Tom's Hardware tests 3 Linux distros and they all beat Windows in gaming performance.

[CosmicEmotion]

Link to the article.

 

Finally the mainstream media have started taking notice!

[jaslion]

This has been the case for a bit. It's been decently common knowledge. usually because drm is broken so games aren't bogged down by it.

 

Main issue is anticheat as always.

[CosmicEmotion]

3 minutes ago, jaslion said:

This has been the case for a bit. It's been decently common knowledge. usually because drm is broken so games aren't bogged down by it.

 

Main issue is anticheat as always.

The majority of antricheat games work. If some of the games don't work that's the publisher's issue, not Linux's. Linux has even surpassed Mac in the Steam survey the past 4 months. Whoever doesn't even try Linux for gaming is truly missing out.

[Nayr438]

So its Windows DirectX vs Linux DXVK/VKD3D as usual.

How much of that performance boost is actually from Linux?

 

Considering DXVK/VKD3D is available for Windows, I want to see Windows DXVK/VKD3D vs Linux DXVK/VKD3D.

[8tg]

Interesting and good on them for choosing 3 very different operating systems, arch, a fedora based distro and a Debian based distro (though I still consider pop to just be Ubuntu for people who can’t pronounce Ubuntu).

However their actual results are all over the place and don’t really indicate much imo? Seems like specific operating systems are giving them various results in various games, sometimes better, sometimes worse. I think a lot of what will make anything run a game better is just reduced overhead and basically any Linux distro is better than windows in that regard.

I don’t really see anything too special in their testing.

[Poinkachu]

18 minutes ago, CosmicEmotion said:

Whoever doesn't even try Linux for gaming is truly missing out.

What a blanket statement

 

 

[jaslion]

21 minutes ago, CosmicEmotion said:

Whoever doesn't even try Linux for gaming is truly missing out.

 It's because of steam os. Thats why it went up the steamdeck is a massive success.

 

I really am not missing out. On steam os it's great but on anything else it still is the same old why the fuck does it not work now thing and a fair few popular online competitive games STILL do not work.

 

It's good it's all going way better but to put such a blanket statement is just not ok.

[MagikGimp]

• Anti-cheat is an issue.
• Certain graphics settings unavailable for native ports (see PCGamingWiki for examples).
• And good luck with older titles that don't use Vulcan.
• Improvements can be made in Windows if unnecessary apps and services are closed when gaming. 3rd party tools can help with this.
• Required the work of proprietary product company's efforts to even get close to achieving good compatibility.
• Before this the hoops to go through to use a passthrough solution with two graphics cards was an absolute nightmare.
• ...It's Linux. End of.

[CosmicEmotion]

26 minutes ago, Nayr438 said:

So its Windows DirectX vs Linux DXVK/VKD3D as usual.

How much of that performance boost is actually from Linux?

 

Considering DXVK/VKD3D is available for Windows, I want to see Windows DXVK/VKD3D vs Linux DXVK/VKD3D.

It's a drivers thing mostly. AMD Drivers on Linux are FAR superior than Windows. Also DXVK/VKD3D have been designed for Linux drivers so the performance gain is extremly smaller. I've done  a video on DXVK on Windows and Linux and Linux was like 50% faster. I can't post it here though cause it's not on Youtube. Still DXVK was faster than the normal Windowws DX11 on FF XIV.

[CosmicEmotion]

4 minutes ago, MagikGimp said:

• Anti-cheat is an issue.
• Certain graphics settings unavailable for native ports (see PCGamingWiki for examples).
• And good luck with older titles that don't use Vulcan.
• Improvements can be made in Windows if unnecessary apps and services are closed when gaming. 3rd party tools can help with this.
• Required the work of proprietary product company's efforts to even get close to achieving good compatibility.
• Before this the hoops to go through to use a passthrough solution with two graphics cards was an absolute nightmare.
• ...It's Linux. End of.

 

Apart from the first point, which is partially true, all the other points are flat out wrong.

 

• I posted a link above. The majojrity of anticheat games work.
• If you mean Ray Tracing, you can always use Proton to play the Windows version, quite possibly with better FPS as companies make AWFUL Linux ports.
• Anything that doesn't run on DX runs even better than DXVK or VKD3D on Linux as long as you use Proton.
• I've done ALL the tests, Linux is simply faster on AMD.
• Irrelevant?
• Why would you use a VM to game on Linux?
• Agreed. In reverse though.

