nvidia card. Does Linux have support for DLSS yet? It make a huge difference in oerformance and honestly it’s the only thing holding me back
That depends which DLSS. In my testing DLSS 1 and 2 work fine in games that I tried, with recent Proton enabling it as well as ray tracing shouldnt require extra steps anymore (it was experimental and opt-in using environment variables). DLSS 3 with frame generation is known as no go yet and it’s unfortunately on NVIDIA to provide support for it as it’s very much locked down guarded proprietary stuff.
It should support DLSS unless you have an older video card, which the drivers don’t work well with. I heard the newer Nvidia cards work better though. Of course, is all up to you whether you like it or not, so just try out Linux and see. If you don’t like it just reinstall Windows. Make a recovery Windows USB beforehand though, makes it easier to reinstall.
Linux and Nvidia don’t mix well, at least not until Nvidia’s official open source kernel module has been upstreamed to the Linux kernel which will take years.
Breakages, workarounds for breakages, etc. are common occurrences, especially when you want to use a modern desktop using Wayland.
Well since it’s slower that just means it’s being more careful and not prone to making mistakes
Open your source and prove that or else we know you’re lying.
Did they test against windows using DXVK? Because I know when Elden Ring launched that was the only way to get stable frames on Windows
For whatever reason, Windows 11 is worse at Cyberpunk 2077 than Arch for me. Constant stuttering. It might be that Arch has much less going on than Windows, but it’s enough for me to use Linux as my main gaming OS now.
Cool what about games with anti-cheat
If you’re not just being facetious, https://areweanticheatyet.com/ is a good source.
According to them ~58% of anti-cheat games work. There’s been a large uptick of anti-cheat support since the Steam Deck.
According to ProtonDB, 86% of the top 1000 games on Steam function (Silver+ rating). It’s a pretty safe bet that the most of the missing 14% is probably due to anti-cheat.
Yeah mostly just talking shit. I love my steam deck.
Thanks for this. The one multiplayer game I’ve been consistently playing apparently got Linux anti cheat support enabled 2 months ago.
I think installing Linux on my gaming/work PC will be a winter holiday project for me 😀.
Now to pick a distro.
Is it Hell Let Loose? I started playing it since they support Linux now, very well done Battlefield-like game. I haven’t played much BF since 1942.
Yep, that’s the one haha
I’ve been playing games that use EasyAntiCheat (Hunt Showdown and Chivalry 2) and they seem to work fine.
Notebook check isn’t reliable
Explain?
Do I need too? If you look at some of their benchmarks you will start to see what I mean. There data is all over the place.
It’s spelled “their”.
And if course you don’t have to, but it’s an opinion or evaluation. Why would you not show us your “best of” examples?
While true, they are reporting findings from somewhere else
according to testing by German outlet ComputerBase
