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Linux gaming is faster because Windows APIs are becoming Linux kernel features

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Re: Linux gaming is faster because Windows APIs are becoming Linux kernel features

#271

Post by dlivingston »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #140

Show me the numbers. Show me an identical gaming PC running Windows 11 and then Linux, and show not just FPS - but things like frametime pacing, latency, etc. This NTSync stuff is very impressive, but I haven't seen a lot of end-to-end numbers versus Windows. The last comparisons I saw showed pretty much every distribution on the order of 5-30% behind Windows, varying on the game. And Nvidia GPU support was still not…

Then swap! Partition and dual-boot into Bazzite. Or get an extra SSD and flash Bazzite there.

It's an easy weekend side project, and any numbers people give you will be ballparks anyway - the performance of Linux drivers for YOUR specific GPU running YOUR specific Steam games are all that actually matter.

Just take the two hours to do it. You won't regret it.

Re: Linux gaming is faster because Windows APIs are becoming Linux kernel features

#272

Post by ihsw »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #210
cwel wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>DIY x86 HTPC ARM slander was not warranted

Are there DIY Arm boards that make a good HTPC? Do they have hardware video decoding?

Your best bet is going to be Raspberry Pi devices:

https://github.com/blakeblackshear/frigate/discussions/18431

You can try Googling around for bespoke products but they will almost exclusively come from China and they will be very overpriced due to the soldered RAM.

Re: Linux gaming is faster because Windows APIs are becoming Linux kernel features

#273

Post by nialv7 »

LooseMarmoset wrote: post #198
caycep wrote: post #25

If you purpose build a Linux gaming PC, would you lean more towards AMD GPUs over Nvidia?

Nvidia makes a fine GPU. The problem with Nvidia on linux is the drivers. You're beholden to Team Green for driver updates, and when they decide not to support a GPU anymore, that's it. Now, linux does have the nouveau driver, but that doesn't support all the hardware or much 3d at all, and never will. I particularly got fed up with Nvidia on linux playing War Thunder - I had a regular crash that Gaijin and Nvidia ea…

open source nvidia is an area to keep an eye on. check out NVK and nova.

Re: Linux gaming is faster because Windows APIs are becoming Linux kernel features

#274

Post by dlivingston »

helterskelter wrote: post #156
Night_Thastus wrote: post #140

Show me the numbers. Show me an identical gaming PC running Windows 11 and then Linux, and show not just FPS - but things like frametime pacing, latency, etc. This NTSync stuff is very impressive, but I haven't seen a lot of end-to-end numbers versus Windows. The last comparisons I saw showed pretty much every distribution on the order of 5-30% behind Windows, varying on the game. And Nvidia GPU support was still not…

If memory serves, Linux typically outperforms Windows with AMD and Intel graphics. Some of the gotchas are things like running games through Proton or anti-cheat/DRM stuff not getting the same attention that Windows does, but the raw performance is there. I wouldn't recommend using Nvidia on Linux though.

I run NVIDIA on my Bazzite box and I get excellent performance. I had to fiddle with a few things though that probably work out of the box on AMD (example: screen tearing in Steam Big Picture mode. Fix: enabling developer mode in Steam and setting "Force Composite" to true).

Re: Linux gaming is faster because Windows APIs are becoming Linux kernel features

#275

Post by HDBaseT »

traderj0e wrote: post #118
Pooge wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In good faith, you can't really say "[x] is shit" if you don't have an usual setup; X11 is no longer the default on most distros. Even when I was also using it, it never crashed. I don't know whether your GPU is older than mine or not but I have the RX 7700XTX. Maybe it had a software defect...

Linux Mint uses X11 for some reason. I was getting black screen after sleep because of that. Nuked it and installed Ubuntu, worked fine.

Mint has experimental Wayland support right now. The future for Mint is Wayland.

