I use a quest 2 headset through my desktop via desktop streamer into steam VR into VRchat. Would this all work on linux? it’s already a pain on windows.
I think it used to work officially, but last I heard they dropped official support.
Well, I’m 90% proud of Linux!
I’m installing Mint for the first time at this very moment. So far, it’s easier than I anticipated. Fuck You Microsoft.
Edit: bro, firstly, what the fuck and where did all this performance come from?!?! I vastly underestimated how many resources windows was hogging. I downloaded Steam (easy-peasy) and then Project Zomboid just as a test. This game runs like butter now. I was having major problems with it before. To the point I basically stopped playing. I know its just one example but I haven’t had my machine run this well in several years, I feel. Also, got Spotify running. Super easy. I need to figure out how to get my VPN set up (ProtonVPN) but so far, I’m kind of in shock. I can’t wait to actually dig in and see what I can do with this new setup.
BASH will be your best friend for any Linux distro.
Ill definitely look into this.
if i cant run something at linux i’ll just do without it. Might try virtual machine if its something really crucial but might not care to even bother. Fortunately any games i know that will not run are kind of games that i wouldnt want to touch anyway.
need some support from anti-cheat
its fine, cause no user program should run in the kernel. unless its a driver.
I have a 3090 and heard nvidia gpus dont do very well for Linux gaming if anyone wants to quell my fears and get me off Windows
As long as you run the proprietary nvidia drivers, performance is more or less noise for a given driver version. There IS some annoyance with slower releases for drivers to Linux but… nvidia has had much bigger problems with new driver releases over the past year.
The big issue is if you run the open source community drivers. And… if you are spending leather jacket money and then using low performance drivers… you are an idiot. Because Mistah J already has the metrics and money he wants and doesn’t care if you actually use your card after buying it.
I have a 3070 and it runs the majority of games better than windows. The “Nvidia doesnt work good for linux” statement has become dated. Nvidia has become much better about giving support to other platforms, I think it has alot to do with being flexible for the ai market
The only real issue is hdr in my experience, runs fine through gamescope usually but I’ve found the proton only option (expose Wayland and the like through proton_ge) technically work but the colours are washed out (and yeah, I have all the dxvk hdr stuff there). Dlss and frame gen work perfectly fine, HDR through gamescope does work as well for most games, bl4 has weird dlss artifacts in linux for some reason but that’s the notable standout to me. Been running a 4070ti for the last year for reference, I do intend to go amd at some point but nvidia works fine.
My rtx2080ti runs perfectly in linux and fine on games, thats fairly old card too. My kids computers use gtx1050’s and they are also running every game including Roblox just fine.
Desktop on a 3060 Ti is doing fine. Never ran Windows on it to compare though
Check my post history I repeat this so often I’m getting tired of it, sorry, but basically 2080ti since it’s out, been gaming nearly daily on it, from AAA to indie, from “flat” to VR and… it just works. I just followed https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers and that’s it, no tinkering.
I am a PC gamer and I exclusively use Linux. It’s completely viable for gaming, I can say for a fact.
me since dec 2024, i usually use Linux for gaming(thank you Valve for Proton) but i may still spin up a Windows VM to flash roms to my Samsung Phone(grimlers fork sucks).
apps are also pretty alright on Linux but would love this area see some improvement.
i also feel like FOSS works the best on Linux cause duh Linux itself is foss, incl apps.How is device support? Direct drive steering wheels, gamepad, VR, status LED or info displays (ie. Making your keyboard glow red on low health) and bunch of other things like my Sound Blaster G6
Status LEDs/displays likely won’t work unless the manufacturer makes a Linux driver, publishes driver documentation, or it’s a super popular device. Reverse engineering USB is possible but very much a passion project. Most gamer hardware hasn’t had to care about Linux users till the last few years. Input devices at least are usually normal HID devices which are standardised.
Direct drive steering wheels
Which one? Support varies wildly depending on manufacturer.
gamepad
I have never seen a gamepad that doesn’t work on Linux. You may not be able to update their firmware if they only provide a Windows tool but they work perfectly fine.
VR
Valve Index and HTC Vive work out of the box. SteamVR is pretty rough in Linux and plagued by issues but it works.
For any other headset you will have to depend on community support. Some work, some don’t.