[wasab]

When they work. Victoria 3 is a native linux game. After the patch 1.4x something, the game now thinks my mobile rtx 4070 has 128mb vram instead of the 8 gig it actually has. Result? Game freezes at the map screen and pretty much means it is bork. Shame, it used to run flawlessly. 

 

Will the developers ever fix it? No cuz it is linux，player count is almost nil so why bother? Pretty sure they don't even test the games on Linux before they even ship out the new breaking updates 

 

Same story for total war shogun 2 btw. Used to be playable but now utterly broken. 

 

Total warhammer 3? Crashes a lot on linux that I now just suck it up and boot into windows. This is depsite the fact it has been ported to linux by ferral

[tikker]

I think there is more nuance to it. I also think there might have been a misinterpretation of the FPS graph in that Tom's Hardware article. They say

Quote

Nobara OS took the top spot, achieving 100 fps flat, while Arch Linux and POP!_OS took second and third place, respectively, achieving 99 fps and 95 fps. Windows 11 took the last position, with an average frame rate of 94 fps (1 shy of POP!_OS). 

but if we look at the graph in the ComputerBase article they link: https://www.computerbase.de/2023-12/welche-linux-distribution-zum-spielen/2/ we see that the graph is not reporting FPS values.

The bottom left corner mentions the unit being percent. So Nobara OS is not getting 100 FPS. It is the 100% reference value and Arch, Pop and Windows on average got 99%, 95% and 94% of that. You can see this in their second graph where Ratched & Clank is the only game exceeding 100 FPS on average, with all OSes doing so easily.

 

If you look at the 1% lows of frametimes we see a different story and the 5-title average of frametimes puts Windows and Arch tied on average, with the rest significantly behind it, with Arch scoring just a bit better on individual titles.

 

Their conclusion I also interpret as a more nuanced take:

Quote

Three Linux distributions competed against each other in this test and also measured themselves against Windows. This shows that optimizations, such as those made particularly in Nobara, make it possible to get the most out of the hardware and even outperform Windows. But it also shows that optimizations alone are not enough to consistently have the best gaming experience. The 1% low FPS are determined by current software (drivers), as is common on Windows as the main gaming platform. Only Arch Linux comes close to this as a rolling release with daily updates

 

 

I interpred this as that the tested linux distros can reach a higher FPS, but Windows seems to give a more consistent FPS. It'll be up to the gamer to determine which of those means "the best".

[CosmicEmotion]

1 hour ago, wasab said:

When they work. Victoria 3 is a native linux game. After the patch 1.4x something, the game now thinks my mobile rtx 4070 has 128mb vram instead of the 8 gig it actually has. Result? Game freezes at the map screen and pretty much means it is bork. Shame, it used to run flawlessly. 

 

Will the developers ever fix it? No cuz it is linux，player count us almost nil so why bother? Pretty sure they don't even test the games on Linux before they even ship out the new breaking updates 

 

Same story for total war shogun 2 btw. Used to be playable but now utterly broken. 

 

Total warhammer 3? Crashes a lot on linux that I now just suck it up and boot into windows. This is depsite the fact it has been ported to linux by ferral

 

You can always use the Proton version.

[CosmicEmotion]

13 minutes ago, tikker said:

I think there is more nuance to it. I also think there might have been a misinterpretation of the FPS graph in that Tom's Hardware article. They say

but if we look at the graph in the ComputerBase article they link: https://www.computerbase.de/2023-12/welche-linux-distribution-zum-spielen/2/ we see that the graph is not reporting FPS values.

The bottom left corner mentions the unit being percent. So Nobara OS is not getting 100 FPS. It is the 100% reference value and Arch, Pop and Windows on average got 99%, 95% and 94% of that. You can see this in their second graph where Ratched & Clank is the only game exceeding 100 FPS on average, with all OSes doing so easily.

 

If you look at the 1% lows of frametimes we see a different story and the 5-title average of frametimes puts Windows and Arch tied on average, with the rest significantly behind it, with Arch scoring just a bit better on individual titles.

