Rest in Peace Windows? Large YouTube channel tests gaming performance on Linux
Is Linux an alternative for gamers? The end of Windows 10 support along with artificially introduced system requirements for Windows 11 have put millions of Windows 10 users -- Dell says 500 million -- between a rock and a hard place.
Keep on using Windows 10 and an, often, perfectly fine device? Bypass the system requirements to upgrade to Windows 11? Buy a new PC? Or, switch to Linux? These are the four main options that users have.
For gamers, one of the most important questions are whether their games will run on Linux and how good they will run. Valve has done a tremendous job in the past couple of years to improve gaming on Linux, but is it enough, even on systems that do not use SteamOS?
That is what Steve Burke of the YouTube channel Gamer Nexus set out to test. The operators of the channel wanted to find out if Linux is still the rather complicated system that is not well suited for gaming, or if gamers can make the switch and be very happy with that decision.
The main details:
- The games: Seven games were tested, including Baldur's Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Resident Evil 4, Black Myth Wukong, and Resident Evil 4.
- The Linux system: Powered by Bazzite Linux on systems with Nvidia RTX 5070, 5080 and 5090 video cards, as well as Radeon RX 9070 and Radeon RX 9070 XT video cards.
Bazzite is a Fedora-based distribution that is branded as a distribution for gamers specifically.
The result: Gaming on Linux works better than ever and it should be fine for many gamers, especially those with AMD systems. It still requires some fiddling and has some issues. Some games do not work because anti-cheat components are not supported. Nvidia performed better FPS-wise, but AMD systems seemed more stable.
Other findings:
- Spotty support for Ray Tracing titles. Some work, some don't, some crash.
- Nvidia has occasional stutters.
- Long initial shader caches, often 30+ minutes for games.
Linux gaming is getting to a point where it is equally good of a choice as Windows for many gamers. There are still some issues to be sorted out, but things improve all the time.
Here is the video
Now it is your turn: Which operating system is your favorite currently? Have you made the switch to Linux and play games also on the Linux PC? Or is something keeping you from making the switch? Feel free to leave a comment down below.
Thought you might like to know there is a dedicated gaming Linux edition you might like to try, take a look at this video; Desktop Linux Just Keeps Winning; https://inv.perditum.com/watch?v=ETI5g-dTB7Y Linux Bazzite is the distro. free to download install and use. Write it to a flash drive and test in live mode without installation for assessment.
You can thank me later .. on second thoughts you can thank me now ! :)
Peter Newton [London UK Linux user since 2004]
If you have an AMD gpu (because AMD is the only vendor that has open source drivers and the most stable one on Linux),
If you do not care about Ray-Tracing (Vulkan and Proton Ray-Tracing support lags behind DirectX),
If you mostly use Steam and do not use other storefronts like GOG or EGS (these stores requires 3rd-party programs to work, support is not the best),
If you do not care about games with privacy invasive kernel level anti-cheat like Call of Duty,
Then Linux is a pretty good option for gaming.
1. There are ways to ‘minimalize’ Windows, for anyone who wants to get 3fps, so it is dumb to say “the bloat the bloat”, if you are a technical person, then you should know how to disable everything from windows, boot on CMD and launch games with the need of starting all windows services and UI that are not needed for having.
2. GPU… well, most games don’t even utilize the GPU at its full capacity, it is mostly the CPU, so who cares about GPU? all you get is more invisible fps you will never notice, because after 120, there is barely any difference. Some people will say “oh no, I can definitely tell the difference” but it is all BS.
3. Go go Twitch, Soop, Kick, Youtube or any gaming streaming platform and check who is using Windows vs Linux for gaming, so no… stop being dumb with “RIP Windows” it sounds ignorant and ridiculous. Nobody outside the little 1% circle who think they are unique and special for forcing themselves through hacks to run simple videogames don’t care about windows one bit, they would rather use an unlicensed watermarked Windows than Linux.
4. Windows is more than for gaming, a lot of people use it for Photoshop, and 3dsmax and Unreal Engine and Music software like Ableton Presonus Studio one, etc, and they don’t care if their GPU runs whatever on Windows than on Linux, if their software that they use often is not available in their OS, this is why Apple is a better alternative than any Linux, at least you get similar software Windows vs MacOS, not so much for Linux. For example, Marmoset Toolbag runs like crap in wine, so even if it ‘can run’ doesn’t mean it runs properly.
Linux is good for big render farms or big VFX studios, but pretending people will switch for an obvious bad benchmarking between completely different OSs, it’s just dumb. It’s like comparing vulkan to directx or opengl and pretend one is better than the other only because something seems ‘faster’ than the other, but there are more into that
So, stop being dumb, pretending glitched gaming and hacking to get something to get properly displayed is somehow a good thing.
It’s funny how ignorant the so called (clowns) “geeks” or “nerds” can’t even figure out how to modify windows to be as minimal as possible without 3rd party tools, know the ins and outs of windows, what protections causes less efficiency in gaming, how to do affinity and boost, and priority, how to disable every single nonessential thing. It’s not complicated, but some people will pretend Linux, that is the 1% in desktop computer still matters.
