Linux is the future of gaming if Microsoft do not do something

Soren01 said:
Yes, the Windows update broke performance in AC Shadows. Nvidia released a hotfix shortly after and fixed the problem. Is it ideal? No

On Linux, there wasn't a problematic event like this in this case... but the general Nvidia 'fix' never arrived :messenger_tears_of_joy:
Click to expand...
tbh this is an elephant in the room. Nvidia is by far the most popular GPU maker and now you're supposed to go with AMD?
 
Fess said:
tbh this is an elephant in the room. Nvidia is by far the most popular GPU maker and now you're supposed to go with AMD?
Click to expand...

Yep. Massive roadblock for the vast majority of PC gamers. You don't spend all that money on a Nvidia GPU just to have your performance take a nosedive due to shitty drivers. Of course, even if Nvidia on Linux were on par with Windows that would automatically mean folks are going to leave Windows en masse, but I know it is the one thing keeping folks like myself in the Windows world.
 
"Hey guys, I have some issues with my Linux distro."

"It's easy, just go into the terminal and fill in this code:"

out2.gif
 
Topher said:
Yep. Massive roadblock for the vast majority of PC gamers. You don't spend all that money on a Nvidia GPU just to have your performance take a nosedive due to shitty drivers. Of course, even if Nvidia on Linux were on par with Windows that would automatically mean folks are going to leave Windows en masse, but I know it is the one thing keeping folks like myself in the Windows world.
Click to expand...
Yeah and you're already overpaying for the hardware with Nvidia tbh, so 5,15,30(?) percent performance loss is not going to be popular.

But Nvidia is stomping on the AI path now, who knows maybe in 10 years they won't even make graphics cards.

The big Linux roadblock right now for me is no Gamepass. I know most here don't care but it's how I play nearly all new games now. I've bought 1 full priced AAA game this year. So no Gamepass, no Linux. At least until late 2027 when my cheap deal expires.
 
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Sanepar said:
Can I install Steam OS on any PC?
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FYI there is no current new version of steam os for everyone to use. All the new versions are recovery installs for steam deck and other mobile devices.so you really can't just go download it from the steam site.
 
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RafterXL said:
I have been paying attention, which is why I know Linux still isn't ready for prime time. Who gives a fuck about AMD performance? Show the Nvidia benchmarks. Literally 95% of us use Nvidia, and there is a reason you guys all ignore that for those 95% Linux sucks compared to a Windows machine. There is literally zero incentive to use Linux unless you're already using AMD, and there is literally zero incentive to use AMD GPUs in the first place.

The entire Linux sales pitch is "it's almost as compatible as Windows so long as you use inferior hardware, don't play anti-cheat games, don't like RT, don't use HDMI 2.1 on an AMD card, but trust me bro it's way better than Windows!".

This current Linux "movement" is just people wanting us to use worse hardware, for an inferior experience, because Microsoft bad...lol.
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Even with AMD. There is no decent "Control Panel" to force stuff like 16x AF, radeon anti lag, etc.
 
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JohnnyFootball said:
It will downgrade the image to 8-bit 420 HDR as opposed to the full 10-bit 444 RBG. In that regard you can get 4K/120.

Admittedly it looks OK if you aren't aware that the colors are being downgraded, but once you see the color being lost from the downgrade, you can't unsee it.

Since you have a C4, you can click the green button on the remote like 10 consecutive times and it will show the bandwidth.

You should see something like RGB420 8b with some other numbers.

Full bandwidth would say RGB444 10b HDR
Click to expand...

I ran some new tests, taking the Linux PC (RX 7600) from my office to my living room and connecting it to the LG C4:

CachyOS, RX 7600

- 120.0Hz
- FIXED (that is, VRR was not active, even though it was selected in the settings).
- 3840 x 2160P@120
- YCBCR420 8b TM HDR10

I asked Grok for details about this:

YCBCR420 - The RX 7600, in 4K 120 Hz + HDR10, can only send RGB/4:4:4 or 4:4:4 10-bit up to 98 Hz. Above that (100–120 Hz) the AMD driver automatically forces 4:2:0 to fit within the HDMI 2.1 bandwidth (48 Gbps).
8b - AMD, when forcing a 4:2:0 aspect ratio to achieve 120 Hz with HDR, also limits it to 8 bits + FRC (dithering) to save even more bandwidth. That's why it appears as 8b and not 10b. In practice, with LG's well-done FRC + WOLED panel, the visual difference to native 10-bit is almost zero.
TM - LG's active tone mapping (probably HDR Game or HGiG).
HDR10 - Static HDR10 working normally.