 

Their conclusion I also interpret as a more nuanced take:

 

 

I interpred this as that the tested linux distros can reach a higher FPS, but Windows seems to give a more consistent FPS. It'll be up to the gamer to determine which of those means "the best".

 

Wow, excellent dissection of the article. The thing is, if you're serious about gaming on Linux, Arch is prety much a one way lane to follow. And this testing proves that. It has similar 1% lows to Windows while also having higher averages. So you get consistency and performance at the same time. There's literally no reason not to use Linux as the best option for gaming.

 

Also, this is vanilla Arch, a gaming focused distro based on Arch like Garuda might offer even more performance since it's been set up optimally for this use case.

[tikker]

49 minutes ago, CosmicEmotion said:

 

Wow, excellent dissection of the article. The thing is, if you're serious about gaming on Linux, Arch is prety much a one way lane to follow. And this testing proves that. It has similar 1% lows to Windows while also having higher averages. So you get consistency and performance at the same time. There's literally no reason not to use Linux as the best option for gaming.

 

Also, this is vanilla Arch, a gaming focused distro based on Arch like Garuda might offer even more performance since it's been set up optimally for this use case.

I disagree with there being no reason not to use linux, based on this article. One is because "linux" is a very broad thing and it is specifically Arch that is the winner here, which is a distro that is not known for its beginner friendliness. The average gamer has likely never touched linux nor has any interest in learning it, most likely. They may thus opt for a more user-friendly looking OS, which I see Nobara mention in their description, for example, but then you see from the results that you can no longer make a blanket statement of linux being better, because gaming is not just about high (average) FPS and the interplay between average FPS and 1% lows is important.

 

You want the average and 1% two to be close to each other, identical ideally, or you will experience them as hiccups or stutters. We see the exact opposite happen for the Nobara and Pop. In the Talos Principle II, Nobara OS gets an average of 71.5 FPS with 1% lows of 37.5. That means your framerate regularly fluctuates by 48%, almost a factor of two. Especially dropping from 70 into high 30s is rough in my opinion. On Windows this is 65.1 avg and a 1% low of 46.1; a 30% drop (which is still big, but smaller). For this game (and the others except Starfield) Windows gives you a more stable FPS experience, which you can argue is the better one.

 

Because of that I think your statement of "if you're serious about gaming on Linux" is a much better one than "linux is the better gaming experience" as this article shows that your choice of distro apparently still matters a lot and it is going up against expecations in user experience set by Windows and macOS.

[CosmicEmotion]

1 hour ago, tikker said:

I disagree with there being no reason not to use linux, based on this article. One is because "linux" is a very broad thing and it is specifically Arch that is the winner here, which is a distro that is not known for its beginner friendliness. The average gamer has likely never touched linux nor has any interest in learning it, most likely. They may thus opt for a more user-friendly looking OS, which I see Nobara mention in their description, for example, but then you see from the results that you can no longer make a blanket statement of linux being better, because gaming is not just about high (average) FPS and the interplay between average FPS and 1% lows is important.

 

You want the average and 1% two to be close to each other, identical ideally, or you will experience them as hiccups or stutters. We see the exact opposite happen for the Nobara and Pop. In the Talos Principle II, Nobara OS gets an average of 71.5 FPS with 1% lows of 37.5. That means your framerate regularly fluctuates by 48%, almost a factor of two. Especially dropping from 70 into high 30s is rough in my opinion. On Windows this is 65.1 avg and a 1% low of 46.1; a 30% drop (which is still big, but smaller). For this game (and the others except Starfield) Windows gives you a more stable FPS experience, which you can argue is the better one.

 

Because of that I think your statement of "if you're serious about gaming on Linux" is a much better one than "linux is the better gaming experience" as this article shows that your choice of distro apparently still matters a lot and it is going up against expecations in user experience set by Windows and macOS.

 

Arch has user friendly derivaives like Garuda or CachyOS as I mentioned. Also, any OS based on Arch has insane customizability and you cna install one of the Cahcy or TKG kernels on any of them to have lower input latency. I'm pretty sure this article is made for people who won't "tweak" (cause installig a different kernel on Arch is not really tweaking, it's like installing any other program), so even like this something Arch-based is the optimal gaming experience. If you're willing to do the most minor of researches, then the gamign experience goes to another level on Linux.

