Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

gamingonlinux.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 560 posts

Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

#441

Post by efreak »

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #84
eek2121 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched a couple months ago. This is my third time trying to switch to desktop Linux, and things are very different this time. I installed CachyOS and all of my hardware just worked, including NVIDIA/Wayland. No real bugs beyond incorrect monitor positioning, and some tinkering needed for Diablo 4/Battle.net. The Diablo 4 issue is present on Windows as well, and ironically, there isn't a fix on Windows for those a…

> No real bugs beyond incorrect monitor positioning Windows really needs to catch up with this. Multiple monitors have been a thing in Linux pretty much since the beginning of X. Why can't I plug a Windows laptop into a docking station, and expect the screens to come up in the same order they were in last time? Why is it so hard?

Why can't I lock my computer and have Windows turn off my displayport monitor without having it turn itself on and off every few minutes until I log back in?

Why can't I turn off the power button on my monitor and then turn it back on to keep using it again without having to shut down my PC, turn off the PSU switch, press the power button to fully power it down, then bring everything back up? I just want my monitors off when I'm in bed...

Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

#442

Post by drnick1 »

nicce wrote: post #282
p1necone wrote: post #32

I made the switch more than a year ago and it's been basically problem free. Almost all modern games work flawlessly through proton and I get better compatibility for really old stuff through lutris than I ever did on windows (I used to have to run a win 3.1/95/98 vm to play certain older games, now I just use lutris/wine). The only stuff that doesn't work is multiplayer games with unsupported anticheat - it's always…

I am having 20 fps more in Linux with 4k screen when compared to 2k in Windows. Didn’t believe my old GPU could get better over time.

I find this hard to believe. Generally speaking, games run slightly slower on Linux (that's on Arch with latest Nvidia drivers). Usually, the difference isn't really noticeable, and several rigorous benchmark show that even though average FPS is single digits lower, the standard deviation is also smaller. This may be due to Nvidia not performing as well on Linux, the worst impact I have seen is on Helldivers 2 (at least 15 to 20% lower FPS).

Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

#443

Post by Spectadrone »

I'm no stranger to Linux and its setup. homeservers, pi's and any old laptop I come across.

But for my main Desktop(gaming,dev,fun,...) I've reluctantly bought a W11 key (cheap one thank god).

I don't mind working through driver issues and needing time to figure stuff out but the thing that bothers me is 'Compatibility between online games and Linux is hindered by anti-cheat software, which often lacks Linux support, especially kernel-level anti-cheat systems' (thx google).

I could go on a very technical rant, or start about setting up w10/w11 vm's with 5% loss in performance etc...

But honestly, I wanna play my online gaems =(

Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

#444

Post by drnick1 »

lunar_rover wrote: post #300
jjcm wrote: post #231

As strange as it sounds, I think Valve is extremely well-positioned to ship what becomes one of the first true Linux desktop experiences. There's a huge demand for gaming x ai development, both of which have similar hardware requirements, and Valve is already polishing their linux experience with Steam Deck. If they launch their own desktop with a properly managed OS and hardware, I think it would legitimately become…

The problem is still the desktop itself. Basically none of the existing Linux desktop components are mature, either design or technical wise and more often than not, both. Deck works because most games are self contained, allowing them to have a default game mode that bypasses the desktop entirely.

> Basically none of the existing Linux desktop components are mature, either design or technical wise and more often than not, both.

What do you have in mind specifically? GNOME 3 is very mature, and has a consistent, polished design that far surpasses Windows 11. In fact, in view of recent macOS redesigns, I am tempted to say that it surpassed it too.

Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

#445

Post by gruturo »

Make that 3.0000001%

After trying Bazzite for a few weeks around 1.5 years ago, I was pleasantly surprised but the (back then) poor state of nVidia support was an issue. I went back to the Windows 10 partition with the intention of switching over for good once the support ran out. I went a few days past that date, but seeing this article yesterday evening made me pull the trigger. Made a CachyOS USB stick, swapped the NVME out for a fresh one (the 3080 was blocking it and the release springy thingy on the PCIe connector was almost inaccessible, grr) and it's been smooth sailing. I'm also trying not to install Chrome at all this time, let's see if I manage.