Out of curiosity, I decided to create a partition on my gaming PC that's connected to the TV and installed CachyOS. This PC has a 3060 Ti.

Windows, RTX 3060 Ti

- 118.80Hz~120Hz
- GSYNC
- 3840 x 2160P@120
- YCBCR444 10b 4L12 HDR10

YCBCR444 Chroma subsampling 4:4:4 → maximum color quality and super sharp text (same as RGB). NVIDIA has a more efficient HDMI 2.1 controller and better optimizes bandwidth.
10b - 10 native bits per channel (1.07 billion colors) → perfect gradients in HDR, AMD forces 8b + FRC at 120 Hz HDR to fit the band.
4L12 - 4 lanes (HDMI cables) at 12 Gbps each → is using the full 48 Gbps of HDMI 2.1. Confirm that the cable and port are running at the maximum standard.
HDR10 - Static HDR10 working normally.

CachyOS, RTX 3060 Ti:

- 39.59Hz~120Hz (The number varied considerably depending on whether I opened a window or moved the mouse.)
- GSYNC
- 3840 x 2160P@120
- RGB 10b 4L10 HDR10

RGB - Full RGB color format (equivalent to 4:4:4) → maximum possible text and color sharpness. On Linux, the NVIDIA driver currently does not force YCbCr at 4K 120 Hz HDR as it does on Windows. It sends native RGB even at 120 Hz.
10b - 10 native bits per channel → True HDR with perfect gradients. Same thing: the Linux driver allows true 10-bit at 120 Hz without downgrades.
4L10 - 4 lanes at 10 Gbps each → is using 40 Gbps (HDMI 2.1 with FRL 5 or TMDS). The Linux driver is running at a slightly lower link rate than the 12 Gbps of Windows (4L12), but there is still enough bandwidth left for 10-bit 120 Hz RGB.
HDR10 - Static HDR10 working normally.

Initially, the difference in image quality isn't that noticeable. I took some photos with my cell phone and zoomed in, and I could see a slight difference in the colors, in 10 bits, the colors are more saturated.

I took the opportunity to run some benchmarks in Shadow of the Tomb Raider to see how the Nvidia card was performing (and because the game has native HDR). I don't know if it was a configuration issue, but the HDR was low-brightness on Linux, which I found strange. On the AMD GPU, it was very bright. In SDR mode (testing another simple game, Marlow Briggs), KDE was doing tone mapping and the colors were more vibrant. I assume it's some kind of gamescope bug.

Performance in games, as usual, is very different.

Playing in 4K, everything on ultra, RT enabled, DLSS Performance

Windows - 56 fps
CachyOS - 11 fps

I tested another version of Proton, switched the driver from the open source to the proprietary one, but the performance remained poor.

When I disabled RT, the average performance was 53 fps.

As a curiosity, I tested it with RT on the RX 7600, without upscaling, and it averaged 8 fps. Around 25 fps, without RT.

I also tested RPCS3 with God of War 3, upscaling the resolution to 4K. I have a 5700X3D.

Windows: 39 fps
CachyOS: 36.65 fps

Although the numbers fluctuate quite a bit, I consider it a tie. A few months ago, Windows performance was far behind Linux, but it seems the developers have fixed the problem with the Windows build.
 
I forgot to mention, Windows cheats a bit because it allows RAM to be shared with the GPU. During tests on Windows, the 3060 Ti reported 10 GB of VRAM used. On Linux, it peaked at 8 GB. Perhaps this is another point for Nvidia to correct.
 
Wolzard said:
I forgot to mention, Windows cheats a bit because it allows RAM to be shared with the GPU. During tests on Windows, the 3060 Ti reported 10 GB of VRAM used. On Linux, it peaked at 8 GB. Perhaps this is another point for Nvidia to correct.
Click to expand...

Doing something beneficial is considered "cheating"? Whose making the rules?
 
Broad Spectrum said:
No, I got you. My point is that I'll happily take a small FPS loss to not have my data aggregated, sold, and used to train AI, or to have unwanted OS features crammed down my throat.
Click to expand...

And thats fine. If you guys have reasons outside of gaming for preferring Linux, I get it.
 
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Mister Wolf said:
How someone feels about it personally doesn't matter. All that matters is Linux does it worse. "I don't care about those things" is not a valid counter argument in a conversation about besting Windows in gaming or even matching it.
Click to expand...