 

Most people try to understand Linux without even giving it a proper try and that's where the problem lies. Just like Linus and his Linux challenge. If you don't want to switch, don't switch, but don't try to falsely claim that Linux has a lesser gamign experience just cause you're bored to look into it. Admit that you're bored and move on.

[tikker]

58 minutes ago, CosmicEmotion said:

 

Arch has user friendly derivaives like Garuda or CachyOS as I mentioned. Also, any OS based on Arch has insane customizability and you cna install one of the Cahcy or TKG kernels on any of them to have lower input latency. I'm pretty sure this article is made for people who won't "tweak" (cause installig a different kernel on Arch is not really tweaking, it's like installing any other program), so even like this something Arch-based is the optimal gaming experience. If you're willing to do the most minor of researches, then the gamign experience goes to another level on Linux.

How many average Joes out there, because that is the audience that really matters at the end of the day, are after that "insane customisability" and "install whatever kernel you want"? How many people in your direct family and friend circles that are not into computers even know what a kernel is? Why should they care? What is Arch? Should I pick Garuda or Cachy? Does the average Joe care about having 10 more FPS or do they simply want to play their game without hiccups? We are talking about enthusiast level stuff. Especially when having the interest to check which linux distro has the best gaming performance. We on this forum are a minority.

 

People not wanting to sift through a dozen OSes examining the pros and cons of each also doesn't mean they are "too bored" to look into it. That is a valid counter argument. Looking up benchmarks between dozens of games, GPUs and CPUs is already a big thing. Having to carefull yconsider which flavour of linux you need to install in order to balance your needs, skills and interest as well is added load.

1 hour ago, CosmicEmotion said:

Most people try to understand Linux without even giving it a proper try and that's where the problem lies. Just like Linus and his Linux challenge. If you don't want to switch, don't switch, but don't try to falsely claim that Linux has a lesser gamign experience just cause you're bored to look into it. Admit that you're bored and move on.

Don't falsely put out a blanket statement that linux automatically has a better experience either, because the 1% lows graph in this article already disproves thatand shows that there is an important if to such statements. Accept that the world is not black and white and move on. Linux can offer a great gaming experience nowadays I don't think anyone is arguing that anymore and e.g. the Steam Deck's success only corroborates it.

 

A similar problem to what you pose is that the vocal linux advocates equally do not properly consider why people may not want to switch. I think they hated Linus' linux challenge precisely because it showed an experience that doesn't rhyme with "it's so easy". They don't understand that "you just need to do X, Y, Z" is complicated to laypeople. They just hop on the "windows bad, linux amazing" train, but the reality is not that black and white. I have daily driven linux for over a decade for work now and it is great. It has come a long way, but my home PC is still Windows because as a whole the linux ecosystem cannot fully compete yet. This is more and more becoming an issue of mainstream software not having official linux versions, but that still is a major downside to the ecosystem.

[CosmicEmotion]

9 minutes ago, tikker said:

How many average Joes out there, because that is the audience that really matters at the end of the day, are after that "insane customisability" and "install whatever kernel you want"? How many people in your direct family and friend circles that are not into computers even know what a kernel is? Why should they care? What is Arch? Should I pick Garuda or Cachy? Does the average Joe care about having 10 more FPS or do they simply want to play their game without hiccups? We are talking about enthusiast level stuff. Especially when having the interest to check which linux distro has the best gaming performance. We on this forum are a minority.

 

People not wanting to sift through a dozen OSes examining the pros and cons of each also doesn't mean they are "too bored" to look into it. That is a valid counter argument. Looking up benchmarks between dozens of games, GPUs and CPUs is already a big thing. Having to carefull yconsider which flavour of linux you need to install in order to balance your needs, skills and interest as well is added load.

Don't falsely put out a blanket statement that linux automatically has a better experience either, because the 1% lows graph in this article already disproves thatand shows that there is an important if to such statements. Accept that the world is not black and white and move on. Linux can offer a great gaming experience nowadays I don't think anyone is arguing that anymore and e.g. the Steam Deck's success only corroborates it.

