this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2025

219 points (85.2% liked)

Linux Gaming

20625 readers

200 users here now

Discussions and news about gaming on the GNU/Linux family of operating systems (including the Steam Deck). Potentially a $HOME away from home for disgruntled /r/linux_gaming denizens of the redditarian demesne.

This page can be subscribed to via RSS.

Original /r/linux_gaming pengwing by uoou.

No memes/shitposts/low-effort posts, please.

Resources

WWW:

Discord:

IRC:

Gaming on Linux

Matrix:

Telegram:

Gaming on Linux

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

monolalia@lemmy.world

219

Gaming on Linux hasn't been great so far... | JayzTwoCents [27:59] (www.youtube.com)

submitted 2 days ago by grue@lemmy.world to c/linux_gaming@lemmy.world

116 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Follow-up video to https://lemmy.world/post/32690521

Spoiler alert: the main reason he says the experience "hasn't been great" is because shortly before posting the video his Linux install mysteriously broke and he had no idea why. Therefore, he recommended dual-booting Windows just in case.

Cue sea of comments explaining that the reason for the error he was getting was that Windows screwed up his bootloader (i.e. the problem was caused by dual-booting to begin with, LOL).

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] grue@lemmy.world 97 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (7 children)

The other two main TL;DWs are that:

He justifiably complained about PVP games having non-Linux-compatible kernel-level anti-cheat.
His benchmark testing showed a big performance difference between Windows and Linux on his system, which has an AMD Radeon 7900 XTX. Being an admitted noob, he didn't notice that it was an unusual discrepancy and figured that worse gaming performance in Linux was "real," but a bunch of folks in the comments are telling him that RDNA 3 drivers have a known issue that means the card probably isn't running at full power and tweaking the settings can probably fix it.

[–] TheBat@lemmy.world 78 points 2 days ago (9 children)

tweaking the settings can probably fix it.

Which is another points against Linux. Stuff should work correctly out of the box. That's what average user expects.

[–] Damage@slrpnk.net 88 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Stuff should work correctly out of the box.

That's why Windows isn't ready for mass adoption

[–] Eeyore_Syndrome@sh.itjust.works 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Average users can't even remember to set their proper monitor resolution/refresh rate in windows or in games.

Or enable XMP/Expo profiles for RAM.

Or enable RE-BAR / Hypervisor support.

Smooth brains around'.

[–] Zikeji@programming.dev 34 points 2 days ago

I helped my mom with her windows install when the update half a year ago nuked keyboard support (I had to use the onscreen keyboard just to login). Before thar I had to forcefully install the correct wifi driver as well to get it working properly. This is was running from their factory installation. Stuff working correctly out of the box is a problem on both platforms.

[–] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 28 points 2 days ago (7 children)

Its not the fault of linux that the hardware manufacturer doesnt make functioning drivers tho...

load more comments (7 replies)

[–] glog78@digitalcourage.social 27 points 2 days ago

@TheBat @grue how do you define not working correctly ? ...

the GFX Card booted
the GFX Card rendered the desktop
the GFX Card rendered Games

... the only issue it wasn't as fast as possible ...
-> solution on windows -> you report and get a new driver or you get a new driver cause you don't know that you don't have the max performance
-> solution on linux -> you report and get a new driver or you get a new driver cause you don't know that you don't have the max performance

^^^ where is the difference ?

[–] Wfh@lemmy.zip 17 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Oh yeah because spending half a day manually downloading and installing a zillion drivers and their bloat and rebooting between each install is peak ootb-functionality.

Meanwhile I was in CP2077 literally 5 minutes after booting a fresh install of Bazzite. On the exact same computer.

Cringe.

[–] dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (4 children)

Which operating system works out of the box for gamers that requires zero tweaks? Is it windows? Are you sure it's windows?

load more comments (4 replies)

[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

But that responsibility is not on the OS. It's a vendor and publisher responsibility. When a game doesn't work on Windows, people don't blame Microsoft. Admittedly the game was made for Windows. But most publishers and developers will give the same response to gamers, “fuck off, the game was for Windows XP, not W10 or W11. We will remake it and make you pay $60 again to play a game you already played 15 years ago. You are on your own until then.” The vast majority of old games that are still playable, are so through an effort from third parties. Like mod developers and vendors like Valve and GOG keeping compatibility alive.

Linux, as it has become abundantly clear after the SteamDeck and Proton, already makes gaming out of the box extremely easy and entirely viable. It was the other side of the equation who were being dickheads. Or, as an example, like Epic, or Genshin Impact, who intentionally go out of their way to break Linux viability for their games with utmost hatred.

