Gaming on Linux - With WENDELL from Level1Techs!

[Bluesonicgamer64]

Linus on Linux!

[EPENEX]

I just heard about some of this stuff not too long ago when I made a thread on /g/ talking about why you have no reason to not be using GNU/Linux, and some people brought up gaming- like they always do. I personally barely game on my computer and most games I would want to play run just fine on GNU/Linux, but it was interesting hearing about all the new advances for gaming on GNU/Linux that there are (stuff like Lutris and DXVK). The biggest hit against GNU/Linux that I see right now is the Adobe suite not fully working. It's difficult to even get 10 year old versions of Premiere working through wine. IIRC Adobe doesn't think that there is a big enough market share to where it would be profitable to port it over. Most of your Steam library will work natively on Steam or with WINE, but if it doesn't you can always launch your favourite hypervisor and emulate Windows, and it should work as long as you get GPU passthrough working (assuming you use a GPU).

 

TL;DR Try one of the many flavours of GNU/Linux, you may be surprised.

[DKL]

This proved pretty useless to me. Not even a mention of 'what if you want to dual boot', and as someone watching it I'm not told how long it took Wendell - someone that knew what he was doing - to set it up. Furthermore, I've tried running Linux in a dualboot configuration with my Windows 10 OS and ended up going back to pure Windows after it experienced boot problems and also wouldn't properly work with my Wifi card no matter what I tried. Just wasn't worth the hassle.

[Granular]

Heh I watch Level1Techs regularly, but wasn't aware of Lutris or what DXVK can do.

Then again, I don't really care much for non-native Linux games. I'm never prying myself from the clutches of Paradox's grand strategies.

[Stefan Payne]

As long as Publisher like Square-Enix and Bandai-Namco don't do much for Linux, Linux isn't really a viable option.

And thus only 78 of 303 games work under Linux!

There are a couple more that amazingly work under OSX for whatever reason...

 

And then there is other stuff I can't subscribe to...

Sadly its pretty useless right now.

 

Though I wished it wasn't...

 

Especially since there is no Linux Client for all those MMORPGs like Final Fantasy XIV, SWTOR, Blade and Soul, TESO...

 

11 hours ago, Firewrath9 said:

AMD has much better open source drivers

( i have a 100$ mining 580 8gb)

nVidia has no open Source drivers.

There are open source drivers supporting nVidia Hardware though...

 

The Difference:
AMD makes them theirselves with support from the Community.

Some other 3rd party makes the Open Source Driver for nVidia without much Support from nVidia...

 

1 hour ago, EPENEX said:

TL;DR Try one of the many flavours of GNU/Linux, you may be surprised.

How bad they are??

Like no option for Auto Updates on some

Windows + Arrow Keys don't work on many desktop Enviroments (Only

Windows + Number to start apps only work on Gnome...

Streaming Video from Windows Share isn't supported under KDE...

 

And many things are only available through CLI...

 

Buttom Line:
Its not that great as a Desktop OS, the Strenth of Linux lies in its configurability and modularity. You can do your own "Distribution" exactly made for what you need.

And it needs a big company investing a couple of billions to make it a Desktop OS.

[Granular]

10 hours ago, alextulu said:

"The experience off camera was not as perfect and smooth as we made it out to be"

 

Of course it wasn't. Linux is still not ready for the desktop.

As opposed to Windows that's no longer ready for the desktop.

So of the 2 imperfect experiences, anyone should chose the one that's improving instead of getting worse.

[Radium_Angel]

8 hours ago, kirashi said:

at least until someone develops a method of providing data to 3rd parties where the user maintains full control over the data.

I believe the EU is working on that with their new law.

8 hours ago, kirashi said:

Yup, it's about the same as the EULA for doing a single Google Search

Not even close.

In addition, one does not have to use Google for searching, there are other engines out there, duckduckgo for example, that do no tracking.

Allow me to state from their home page

 

"We don’t store your
personal information. Ever.

Our privacy policy is simple: we don’t collect
or share any of your personal information."

and

 

"We don’t follow you
around with ads.

We don’t store your search history. We therefore have nothing
to sell to advertisers that track you across the internet."

and

 

"We don’t track you in or out
of private browsing mode.

Other search engines track your searches even when you’re
in private browsing mode. We don’t track you — period."

 

That's pretty straightforward. You don't have to give up your privacy for functionality, and you don't have to use windows....

unless of course playing the latest game is more important to you than your privacy, in which case go right ahead.

 

[Radium_Angel]

2 hours ago, Stefan Payne said:

Sadly its pretty useless right now.

