Support NeoGAF

[notseqi]

I finally want to get away from Windows on my gaming PC. My PC is used only for gaming. Any productivity is done on my Macbook. I am thinking Baazite is the way to go. I am currently Intel-based for my CPU (14th-gen i7) and NVIDIA for my GPU (5070ti). For the folks who have switched and use NVIDIA cards, what are your recommendations, and is there anything I should do in advance? I figured I would grab a drive from the Prime deals and dual-boot for now. I pretty much only play single-player games on my PC. Marvel Rivals is the only MP game I play there, and that is supported on Linux. I pretty much play only on Steam. I have a couple of games on Epic and Ubi. Give me the pros and cons. Should I use a different Distro? Thanks!

EDIT - How is emulation with Bazzite? I am assuming it's pretty good since it is on the Steam Deck.

cachyOS knocked linux mint off the first place in distro downloads and, from what I have heard, is a bit of a game changer.
Gaming works with Nvidia drivers but AMD gfx are more optimized, about 15% more performance.

Will give it a whirl soon.

 

[Durin]

EDIT - How is emulation with Bazzite? I am assuming it's pretty good since it is on the Steam Deck.

You can quite literally just use EmuDeck in Bazzite (or any Linux distro) like you'd do on the Steam Deck to easily setup emulation, do updates, and just throw roms into folders for the system to be either picked up in Steam itself with the Steam ROM Manager, or use stuff Emulation Station or Retroarch to launch games from. I even use Emudeck on my windows machine, because it just simplifies a lot of things.
Easy Bazzite recommendations: Heroic Games Launcher for easily installing/updating Epic Games (GoG & Amazon too), and for Ubisoft Launcher use Lutris instead. Bazzite literally pre-installs these.

Valuable Resources: ProtonDB is a great site that lets you look up any game, and find any fixes if something isn't working with Proton. PCGamingWiki also really good for older games that even have issues running on Windows, and will link you to any mods or provide concise instructions to get stuff working.

Bazzite's not a bad way to go if you just want a simple setup, it does automate quite a few things even more so than Windows, but it being an immutable you don't have write access to core system files. So some programs that need core system file access you have to use workarounds, but the most common ones the Bazzite team made ujust commands that make installation automated for stuff like DaVinci Resolve if you do video editing.

If you end up running into issues with this, PikaOS (I use this) & CachyOS are other gaming-centric Linux distro alternatives that don't have this limitation, but also like Bazzite simplify installing/updating stuff like Nvidia drivers/game apps, and support Windows 11 TPM for dual-booting like Bazzite (not ever linux distro does support this btw). You will eat some performance loss on Nvidia GPUs playing games, though drivers have come a long way from what they used to be, and anti-cheat isn't available for some competative games.

 

[pudel]

Also from my experience, Windows always hated my Dual boots. Would constantly ruin the bootloader, or a bunch of other random issues. Your mileage may vary on that. I know quite a few people with dual boots who have 0 issues. For me, it always felt like Windows doesn't like to play nice with other OS's.

Had zero issues with dual booting since the Win7/10 switch....around 5 years ago. Really...absolute zero! Its strange to me that Windows should do something to yr bootloader. Maybe that was something different.

 

[8BiTw0LF]

Bought a Legion Go S last week and installed CachyOS on it right out the box. I'd recommend it over Bazzite. It's very compatible with most hardware and based on Arch, so performance is top notch.

 

[Doom_master1122]

Had zero issues with dual booting since the Win7/10 switch....around 5 years ago. Really...absolute zero! Its strange to me that Windows should do something to yr bootloader. Maybe that was something different.

Yeah! As I said Its probably my set up and how I used dual booting. For me the bootloader would just disappear and it would default to Windows booting, or Linux(Or windows!) would suddenly disappear off the list.
Its fine now, I don't use windows any more anyways. So these headache's problems are gone now for me.

 

[grvg]

This thread is hilarious.

Ain't no Linux distro ever stashed unconsentual screen caps of my desktop in unencrypted folders.

Ain't no Linux distro ever harvested all of my user data to feed its AI division

I could go on, but I'll leave it at 2.

But if basic privacy and data security aren't anything you care about, you can get about 10% more fps on Windows most of the time.