 

A similar problem to what you pose is that the vocal linux advocates equally do not properly consider why people may not want to switch. I think they hated Linus' linux challenge precisely because it showed an experience that doesn't rhyme with "it's so easy". They don't understand that "you just need to do X, Y, Z" is complicated to laypeople. They just hop on the "windows bad, linux amazing" train, but the reality is not that black and white. I have daily driven linux for over a decade for work now and it is great. It has come a long way, but my home PC is still Windows because as a whole the linux ecosystem cannot fully compete yet. This is more and more becoming an issue of mainstream software not having official linux versions, but that still is a major downside to the ecosystem.

 

I don't understand your points. Going to the App Store and searching for "linux" is something people can't do? This is the "enthusiasm" level of engagment youu're referring to?

 

The average Joe will never look into Linux anyway, unless it comes preinistalled with their system. The Steam Deck itself is proof enough that Linux is more than ready to be consumed by the mainstream and the future can only be brighter. And 5% more FPS is important to anyone. People can pay for a new GPU for this 5-10 % difference.

 

Linus's challenge was massively debunked by the Steam Deck. I don't think there's much more to add to that.

 

It's your choice to use what OS you like because you may be bored or for whatever reason that may make sense to you. That doesn't mean that Linux is not the optimal system for gaming. Because it is, as long as you dont' play the 20 games that don't work on it.

[wasab]

6 hours ago, CosmicEmotion said:

Also, this is vanilla Arch, a gaming focused distro based on Arch like Garuda might offer even more performance since it's been set up optimally for this use case.

Whenever I hear distro "optimize for gaming", I always picture youtube channel low spec gamers who does weird and insane tweaks in windows settings and game config file that lowers quality to absolutely the minimum and make the hardwares run red hot. 

 

They are all superficial modifications that involve trade offs. True performance optimization require the game dev to actually put in the effort to optimize their games and hardware manafacturers to put in the efforts to roll out good drivers, not from whatever the target operating system does. 

[wasab]

6 hours ago, CosmicEmotion said:

 

You can always use the Proton version.

I don't see the point. I would boot into windows If I want to run windows games. The purpose of Linux gaming for me is to play Linux games, not whatever hack to run on Linux. This is one reason I don't use any game emulators for ps2 or Nintendo even tho they are quite good. 

[Ralphred]

20 hours ago, jaslion said:

Main issue is anticheat as always.

Whilst there (probably) won't be legacy fixes for this, it's been "fixed" since Elden Ring was made available on Steamdeck.

[MarkPol88]

6 hours ago, CosmicEmotion said:

There's literally no reason not to use Linux as the best option for gaming.

What about spatial audio, for example Dolby Atmos and DTS:X?

More and more games do support setups like mine - 5.2.2 - and I actively use it.

How it is on Linux?

[CosmicEmotion]

12 hours ago, MarkPol88 said:

What about spatial audio, for example Dolby Atmos and DTS:X?

More and more games do support setups like mine - 5.2.2 - and I actively use it.

How it is on Linux?

 

I only use headphones so I can't really answer that but I don't see why Pipewire wouldn't support surround sound.

[MarkPol88]

5 hours ago, CosmicEmotion said:

I don't see why Pipewire wouldn't support surround sound.

That is why I used "spatial sound" - not surround.

Output to immersive (3D) consumer audio systems (#2310) · Issues · PipeWire / pipewire · GitLab

From what I gather from discussion in the link above, they just browsing their options at the moment, so I do not think that it is working right now.

 

Just a reminder that there is always this one freak in the world that makes using words like "best" or "optimal" weight much less in discussion.

[CosmicEmotion]

2 hours ago, MarkPol88 said:

That is why I used "spatial sound" - not surround.

Output to immersive (3D) consumer audio systems (#2310) · Issues · PipeWire / pipewire · GitLab

From what I gather from discussion in the link above, they just browsing their options at the moment, so I do not think that it is working right now.

 

Just a reminder that there is always this one freak in the world that makes using words like "best" or "optimal" weight much less in discussion.

 

Interesting, I didn't know that. Thanks for letting me know.

 

I still don't understand how this doesn't make Linux optimal for gaming though.