In your experience, with gaming. Others have an entirely different experience. Neural Network work is done under linux, most, if not all, the supercomputers out there today are under some form of linux. Some of the most important servers at my job run Debian.

 

So, hardly useless.

[Stefan Payne]

17 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

In your experience, with gaming. Others have an entirely different experience. Neural Network work is done under linux, most, if not all, the supercomputers out there today are under some form of linux. Some of the most important servers at my job run Debian.

 

So, hardly useless.

Yes, that is what I tried to say at the end of the Posting. I should have said for Gaming or Home User.

 

For Servers you don't need the GUI, you can do everything with CLI and that is the strong point of Linux.

And the GUIs are the Weakpoint...

And lets not talk about Gaming...

 

Anyway, installing Mint 19 right now (Cinnamon)...

 

[NelizMastr]

14 hours ago, coder_ni said:

Hello, do you have a guide to get a linux machine woking properly with hybrid graphics(optimus)? 

my laptop => dell i7559

Yes, you can't actually do that. Optimus is unsupported on Linux.

[Stefan Payne]

Something Debian/Ubuntu (based) specific:

I really hate how you use the update and upgrade commands with apt-get

 

Somehow I want my Zypper back... 

 

sudo zypper in steam

and you're good to go...

apt-get doesn't get "in" ^^

 

And you should try to use the command line with Linux...

[Dabombinable]

5 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

Something Debian/Ubuntu (based) specific:

I really hate how you use the update and upgrade commands with apt-get

 

Somehow I want my Zypper back... 

 

sudo zypper in steam

and you're good to go...

apt-get doesn't get "in" ^^

 

And you should try to use the command line with Linux...

The command line isn't that good for usability when it comes to general users though (doesn't bother me personally though-I was using DOS in preschool).

[Stefan Payne]

3 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

The command line isn't that good for usability when it comes to general users though (doesn't bother me personally though-I was using DOS in preschool).

There are no good alternatives for a CLI script sometimes.

For example mounting a Windows Share that is there (can be accessed from another Windows machine and OSX) but not recognized by Linux...

[ThePhantomPandaLOTR]

Loved the video.

 

As someone how uses linux a lot its nice to see some linux related content. More pls!!

[Arika]

video felt rushed. it was more about how to game on linux and less about actually gaming on linux. i was expecting comparisons in different environments since they kept bring up witcher 3. i would loved to have seen performance figures on

 

native w10

Linux wine

Linux Lutris

windows 10 VM

 

and then even some comparisons which throw native linux in there as well on supported games. instead of just the random percentages Linus threw out that doesn't really tell you a whole lot

 

Felt very underwhelming.

[Drak3]

14 hours ago, a1548727 said:

I'm building my first Linux pc next month. Is the Ubuntu used in the episode better for gaming than Linux Mint 19 ?

Nope, Mint is based off of Ubuntu. It just has a few different repositories and different default desktop environments.

[pipnina]

38 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

Nope, Mint is based off of Ubuntu. It just has a few different repositories and different default desktop environments.

And does not have a guaranteed upgrade path to the next mint release (i.e. mint 20). I would generally advise people to use a normal brand of ubuntu after my year and a half of mint on my desktop.

[pipnina]

I think what people don't often understand when they bash Linux's game library is that gaming on Linux did not exist pre-2013 (5 years ago). It wouldn't exist today unless valve took the plunge to create a steam client and port 50 games in one go in early 2013.

In those 5 years, Linux has gone from 0-24% of games supported on steam, and 0-35% on GoG.

 

Having used Linux pretty exclusively for the last year and a half, I can honestly say that unless you are dealing with WINE, the gaming experience is pretty normal. By biggest gripe being mouse settings (which for whatever reason, can only be set effectively through terminal commands).

 

Recently I've been playing:

• KOTOR2
• Dota2
• Factorio
• Stellaris
• Kerbal Space Program
• DiRT Rally
• The sega genesis stuff that's been put on steam.

 

Although my library is fairly small (compared to many, and I used windows and steam for years before switching) (I have 77 items in my library - 43 Linux (>50%))

 

Sure, you're not gonna find EA, Ubisoft or Activision games on Linux... But given people's usual opinion of those companies, I wouldn't have thought that to be too much of a roadblock.

 

Some games run pretty flawlessly through wine, the original Mass Effect ran possibly better than the windows release (and with no setup hassle either), older games (usually pre-DX11) tend to work very well, though bugs can occur which generally means I wouldn't recommend it unless you are willing to risk the headache.