 

[Durin]

Yeah! As I said Its probably my set up and how I used dual booting. For me the bootloader would just disappear and it would default to Windows booting, or Linux(Or windows!) would suddenly disappear off the list.
Its fine now, I don't use windows any more anyways. So these headache's problems are gone now for me.

Most of the time dual-boot issues (in my experience) came from both OSs being on the same drive, so some Windows updates will brick the efi partition for Linux that will make the bootloader fail.

That's at least what I was warned about when I switched over, so far dual-boot setup has been fine when each OS is on a separate physical drive.

 

[ShadowkillXNA]

People like to hate things.

 

[Mownoc]

If my main pc was only for gaming I'd absolutely switch to bazzite or steamos.

SteamOS on the Rog Ally has been wonderful.

 

[Boo Who?]

So dual booting with CachyOS seems like the best route with an NVIDIA GPU.

 

[Wolzard]

This is what I was hoping was better. Is there a chance SteamOS will have better NVIDIA support?

I believe Valve is waiting for one of the two evolutions below to occur:

- NVK, the new open source driver for Nvidia, has made more progress to the point where it can be used.
- In parallel, Collabora, which helps develop Vulkan, recently discovered the causes of Nvidia GPU performance loss. In short, it's related to how Vulkan works. Changes have begun to be made, so something should change in the coming months.

But overall, SteamOS isn't anything special. It's neither better nor worse than any other distro. The only thing it has going for it is that it was designed for handhelds, with features like resuming a game after sleep, better power management, and more. In fact, I don't think it's very good for desktop. I understand those who want to create a kind of console, but I think a traditional desktop using Arch ends up being better.

 

[The Mad Draklor]

So dual booting with CachyOS seems like the best route with an NVIDIA GPU.

As long as you install CachyOS in a separate drive. Also keep in mind Linux distros use different filesystems (usually EXT4) from the Windows' NTFS.

 

[kruis]

I said this in another thread before.
if you think you can deal with Linux and if you have the patience to deal with all the issues Linux will give you,
you should also be able to modify Windows to your liking and get around basically all the issues you might have with it.

Plus you can streamline Windows 11 in a couple of hours whereas if you'd want to switch your gaming setup over to Linux you'll be troubleshooting big and small problems many days, if not weeks.

 

[ShirAhava]

I'd recommend CachyOS (Arch) or PikaOS (Debian) those distros are far beyond anything else right now....IMO

Also it is a great time to switch with programs like WINBOAT available

 

[Syphon Filter]

i tried linux and it sucks. it has no software support, hardware support or backward compatibility, things break randomly,etc

 

[Deraj]

I finally want to get away from Windows on my gaming PC. My PC is used only for gaming. Any productivity is done on my Macbook. I am thinking Baazite is the way to go. I am currently Intel-based for my CPU (14th-gen i7) and NVIDIA for my GPU (5070ti). For the folks who have switched and use NVIDIA cards, what are your recommendations, and is there anything I should do in advance? I figured I would grab a drive from the Prime deals and dual-boot for now. I pretty much only play single-player games on my PC. Marvel Rivals is the only MP game I play there, and that is supported on Linux. I pretty much play only on Steam. I have a couple of games on Epic and Ubi. Give me the pros and cons. Should I use a different Distro? Thanks!

EDIT - How is emulation with Bazzite? I am assuming it's pretty good since it is on the Steam Deck.

I swapped to Bazzite on an AMD system a couple of months ago. I only play single-player games and I'm very happy with it as it's working smoothly for Steam, Epic & GOG. Check out some videos on Youtube and you'll see that Nvidia cards work, with a bit worse performance - apart from ray traced games where it's higher than AMD / Bazzite. One video recommended Nobara over Bazzite for Nvidia users as it has a driver manager making Nvidia set up easier. For AMD, Bazzite just works with no driver installation needed.

 

[CJ_75]

I see absolutely no reason to leave Windows 11. I do everything on my MacBook Pro except for gaming, that's what my 9800X3D/RTX 5090 PC connected to an 85-inch Sony TV is for.
I only use it for gaming as well, or occasionally to browse Nexusmods. Bazzite is fine, but it could even limit you in some ways. Windows 11 is widely supported, and you might run into something that's readily available on Windows 11 but not on Bazzite.