No I think the way someone feels about it personally matters quite a bit. The p in pc is the hint. I want to be the ultimate administrator of my personal computer. I can't do anything about the one at work. But the one at home, al that matters is that I like the linux choice better after I consider all the pros and cons. Accept that some people are going to like it better as a total package, it's not the choice you would make, and you don't have to justify your own choice to anyone.
 
Crayon said:
No I think the way someone feels about it personally matters quite a bit. The p in pc is the hint. I want to be the ultimate administrator of my personal computer. I can't do anything about the one at work. But the one at home, al that matters is that I like the linux choice better after I consider all the pros and cons. Accept that some people are going to like it better as a total package, it's not the choice you would make, and you don't have to justify your own choice to anyone.
Click to expand...

None of what you said has anything to do with gaming performance or lack thereof. Linux is worse at it. Thats a fact, not an opinion. Whether you care or not has zero bearing on that fact.
 
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Mister Wolf said:
None of what you said has anything to do with gaming performance or lack thereof. Linux is worse at it. Thats a fact, not an opinion. Whether you care or not has zero bearing on that fact.
Click to expand...

That's weird because for some reason I still choose to use it. So something matters. Except I must say, I do enjoy the lack of stuttering.
 
I would be fine with that.

Only have a PC to game.

Much prefer my Mac for about everything else.

Really need to set up a PC with Steam OS or Bazzite.
 
CobraAB said:
I would be fine with that.

Only have a PC to game.

Much prefer my Mac for about everything else.

Really need to set up a PC with Steam OS or Bazzite.
Click to expand...

My #1 tip is get an extra drive to try it on. Don't partition your drive. Windows and linux can fight over the bootloader and it's a pain in the ass.

Other than that, use bazzite. I love eta prime on youtube, and he's always using the steamos recovery image on his steambox builds, but in my limited experience and almost anyone else I hear from, steamos is janky doing that. Bazzite is slick.
 
Starbuck2907 said:
I'm inesrly 50 years old. I've been hearing that Linux is the future since it was created.

Doubt.
Click to expand...
Linux did become the future (in the way people were saying decades ago) ie it took over consumer devices and servers. A modified linux kernel known as Android took over the world.
 
Mister Wolf said:
How someone feels about it personally doesn't matter. All that matters is Linux does it worse. "I don't care about those things" is not a valid counter argument in a conversation about besting Windows in gaming or even matching it.
Click to expand...
It does, it's like anything else that is irrelevant for the vast majority of people.

When I looked at the information I had a few pain points that I wanted to fix by moving away from Windows, while I kept my hardware.

Windows is nagware, so I wanted to take that out completely.
Keep gaming, if possible make it better in some ways.

It turns out that, for me, RT is a non factor, it makes games worse more often than not.

I know I'm not the only one, because of all the online drama about it.

Maybe even some people are fedup enough with the Windows BS situation that they will forego RT, even if they love it.

I don't know if you own a computer, to me it has been unbearable for a long time how Microsoft has treated its clients, and I decided to take action once and for all. Many people do, the proof is that we even get to have this conversation here, that would have been unthinkable not so long ago.

I mean, if you like Windows 11 that's on you, just say it and be done with it, because all these little things with Nvidia GPUs and RT performance are only a few patches away from being fixed. There are so many benefits to having an OS that you are meant to run and control by yourself, no bad surprises, no naggig to get service X or Y, have a Windows account (which I have, but I don't want to use it on my loving room PC, and I don't want to be asked if I am sure that I don't want to every time they get the chance to, I don't want to see the little cloud icon for one drive, I don't want to be offered whatever they feel like in the start menu, I don't want to have to worry about Clippy -- or whatever they call their AI -- to slow down my computer, or take a screenshot of something I do not want to share, so on and so forth).

If you're OK with this dispossession of your time good for you, to me this is much worse than any kind of hurdle (pretty little tbh) of moving to Linux.
 
Once a month having to hit "skip" a couple times when Windows pretends it re-installed after an update has ruined my life.
 
alabtrosMyster said:
It does, it's like anything else that is irrelevant for the vast majority of people.

When I looked at the information I had a few pain points that I wanted to fix by moving away from Windows, while I kept my hardware.

Windows is nagware, so I wanted to take that out completely.
Keep gaming, if possible make it better in some ways.

It turns out that, for me, RT is a non factor, it makes games worse more often than not.