 

Thankfully in the age of the boot SSD, dual booting is pretty painless. For the few games I occasionally wish to play that I can't use on Linux, I just reboot into windows 7 for an hour or so.

[Sniperfox47]

3 hours ago, Stefan Payne said:

Yes, that is what I tried to say at the end of the Posting. I should have said for Gaming or Home User.

 

For Servers you don't need the GUI, you can do everything with CLI and that is the strong point of Linux.

And the GUIs are the Weakpoint...

And lets not talk about Gaming...

 

Anyway, installing Mint 19 right now (Cinnamon)...

 

Eh the GUIs on Linux aren't that bad. I do pretty much everything on Fedora from GUIs because I'm lazy. Hell even my compilers/profilers/build tools typically are just integrated in my IDE so even for work I often don't need to drop to a CLI (Which I'd have to be using for that even if I was on Windows).

 

The biggest gripe atm about Linux GUIs is nothing to do with the GUIs themselves but rather that there's no consistency between different toolkits, despite them all trying to look windows-ish when compiled for Windows. Like you can change how they look for 'dows users but can't coordinate between yourselves on a middle ground? Whatever :\

 

2 hours ago, Stefan Payne said:

There are no good alternatives for a CLI script sometimes.

For example mounting a Windows Share that is there (can be accessed from another Windows machine and OSX) but not recognized by Linux...

Umm I'm not sure what you're talking about there. On Fedora i literally just go to "Network" and double click the share. No problem. As long as I'm using a modern version of SMB.

 

26 minutes ago, pipnina said:

Sure, you're not gonna find EA, Ubisoft or Activision games on Linux... But given people's usual opinion of those companies, I wouldn't have thought that to be too much of a roadblock.

The problem here is a lot of users are hypocrites... They bitch and moan about these games but then rush out to buy them anyways. How do you think these games manage to be so freaking successful while the whole community is throwing a fit? Gamers just justify and excuse it to themselves.

 

Not true of everyone, but definitely true of large swathes of gamers.

 

26 minutes ago, pipnina said:

Some games run pretty flawlessly through wine, the original Mass Effect ran possibly better than the windows release (and with no setup hassle either), older games (usually pre-DX11) tend to work very well, though bugs can occur which generally means I wouldn't recommend it unless you are willing to risk the headache.

It's getting better and better every year. Even some DX11 games are working okayish now and that'll be better once the Vulkan layer is finished.

[Stefan Payne]

2 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Eh the GUIs on Linux aren't that bad.

Yes, but not that good either, that is the Problem.

I think it was Mate in Linux Mint 18.2 or 18.3 where it was mentioned that they could now put the menu bar on the left and right side of the screen.

Windows could do that since 95...

 

And that is the Problem that there is just something missing. And that is what really is annoying and makes you mad...

 

 

Quote

The biggest gripe atm about Linux GUIs is nothing to do with the GUIs themselves but rather that there's no consistency between different toolkits, despite them all trying to look windows-ish when compiled for Windows. Like you can change how they look for 'dows users but can't coordinate between yourselves on a middle ground? Whatever :\

Yes, that is another problem and here we are at what I mentioned in the beginning.

A big company need to grab all the stuff and/or do it all themselves. Something like the KDE Framework, but better...

 

Quote

Umm I'm not sure what you're talking about there. On Fedora i literally just go to "Network" and double click the share. No problem. As long as I'm using a modern version of SMB.

Yes, with My Windows Installation somehow other computers don't see it. Don't know why.

Same thing with other Installations. 

But with Windows you just use:

\\PCname\ ENTER

 

And MacOSX also sees that share.

 

With Linux, if the File Explorer (whatever you use right now, probably Dolphin, Thunar or something like that, no idea what Desktop Enviroment you use right now) doesn't find it, you have no chance to find that....

 

Quote

It's getting better and better every year. Even some DX11 games are working okayish now and that'll be better once the Vulkan layer is finished.

Yes, but not fast enough.

 

And here you have two problems:

a) the chicken <-> egg problem with market share. Because Linux doesn't have any real market share, nobody cares about that. And because no developer cares about Linux, nobody uses it.  The Interesting thing is that there is a whole bunch of games that run better on MacOSX

b) because there is no big company propagating Linux as desktop OS it is very lacking in this regard. Even Valve just has a half-assed approach.

 

What they need to do is fork everything and make it their own or make it new.

But then again, why would you use Linux and not BSD and quasi make a fork of MacOSX?? 

Because the license of the Software of BSD allows for better "proprietary Software". That's the Reason why Apple uses it and its also part of the Sony Playstation 4, don't know about 3 though...

