What makes Linux better for gaming?

[okkee]

I've seen a couple of comments here and there across the net mentioning how gaming performance on Linux was just better than Windows. I haven't really seen that with my set up but what exactly merits their argument? Like, why would it be better?

I know that it's probably not a universal thing and that some games show no differences and all that but why would people say that.

FWIW, IMO, Linux is pretty lightweight and using it is very satisfying. Not a lot of delays or storage hogs.

[RONOTHAN##]

5 minutes ago, okkee said:

Like, why would it be better?

Less overhead from the OS. Also there are some games that running them through Wine/Proton actually does improve performance for reasons (early Elden Ring is the first one to come to mind, though this might have been fixed).

 

Practically though, most games perform about the same regardless of the OS. Unless you're computer is very slow, the difference between is minimal enough that I'd just use whatever OS you prefer. 

[E-waste]

34 minutes ago, okkee said:

Like, why would it be better?

More freedom.  You can play older games (even some on steam from before this century) that don't work on Windows 10 anymore.  That's what ended Windows for me, the whole reason to ever use Windows is games, so when Linux allows better support through non-native and open-source software improvements, it's not rational to use Windows anymore.

 

Plus, it supports older hardware better, whereas Windows 11 is trying to obsolete earlier ryzen hardware that isn't the 3000 series, which is only around 2017.  That's newer than what I have and Windows thinks that's "unsupported"?  What is up with that mindset?

 

Linux is constantly improving and the filesystems are better, much less fragmentation of files, which allows better file recovery when you accidentally start zeroing the wrong storage device.  NTFS has my podcasts all scattered in small 10-20 second peices, I'm lucky there are a few in large 15 MB chunks but it is very rare.  It shows how horrible NTFS file allocation really is, so I don't ever want to use it again when there are several file systems that work on Linux.

 

The video system, mesa, helps run the graphics hardware.  I don't really understand what it does, but the developers there have already added better support for ATI era GPU:

 

This is from late december 2021

 

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Mesa-21.3.3-Released

 

You don't see this from AMD, Intel Nvidia, it's a comminity effort, all open-source.  The people using this hardware continue to learn how to read and implement computer code to improve existing hardware.  Closed-source software does not allow this.

 

Join the future already and start using Linux, it is vastly superior, helps reduce electronic waste, supports a community of people to work together, get feedback and constantly improve.  The only way to get software from Windows to Linux (that doesn't work in Wine, which is quite rare) is to have more than 3-4% of the computer operating system desktop market use Linux.  It's not really hard to use Linux, and installing software is a lot easier with flatpak, which eases software compatibility--steam with flatpak was over my head, I couldn't get it to see my games.  So I just installed it to the regular system.

 

There's never been a better time to try Linux, it is going through a MAJOR display system overhaul, from using a 30+year software called X.org which is so confusing, the developers call it spaghetti code, and nobody knows how to work on it anymore.  But it works well, and is still usable.  Wayland is the new software and is finally seeing a lot more development out of necessity.  This will take several more years but overall it works well for basic tasks and games.

 

Windows does a better job usually of working with older software, which is where Linux could use some improvement.  I think this will be helped with contained packages like flatpak that has everything needed by the program.  Or just run an older system, and at least for Ubuntu, you can get 10 years of security updates now.

 

The asteroid in the sky is hardware support and the software drivers that go with it.  Because Linux is still single digits marketshare on desktop (over 90% of all webservers use Linux--including now ALL top 500 supercomputers) hardware companies don't hire people with Linux expertise as they see it as optional.  This forces computer users to seek out hardware developers that consistently support Linux, which is a bit more work that what people are used to for their systems.

 

You don't see Windows on the Mars rover, so if Linux is good enough to control a robot on another planet, what is stopping it from being the best desktop operating system on Earth?

[emosun]

i havent seen anything that indicates it's significantly better to the point of having to put up with it.

[xAcid9]

3 hours ago, okkee said:

I've seen a couple of comments here and there across the net mentioning how gaming performance on Linux was just better than Windows.

Really? Performance wise maybe better in some games, but not overall. 

 

3 hours ago, okkee said:

..but why would people say that.

because "It'S tHe YeAr oF' LiNuX!" 

[okkee]

1 hour ago, emosun said:

i havent seen anything that indicates it's significantly better to the point of having to put up with it.

I'm trying it out and it seems all the same to me. Although, it does feel snappier. That may just be down to my ancient hardware though.

[okkee]

42 minutes ago, xAcid9 said:

because "It'S tHe YeAr oF' LiNuX!" 

2025 is most definitely the Year of the Linux desktop. We might just see it get another 0.5% of the market.

[emosun]

3 hours ago, okkee said:

I'm trying it out and it seems all the same to me. Although, it does feel snappier. That may just be down to my ancient hardware though.

compared to a bone stock install of windows it probably is

[BoomerDutch]

23 minutes ago, emosun said:

compared to a bone stock install of windows it probably is

Just wait for steamos getting more hardware support and ngl that new amd gpu if they don't fail then i might build steamos with that gpu.

