Best linux distro for RAW GAMING performance

[Vecna]

I have a pretty old laptop with integrated graphics. Which would be the best linux distro that is focused on RAW PERFORMANCE. I do not care about looks, simplicity, ease of use, desktop environment, etc. Only pure performance. I know i sound like a newb but I have used debian based distros before but started questioning whether they were the right choice. Please recommend which distro and version would give me maximum performance for my hardware. I just want it to get the job done no compromises on fps.I really dont mind spending a little bit more time if it means that its more stable and even a bit better. Im not able to choose a single distro. I dont prefer changing desktop environments after installation due to conflicting packages so please recommend a distro. Thanks in advance.

[Eigenvektor]

They're all going to perform very similar. All distributions are ultimately based on Linux (the kernel). The major difference is primarily what kind of software is included out of the box and available in repositories, which kernel version is used by default, how often updates are made available and so on.

 

You might be able to get a tiny percentage out of distributions that make you compile everything for your particular architecture, but that's going to be a ton of work and likely not worth it.

[WereCat]

Any distro with rolling updates is usually the best pick for gaming since you want all the new driver optimizations and features and game compatibility. Does not really matter which specific distro IMO... most of the "gaming" distros just have SW preinstalled which you would have to install yourself like Steam for example.

[Vecna]

20 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

They're all going to perform very similar. All distributions are ultimately based on Linux (the kernel). The major difference is primarily what kind of software is included out of the box and available in repositories, which kernel version is used by default, how often updates are made available and so on.

 

You might be able to get a tiny percentage out of distributions that make you compile everything for your particular architecture, but that's going to be a ton of work and likely not worth it.

 

2 minutes ago, WereCat said:

Any distro with rolling updates is usually the best pick for gaming since you want all the new driver optimizations and features and game compatibility. Does not really matter which specific distro IMO... most of the "gaming" distros just have SW preinstalled which you would have to install yourself like Steam for example.

Yeah no I get that guys. I really dont mind spending a little bit more time if it means that its more stable and even a bit better. Im not able to choose a single distro. I dont prefer changing desktop environments after installation due to conflicting packages so please recommend a distro.

[WereCat]

Just now, Vecna said:

 

Yeah no I get that guys. I really dont mind spending a little bit more time if it means that its more stable and even a bit better. Im not able to choose a single distro. I dont prefer changing desktop environments after installation due to conflicting packages so please recommend a distro.

I mean, I can say Fedora KDE because I like Fedora and I had no issue gaming on it and I found performance in games to be excellent. Do YOU like Fedora?

[Vecna]

1 minute ago, WereCat said:

I mean, I can say Fedora KDE because I like Fedora and I had no issue gaming on it and I found performance in games to be excellent. Do YOU like Fedora?

I was seriously considering it. Do you think games run better on it compared to Debian?

[WereCat]

Just now, Vecna said:

I was seriously considering it. Do you think games run better on it compared to Debian?

I don't have gaming experience with Debian.

[Eigenvektor]

18 minutes ago, Vecna said:

I was seriously considering it. Do you think games run better on it compared to Debian?

Debian is geared towards stability and server use. The software that is included out of the box is old (for that very reason). I've used Debian on my servers for years, but I have no experience using it for gaming.

 

You're likely better of with something that includes up-to-date software and drivers. Personally, I'm on Manjaro which is fairly cutting edge (not quite bleeding edge like Arch would). It works great for gaming and receives new features pretty early.

[Vecna]

3 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

Debian is geared towards stability and server use. The software that is included out of the box is old (for that very reason). I've used Debian on my servers for years, but I have no experience using it for gaming.

 

You're likely better of with something that includes up-to-date software and drivers. Personally, I'm on Manjaro which is fairly cutting edge (not quite bleeding edge like Arch would). It works great for gaming and receives new features pretty early.

would using manjaro with i3 tiling window manager work for gaming well? any bugs, graphic issues, driver issues? or am i better off with xfce?

[Eigenvektor]

Just now, Vecna said:

would using manjaro with i3 tiling window manager work for gaming well? any bugs, graphic issues, driver issues? or am i better off with xfce?