There’s lots of info on https://vronlinux.org/
status LED or info displays
Which ones? They usually use completely proprietary protocols.
Sound Blaster G6
It will work like any other bog-standard sound card has for years. You will lose any features that are custom to the sound card (dialogue mode, virtual surround, equalizer, …) but those are rarely necessary because there is lots of other software that achieves this for every sound card.
I recommend you boot Linux from USB and take a look. No need to install anything, just boot from USB and take a look if your hardware works.
Hit and miss since those tend to not have actual standards and generally do their own thing. If it’s popular, there’s a decent chance someone has reverse engineered it and there’s at least partial support (mostly applies to simpler things like steering wheels), but there will be concessions to make until device manufacturers officially support Linux.
If you’re willing to replace equipment, there’s something that works for most of those categories, if not all.
Me since 2017 when I stopped dual booting. Never looked back thank goodness
I have you beat by a few years.
In my personal experience, the only games that don’t work are those that explicitly choose not to :
- Fortnite
- PUBG
- Roblox
- Valorant
I’m not much into competitive games myself, so the only one that’s inconvenient in this list to me is Roblox. There are a few really fun games on their platform that I wish I could play on Steam Deck, as used to be possible.
You can play Roblox through Sober. It runs the Android version directly so it’s pretty similar to what an official port would be, in terms of performance
Sober is awesome, and I can actually have Roblox LAN parties with my son thanks to it.
I play a lot of Space Engineers, and it randomly crashes… No idea what’s causing it.
And Space Engineers 2 just doesn’t launch for me.
There’s likely a config option that could fix things, but I don’t know it.
Every other game I play is fine.
Have you changed which version of proton it uses? It’s in the compatibility options for the game, sometimes going to an older version solves some issues.
You know about protondb already? Gives a good list of potential fixes if you come across issues, it’s been a godsend on the rare occasions something doesn’t work first try
Rocket League as well; it’s the only reason I haven’t gone full Linux for gaming.
…you’d think after 8+ years of playing I’d be bored, but it’s just fun.
Try wine bottles, Im using that for games on Linux Mint, havent found any issues yet. You may also need flat seal to make it accessible outside the flatpak environment.
I played Rocket League yesterday on Bazzite through Steam without issues
Whaaaaaat
Bazzite here I come
Rocket League works on linux? Unless something changed recently, because I used to play it on my Steam Deck all the time.
Rocket league is inside fortnight now.
Basically they want fortnite to be a complete (malware) gaming package with every game inside it sp youre tied to epic.
Fortunately it’s still up on Steam for us (few) legacy players
Had to install it twice because it first installed the linux native, Proton version runs fine might need to give it an input to get past the welcome screen which was blacked out for me.
The distro really matters as far as Roblox goes. I tried Arch, Manjaro, Garuda and couldn’t get it working. Ended up back at Ubuntu and it works fine now
For Roblox you have to use Sober
Linux doesnt have games that install kernel-level spyware under the guise of anti-cheat. Hopefully never will, but I don’t underestimate gamers who love think spyware is a good idea. Stay away from linux if you want kernel anti cheat please, its ruining computers
Breaking News:
This just in new game requires sudoers access to play!
You are not in the sudoers file, this incident WILL BE REPORTED. ಠ_ಠ
What’s hilarious is that is par the course on windows to run Steam as an admin. In fact that fixes a ton of bugs for people, so any executable the steam process spawns, like game executables, has admin rights as well.
I’m confused, first you say that Linux doesn’t have anti-cheat, and then you say you should stay away from Linux if you want anti cheat.
Linux doesn’t have kernel level anti cheat and I hope it remains that way, but I fear my opinion will be in the minority soon if not already.
Kernel level anticheat. There’s very effective anticheat that is not kernel level and therefore works fine on Linux.
I’m not going to throw doubt on the 90% number. Statistics are made up and generally don’t mean anything. “90% of games” … In what context? Games on steam? Games ever made? I don’t think I’m going to be playing sierra titles from the 90s… What about Flash based games that used to run in a browser? Do they count?
I don’t know and it doesn’t matter.
The only thing I want to say is that the “10%” that don’t work are usually pretty popular.
I’d like to see this metric based on average player counts. What percentage of gamers, playing games right now, could play on Linux.
