I cannot wait for GamersNexus to agree on a testing framework for Linux and then see how many games will run actually better on Linux than on Windows, either native or through Wine/Proton.
this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2025
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I can't wait to see their content on the fediverse. They made a video about getting away from big tech but don't mirror their stuff here. I think it's a damn shame.
They could even host their own instances.
That would be nice!
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Games which run on Vulkan / OpenGL don't have any GPU translation overhead, and some run straight-up better via Proton than they do on Windows. Doom 2016 does for me, for instance.
Of course, that game is so well optimised it's the difference between 140 fps and 200+ fps, which is not terribly obvious, but even so.
Doom ran at 100+ fps at 4k on my 1070ti with graphics maxed out. It's hard to tell what optimization allows it, but the game runs way better than anything else that looks at least as good.
~~It's not one big optimization, it's a product of Id actually having some of the best UE developers on the planet being able to tweak the engine to run like a beast. Each level is crafted from the ground up to allow for some sweeping optimizations revolving around actor loading and culling, and the game uses proper light baking to allow raytracing to handle marginal calculations instead of explicit path tracing every shadow. It's a lot of little things that all take impressive amounts of skill and management to pull off effectively, a lot of this stuff is implemented poorly in other games and it show~~
Edit: Id has their own engine, I always confuse quake/doom and UE. Still though, Id has always built games that were well optimized. Look at some of the systems they managed to port quake to. I was wrong about the engine, but not about the talent in the studio.s.
it's a product of Id actually having some of the best UE developers on the planet
UE = Unreal Engine?
Doom 2016 ran on id tech 6. Is there crossover?
No, you are correct, I have a bad habit of confusing quake and UE, Carmack and Sweeney tend to come up in the same conversations. My point still stands though, Id has always pushed the envelope on game optimization.
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Strange headline. Isn't it always at an all-time high since once you get something to run, that's it?
Some games get patched to break compatibility, usually with anti-cheat. Apex Legends and Battlefield 1 are examples of that.
Oh, I see. I don't play anything like that, so I was oblivious to the issue. Thanks!
Fortunately those are a minority of games. Most games now are working with Wine/Proton out of the box. Multiplayer games are the only thing I ever look at compatibility lists for.
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For every game that breaks compatibility due to anti-cheat there's 100s more new games that don't have it and probably run on Linux just fine. So on average, the compatibility always goes up.
I don't even play Apex Legends and I'm still a bit butthurt to this day that they decided to add anti-cheat that broke Linux compatibility. They say it helped bring the amount of cheaters down though, but who can really tell besides those who collect the numbers - which is them.
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They mean by percentage, for one thing. And new games come out all the time.
No. The most played games on steam are multiplayer games that use some sort of anti cheat. Those anti cheats often break linux compatibility when the game or anticheat itself gets updated. So going by number of games you are mostly right, but going by player counts there are often massive setbacks that either dont get fixed at all or only very slowly. Apex Legends and The Finals are prime examples of this flip flopping between working and broken.
The most played games on steam are multiplayer games that use some sort of anti cheat.
However, lot of the most played Steam games are well supported and never have an issue with anti cheat whatsoever: https://steamdb.info/ such as Counter Strike 2 and Dota 2 (2 most played games). There are also lot of single player games as the most played games. Therefore this is a mixed bag.
Those anti cheats often break linux compatibility when the game or anticheat itself gets updated.
They not break often Linux compatibility when game or anticheat is updated. That's false statement. There are games, when it happens. But that is not "often". I play games with Anticheat on Linux and they do not break, such as Marvel Rivals and previously Overwatch and Splitgate too (besides Valves own games, but that is self explanatory). This never happened. So the "often" part is misleading here.
To Windows people wondering:
JUST DO THE JUMP. Installing Bazzite only needs a 16GB flash drive and 15 minutes of time, and you’ll be SHOCKED how smooth everything goes compared to Windows bloat.
And you don’t even need to give up on Windows! You can keep it on dual boot until you realize you didn’t touched Windows even once over the last 6 months.
How much luck am I going to have with my SIM rig? Moza R12 and CRP pedals.
I know Le Mans ultimate will run mostly fine with a custom proton. But I have no idea where to start with the wheel, and what I can find seems like it might be out dated but could be a right pain(especially on bazzite) to get installed.
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I think it's funny that, with reports that Proton games often run better on Linux than Windows, the entire Windows OS is sort of a weird Linux gaming API now...
Developers should still try to optimize Linux performance with native Linux ports.
Problem is even when they do, they don't maintain support. Borderlands 2 has a native port but it hasn't been updated while the windows version had received new content and patches in the years since.
It's still happening in some cases. Like Balder's Gate 3 getting a recent Linux port, for example.
windows does add a bit of value. It is a set of apis that the oss community can't just decide to deprecate and think it's fine because "all the code needs is a recompilation!".
I have not had a single native linux port %hat is out of support and still works 100%. The most reliable option for me so far is to just run the windows version.
Calling it an "All Time High" is a bit silly when the compatibility of games has (more or less) only increased over the years. But yeah it's nice that number goes up! :)
just did mine. bazzite loaded on my gaming rig, and still deciding on my server PC on what I wanna load on there but I'm in no rush really.
My age is also at an all time high
While it might not feel like the % of games working on Linux this is just the natural result of more games being added to ProtonDB
It's essentially monotonic, so of course it's an all-time high.
I am getting ready to switch and I play City of Heroes on Homecoming and wonder of anyone here has it running and what destro you are using. I ahve Mint on two laptops and they are running fine will all my other programs
My wife plays it. She's on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (so I'd expect it to work on Mint too), installed it through Bottles, and it just worked. I'm on Kubuntu 25.10 and I've had it running but haven't actually played it.
I was looking into this, it's weird that it isn't on ProtonDB
Future Linux Converts:
If you wonder "Will the game that I play work on Linux?", there's a website for that:
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LiNuX HaS nO gAmEs!
LInUx iS fReE iF yOu'rE(sic) tImE iS wOrThLeEsS!
LiNuX hAz No DrIvErZz!
I have dual boot, Linux is my to go, and I try the best to play the game I want there. Most of the times work. On the few games it doesn’t I can endure windows for a short period of time until I launch the game
But my files, internet browsing, email it’s all on Linux partition.
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