 

Anyway, my Buttom line is:

Linux needs much work to be a decent gaming OS!

And nobody does it, because there is no real corporate support behind that!

all the Support Linux has is for headless/Server usage!

Not as a Home User OS...

 

Don't get me wrong, I really do wish that Linux would be better and satisfy me in the way it is. But it doesn't.

Also they don't incorporate the most ingenious invention in OS Design there ever was and will be:

The device Manager.
A Place where you can see all the Hardware in your system with a graphics UI (and also can manage the drivers).

[pipnina]

3 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

Yes, but not that good either, that is the Problem.

I think it was Mate in Linux Mint 18.2 or 18.3 where it was mentioned that they could now put the menu bar on the left and right side of the screen.

Windows could do that since 95...

 

And that is the Problem that there is just something missing. And that is what really is annoying and makes you mad...

That might be true for MATE, but bear in mind some features that windows 10 added (workspaces, tabbed workspaces) were in Linux years before windows used them.

The unity desktop was able to have the taskbar on left since 2012, gnome 2 might have been able to do it before then but I'm not sure.

 

I'm not trying to say that everything is perfect, but sometimes these things don't matter as much as you think they will when you're actually using the system. Even small changes to the system you're using cause you to need a few days to re-adjust your mental muscle-memory.

 

If there were a "device manager" of sorts, as well as a proper gui mouse configuration tool, I would consider Linux to be identically usable.

 

But let's not forget some of the ways Linux has had windows beaten for years: primarily in the form of the package manager.

 

If you want to install a tool such as stellarium or blender on windows, you must go to the website, find the download link, run the installer. In Debian-based systems you would type:

sudo apt install blender stellarium

And it will install both programs for you right then and there. Don't even need to reboot it just works. If you know the names of any other programs you want, you can just append them to the line:

sudo apt install blender stellarium rawtherapee gimp steam discord

This would install 6 programs just by typing a single sentence: As you see steam and discord are even there (they are "packaged" by ubuntu, though I'm not sure how up to date their packages will be!)

[Stefan Payne]

1 minute ago, pipnina said:

That might be true for MATE, but bear in mind some features that windows 10 added (workspaces, tabbed workspaces) were in Linux years before windows used them.

The unity desktop was able to have the taskbar on left since 2012, gnome 2 might have been able to do it before then but I'm not sure.

Yes,it was just one example that I remember of what I meant with "there is something missing".

As for Unity: That's just a 90° rotated OSX Dock, that is at Default on the Left side.

And with right click you don't get the Options you get in WIndows (like Task Manager, configure the dock and much more)

 

1 minute ago, pipnina said:

I'm not trying to say that everything is perfect, but sometimes these things don't matter as much as you think they will when you're actually using the system. Even small changes to the system you're using cause you to need a few days to re-adjust your mental muscle-memory.

Yes, but its that "why doesn't this or that work" feeling that really drives you mad...

 

1 minute ago, pipnina said:

If there were a "device manager" of sorts, as well as a proper gui mouse configuration tool, I would consider Linux to be identically usable.

I agree and for a OS that is made for the people that really want to know more about the Hardware, its really something I don't understand.

There is something similar for the terminal, as always, but not a nice UI to present that - like the Windows Device manager. Awesome since Win 95

1 minute ago, pipnina said:

But let's not forget some of the ways Linux has had windows beaten for years: primarily in the form of the package manager.

Yeah, that is a a curse and a blessing, depending on your point of view.

But on the other hand it also is only something like the M$ Store app, just a bit different...

 

1 minute ago, pipnina said:

If you want to install a tool such as stellarium or blender on windows, you must go to the website, find the download link, run the installer.

...or use the MS Store app, wich is what you are essentially propagating.

While a universal "check for updates" API would be a good idea for "normal Windows Apps", there are ways around that and many programs run their own update routines.

 

I'd not call that an advantage, just a different solution. Because Windows has a standardized format for installers and executables.

That's how it was designed, back in the day when nobody really thought (much) about the Internet and most peole didn't use it.

 

1 minute ago, pipnina said:

In Debian-based systems you would type:

sudo apt install blender stellarium

And it will install both programs for you right then and there. Don't even need to reboot it just works. If you know the names of any other programs you want, you can just append them to the line:

sudo apt install blender stellarium rawtherapee gimp steam discord

This would install 6 programs just by typing a single sentence: As you see steam and discord are even there (they are "packaged" by ubuntu, though I'm not sure how up to date their packages will be!)

Yes, but what do you do if the app you want is not in the repos? That is where the fun starts and it gets a bit complicated.

