Gaming on Linux

A little over a month ago, I made the change over to Linux, and I’ve tried a few different distributions. I am currently on openSUSE Tumbleweed, and I have liked the experience so much more over Windows myself. There definitely was a learning curve, as all the years of Windows knowledge that I have didn’t translate one-to-one when moving over. I can say that in my short experience, playing games on Linux is a different experience from playing on Windows. There are many factors that cause this. The drivers for your components work differently, not all games will work on Linux (though all the ones I play have either natively worked or had a workaround to get working on it), and games perform differently between the two operating systems. I am going to run through some things you should note about PC gaming on your custom PC or custom gaming PC with a Linux OS.

Everyday Differences You'll Notice Right Away

Before we get into how they differ for gaming, let’s talk a bit about their general differences. There have been quite a few differences I’ve noticed in my short time using Linux, but I’ll touch on just a couple. First, not all programs that I used on Windows currently work on Linux natively, and some I haven’t been able to get working at all. For example, my SteelSeries program, which I used for audio mixing levels on my headset and RGB control for my mouse and keyboard, doesn’t work. I haven’t found a way to get it working yet. There are programs on Linux that can replace that, which I have started trying to use. For audio, I’ve been using EasyEffects. It’s been working well for me personally. I tried to use OpenRGB for RGB control on my system, though as of right now I’ve been unable to get it to work properly. RGB isn’t the biggest deal for me personally, so it doesn’t bother me all that much. It’s probably something that I’m doing wrong on my end, and I’m continuing to try to get it working, but for the time being I am without any RGB control.

Choosing a Distro Without Losing Your Mind

There are a lot of different distributions of Linux, all with their own way of doing things. This can be both good and bad for someone trying to learn things on Linux. If you don’t like how one Linux distribution does things, you can change over to a different one that works more how you want it to. However, changing to a different one can change the commands that you will need to use in things like the terminal. It can also change the way the desktop looks, though there are third-party environments like KDE Plasma that you can use on any Linux operating system.

Drivers: Where Things Start to Matter

Now let’s talk about things that do affect gaming, though they don’t only affect gaming. Drivers for parts like the CPU and GPU can be packaged with the OS itself, though it does depend on your specific parts. If you are using AMD (like their new 9000-series cards), then it’s pretty easy since they have open-source drivers that anyone can edit, so you can install them with the OS. They also update drivers that address issues when they arise. If you have an Nvidia GPU (like one of the new 50-series cards), things can get tricky, as Nvidia doesn’t allow others to work on their drivers. They can also be slow in updating their drivers and fixing issues with them. This isn’t something that will affect every GPU from them. Older GPUs can work fine, though they might still have some issues. If you are running a 1070 or similar, the cards will work fine for the most part, though trying to run DirectX 12 games on Linux will have poor performance due to them not having the hardware that Linux uses to run those games. Updating drivers is also easy, as you can do it right from the OS using the repository program that every Linux distribution comes with. You can also do this through the terminal, which is the way I do it, as it is easy to do.

What Actually Runs on Linux?

Let’s move on to what games you can play on Linux. Most games now will run on Linux thanks to things like the Steam Deck being so popular. There are some exceptions to this. For a lot of games that don’t run natively on Linux, there are workarounds to get them running. The program Lutris is great at allowing you to do so. It uses things like Wine to get games that don’t natively run on Linux working. It will essentially translate them from Windows to something that can run on Linux. For example, I play some games on GOG that don’t run on Linux, but using Lutris I can play them. This doesn’t work for everything, however. A lot of games that use anti-cheat don’t like to run on Linux, as the developers haven’t cared to get those programs to run on Linux. This will most likely change in the near future with the rising popularity of Linux, but for now, you can’t play most games using anti-cheat software. There are workarounds for some of these that people have found, though they aren’t usually things that are widely available.

Performance: The Real-World Results

Last, let’s talk about the difference in performance in games from Windows to Linux. There are many benchmarks online that can show how both Linux and Windows compare in performance. Those can range in how much the performance differs between the two. That will be caused by the different Linux distributions you can use to test. All the benchmarks that I’ve seen show that Linux does perform better than Windows for the most part. There are specific things that Windows does seem to do better. I’m not just going to believe numbers from benchmarks myself, and I don’t expect you to do so either. Multiple benchmarks do at least show a pattern, though. In my personal experience, my system has been performing better since changing over. My system starts up faster on Linux than it ever did on Windows. I have also noticed that my games have been performing better as well, and the desktop experience seems better overall.

Wrapping Up

This has been my experience on Linux so far. I had a rocky start with it, but I have quickly been won over by Linux, and I have no plans to move back over to Windows for my personal use. Linux has shown to care about the user experience more than Windows has, especially recently. If you have the time to learn about the differences that you will experience on Linux when moving over from Windows, and your programs will work on it, I recommend moving over myself. If you need any assistance in building a new machine for Linux, feel free to reach out to us, and we will be happy to assist you however we can. As a company, we aren’t the most versed in Linux solutions, but we can try to find answers to any questions you may have as you look into a custom PC or custom gaming PC for PC gaming on Linux.