So honestly, which percentage of your game collection runs on Linux? Because I’ve looked into doing this just a few months ago, and unless the industry had some kind of mass exodus, less than 10% of my games run on Linux, and that’s a generous estimate.
Not defending Windows or anything, this is just my experience.
Sorry but how did you only have 10% running on linux a few months back? I run every game except apex legends, warzone and fornite…
This is ridiculous misinformation of you
I know you’re getting a ton of replies already, but I switched to Arch Linux two months back or so and I just want to say nearly every game I’ve tried works great out of the box, a handful of games required me to go to my steam settings a flip a switch or copy and paste something from protondb, and no games have failed to work.
Gaming on Linux is so good that you end up flipping one switch in steam and get nearly perfect performance (with most games running identically or better than they did on Windows for me). It’s been such a surprise, I just played the Arc Raiders technical Alpha and I thought for sure Linux would fail me then. And it did. For the first day, then on the second day they patched proton and the game and I played all week and weekend with zero issues. It was fantastic!
I would highly encourage any gamer who’s thinking about switching to Linux but worried their games won’t work to not worry as much. Check protondb for your favorites, but you can safely assume most game work out of the box.
Honestly I have a ridiculous pile o’ games like a lot of us do, and I’ve yet to find something (that’s not VR) that I cannot play .
For reference I’m running OpenSUSE Tumbleweed with a 30 series Nvidia card. Wayland, two monitors, main is 144hz ultrawide 3440 x 1440, another is 1080p 60hz.
First off there’s a few programs out there to get you “Glorious Eggroll” versions of Proton which add even more stuff Valve can’t distribute in their versions.
Steam works fantastically. Heck, Proton works better than native Linux builds sometimes! Deck playability is an even bigger mark of quality.
Even EA’s silly launcher works. I got Titanfall 2 and that Sims 2 Ultimate they gave away ages ago working like butter.
I also love actually owning my games, so I use Heroic Launcher for GoG titles.
Oh! I even have CD games or old .EXEs windows would refuse to even install anymore! Don’t worry, Linux has got this. I use Bottles to have separate environments for those games to install to and run. Majority of the time it works great but this is where things can get iffy. But hey, Windows wouldn’t run them at all!
Wanna know what made me switch? Vermintide 2 kept giving me BSODs in Windows 10 with some super vague error code that made me think “Oh crap, please don’t tell me my GPU is dying.”
Nope! Linux ran it with zero probs once I fixed some small quirk to make their dumb little launcher work.
Cherry on top? All my RGB stuff works with Open RGB or my recently retired Corsair keyboard works with “CKB Next”.
The community has made incredible strides. My Win10 partition only exists because it has Windows Mixed Reality, which they’re abandoning. But not to fear, the Monado project is making HUGE improvements.
At this point it’s pretty much only the competitive games with kernel level anti-cheat that don’t work on Linux because of their kernel level anti-cheat.
But then again, if 90% of the games you play are competitive games that require kernel level anti-cheat, you should probably consider expanding your gaming experience lol
idk where you looked, protondb.com is a good database for this stuff, from your later reply insurgency sandstorm and hund showdown are both “gold” rated, they should be okay
but the thing is … you could just try for yourself, for free
I had just looked at the publisher’s system requirements on Steam, since my experience with Wine from over a decade ago was a dead end. I’ve learned a lot from this thread, though, and it seems things have improved dramatically.
Like maxo said, things are definitely waaaaaaaay better than 10 years ago.
I’d say roughly 80% of my windows only games run as good as on windows, and probably 25-30% of my full library (not just what runs in proton) runs better in Linux with proton/wine than they do in win11.
Mostly what doesn’t work is stuff with kernel level anticheat.
It did. I recently downloaded steam on Ubuntu and you don’t need to install any 3rd party stuff yourself. It’s available as compatibility toggle in steam. Sometimes you need to configure different version of Proton for games to work and they are slower to start. But they run fast and I didn’t experienced much bugs.
It’s amazing, now after end of win10 I can ditch windows completely, as this and photoshop was the only reason I still have win10 installed.
I just made the switch this weekend. I have not had a single incompatibility yet. I have seen an oddity here and there in Helldivers 2, but nothing crazy.
Oddity 1: In normal windows play async issues sometimes happen where a player steps on a mine in the other person’s client but not their own. They continue to play because their client doesn’t mark them dead. To the other person, they appear as a person missing some number of body parts (sometimes just a floating torso). We call this torso mode.
Since switching to linux I have not seen my friend go torso mode a single time. He still sees me go torso mode.
Oddity 2: The artillery rounds are color coded for what each of them does. Since switching to linux they only appear silver for whatever reason. It’s a nonissue, I just read them when I walk next to them. If anyone asks my character is colorblind.
One additional note:
If you install steam with a flatpak, you’re going to have to tangle with the permissions related to a flatpak. Once you add directory permissions for an additional directory via flatseal (for example, if you want a library on each of your harddrives), you won’t have to touch it again and it’s great.