 

But then again, we are at what I've said a bit earlier:
you have to know your terminal with Linux.

 

[pipnina]

8 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

But then again, we are at what I've said a bit earlier:

you have to know your terminal with Linux.

 

My command line statements merely showed the most efficient way to install those packages. You can use the GUI package management tools provided with every desktop environment to do the same (in similar way to "windows store").

 

Though, in honesty, "knowing the terminal" is a 5 minute job. You must only learn a few rules and beyond that it's just like remembering to search for "blender" in the start menu. It's more accessible that you think. Only 80 year old grandparents and mid-life computer illiterates would struggle with it. Gamers are typically much more adaptable and willing to learn (comes with the territory, gamers learn to do new things anyway with each new game they play)

[Sniperfox47]

3 hours ago, Stefan Payne said:

Yes, but not that good either, that is the Problem.

I think it was Mate in Linux Mint 18.2 or 18.3 where it was mentioned that they could now put the menu bar on the left and right side of the screen.

Windows could do that since 95...

 

And that is the Problem that there is just something missing. And that is what really is annoying and makes you mad...

You mean VS all the stuff that Linux has that Windows is missing, as @pipnina mentioned? Or you know, the whole benefit of Linux where you can just choose a different desktop compositor that has the features like that that you need?

 

3 hours ago, Stefan Payne said:

Yes, that is another problem and here we are at what I mentioned in the beginning.

A big company need to grab all the stuff and/or do it all themselves. Something like the KDE Framework, but better...

 

3 hours ago, Stefan Payne said:

 

Yes, with My Windows Installation somehow other computers don't see it. Don't know why.

Same thing with other Installations. 

But with Windows you just use:

\\PCname\ ENTER

 

And MacOSX also sees that share.

 

With Linux, if the File Explorer (whatever you use right now, probably Dolphin, Thunar or something like that, no idea what Desktop Enviroment you use right now) doesn't find it, you have no chance to find that....

Umm your file manager doesn't do any of the searching for SMB shares, Samba and NetBIOS do. It sounds like you picked a distro with a crappy SMB preinstall. There's a reason why new users should either be using Ubuntu if they're a basic user, Fedora if the're a developer, or SUSE if they're crazy.

 

3 hours ago, Stefan Payne said:

Yes, but not fast enough.

 

And here you have two problems:

a) the chicken <-> egg problem with market share. Because Linux doesn't have any real market share, nobody cares about that. And because no developer cares about Linux, nobody uses it.  The Interesting thing is that there is a whole bunch of games that run better on MacOSX

b) because there is no big company propagating Linux as desktop OS it is very lacking in this regard. Even Valve just has a half-assed approach.

 

What they need to do is fork everything and make it their own or make it new.

But then again, why would you use Linux and not BSD and quasi make a fork of MacOSX?? 

Because the license of the Software of BSD allows for better "proprietary Software". That's the Reason why Apple uses it and its also part of the Sony Playstation 4, don't know about 3 though...

 

Anyway, my Buttom line is:

Linux needs much work to be a decent gaming OS!

And nobody does it, because there is no real corporate support behind that!

all the Support Linux has is for headless/Server usage!

Not as a Home User OS...

 

Don't get me wrong, I really do wish that Linux would be better and satisfy me in the way it is. But it doesn't.

Also they don't incorporate the most ingenious invention in OS Design there ever was and will be:

The device Manager.
A Place where you can see all the Hardware in your system with a graphics UI (and also can manage the drivers).

A) The quote that you quoted was about WINE and none of this has to do with WINE.

B) What are you even talking about? Intel, Valve, AMD, and hell even Nvidia have been making huge inroads into improving drivers and stability for gaming... There are massive changed to the backbone of the Linux kernel going on *right now* to make it fundamentally better for VR than *any* other OS on the market, in that the whole display stack is being reworked from the ground up with VR in mind. Do you follow along with any linux related news at all?

 

You really have no idea what you're talking about on a lot of this stuff. Do some research on Phoronix into the *massive* changes happening at low levels in the Linux kernel. The push by Kronos members to build out a strong API ecosystem around Linux and cross platform development. Linux already is a *more than decent* gaming OS. It performs better in a lot of cases than Windows... even many times now with games originally designed *for* windows.

[Nena Trinity]

On 7/22/2018 at 9:18 PM, WereCatf said:

I was just arguing with a buddy of mine earlier about Windows and Linux. I am perfectly happy with Linux on servers and stuff, but on the desktop I stand to gain nothing from switching to Linux. In fact, I would only stand to lose.

Privacy? Security? and lets not forget stability!