Re: Linux gaming is faster because Windows APIs are becoming Linux kernel features

#276

Post by lunatuna »

ulbu wrote: post #256
NewsaHackO wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, there are costs to swapping though. Going by just feels seems to be the wrong way to think about it.

it can’t really be a way to think about it when the recommendation is to not think about it and just do it. experience, observe, reach opinion. all in accordance with you and not some number that’s abstract to your perception.

Yawman, being on Linux for everything else feels great. In a personal way (rather than technical) it’s like being back in my 20’s hacking Redhat and FreeBSD. I also find the community support is great when I’ve run into the odd issue. My FPS are good and I don’t think about it.

I select games based on ProtonDB. There’s always constraints and I’m cool with the limitations that this brings. BF6 is a no-go due to its anticheat tool, no problem. Got lots of other choices.

Re: Linux gaming is faster because Windows APIs are becoming Linux kernel features

#277

Post by ChocolateGod »

encom wrote: post #257
zuzululu wrote: post #254

I support linux gaming btw but I can't help but feel every narrative glosses over that certain games are going to require uncomfortably intrusive anti-cheating systems. I'm just realizing that I can't play Battlefield 6 and I do wonder what the path is. I don't think it's ever going to be supported on Linux or Mac.

The fact that some games now come with root kits is insane. I really hope Microsoft cracks down on that nonsense.

Given the kernel level anticheats inform you they're going to be installed, I don't think they fit the definition of a root kit.

Re: Linux gaming is faster because Windows APIs are becoming Linux kernel features

#278

Post by everyone »

The fundamental difference between Linux and OSes like Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, is that the people making Linux are simply trying to make it good, give it as many features as possible, let the user do as much as possible, make it as easy to use as possible.. Whereas the design of the others is guided by a bunch of weird business-goals and internal politics that constantly change.

That's why Linux keeps getting better while the others keep getting worse.

Re: Linux gaming is faster because Windows APIs are becoming Linux kernel features

#279

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

zuzululu wrote: post #254

I support linux gaming btw but I can't help but feel every narrative glosses over that certain games are going to require uncomfortably intrusive anti-cheating systems. I'm just realizing that I can't play Battlefield 6 and I do wonder what the path is. I don't think it's ever going to be supported on Linux or Mac.

Unfortunately, the alternative to uncomfortably intrusive anti-cheat is more cheaters, because cheaters don't care about how intrusive their cheats have to be in order to evade anti-cheat. They will happily run hypervisor-level cheats.

There's certainly room for improvement on the netcode sometimes (Client-side hit registration is an absolute bone-headed design), but those won't prevent aim bots.

Server-side anti-cheat relies on heuristics and can easily be evaded. At the high level, a highly-skilled player may be indistinguishable from a cheater, so you could easily get false positives.

Re: Linux gaming is faster because Windows APIs are becoming Linux kernel features

#280

Post by HDBaseT »

cogman10 wrote: post #175
cobar wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overall experience is very good with AMD graphics. Most games run on Steam out of the box. There are also emulators for all the systems I've wanted to use. I use Faugus Launcher for other stores like BattleNet and Epic Games (Magic Arena). For the most part the games just work, it's more system issues that I've run into where Linux suspend mode and the audio stack can be a little flaky and required Claude to diagnose…

Nvidia has gotten a lot better over the last 2 years as well. There are still driver bugs that are somewhat annoying. It's also annoying that the driver is out of kernel. But otherwise, the open source nvidia by nvivia works just fine.

Nvidia for me on Linux (Fedora 43 - KDE Plasma) for about half of the titles I play works flawlessly, although the other half of the games seemingly have issues.

I encounter a few games with frame pacing issues, otherwise not present on Windows. Shader compile time is longer than on Windows. Occasional crash in some games, etc.

Windows has issues too. It's not perfect, although they are different issues to Linux.

Ryzen 5800x3D RTX 4080 64GB DDR4 @ 4000 M/T's

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