[Potatoes__]

30 minutes ago, BoomerDutch said:

Just wait for steamos getting more hardware support

Correct me if I'm wrong but SteamOS is just another linux distro but running on a specific and highly optimized set of hardware (i.e. you don't need to tinker with it yourself to get the most of it), resulting in positive recognition. It won't make any difference if it's released to more devices and won't propose anything new over what Bazzite or whatever does now. But as for AMD - yeah, Nvidia on Linux is a hot, steaming, moist pile of trash and will remain so until they figure out the drivers and make them open source like AMD did.

 

In my experience Linux is most definitely not "better" for gaming than windows but on AMD cards it may have some gains in performance, but not enough to be a legit reason to move. Buuuut, there are much MUCH more reasons to move from windows and I thoroughly recommend you getting familiar with it in case you'd consider it in the future. Linux distros will improve with time and windows seems to only deteriorate.

[BoomerDutch]

23 minutes ago, Potatoes2241 said:

In my experience Linux is most definitely not "better" for gaming than windows

Yeah if you're talking about other OS sure that's because the packages that support gaming isn't installed or properly setup so no it's not great experience however if you do take AMD computer/console and install steamos on it then I'm quite sure it will work out of the box just like steamdeck

 

Also steamdeck tutorials is everywhere like script to install all emulators and add them to the steam libary with couple clicks and more helpful guides on YouTube as well so theorically it can be used on computers with amd gpu and tbh doesn't matter if its intel cpu or amd cpu as long its amd gpu.

 

So yeah I'm hyped like linus is hyped about steamos and he's willing to install steamos on his systems and so am i.

[Ralphred]

9 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

that running them through Wine/Proton actually does improve performance

I've seen a number of titles over the years that were single threaded on windows, but wine appeared to "split that thread" to the point thermally constrained opportunistic boost frequencies were better catered towards, and thus yielded better results.

This is a personal observation, not "data", but it was certainly true of CP2077 out of the gate, it was much smoother on linux than doze, and dropping the fps from 75 to 60 was much better then having it randomly dive to 10 for no reason, and try to recover from that in game too.

5 hours ago, xAcid9 said:

Performance wise maybe better

You need to define "performance", or "PeRforMmaNCe" if it makes you feel better. I've only ever cared about performance as a sub-heading of playability, like how you need something newer than a Q4 2022 processor to make Wukong "perform" over 85 fps consistently, but it's totally playable at 60, so pretty much a moot point until you can't sustain that with the physics based CPU bound calculations at that.

 

This all makes perfect sense once you realise that modern doze doesn't have the ability to "STFU and let the important processes work properly" without 3rd party interference to make it so.

 

6 hours ago, xAcid9 said:

because "It'S tHe YeAr oF' LiNuX!" 

Linux users laugh at the "Year of the Linux desktop", because they know most normies will F themselves in the A once give more than two choices, due to their ovine nature.

It's worth observing that that the SteamDeck (ostensibly the most successful deployment of Linux to normieland after Android) works because the choices are pre-made, whilst using the 3rd most "choiceful" Linux OS out there (second if you exclude LFS). Once you understand this, doze users expectations that their ability to check a box will make them "masters of the linux desktop" does nothing but highlight that knowledge without understanding is the bastion of fools and liars alike.

[Sauron]

17 hours ago, KodokuJ said:

From what I know it's lighter on hardware than windows so you get better performance (although I don't know how much it is) but you'll probably want to dual-boot with Windows since a lot of games don't support Linux

17 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Less overhead from the OS.

No guys, slightly lower ram usage isn't going to give you a noticeable framerate boost... let alone when you're adding the overhead back on by using something like wine and proton. There have been a few special cases where a game would run a little better on Linux, on specific hardware, due to different handling of said hardware - but in the vast majority of cases your performance is just going to be worse on Linux, that is assuming the game even runs without issues. Not to mention the overall worse quality of graphics drivers on Linux which make your gpu slower (not Linux' fault, but a fact nonetheless).

17 hours ago, okkee said:

I've seen a couple of comments here and there across the net mentioning how gaming performance on Linux was just better than Windows. I haven't really seen that with my set up but what exactly merits their argument?

I'll take a wild guess and say random people on the internet are lying to you. I'd need to see some thorough benchmarks to even begin to believe them.

[xAcid9]

15 hours ago, Ralphred said:

I've seen a number of titles over the years that were single threaded on windows, but wine appeared to "split that thread" to the point thermally constrained opportunistic boost frequencies were better catered towards, and thus yielded better results.

DXVK do that and you can use it on DoZ3 as well. 
 

15 hours ago, Ralphred said:

You need to define "performance"

Better average and less frame dip. 
To clarify more, if you using Radeon GPU, performance is usually better on Linux side but If you're on Nvidia it's definitely worse on Linux. 

 

15 hours ago, Ralphred said:

Linux users laugh

Yep, I'm always laughing.