 

[Hudo]

from Nvidia driver issues, to Proton compatibility issues,

Never head those while I was gaming on Linux. I only had Nvidia driver issues when I am developing something. And those driver issues were mostly CUDA Toolkit and Nvidia driver version mismatches or a Docker container not getting the correct access to NVCC.

The "most fiddling around" I had to do was when I installed World of WarCraft, where I had to manually interfere in Proton's simulated file-system to get the Blizzard Launcher to launch correctly. And even that was making sure that the Steam entry for WoW was pointing to the right binary.

 

[Crayon]

Yeah windows is nasty. Switch. If you do stick to steam, should be smooth. If your PC is just steam and browser, bazzite or cachyos will be very easy to use. Emulators are easy, too. Go click duckstation on flathub and you're good.

You won't be going through third party apps and trying to find replacements for work stuff. If you do plan to do that, you will maybe have to learn something or possibly find it's totally impractical.

I've only have one Nvidia card on Linux but it was fine. Drivers were behind, but it behaved.

I'm usually more measured with recommending a switch but in your case, it should be very easy. Bazzite, cachyos, or Nobara come tweaked for gaming. I've used all three. Nobara had little misbehaviors but still treated me right. All of them have quirks. Using cachy on TV rn and bazzite in tablet.

Overall, is give bazzite the nod. Had no misbehaviors I can remember. Key beginner rule in Linux is don't fuck with it too much. If you are copying and pasting things from the Internet into your terminal, you will fuck something up. Great if you want to learn, but otherwise try to get a second opinion.

Install bazzite, log into steam it's already installed, and play. It should be that simple unless you run into a hardware incompatibility. That's not that common. One of the major Wi-Fi chipsets doesn't "work". It's annoying but tha kind of thing used to be super common. Bow it's really not as long as you don't have anything downright exotic or just came out yesterday. I've got bazzite on a tablet and it handles screen rotation and the digitizer and palm rejection and all that.

 

[Crayon]

Most of the time dual-boot issues (in my experience) came from both OSs being on the same drive, so some Windows updates will brick the efi partition for Linux that will make the bootloader fail.

That's at least what I was warned about when I switched over, so far dual-boot setup has been fine when each OS is on a separate physical drive.

Yes yes yes this. They will fight over the bootloader and it is very annoying. Use two drives either both in the machine or to swap out.

 

[Poppinfresh]

I finally want to get away from Windows on my gaming PC. My PC is used only for gaming.

Everyone here is telling you how terrible Windows is and how you should switch to Linux. I'm going to give you the opposite advice: Do not Switch.

Seriously, Linux is not worth the headache(s).

Especially for gaming only. You'll lose performance and no matter how good the Proton Compatibility layer is, Linux simply isn't compatible with some games.

I tried Linux (Bazzite & Nobara) on my living room gaming PC. I even went so far as to buy an AMD card for maximum compatibility. It wasn't worth the hassle. After about a week, I ended up dumping Linux for Windows and using a script to boot directly into Steam Big Picture Mode. Things work perfectly.

 

[pudel]

Seriously, Linux is not worth the headache(s).

It depends how much you can ignore the downsides of Windows. I am fine with trading off some convenience/performance for freedom. And for me its also fun to poke around in linux and learn new stuff/troubleshooting things. I just wish I had some programming skills to contribute at least a little bit.

 

[PeterBazooka]

Bazzite is cool, and pretty much everything works out of the box, like xbox controllers and dongles. Also Nvidia cards have worked flawlessly for quite some time now. However, there's still some things that bother me, albeit likely due to my hardware setup. (No system fan control and weird desktop composition/sync issues with retroarch.)

I would say its "almost there" as a replacement for windows, but not quite. As much as I hate windows, I always ending up switching back after testing it for a week or so.

 

[GHG]

What is the status of Nvidia drivers for Linux? Last time I checked, folks are just better off with Windows unless they use AMD

Not as bad as you probably think:





CachyOS looks to be the best bet for now, I'm probably going to give it a go in the next few months on my 9700X/4080 machine.

If it doesn't work well enough then I'll just sell the 4080 and get a 9700XT in order to go full SteamOS. Really not interested in windows 11.