Haven't used either. I'm on Gnome, which works well enough for gaming. Only issue is that it doesn't currently support VRR. But in general the DE isn't really involved when you run full screen games (that said, being able to quickly switch between a full screen windowed game and the desktop is great, works a ton better than Windows)

[Vecna]

Just now, Eigenvektor said:

Haven't used either. I'm on Gnome, which works well enough for gaming. Only issue is that it doesn't currently support VRR. But in general the DE isn't really involved when you run full screen games (that said, being able to quickly switch between a full screen windowed game and the desktop is great, works a ton better than Windows)

wow alright. a tiling window manager might be too much of a hassle then! 

[wasab]

whichever distro allows you to install what you need painlessly. this means os installation itself should be easy so arch is out, gentoo is out, and everything less popular than Ubuntu is out. 

[Vecna]

1 hour ago, wasab said:

whichever distro allows you to install what you need painlessly. this means os installation itself should be easy so arch is out, gentoo is out, and everything less popular than Ubuntu is out. 

i kinda like the pain tho. i just need something stable. i really dont mind difficulty. im considering manjaro with xfce rn. its arch based and based on benchmarks i saw it performs a bit better. xfce is lightweight. i3 tiling window manager is too basic. is my choice alright according to you?

[Ralphred]

On 2/26/2024 at 7:02 AM, wasab said:

everything less popular than Ubuntu is out

When you consider the steam-runtime is based off of Ubuntu libraries, *buntu isn't such a bad choice.

 

On 2/26/2024 at 8:48 AM, Vecna said:

arch is out, gentoo is out

As far as I know these are the only two distros that let you mix and match stable, testing and alpha quality packages out of the box, but that requirement only seems necessary for the first 6 months of "newborn hardware", after that stable drivers are fine.

[wasab]

23 minutes ago, Ralphred said:

When you consider the steam-runtime is based off of Ubuntu libraries, *buntu isn't such a bad choice.

yeah, not to mention it is pretty much the only distro all major game studios that port to linux will support. i tried opening a support ticket on Feral Interactive customer support once complaining that the games i bought do not run on my fedora machine. they simply reply to use Ubuntu instead because they won't support any other. 

 

i mean seriously, if your games run like crap, no OS or distros are gonna save you. it is up to the game devs and also to a lesser degree, the hardware driver devs to do quality checks and ensure their products run smoothly. if they say your hardware does not meet the requirements then your games will run like crap. all of these tweaks, swapping out DE, and mix match whatever xyz like what you mentioned only reminds me of low-spec gamer, who, if you dont know, is a YouTuber who does crazy things in games config files as well as in windows settings to get them to run on potato hardware. if you are at this point, i say you are better off just save your frustration, give up on gaming, and pick up another hobby.

[Ralphred]

21 minutes ago, wasab said:

Feral Interactive

I have some of their stuff, and it worked fine at the time of purchase - all credit to them. To be fair, you can't expect them to support every distro devs patch de la jour across all time, there needs to be a static target.

The ones that no longer work; I CBA with diagnosing that, ticking the box next to an "era appropriate" proton version is much easier than working out what changed in my OS since 2015...

[Vecna]

40 minutes ago, Ralphred said:

When you consider the steam-runtime is based off of Ubuntu libraries, *buntu isn't such a bad choice.

 

As far as I know these are the only two distros that let you mix and match stable, testing and alpha quality packages out of the box, but that requirement only seems necessary for the first 6 months of "newborn hardware", after that stable drivers are fine.

On a completely unrelated note, why do people censor ubuntu???! LOL is it some sort of meme or?

[wasab]

26 minutes ago, Ralphred said:

The ones that no longer work; I CBA with diagnosing that, ticking the box next to an "era appropriate" proton version is much easier than working out what changed in my OS since 2015...

Yeah, they usually allocate resources to whichever has the bigger user base and hence more revenues. Ubuntu gets the lions share in this regard. 

 

I feel it is a pretty sad state of affairs that games meant to run on Linux run worse or not run at all vs games developed for windows running under a compatibility layer.

 

It just shows who the developers and game studios see as first class citizens. Quality control and standards are totally different. It is like made in china iphones vs made in china Chinese knock offs. 