Steve at least is bringing positives and pitfalls to the Linux gaming platform. With such a fragmented ecosystem with Linux desktops. I am doubtful it will make great strides unless some work is done with standards in Linux.
Can you elaborate more on that? What fragmentation exactly do you see?
Windows is just one.
Linux is a kernel with lots and lots of distributions, each with different brand names, various different desktop environments, different package managers, and often inconsistent interfaces. If troubleshooting, not all help guides on the web will work for whatever distribution you use as each have their own tools and dependencies.
I have made the switch to Linux Mint Summer last year. Have not regretted it yet. Most of my Steam Games run out of the Box without issues, for some I had to make a bit of finetuning. Those were normally either a change of the Proton Version used or launch parameters that had to be set. Nothing that is really complicated or needs a ton of research.
The protondb website is a great indicator how a game performs and which steps may be necessary for an optimal experience. If something has at least Gold status, you can normally play it without issues.
Only thing that does not work are those Multiplayer Games that use a kernel-level anticheat, but I don’t play those.
I wanted to play settles 3 (UPlay or Ubisoft what ever this app calls) on Kubuntu. No chance. I spend several days on it. The game lauchner doenst start. I think for new games + Steam Linux is nice but some old games could be tricky.
Best thing is to have an image/CD/DVD or what ever for some old games. Not sure with other.
Anyway, I would still prefer Linux for Windows.
just use a partition with windows 7 for older games. win-win
I looked at the WineHQ page and it says that the GOG version works fine.
I just tried the GOG version out of curiosity and for me it works fine:
https://i.ibb.co/5WRDrVPW/Screenshot-20251128-132351.png
https://i.ibb.co/hxzMcpXt/Screenshot-20251128-132527.png
Run the Lutris app, and install Ubisoft Connect using it. Try switching to older versions of Proton GE for older games. Or, import the game via Steam, and run it using the Proton compatibility layer.
The Lutris method worked for me, even with games that have Denuvo DRM.
I am using Lutris with Ubisoft Connect. But I am using the newest version of Proton GE, not tried with older version. Thanks! You can recommend a some special version number?
I never heard that I can import a Ubisoft Game into steam, hm.
Hello !! Hellllllllllllllo !!
Gaming on broken windows ? what do you get with M$ ?, a lot of bloat and unnecessary privacy invasive features, which slow down the performance and the response times, two factors which constantly concern gamers. Its critical if you want to become a professional gamer.
Linux performance is unmatched by any other platform or operating system, I am not a gamer, but I know enough about it to be able to tell you, that by the law of averages and the development of open source software, the optimisations included within it, cannot fail to have a positive effect.
Having said that, if a game refuses to run in a Linux environment, it may need a translation layer, which will add some lag to the response times, but in most cases, and especially today, the differences will be negligible. If the game refuses to run at all, despite having all its calls run through a translation layer, then there are complex and specialised CPU calls,
which need further trouble shooting, for them to work with mainstream processors.
In some cases it would have been best to have written the game for the OS, fortunately these cases a few.
The upshot is, that the games that do work in a Linux environment, generally speaking, will work more efficiently, without the bloat !
Its certainly an option to consider, especially when all other negative M$ factors are taken into account !
Peter Newton [London UK Linux user since 2004]
I have seen games not working on Linux because they have some anticheat where the developers didn’t bother adding support for Linux, but otherwise every other game I tried to run runs one way or another.
Microsoft should release Windows Core upon which open source developers can develop Windows Desktop Environments much like Linux. That would be the real start of Windows Distros if it ever happens.
Can’t happen, as Microsoft make huge money and such a thing will not sit well with investors or anyone else for that matter. I also imagine them making an argument that doing so will make Windows exposed to hackers who will reverse-engineer it to make even more destructive and invasive viruses.
As for the question, I’ve already said numerous times – I switched to Linux in March 2024 and since then I haven’t ever thought of going back to Windows. I don’t see a point, much less a desire. Not every game or Windows program work, about 95% of them do, if something doesn’t work, I just take an L and move on. Years ago when I flirted with the idea to switch to Linux full time, whenever I couldn’t get a single game to run I would go “that’s it, Linux can’t serve me, I’m going back to Windows, it’s the only option”. But since the first time I tried Linux in 2008, it has massively improved, I haven’t seen this much improvement in Windows since I’ve known it. I’m very confident that in a few more years Linux will be even more improved and from the looks of it, it actually seems like a larger number of people are moving to it than I had anticipated.
nothing speaks against using both. a cleaned win10 or win7 for problematic/older games.
just anything that avoids the travesty of an OS that win11 is.
I think following questions is perfect for this situation.
“Why do you I think I have to go through the hoops to run software when I can run it natively?”
“Why are you celebrating the fact that Linux is so fucking broken no one, except for Indie devs, wants to release anything for it?”
“Also, who told you that Windows APIs map onto Linux APIs perfectly?”
“Also, who told you that Windows APIs are properly reimplemented on Linux? Have you heard that Win32 APIs are full of hacks, workarounds for broken software?”
“Also, who told you Windows games run perfectly under translation?”
“Also, who told you Windows games with a kernel anti-cheat even work?”
“Why should anyone use Linux when then can use a first-class gaming platform with proper compatibility and native implementations?”