 

[rodrigolfp]

You should really give it a test drive now (Bazzite).

I spent more time dealing with Windows than I do Bazzite. I use it as HTPC 'console' and I don't even know what driver version I'm running. I just install games from Steam/holo and launch them. I don't even have a mouse+keyboard in the living room, I use the whole thing from controller.

Things becomes very ugly outside Steam. And that is the problem with Linux gaming yet.

What is the status of Nvidia drivers for Linux? Last time I checked, folks are just better off with Windows unless they use AMD

AFAIK, Ubuntu/Mint/etc have better drivers than Arch distros.

 

[pudel]

Things becomes very ugly outside Steam. And that is the problem with Linux gaming yet.

Nah, Lutris/Heroic Launcher (for GOG, Epic etc.) also just use Proton/ProtonGE layer like steam does. Its the same easy experience imho.

 

[RoboFu]

Things becomes very ugly outside Steam. And that is the problem with Linux gaming yet.

a lot of people just want to build a steam gaming console. no need for anything else.

The biggest problem with steamOS which is what all the linux distros are. Is still the online games with kernel level anitcheats.

 

[rodrigolfp]

Nah, Lutris/Heroic Launcher (for GOG, Epic etc.) also just use Proton/ProtonGE layer like steam does. Its the same easy experience imho.

Nah. Things are ugly even with Lutris/Heroic/etc with best proton/wine versions, VKD3D, DXVK, prefixes, etc and games that needs to be installed because that on Windows you don't need and can just run the game exe, etc etc...

 

[pudel]

Nah. Things are ugly even with Lutris/Heroic/etc with best proton/wine versions, VKD3D, DXVK, prefixes, etc and games that needs to be installed that on Windows that you don't need and can just run the game exe, etc etc...

I recently played Intravenous2 via Heroic Launcher. Installed the game, choosed the latest ProtonGE version....and started the game. Its three clicks.

And prefixes are great for customization. You even have this on Steam on Windows.

 

[RoboFu]

Nah. Things are ugly even with Lutris/Heroic/etc with best proton/wine versions, VKD3D, DXVK, prefixes, etc and games that needs to be installed that on Windows that you don't need and can just run the game exe, etc etc...

huh all of that is done for you just like when you need a specific DX version on windows. you never have to go outside of the steam client.

 

[ReyBrujo]

Been on Linux full time since 2004, I don't game on PC, however any distro should be able to launch any game 2000s or older game without trouble. So, if you are like me and only like HoMM3 you can choose whichever distro you want, regardless of graphics card. Now, if you want newer games, well, you might want to cycle through some of them before setting in one. Some might recognize one part of your hardware, some might recognize another.

 

[rodrigolfp]

a lot of people just want to build a steam gaming console. no need for anything else.

The biggest problem with steamOS which is what all the linux distros are. Is still the online games with kernel level anitcheats.

Doesn't change the fact that is more problematic than Windows for gaming.

I recently played Intravenous2 via Heroic Launcher. Installed the game, choosed the latest ProtonGE version....and started the game. Its three clicks.

And prefixes are great for customization. You even have this on Steam on Windows.

Good. Several other games I tested it was not that simple.

huh all of that is done for you just like when you need a specific DX version on windows. you never have to go outside of the steam client.

You don't have to choose a specific DX version on Windows unless in very old games that needs some mod/tweak to work.

 

[pudel]

huh all of that is done for you just like when you need a specific DX version on windows. you never have to go outside of the steam client.

In fact steam is even slightly worse here than Heroic....as you can only choose steams proton layer from within the client. If you want ProtonGE for example you need to get it first outside of steam and only can choose it than within steam. Heroic gives you everything right out of the box. Pretty awesome.

 

[Tams]

This thread has got two main stereotypes of the Linux world in.

• The condescending, sneery type. You are wrong for using anything else, "don't you care about your privacy?!", why don't you know how to do that type.
• The "it's so easy, you have many choices' type who then goes on to write a mini-essay suggesting 10 different bits of software you might want to use, almost all with caveats of some sort. "Just install this, then this, then after configuration, this. Then type this command in."

 

[Poppinfresh]

Also Nvidia cards have worked flawlessly for quite some time now.

Are you sure about that?