Maybe these issues are significant to you, maybe they aren’t. Ultimately, god I love my system starting up in just a few seconds. And having true control over it.
Unless your game has an anticheat, forbids linux to be played with the anticheat due to cheaters on linux and still end up with an online experience where the cheaters blatantly wallhack and never get caught unless they kill a famous streamer in the game.
Who even wants to play apex legends or cod these days? Riddled with cheaters
i have just recently found out that from ps4 and xbox one up you can play fortnite and a bunch of other f2p titles, without subscription and with mouse and keyboard, with crossplay to every other platform
I’m on Garuda, every game I have tried has worked great, sometimes I just have to choose a different proton version with an easy pull down menu. The only game I have given up is Destiny 2, because they say they will ban anyone on Linux because of their anti cheat.
Most games that don’t have kernel level anti-cheat tend to work.
Have you tried to play the games or did you look them up on a site? I’ve found that unless you are looking at a popular new game, a lot of the games listed are saying that they don’t play, but we’re last checked in 2023, and they do work now but no body has updated the new results.
I looked up my favorites, based on my experience in the past with unsupported games. Long ago, I tried using Wine, way back before Steam even had a native Linux client. I managed to get Steam to run through Wine but never succeeded in getting any game to run beyond a loading screen. That was ages ago, though.
Things have changed since then. Steam not only has a Linux client, but also has Proton which loads most Windows apps (it’s marketed for games, but in reality it will work on Windows apps).
Multiplayer games and ones that require Uplay or Origin (can’t remember their new names) have issues, but most single player stuff will run fine. You’ll typically have to run them via Wine or Proton, but Steam will handle that for you.
I’ve never tried Proton, but I’ve gone down a rabbit hole of trying to use Wine for running games a few years back. I’ll look into Proton, thanks for the suggestion.
Yeah Proton is definitely the way to go over using Wine directly. Valve has put a ton of work into making it seamless. I have a large steam library and have found literally only one game (Destiny 2) that doesn’t work. And that’s just because Bungie has gone out of their way to make sure it won’t run on Linux for “anti cheating” reasons.
So honestly, which percentage of your game collection runs on Linux? Because I’ve looked into doing this just a few months ago, and unless the industry had some kind of mass exodus, less than 10% of my games run on Linux, and that’s a generous estimate.
Not defending Windows or anything, this is just my experience.
Sorry but how did you only have 10% running on linux a few months back? I run every game except apex legends, warzone and fornite… This is ridiculous misinformation of you
I know you’re getting a ton of replies already, but I switched to Arch Linux two months back or so and I just want to say nearly every game I’ve tried works great out of the box, a handful of games required me to go to my steam settings a flip a switch or copy and paste something from protondb, and no games have failed to work.
Gaming on Linux is so good that you end up flipping one switch in steam and get nearly perfect performance (with most games running identically or better than they did on Windows for me). It’s been such a surprise, I just played the Arc Raiders technical Alpha and I thought for sure Linux would fail me then. And it did. For the first day, then on the second day they patched proton and the game and I played all week and weekend with zero issues. It was fantastic!
I would highly encourage any gamer who’s thinking about switching to Linux but worried their games won’t work to not worry as much. Check protondb for your favorites, but you can safely assume most game work out of the box.
Honestly I have a ridiculous pile o’ games like a lot of us do, and I’ve yet to find something (that’s not VR) that I cannot play .
For reference I’m running OpenSUSE Tumbleweed with a 30 series Nvidia card. Wayland, two monitors, main is 144hz ultrawide 3440 x 1440, another is 1080p 60hz.
First off there’s a few programs out there to get you “Glorious Eggroll” versions of Proton which add even more stuff Valve can’t distribute in their versions.
This beautiful software right here looks about right: https://davidotek.github.io/protonup-qt/
Steam works fantastically. Heck, Proton works better than native Linux builds sometimes! Deck playability is an even bigger mark of quality.
Even EA’s silly launcher works. I got Titanfall 2 and that Sims 2 Ultimate they gave away ages ago working like butter.
I also love actually owning my games, so I use Heroic Launcher for GoG titles.
Oh! I even have CD games or old .EXEs windows would refuse to even install anymore! Don’t worry, Linux has got this. I use Bottles to have separate environments for those games to install to and run. Majority of the time it works great but this is where things can get iffy. But hey, Windows wouldn’t run them at all!
Wanna know what made me switch? Vermintide 2 kept giving me BSODs in Windows 10 with some super vague error code that made me think “Oh crap, please don’t tell me my GPU is dying.”
Nope! Linux ran it with zero probs once I fixed some small quirk to make their dumb little launcher work.
Cherry on top? All my RGB stuff works with Open RGB or my recently retired Corsair keyboard works with “CKB Next”.
The community has made incredible strides. My Win10 partition only exists because it has Windows Mixed Reality, which they’re abandoning. But not to fear, the Monado project is making HUGE improvements.
Give it a shot. I think you’ll be surprised. :)
How are you getting on with VR? I have a Reverb G2 and if I can play Elite and DCS on Linux I’m basically sold at this point.