 

On windows, games from 2001 still run and that is despite how much Microsoft likes to break backwards compatibility time to time(just look at the Vista eras). Games distributors will literally fix up games as far back as the 1990s and package them up for purchase in 2024 on windows simply because there is a paying market for them. Heck there are so many HD and remastered editions of the classics nowadays. Linux? Two to five of years running fine is about what you can expect out of your purchases. 

[wasab]

9 minutes ago, Vecna said:

On a completely unrelated note, why do people censor ubuntu???! LOL is it some sort of meme or?

Some people like to shit on the mainstream and flex on you by running distros that waste hours of your time just to install. Don't mind them. They are usually nerds with self esteem issues. 

[Ralphred]

47 minutes ago, Vecna said:

why do people censor ubuntu?

Ubuntu used to ship (less so today) many different versions depending on which desktop it supported out of the box. The point of the * is not censorship but to glob, so it means {ubuntu, kubuntu, xubuntu, lubuntu} - Games don't care what DE you use, they are more interested in your core libraries and graphics stack.

It's to avoid the "People said to use Ubuntu, but I want KDE/XFCE?" confusion.

[Ralphred]

32 minutes ago, wasab said:

I feel it is a pretty sad state of affairs that games meant to run on Linux run worse or not run at all vs games developed for windows running under a compatibility layer.

I 'feel' the same, but we can't have our Linux OS's bending to our every whim AND expect studios to support them the same as a psuedo-static target like windows.

Just step back and take the wider view, the Steamdeck and Valve have propelled wine development to the point it's mostly seamless, and there are more gamers using linux now - for those of us who have been doing that for a long time the money from those 'new linux gamers' is feeding development and making our lives much MUCH easier.

[Vecna]

42 minutes ago, Ralphred said:

Ubuntu used to ship (less so today) many different versions depending on which desktop it supported out of the box. The point of the * is not censorship but to glob, so it means {ubuntu, kubuntu, xubuntu, lubuntu} - Games don't care what DE you use, they are more interested in your core libraries and graphics stack.

It's to avoid the "People said to use Ubuntu, but I want KDE/XFCE?" confusion.

Ah lol. How do you feel about Nobara?

[Ralphred]

2 hours ago, Vecna said:

How do you feel about Nobara?

A quick read of their page makes it sound like "Matured Fedora". One reference that stuck out was the EAC/GLibc configuration issue, to my mind it means they have their finger at least close to the pulse of the gaming community, but whether the red hat devs (ultimately responsible for their source) are causing their work to be cut out for them is another question.

I saw nothing on their page that would make me say "kill it with fire", but from the point of view of an OS "doing what it's told to and nothing more" my guess is that it's footprint **might** be larger than necessary.

My advice, try it - if it doesn't tick all your boxes kick it to the curb and move on to something else.

 

Generally i'd say find your 3~4 tops picks, try each of then, assess them "out of the box". If nothing fits the bill install Arch or Gentoo and force it do so...

[Vecna]

40 minutes ago, Ralphred said:

A quick read of their page makes it sound like "Matured Fedora". One reference that stuck out was the EAC/GLibc configuration issue, to my mind it means they have their finger at least close to the pulse of the gaming community, but whether the red hat devs (ultimately responsible for their source) are causing their work to be cut out for them is another question.

I saw nothing on their page that would make me say "kill it with fire", but from the point of view of an OS "doing what it's told to and nothing more" my guess is that it's footprint **might** be larger than necessary.

My advice, try it - if it doesn't tick all your boxes kick it to the curb and move on to something else.

 

Generally i'd say find your 3~4 tops picks, try each of then, assess them "out of the box". If nothing fits the bill install Arch or Gentoo and force it do so...

Yay okay. Ill do that. Ill mostly install Kubuntu, vanilla Arch, Manjaro, Nobara, Ubuntu, EndeavourOS and just see which performs better and go from there!

[BoomerDutch]

1 hour ago, Vecna said:

Yay okay. Ill do that. Ill mostly install Kubuntu, vanilla Arch, Manjaro, Nobara, Ubuntu, EndeavourOS and just see which performs better and go from there!

Let us know which one came out best for you.

I'm interested to hear about it.