Last time I checked, stuff like frame generation, ray-tracing, and HDR didn't work properly.

Has that been fixed? I mean, could I fire up a new game (say Silent Hill F) with full HDR, frame-gen, and Ray-tracing on Linux using NVIDIA?

 

[Zathalus]

Are you sure about that?

Last time I checked, stuff like frame generation, ray-tracing, and HDR didn't work properly.

Has that been fixed? I mean, could I fire up a new game (say Silent Hill F) with full HDR, frame-gen, and Ray-tracing on Linux using NVIDIA?

Those all work now, although you will loose quite a bit more performance, on average almost 20%. 1% lows on Nvidia tank as well.

 

[rodrigolfp]

This thread has got two main stereotypes of the Linux world in.

• The condescending, sneery type. You are wrong for using anything else, "don't you care about your privacy?!", why don't you know how to do that type.
• The "it's so easy, you have many choices' type who then goes on to write a mini-essay suggesting 10 different bits of software you might want to use, almost all with caveats of some sort. "Just install this, then this, then after configuration, this. Then type this command in."

There is one more.

Ignoring everything that don't work or needs more work to run, it is better than Windows.

 

[phant0m]

Things becomes very ugly outside Steam. And that is the problem with Linux gaming yet.


AFAIK, Ubuntu/Mint/etc have better drivers than Arch distros.

Good thing my use case is Steam + Retro emulation, which it handles beautifully.

 

[keefged4]

Those all work now, although you will loose quite a bit more performance, on average almost 20%. 1% lows on Nvidia tank as well.

Once they iron this out I'll be ditching windows entirely. But for now I'll enjoy my 20%.

 

[Wolzard]

It doesn't hurt to test, in the end, it doesn't make any difference to ask other people's opinions, as it is very subjective.
Things that others find difficult may be quite simple for you.

That's the learning process. If you'd never used an operating system before and started with Linux, you'd find Windows complicated. Windows has a lot of problems, but people tolerate them because they're used to the system, having spent years encountering all sorts of problems and learning how to solve them.

 

[rodrigolfp]

Good thing my use case is Steam + Retro emulation, which it handles beautifully.

Xenia is not handled beautifully.

 

[phant0m]

Xenia is not handled beautifully.

I don't think it's particularly elegant on any OS though

But retro for me ends at the PS2/GC gen which all works great. (OG Xbox emulator also not good on any OS)

I dabble with RPCS3 a bit which works pretty well but is very game-dependent on the performance.

 

[Doom_master1122]

This thread has got two main stereotypes of the Linux world in.

• The condescending, sneery type. You are wrong for using anything else, "don't you care about your privacy?!", why don't you know how to do that type.

I mean you get that in every user base. Along side Linux users being sneery (Which I won't deny a lot of the user base can be that way), you also have Window's users also sitting there with their noses up and eyes covered to actual issues the OS has because they're too comfortable with what they have. Data privacy on Windows is getting exponentially worse as we go. To turn your nose away from it and cover your eyes doesn't help the situation.
Windows users also get sneery and completely misrepresent things to make their arguments work in their favor such. Saying that Windows works out of the box then applying like 100 different OS tweaks with 3rd party tools, registry changes and command prompt commands is a very disingenuous thing if you complain that Linux has to be "configured after install" despite being in a usable state.

• The "it's so easy, you have many choices' type who then goes on to write a mini-essay suggesting 10 different bits of software you might want to use, almost all with caveats of some sort. "Just install this, then this, then after configuration, this. Then type this command in."

I can turn those type of comments back on windows users too.
"Windows isn't bloated. Just install this 3rd party tool. Click these boxes, apply the settings."
or
"Open up Command prompt, run this command (that a lot of users have 0 idea what it actually does)", now your PC problems will be fixed!."
"Go to this section of your computer, turn on this setting, configure this part too. Boom, you have 5% more performance."
Or my favorite
"Just install this hacked up version of Windows that makes things run better. Yeah it breaks some of the OS functions that some people may use and probably no security updates, but its faster!".
It goes both ways here.
Also installing 10 different bits of software to get specific functionality on your computer isn't Linux exclusive. A lot of what I'm seeing here in this thread has been recommendations for launchers. Did you know Heroic Launcher is also a Windows application? Or is that fine because its windows now? Based on what I've scrolled through and read in this thread, its been Distro recommendations, or people recommending Lutris and Heroic launcher. Also seeing plenty of Windows users with the same style attitudes you're saying Linux users have. So again, this goes both ways. It's an eternal battle where both point fingers at each other for the same things.