I was keeping my games in a separate drive already, so when I mounted it and told Steam to look there, it just recognized everything and let me play right away!

It also exposed me to a new shell (fish) but that didn't go well. I ripped it out within seconds when the tab completion picked up files NOT matching what I had already typed, WT actual F? I'm sure it's configurable but screw that.

Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

#446

Post by drnick1 »

worble wrote: post #232
marginalia_nu wrote: post #38

It's weird how Steam doesn't automatically set the toggle that lets you play most Windows games through Proton instead of having that be an opt-in you need to know about. It really is extremely stable and polished these days.

I just wish they had to toggle to use proton by default for all games, regardless of if a Linux version exists. There have been several games where I ended up with the buggy abandoned Linux version (Rocket League is a particularly egregious example of this) instead of the much better supported Windows + Proton version.

Another example of this is Left 4 Dead 2, ironically made by Valve. The Windows client is far better, but unfortunately Valve hasn't fixed a bug that prevents joining VAC-secure servers when playing on Proton. This means you need to find an "insecure" server or host your own game.

Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

#447

Post by vintermann »

mattmanser wrote: post #218
try_the_bass wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the game is running at 500fps, it registers within 2 milliseconds, even though you won't see the action for up to 16.67 milliseconds later. Okay I think I follow this, but I think I'd frame it a little differently. I guess it makes more sense to me if I think about your statement as "the frame I'm seeing is only 2ms old, instead of 16.67ms old". I'm still not seeing the action for 16.67ms since the last frame I…

This is mostly like high fidelity audio equipment, or extreme coffee preparation. Waste of time for most people. I used to play CS:Go at a pretty high level (MGE - LE depending on free time), putting me in the top 10%. Same with Overwatch. Most of the time you're not dying in a clutch both pulling the trigger situation. You missed, they didn't, is what usually happens. I never bothered with any of that stuff, it does…

I'm sure that's true, but low latency can just plain feel good. I don't play FPSses at all, and I can totally understand how low latency helps the feeling of being in control. Chasing high refresh rates and low latency seems a lot more reasonable to me than chasing high resolution.

Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

#448

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #288
SteveNuts wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing windows has focused on has been dark patterns to force users towards cloud and figuring out more and more ways to collect data to sell ads. I’m not naive, I know a ton of huge enterprises still run huge fleets of windows “servers” but I still find it hilarious that a supposedly serious server OS would default to showing you the weather and ads in the start menu.

> The only thing windows has focused on has been dark patterns to force users towards cloud and figuring out more and more ways to collect data to sell ads. And backwards compatibility. They're really good at it. And I'd say that's the reason Windows is still dominant. There's this unfathomably long tail of niche software that people need or want to run.

I recall lots of reports of printers and scanners becoming unsupported during one of the Windows version upgrades (possibly the Windows 7 upgrade?).

Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

#449

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

krferriter wrote: post #359
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only thing windows has focused on has been dark patterns to force users towards cloud and figuring out more and more ways to collect data to sell ads. And backwards compatibility. They're really good at it. And I'd say that's the reason Windows is still dominant. There's this unfathomably long tail of niche software that people need or want to run.

Linux also doesn't have as good hardware support. While Linux will probably run on most hardware. It doesn't run well. Like you may just immediately give up half or more of your laptop battery life if you switch from Windows to Linux on a particular machine, even if you use a lightweight and up-to-date environment and use TLP and whatever else to tweak kernel settings. I used Linux on my personal laptops for many yea…

> Linux also doesn't have as good hardware support

My experience has been that I can generally just install Linux on a machine and pretty much everything will just work straight away, but with Windows, I have to go and find the relevant Windows drivers to get things like iSCSI working.

Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

#450

Post by yetihehe »

TingPing wrote: post #102
happosai wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reliable Anticheat rootkits are just not possible on Open PC platforms. Consoles should just add proper keyboard+mouse support and competitive online players can move over...

Consoles support kb and mouse. Most popular fps games support it.

Nowadays you can mix&match however you like. I have one game that is available on PS, PC and mobile. You can use keyboard, mouse and PS controllers in this game on all of the platforms and it works the same. For now, I mainly play it on linux (it's not linux native game, heh) with ps4 controller.
Post reply on HN