I know I'm not the only one, because of all the online drama about it.

Maybe even some people are fedup enough with the Windows BS situation that they will forego RT, even if they love it.

I don't know if you own a computer, to me it has been unbearable for a long time how Microsoft has treated its clients, and I decided to take action once and for all. Many people do, the proof is that we even get to have this conversation here, that would have been unthinkable not so long ago.

I mean, if you like Windows 11 that's on you, just say it and be done with it, because all these little things with Nvidia GPUs and RT performance are only a few patches away from being fixed. There are so many benefits to having an OS that you are meant to run and control by yourself, no bad surprises, no naggig to get service X or Y, have a Windows account (which I have, but I don't want to use it on my loving room PC, and I don't want to be asked if I am sure that I don't want to every time they get the chance to, I don't want to see the little cloud icon for one drive, I don't want to be offered whatever they feel like in the start menu, I don't want to have to worry about Clippy -- or whatever they call their AI -- to slow down my computer, or take a screenshot of something I do not want to share, so on and so forth).

If you're OK with this dispossession of your time good for you, to me this is much worse than any kind of hurdle (pretty little tbh) of moving to Linux.
Click to expand...

You're on a gaming forum with a thread headlined by a video from a channel called Gamer's Nexus discussing Linux gaming benchmarks. You guy's qualifiers for using Linux outside of gaming are at best a sidebar conversation. Linux is behind Windows in gaming by multiple facets. Thats facts.
 
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Wolzard said:
I ran some new tests, taking the Linux PC (RX 7600) from my office to my living room and connecting it to the LG C4:

CachyOS, RX 7600

- 120.0Hz
- FIXED (that is, VRR was not active, even though it was selected in the settings).
- 3840 x 2160P@120
- YCBCR420 8b TM HDR10

I asked Grok for details about this:

YCBCR420 - The RX 7600, in 4K 120 Hz + HDR10, can only send RGB/4:4:4 or 4:4:4 10-bit up to 98 Hz. Above that (100–120 Hz) the AMD driver automatically forces 4:2:0 to fit within the HDMI 2.1 bandwidth (48 Gbps).
8b - AMD, when forcing a 4:2:0 aspect ratio to achieve 120 Hz with HDR, also limits it to 8 bits + FRC (dithering) to save even more bandwidth. That's why it appears as 8b and not 10b. In practice, with LG's well-done FRC + WOLED panel, the visual difference to native 10-bit is almost zero.
TM - LG's active tone mapping (probably HDR Game or HGiG).
HDR10 - Static HDR10 working normally.

Out of curiosity, I decided to create a partition on my gaming PC that's connected to the TV and installed CachyOS. This PC has a 3060 Ti.

Windows, RTX 3060 Ti

- 118.80Hz~120Hz
- GSYNC
- 3840 x 2160P@120
- YCBCR444 10b 4L12 HDR10

YCBCR444 Chroma subsampling 4:4:4 → maximum color quality and super sharp text (same as RGB). NVIDIA has a more efficient HDMI 2.1 controller and better optimizes bandwidth.
10b - 10 native bits per channel (1.07 billion colors) → perfect gradients in HDR, AMD forces 8b + FRC at 120 Hz HDR to fit the band.
4L12 - 4 lanes (HDMI cables) at 12 Gbps each → is using the full 48 Gbps of HDMI 2.1. Confirm that the cable and port are running at the maximum standard.
HDR10 - Static HDR10 working normally.

CachyOS, RTX 3060 Ti:

- 39.59Hz~120Hz (The number varied considerably depending on whether I opened a window or moved the mouse.)
- GSYNC
- 3840 x 2160P@120
- RGB 10b 4L10 HDR10

RGB - Full RGB color format (equivalent to 4:4:4) → maximum possible text and color sharpness. On Linux, the NVIDIA driver currently does not force YCbCr at 4K 120 Hz HDR as it does on Windows. It sends native RGB even at 120 Hz.
10b - 10 native bits per channel → True HDR with perfect gradients. Same thing: the Linux driver allows true 10-bit at 120 Hz without downgrades.
4L10 - 4 lanes at 10 Gbps each → is using 40 Gbps (HDMI 2.1 with FRL 5 or TMDS). The Linux driver is running at a slightly lower link rate than the 12 Gbps of Windows (4L12), but there is still enough bandwidth left for 10-bit 120 Hz RGB.
HDR10 - Static HDR10 working normally.