 

[rodrigolfp]

I don't think it's particularly elegant on any OS though

It is much less elegant on Linux.

 

[rodrigolfp]

I mean you get that in every user base. Along side Linux users being sneery (Which I won't deny a lot of the user base can be that way), you also have Window's users also sitting there with their noses up and eyes covered to actual issues the OS has because they're too comfortable with what they have. Data privacy on Windows is getting exponentially worse as we go. To turn your nose away from it and cover your eyes doesn't help the situation.
Windows users also get sneery and completely misrepresent things to make their arguments work in their favor such. Saying that Windows works out of the box then applying like 100 different OS tweaks with 3rd party tools, registry changes and command prompt commands is a very disingenuous thing if you complain that Linux has to be "configured after install" despite being in a usable state.



I can turn those type of comments back on windows users too.
"Windows isn't bloated. Just install this 3rd party tool. Click these boxes, apply the settings."
or
"Open up Command prompt, run this command (that a lot of users have 0 idea what it actually does)", now your PC problems will be fixed!."
"Go to this section of your computer, turn on this setting, configure this part too. Boom, you have 5% more performance."
Or my favorite
"Just install this hacked up version of Windows that makes things run better. Yeah it breaks some of the OS functions that some people may use and probably no security updates, but its faster!".
It goes both ways here.
Also installing 10 different bits of software to get specific functionality on your computer isn't Linux exclusive. A lot of what I'm seeing here in this thread has been recommendations for launchers. Did you know Heroic Launcher is also a Windows application? Or is that fine because its windows now? Based on what I've scrolled through and read in this thread, its been Distro recommendations, or people recommending Lutris and Heroic launcher. Also seeing plenty of Windows users with the same style attitudes you're saying Linux users have. So again, this goes both ways. It's an eternal battle where both point fingers at each other for the same things.

Data privacy doesn't affect gaming performance.

What are those games that requires 100 different OS tweaks, registry changes and command prompt commands to work???

Windows bloat barely affects performance and can be debloated with 1 command and 2 or 3 clicks.

 

[Soren01]

The only valid reasons to use Linux for gaming are curiosity, being a nerd or having nothing better to do

 

[Doom_master1122]

Data privacy doesn't affect gaming performance.

What are those games that requires 100 different OS tweaks, registry changes and command prompt commands to work???

Windows bloat barely affects performance and can be debloated with 1 command and 2 or 3 clicks.

Data privacy doesn't effect gaming. Sure. But that's not the point. The original comment was stating Linux users complain that Windows users don't care enough about Data privacy. Treating it as if it's not a problem, when it very much is. Windows is becoming a service as opposed to a product and treating you as the product.

As for the "100 different OS tweaks". I'm not you, (or any one else) so I'm not sure what you do or don't do.
The point of the statement was, if you do any tweaks on Windows, be it installing the Chris Titus tool (or run it via powershell), WinAero Tweaker, change driver settings for different things, removing the bloat such as removing bloat from Edge is often done with tools or configurations, or have to install different pieces of software to fix anything you dislike or because it doesn't function well in Windows, then its disingenuous to complain that Linux has to do the same thing. Its just the nature of PC's and OS's. Regardless of your platform. Both Ubuntu(for example) and Windows can be installed and run just fine out of the box.

 

[rodrigolfp]

The point of the statement was, if you do any tweaks on Windows, be it installing the Chris Titus tool (or run it via powershell), WinAero Tweaker, change driver settings for different things, removing the bloat such as removing bloat from Edge is often done with tools or configurations, or have to install different pieces of software to fix anything you dislike or because it doesn't function well in Windows, then its disingenuous to complain that Linux has to do the same thing. Its just the nature of PC's and OS's. Regardless of your platform. Both Ubuntu(for example) and Windows can be installed and run just fine out of the box.

Expect those tweaks are not required to be done on Windows for things works while they can be required on Linux.