IMO, that would give a much more relevant indication of how viable it is for most gamers to switch to Linux.
I’m still using Windows 10 and no, I didn’t buy their extended bullshit. I don’t even run the latest version of Windows 10. I also have an update server setup so I don’t usually get updates often because I need to go approve them. But I also work in IT and I’ve seen every social engineering attack type that’s been used since the 90s and I know when to not click on something. I haven’t needed an anti virus on my personal system in 20 years.
To say I’m not worried about it is an understatement.
The only thing I want to say is that the “10%” that don’t work are usually pretty popular.
Yeah, like I’m glad Linux support is increasing among games, but my main daily driver game (Genshin) still doesn’t support it 🤷 And I don’t think Hoyoverse will be spending work on Linux support when they are raking in so much cash from their millions of players. From what I can see Linux usage hovers around 0.3% in China, and that’s Hoyo’s main market.
If you open it, it mentions the data is from protondb. Which is a database of steam games
Wouldn’t you be playing Sierra games from the 90s in ScummVM whether you were on Linux or Windows anyway?
“Alexander pulls out his bootable USB”
I’m still using Windows 10 and no, I didn’t buy their extended bullshit. I don’t even run the latest version of Windows 10. I also have an update server setup so I don’t usually get updates often because I need to go approve them. But I also work in IT and I’ve seen every social engineering attack type that’s been used since the 90s and I know when to not click on something. I haven’t needed an anti virus on my personal system in 20 years.
To say I’m not worried about it is an understatement.
I don’t think anybody cares you’re proud to use Windows
Good, gaming was the last thing keeping me on windows, once I find a distro that’s compatible with my laptop hardware I’ll move to Linux completely
Unless you have something truly obscure, I can confidently say any of them will do at this point. I recommend Pop!OS myself, others will disagree. Pop! has a download for AMD hardware and a separate for NVidia GPU-equipped machines. Try it out on a USB today! YOU CAN DO EEET!
I second this as well. It’s my first distro and it’s been a good experience.
It’s great that the number of games playable on Linux is rising. But the lack of mods is stopping me from switching. I tried to play Civilization 6 and it’s hard to play it without many quality of life improvement mods.
You can mod games on Linux though, some just need a bit of fiddling, just look it up. Never tried Civ 6 but people say it’s possible.
It’s definitely doable but I won’t pretend it’s a pleasant process compared to what people are used to with Windows modding, and Wine overhead can mean a large unoptimised mess of Stardew Valley/Rimworld/Skyrim mods are going to perform worse.
i wonder how these numbers change if you weight by active players. like sure, Shooty Guns 2 (2008) running on linux is a good thing, but if it has a grand total of 5 people in the world playing it, it won’t really do much for linux adoption as long as games like league of legends, apex legends and fortnite still don’t work
(for the record i don’t play any of those games and i’ve been happily daily-driving linux with no windows intervention for the last 4 year)
I’ve yet to find a game that I couldn’t play (though knowing me I probably forgot one or two). It’s mainly mods that I’ve not been able to implement, as some of them require running an exe file.
However I’ve had very helpful people tell me I can do all that in a wine instance or something similar so mainly it’s just my own laziness (and lack of understanding about how to “do it in a wine instance”) that’s holding me back from installing fancy modpacks or playing the latest Stalker gamma version.
Also i don’t play multiplayer stuff so the anti-cheat thing issues don’t usually apply to me. So there’s that.
Lutris for mods. You can point it at the game exe downloaded by steam in many cases (not all), and then run arbitrary exes inside the same wine prefix.
Very fair argument. This way the statistics would most likely be considerably worse. Though personally, I couldn’t care less about games like League, Fortnite or FIFA. A case could be made thay they’re almost always harmful, so them being unavailable isn’t an issue.
I seem unable to find this Shooty Guns 2 (2008) you speak of.
It’s the sequel to Shooty Guns (1992), one of the first games to come in two separate floppy disks.
Not all games are created equally.
I love to hear it, but only about 70% of mine work on Linux, so I’m stuck with a dual boot. 99% Linux is better than no Linux, at least.
but only about 70% of mine work on Linux
Have you tried wine bottles? I had real problems getting anything to work right till I found that app.