I really want a new headset but nothing beats the G2 right now, without giving money to Meta which I refuse to do.
At this point it’s pretty much only the competitive games with kernel level anti-cheat that don’t work on Linux because of their kernel level anti-cheat.
But then again, if 90% of the games you play are competitive games that require kernel level anti-cheat, you should probably consider expanding your gaming experience lol
idk where you looked, protondb.com is a good database for this stuff, from your later reply insurgency sandstorm and hund showdown are both “gold” rated, they should be okay
but the thing is … you could just try for yourself, for free
I had just looked at the publisher’s system requirements on Steam, since my experience with Wine from over a decade ago was a dead end. I’ve learned a lot from this thread, though, and it seems things have improved dramatically.
Like maxo said, things are definitely waaaaaaaay better than 10 years ago.
I’d say roughly 80% of my windows only games run as good as on windows, and probably 25-30% of my full library (not just what runs in proton) runs better in Linux with proton/wine than they do in win11.
Mostly what doesn’t work is stuff with kernel level anticheat.
It did. I recently downloaded steam on Ubuntu and you don’t need to install any 3rd party stuff yourself. It’s available as compatibility toggle in steam. Sometimes you need to configure different version of Proton for games to work and they are slower to start. But they run fast and I didn’t experienced much bugs. It’s amazing, now after end of win10 I can ditch windows completely, as this and photoshop was the only reason I still have win10 installed.
Would “Steam Deck compatibility” be a good proxy, at least for Steam games?
Yep! 👍
I just made the switch this weekend. I have not had a single incompatibility yet. I have seen an oddity here and there in Helldivers 2, but nothing crazy.
Oddity 1: In normal windows play async issues sometimes happen where a player steps on a mine in the other person’s client but not their own. They continue to play because their client doesn’t mark them dead. To the other person, they appear as a person missing some number of body parts (sometimes just a floating torso). We call this torso mode.
Since switching to linux I have not seen my friend go torso mode a single time. He still sees me go torso mode.
Oddity 2: The artillery rounds are color coded for what each of them does. Since switching to linux they only appear silver for whatever reason. It’s a nonissue, I just read them when I walk next to them. If anyone asks my character is colorblind.
One additional note:
If you install steam with a flatpak, you’re going to have to tangle with the permissions related to a flatpak. Once you add directory permissions for an additional directory via flatseal (for example, if you want a library on each of your harddrives), you won’t have to touch it again and it’s great.
Maybe these issues are significant to you, maybe they aren’t. Ultimately, god I love my system starting up in just a few seconds. And having true control over it.
Its a fairly safe bet that your offline games won’t have much trouble, from my experience.
What kind of games do you play? Unless a game has anticheat, it is pretty much guaranteed to run on Linux.
“Unless your game is one of the most popular games that people play, it will run on Linux”
Unless your game has an anticheat, forbids linux to be played with the anticheat due to cheaters on linux and still end up with an online experience where the cheaters blatantly wallhack and never get caught unless they kill a famous streamer in the game.
Who even wants to play apex legends or cod these days? Riddled with cheaters
Among my favorites with anti cheat are Insurgency: Sandstorm and Hunt: Showdown. I will reluctantly play Fortnite if friends insist!
i have just recently found out that from ps4 and xbox one up you can play fortnite and a bunch of other f2p titles, without subscription and with mouse and keyboard, with crossplay to every other platform
Should be ok:
https://www.protondb.com/app/581320
Fortnite does not work on Linux.
I’m on Garuda, every game I have tried has worked great, sometimes I just have to choose a different proton version with an easy pull down menu. The only game I have given up is Destiny 2, because they say they will ban anyone on Linux because of their anti cheat.
Most games that don’t have kernel level anti-cheat tend to work.
Have you tried to play the games or did you look them up on a site? I’ve found that unless you are looking at a popular new game, a lot of the games listed are saying that they don’t play, but we’re last checked in 2023, and they do work now but no body has updated the new results.
I looked up my favorites, based on my experience in the past with unsupported games. Long ago, I tried using Wine, way back before Steam even had a native Linux client. I managed to get Steam to run through Wine but never succeeded in getting any game to run beyond a loading screen. That was ages ago, though.
Things have changed since then. Steam not only has a Linux client, but also has Proton which loads most Windows apps (it’s marketed for games, but in reality it will work on Windows apps).
Multiplayer games and ones that require Uplay or Origin (can’t remember their new names) have issues, but most single player stuff will run fine. You’ll typically have to run them via Wine or Proton, but Steam will handle that for you.
I’ve never tried Proton, but I’ve gone down a rabbit hole of trying to use Wine for running games a few years back. I’ll look into Proton, thanks for the suggestion.
Yeah Proton is definitely the way to go over using Wine directly. Valve has put a ton of work into making it seamless. I have a large steam library and have found literally only one game (Destiny 2) that doesn’t work. And that’s just because Bungie has gone out of their way to make sure it won’t run on Linux for “anti cheating” reasons.