[–] pupbiru@aussie.zone 5 points 2 days ago

you’re absolutely right, but it’s still the gaming experience as a whole on linux. is it unfair? absolutely! but it’s still the experience

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] noobdoomguy8658@feddit.org 40 points 2 days ago (1 children)

He justifiably complained about PVP games having non-Linux-compatible kernel-level anti-cheat.

I'm tired of people conflating gaming as a whole to extremely mainstream titles that fit into "online PVP with malware anti-cheat" such as Apex Legends, Valorant, and Battlefield, and then bashing Linux for "poor gaming experience".

Their experience with titles they enjoy is very valid, as valid as any other, but it's not the entirety of gaming and OS experience, at all. There's tons of games that run extremely well on Linux, even out of the box, no tinkering required, both on Nvidia and AMD hardware.

Grrr.

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago

Personally, I find the Linux incompatibility with games that want to do shit to the kernel a plus so I don't accidentally install one without realizing it comes with malware.

[–] Zikeji@programming.dev 38 points 2 days ago (1 children)

To your first comment about incompatible anticheat - in must cases it's a conscious decision the publisher makes. Are We Anti-Cheat Yet it's a good resource. Personally I find my OS preventing me from being able to run a privacy invading rootkit to be a pro as well.

To the second comment, a good amount of games bench better on Linux, not sure what's going on with his system so I agree.

Definitely unfortunate to see a creator publishing content without first doing some research but that's more and my common nowadays.

[–] RobotZap10000@feddit.nl 25 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This YouTuber in particular does indeed just frequently throw out statements without properly checking whether they are even true at all.

[–] BlueSquid0741@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 2 days ago

It’s a big problem with this guy for sure, but also he’s usually pretty good at admitting when he’s wrong and calling himself out on it. I wonder if he’ll look into this again to get some clarity.

[–] million@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I am kind of shocked about the 7900 xtx. I have the same GPU and I am getting good performance under Linux.

I did some just for fun benchmarking on Doom The Dark Ages last night and I expected Linux to be slightly slower due to the built in ray tracing but I actually got better avgs under Linux. The max frame rate was slightly higher under Windows but the lows were way better under Linux. Overall fairly close performance with a slight edge to Linux.

Maybe Bazzite is doing some magic here. What distro was he using?

Edit: I watched a bit of it, he is running Bazzite, no idea why he is seeing such crazy different numbers. I typically run Proton GE, and I assume he is running Proton Stable, so that would make a dent. People are mentioning low power mode in the comments, but I never have had any issue with that and my 7900 xtx. I haven't had to do anything weird or out of the ordinary.

I think it’s most likely due to me not playing the same games he is, Stalker 2 is basically the only he is playing that I have played in the past and I've haven't done a comparison of that game on Linux vs Windows.

[–] astrsk@fedia.io 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Wait, I have a 7800x3D and 7900 XTX and feel like I’m getting exactly the performance I’d expect for 1440p gaming. What do I need to look into to see if I’m leaving performance on the table? I’m using Arch so latest rolling kernel drivers seem to be working fine based on my monitoring of card stats and “feel” when playing modern games. Since performance has been fine out of the box, I never suspected I could be missing something so it would be nice to verify one way or another.

[–] DeviantOvary@reddthat.com 6 points 2 days ago

This is what I had to do couple of years ago: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/1500#note_1854170

It seems it has been fixed since.

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] july@leminal.space 47 points 2 days ago (1 children)

average tech youtuber not knowing anything about tech

[–] grue@lemmy.world 36 points 2 days ago (14 children)

Hey, at least he's up-front about it and didn't type in yes, do as I say! like Other Linus did.

load more comments (14 replies)

[–] who@feddit.org 44 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Thank you for including the spoiler. This tech vlogger's irresponsible headline would normally have earned a downvote from me.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] ISolox@lemmy.world 44 points 2 days ago

As someone who games on Fedora as my main OS, we need to stop pretending that Linux gaming is all sunshine and rainbows.

Yes, fuck Windows, and it probably did fuck his boot loader, but it doesn't invalidate his other poor experiences he had with the OS.

Hell, I don't think that even that was necessarily an invalid experience just because it was caused by Windows. Dual booting is a thing people have to do, especially if they want to play the games that just don't work on Linux. Even if you don't like the games personally, they are huge and a lot of people want to play them. Even my main Linux group dual booted recently to play the BF6 beta.

Being elitist and calling people stupid because they had a bad experience will do nothing but hurt Linux gaming. Instead of calling JayzTwoCents stupid because he dual booted for a valid reason, explain alternatives that he could have done to prevent the issue. If we want to grow as a community, we need to provide actual helpful feedback, not by being toxic.