Initially, the difference in image quality isn't that noticeable. I took some photos with my cell phone and zoomed in, and I could see a slight difference in the colors, in 10 bits, the colors are more saturated.

I took the opportunity to run some benchmarks in Shadow of the Tomb Raider to see how the Nvidia card was performing (and because the game has native HDR). I don't know if it was a configuration issue, but the HDR was low-brightness on Linux, which I found strange. On the AMD GPU, it was very bright. In SDR mode (testing another simple game, Marlow Briggs), KDE was doing tone mapping and the colors were more vibrant. I assume it's some kind of gamescope bug.

Performance in games, as usual, is very different.

Playing in 4K, everything on ultra, RT enabled, DLSS Performance

Windows - 56 fps
CachyOS - 11 fps

I tested another version of Proton, switched the driver from the open source to the proprietary one, but the performance remained poor.

When I disabled RT, the average performance was 53 fps.

As a curiosity, I tested it with RT on the RX 7600, without upscaling, and it averaged 8 fps. Around 25 fps, without RT.

I also tested RPCS3 with God of War 3, upscaling the resolution to 4K. I have a 5700X3D.

Windows: 39 fps
CachyOS: 36.65 fps

Although the numbers fluctuate quite a bit, I consider it a tie. A few months ago, Windows performance was far behind Linux, but it seems the developers have fixed the problem with the Windows build.
Click to expand...

I discovered the lack of brightness in HDR was due to an incorrect setting. After correcting it, HDR worked much better. In fact, it looked better than Windows, more vibrant.

I ran another round of benchmarking, trying to alleviate the VRAM issue.

I changed the textures to High and disabled RT.

Windows - 86 fps
Linux - 51 fps

I changed all the presets to High, RT medium.

Windows - 91 fps
Linux - 69 fps

Interestingly, in this case, even after lowering the settings, the VRAM usage exceeded the limit on Windows (8.5 GB), while on Linux it stayed around 7.8 GB.

Switched to DX11, ultra settings.

Windows - 90 fps
Linux - 82 fps

My conclusion is: DX12 is crap, on both systems.
 
Mister Wolf said:
You're on a gaming forum with a thread headlined by a video from a channel called Gamer's Nexus discussing Linux gaming benchmarks. You guys qualifiers for using Linux outside of gaming are at best a sidebar conversation. Linux is behind Windows in gaming by multiple facets. Thats facts.
Click to expand...
Of course you're right about PC gaming specifically (remember mobile gaming is several magnitudes ahead of PC and consoles like Switch and PS5 use FreeBSD) but I think windows is increasingly under threat even for that specific segment of PC gaming. The days of compatibility issues are slowly disappearing and linux can now run a lot of the games that windows had before, sometimes even better than windows. Windows still has the higher compatibility and it will take time but there is no denying that the walls of the walled garden of DX and windows have slowly eroded with things like Proton, Vulkan, and even (native linux) cloud gaming to a very small degree.
 
Three said:
windows have slowly eroded with things like Proton, Vulkan, and even (native linux) cloud gaming to a very small degree.
Click to expand...

Agree. But I'd say Proton has sped up the process a bit in a very short period of time. We've gone from games barely existing on Linux to being not far off from a relatively equal experience of Windows.
 
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rodrigolfp said:
Even with AMD. There is no decent "Control Panel" to force stuff like 16x AF, radeon anti lag, etc.
Click to expand...

Yeah, you're pretty much stuck best off just adding environment variables globally in Steam, or Heroic + Lutris for everything else, to force stuff like AF x16 for your library at once. Just having a dedicated app to do it, or a more elegant solution with checkboxes in Steam + other game launcher instead would be nicer.

At the very least, AMD is working with Valve on integrating radeon anti-lag into Vulkan itself than just a translation from DirectX, and is already in progress.
 
Mister Wolf said:
You're on a gaming forum with a thread headlined by a video from a channel called Gamer's Nexus discussing Linux gaming benchmarks. You guy's qualifiers for using Linux outside of gaming are at best a sidebar conversation. Linux is behind Windows in gaming by multiple facets. Thats facts.
Click to expand...
How does your computer do in sleep mode?
 
Mister Wolf said:
I never put my Desktop PC in sleep mode. When it's time to get used it receives power, and when it's time to stop it gets deactivated. Same applies for my Xbox ROG Ally X.
Click to expand...

as it should be...
I absolutely can't stand having anything in standby/sleep mode unless it's the Switch/Switch 2... because it's annoying to actually turn it off
 
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