How bad is gaming on Linux compared to Gaming on Windows and Gaming on Mac?

[Fatih19]

On 9/14/2020 at 6:26 AM, Slottr said:

There's a ton of little issues I've run into. Not saying it's unusable, just a Windows experience for a gaming PC on the drivers side (with this hardware) would be much easier to manage

PopOS! driver support for Nvidia GPU is solid from what I've heard.

[Fatih19]

On 9/15/2020 at 2:15 PM, Nick7 said:

For gaming rig, while you can use Linux, using Windows is much simpler.

Please save yourself headache, and fiddling all the time to try and make it work.

 

If you said you were going to code, run VM's, and just be able to run games here and there, then yeah - Linux is fine. For gaming, while it can work, it's a lot of hassle..

Depends on the game you play, many games works out of the box. Some requires simple tweaks. Like some said above, check compatibility with ProtonDB.

[whm1974]

The Closed Source Nivida drivers work just fine in Linux. Some Distros even ask you to select Free or Nonfree drivers upon install. Manjaro which I use does this. Gaming on Linux has gotten way better since Valve stared working on it's Linux Client.

[Nick7]

7 hours ago, nafukgt said:

well.. linux is much simpler and more stable than windows tbh. windows in unstable and more cluttered

How is Linux simpler?

Sorry, that is not true. For 'average Joe', Windows is simpler.

In Windows you, as average user, never need to use CLI. In Linux it's highly probable you will.

 

As for stability - yes, Linux is more stable.

Again, for gaming PC, rebooting once a week or longer is not really an issue. Having gaming PC running Linux is quite more complicated, especially to get games playing as they should. Some work fine, many need tweaking. And there's than that part of games that simply don't work.

 

And frankly - Linux is great for server stuff. Wins hands down, no doubt,  vs Windows. But for desktop, it's simply not true. Desktop part is basically crammed upon server part of Linux, and just does not work as good as in Windows.

 

[Wild Penquin]

Nayr438's list was excellent, but just a small nitpick:

 

On 9/14/2020 at 2:31 AM, Nayr438 said:

You actually have a chance of running Windows Games

This is not entirely true. Since Macs have been X86 compatible, one can install Wine and run Windows games that way (I've done that). However, it is not something I'd recommend to someone who is not experienced with Wine and using (roughly) POSIX-compatible command line tools (or any one who is not adept in general with using computers, which includes 99% of gaming-only oriented users). The keywords here are: macports or brew. There's even winebottler, but I haven't tried it. (well, strictly speaking it is even possible to not use any of the former by compiling straight from source).

 

The experience certainly wont be as smooth as on Linux. There are many hoops and loops to jump trough, and a bit more to configure than on Linux. However, the compatibility is roughly similar to what is possible on Linux, once things have been configured properly (though, I must admit I haven't done that on a more modern Mac, with a more modern GPU, and  with more modern AAA games, but at least in the pre-Proton olden days it did work - including Direct3d/DirectX(9?) accelerated games).

 

There's no reason in principle why Steam couldn't port and release Proton for OS X/Mac OS Steam. However, I gather they have not done it yet.

 

EDIT: Also, Apple will be moving to ARM in the future. Although seems like some work has been done for proton (and it might or might not be the case one can compile it), Vulkan might not work, OS X has dropped 32bit support etc.; these factors combined mean the future for Proton on MacOS might not be that bright, or at least not smooth.

Edited September 21, 2020 by Wild Penquin
TYPOs. Mentioned proton can be compiled for OS X.

[Nayr438]

1 hour ago, Wild Penquin said:

There's no reason in principle why Steam couldn't port and release Proton for OS X/Mac OS Steam. However, I gather they have not done it yet.

 

EDIT: Also, Apple will be moving to ARM in the future. Although seems like some work has been done for proton (and it might or might not be the case one can compile it), Vulkan might not work, OS X has dropped 32bit support etc.; these factors combined mean the future for Proton on MacOS might not be that bright, or at least not smooth.

Proton itself relies heavily on DXVK, the OpenGL Translations layers are just horrid, always have been.

The Problem with MacOS, is they use there own implementation of Vulkan, known as MoltenVK which is not directly compatible with the Standard Vulkan Implementation.

There is a bug report here, https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK/issues/203,  however it is for a older version of DXVK, so that list may be even larger now.

 

With that said, Crossover has been working on getting DXVK to run as best as possible on MacOS. https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK/issues/203#issuecomment-682576084

Once that's ready, is probably when you will see Proton Merged with Steam on MacOS. However then as stated previously, the whole ARM switch introduces new upcoming issues.

 

Also I am not sure if this will have any impact on steam either, https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208436, considering steam is still 32 bit on every OS.

This is actually a issue coming to Linux as Distros have started dropping 32 bit support by default. There was a short battle between Ubuntu, Steam, and the community not to long ago over it, which actually still leads down a path of 32bit being dropped, it's just when. Steam is really going to need to suck it up and move to 64bit.

 

Of course, I don't really follow Apple to know what the actual progress of everything is.

[n30phyte]

On 9/13/2020 at 5:31 PM, Nayr438 said:

Compared to Windows

• You will take a performance hit of some sort whether its negligible or extreme.
• You will not have Ray Tracing or DLSS
• You will not be playing games that require Anti-Cheat Software
• Some Games may not work at all
• NVIDIA has horrible xorg configuration, whether that matters to you or not, depends on if you ever need to manually adjust something

Compared to MacOS

• You actually have a chance of running Windows Games
• You can actually use your NVIDIA Card

Check with ProtonDB and Lutris to see how your game performs.

I switched from a Windows dual boot to a Linux single boot recently and I have some nitpicks.

 

> You will take a performance hit of some sort whether its negligible or extreme.

Not really. I noticed a 5-10 FPS boost in Overwatch and a more stable and slightly higher FPS in Nier Automata after moving to Linux. This isn't always the case, but more often than not I've gotten higher FPS in Linux compared to Windows.

 

>You will not be playing games that require Anti-Cheat Software.

Mostly EAC I think? Squad's EAC works on Proton while Fall Guys doesn't etc. You gotta check your games in ProtonDB to be sure though.

 

> NVIDIA has horrible xorg configuration, whether that matters to you or not, depends on if you ever need to manually adjust something.

 

This is distro dependent. I've never had problems in Arch (Manjaro) or Fedora with Nvidia drivers. I've never gotten Ubuntu to work and always came across some problem with Nvidia drivers there.

 

Everything else is pretty spot on.

[Mystical Kimchi]

Frankly Linux has matured to the point that the gaming experience is often just as good as on Windows unless you're trying to run a Windows game that just doesn't work correctly under Wine yet.

[chrisserung]

The only game I've been unable to run is Far Cry Primal. If you prefer the linux desktop experience to windows, I'd say the small amount of hassle is worth it. Most games "just work", either native/proton or through Wine Steam in Lutris. I was pretty worried that I'd have issues with a ton of things, but it's been so problem free for me.

[Sayuri_zhang]

About macOS don't support recent Nvidia cards,it's not right in some extent.

The truth is from macOS10.14 Mojave begin,apple removed support for CUDA,this renders all Nvidia cards that supports CUDA don't work any more,but if you chosen macOS10.13 or older,there is a way to workaround : use WebDriver to install drivers for it's supported nvidia cards.Even so,I personally doesn't recommend using macOS as gaming os or using Nvidia cards in macOS, I only recommend using macOS as a special workstation only OS,and using intel CPU+AMD cards configuration.As to proton will support macOS,I guess they won't,and for good reason.