[–] dontmindmehere@programming.dev 35 points 2 days ago (6 children)

the idea that you can just jump to linux with zero research needs to go

no you can't have every game and program you're used to
no you can't translate windows or mac knowledge
yes you have to know what partitions, desktop environments, distros, and other bunch of terms mean
yes you may have to type terminal commands (no one complains about ipconfig when figuring out whether it's ISP or DNS problem)
yes there are a bunch of shit tutorials online with copy-paste commands that don't work

[–] monkeyman512@lemmy.world 15 points 2 days ago (3 children)

I want to make sure I am understanding what you are intending to communicate correctly. At first I thought you were basically saying, "normies need to get good". But in reflection you could be attempting to say, "Linux advocates are communicating unrealistic expectations which lead normal people to frustration and disappointment." Or is your intent something else?

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 11 points 2 days ago (6 children)

I'm not OP, but I agree with the latter.

Go in expecting to need to learn some stuff, and you'll probably need to learn less than you expect. Set aside a couple hours for the setup process, you probably won't need it, but you might. Figure out where to go for help before you start. Leave yourself a backup plan in case you don't finish.

Linux is pretty easy to use these days, but it's a new thing and will take getting used to. Expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised when things work out.

load more comments (6 replies)

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] Ronno@feddit.nl 6 points 1 day ago

Honestly, in that case, don't expect mass adoption. Simple as that.

If the idea is to keep Linux as a niche, then that's fine. But if you/the community want Linux to rival Windows/Mac, than these are the exact bullet points that must change.

load more comments (4 replies)

[–] sylveon@lemmy.blahaj.zone 24 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I’ve been gaming on Linux on both Deck and Desktop for a while now and I like it, but I also have to admit that it’s not without issues. Thanks to Steam and Proton, most games really do “just work”, but some, especially non-Steam games or related tools like launchers, plugin/mod managers can cause issues and may need more effort to get running, which can be difficult for people with little Linux experience. I also recognise that not everyone wants to have to deal with that and I think that’s fair. And I get the impression that many Linux gamers underestimate their own skills and how much the average non-tech person would have to learn to be able to have a similarly good experience.

Updates can also just break games. I’s happened to me with Trackmania when the stupid Ubisoft launcher suddenly wouldn’t work anymore, or Blizzard games like World of Warcraft and Starcraft 2, which started having graphical issues. Slay the Spire, after a patch, always launched on the wrong screen and refused to let me move it to the primary one.

Disclaimer: I’m on a non-gaming focused, but popular distro (Fedora).

[–] moody@lemmings.world 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Slay the Spire in particular has a Linux native version. You shouldn't have any issues with that.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] Malix@sopuli.xyz 18 points 2 days ago (14 children)

It's not an unreasonable to think that a backup os is a good thing to have, even if in this case it's the one (most likely) being the reason Bazzite broke.

Now, I did listen to the video on my way to work, so I might have missed some details, but after checking the comments it seems like Jay's performance wasn't really where it should have been. Got to wonder if there's some funky gotcha with the gpu module or proton settings.

Also, does Bazzite default to xorg or wayland? I honestly have no idea.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 5 points 2 days ago

It's Wayland only, I'm pretty sure.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 2 days ago

Wayland

load more comments (12 replies)

[–] EldenLord@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

channel name JayzTwoCents

look inside

tfw opinions aren‘t even worth a penny

[–] MoonRaven@feddit.nl 11 points 1 day ago

I unsubbed from that channel. Every title is clickbait. I'm not going to watch a video that is like "this is a game changer", no idea what it's about, no idea if it's relevant.

[–] Dequei@sopuli.xyz 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I had a problem with dualbooting windows because i always have to shutdown it using shift+shutdown, because windows kidnaps my ssd and hdd.

[–] Bronzie@sh.itjust.works 8 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Also had issues with dual booting until I removed the Linux drives when installing Windows to make sure the boot partition was created on a separate drive.
Zero issues since.

Biggest downside is Windows always rebooting after updates, and if I don't sit there, it boots back into Linux as it's the first option in Grub.

At least now I have the option to fire up Windows when I can't solve something in Mint.

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] Agility0971@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (4 children)

What do you think the problem is? Grub is present so windows update cannot be the culprit on this one. Initramfs works, but the root partition is not found. Both the primary and fallback. A broken update sequence? Would be nice to get the logs

Edit: at 23:32 it says the logs have been generated at /run/initramfs/rdsosreport.txt and that the user can save it to /boot or usb stick. Since /boot was mounted successfully and grub was working, then the probably a broken update from bazzite.

load more comments (4 replies)

load more comments