The conversation around gaming on Linux has changed significantly during the last several years. It’s a success story engineered by passionate developers working on the Linux kernel and the open-source graphics stack (and certainly bolstered by the Steam Deck). Many of them are employed by Valve and Red Hat. Many are enthusiasts volunteering their time to ensure Linux gaming continues to improve. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a history lesson, but it’s an appropriate way to introduce yet another performance victory Linux is claiming over Windows.
I recently spent some time with the Framework 13 laptop, evaluating it with the new Intel Core Ultra 7 processor and the AMD Ryzen 7 7480U. It felt like the perfect opportunity to test how a handful of games ran on Windows 11 and Fedora 40. I was genuinely surprised by the results!
↫ Jason Evangelho
I’m not surprised by these results. At all. I’ve been running exclusively Linux on my gaming PC for years now, and gaming has pretty much been a solved issue on Linux for a while now. I used to check ProtonDB before buying games on Steam without a native Linux version, but I haven’t done that in a long time, since stuff usually just works. In quite a few cases, we’ve even seen Windows games perform better on Linux through Proton than they do on Windows.
An example that still makes me chuckle is that when Elden Ring was just released, it had consistent stutter issues on Windows that didn’t exist on Linux, because Valve’s Proton did a better job at caching textures. And now that the Steam Deck has been out for a while, people just expect Linux support from developers, and if it’s not there on launch, Steam reviews will reflect that. It’s been years since I bought a game that I’ve had to refund on Steam because it didn’t work properly on Linux.
The one exception remains games that employ Windows rootkits for their anticheat functionality, such as League of Legends, which recently stopped working on Linux because the company behind the game added a rootkit to their anticheat tool. Those are definitely an exception, though, and honestly, you shouldn’t be running a rootkit on your computer anyway, Windows or not. For my League of Legends needs, I just grabbed some random spare parts and built a dedicated, throwaway Windows box that obviously has zero of my data on it, and pretty much just runs that one stupid game I’ve sadly been playing for like 14 years.
We all have our guilty pleasures. Don’t kink-shame.
Anyway, if only a few years ago you had told me or anyone else that gaming on Linux would be a non-story, a solved problem, and that most PC games just work on Linux without any issues, you’d be laughed out of the room. Times sure have changed due to the dedication and hard work of both the community and various companies like Valve.
I’ve got Windows setup as a dual-boot with Linux. It exists solely for playing Fortnite (and the occasional game like Wolfenstein that apparently liked to crash the AMD GPU under Linux). For the rest, Linux works just fine!
Remember the old days when Linux was the second choice in a dual-boot setup?
I play RtCW (Return to Castle Wolfenstein) either single and multiplayer versions under Linux since 2003. I used to use the original Linux version from id Software, but eventually at some point (2016?) a change in the glibc was impossible to run it anymore. Since then, I’m using the version from https://github.com/iortcw/iortcw which is maintained by the same guy that runs the east coast gaming network server.
If you are a usual RtCW player, I recommend you to go to https://ecgnetwork.co/ and have fun! 🙂
Let’s keep it real here. Steam Deck accounts for a just a sliver of the market, and to say “people just expect Linux support” can’t be taken seriously. Most people from what I’ve seen don’t even associate Steam Deck/OS with Linux. Many of those that do often gripe about its failure to live up to Windows gaming. Steam Deck still has a very long road ahead if it’ll ever overcome being a niche product.
The Steam Deck itself is since 150 weeks a “Top Seller” on Steam
https://store.steampowered.com/charts/topselling/global
And don’t forget, that you can only buy one in North America (USA, Canada), most parts of the EU and GB.
In Japan, South-Korea, Taiwan and Hongkong you can buy one over Komodo. But since months they are there sold out.
And for Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, South America and so on, you can’t buy a Steam Deck.
But do you think, that the most people buying a Steam Deck and don’t using it or that they will using it?
If you have a Steam Deck you want to use it. So you buy games for it.
“Most people from what I’ve seen don’t even associate Steam Deck/OS with Linux”
That is perfect.
Most people also not associate Android with Linux.
But for Steam OS Valve improves Mesa3D, WINE / (its Proton), etc which helps every Linux distribution.
The list you linked is “Top 100 selling games right now, by revenue”. The Steam Deck cost $350, meaning even the most expensive games would need to sell several copies to equal one Steam Deck by revenue. Also, why do you think Valve is placing Steam Deck hardware in a “Top 100 selling games right now, by revenue” list in the first place? Because that’s the only list that makes it look like the Steam Deck is anything more than a tiny little flash in the pan, and it seems you’ve fallen for it.
The problem isn’t availability, it’s that the Steam Deck is a niche product targeting a segment of gamers that hardly exists. The vast majority of desktop gamers aren’t interested in a handheld substitute, and handheld gamers aren’t either. The fact remains, Steam Deck’s account for an insignificant sliver of the market, and that will continue to be the case for many years or it reaches EOL.
I agree it’s a relatively small user base, but I think it does count for a lot of the bump we’re seeing from Linux in the Steam hardware survey.
As someone who used to primarily play PC games at a desktop, most of my gaming over the last 2 years has been done on the Steam Deck. I know that could be done on any PC handheld, but I find the instant power on and off to be very convenient for a quick gaming session.
Performance on GNU/Linux is now often better, a couple of percentages, then on Windows, used to be the other way around. So progress is indeed being made in the right direction and at some point in the future this will be rewarded.
I’d argue it has already been rewarded by an increase in users. If the reward you’re referring to is making any noticeable dent in the gaming market then it’s a very long way from that, if ever. I’d like to see Linux gaming become a `real competitor` if for no other reason than to kick Microsoft in the nuts for all their scumbaggery.
Actually, yes, there indeed was a rise of desktop users detected in past couple of years, from being somewhere around 1% to now almost 5%. As for gaming i fell that the position is good and if at least current level of investment will continue, then we have nothing to worry about in decades to come.
I always wondered in such cases – is the better performance due to more optimised code and less overhead or are there some features (perhaps unnoticeable) missing in the rendering pipeline of Proton vs the actual Windows API. I’m not saying it’s the case but are there any pixel to pixel comparisons of the end results?
mlasica,
I don’t know the answer, but that’s a very interesting question. Sometimes games perform marginally better on linux. Without comparing that the output pixels are identical, it might not be a true apples to apples comparison. It’s easy to see how disabling features would give a performance advantage.
Edit: I’m not asserting this to be the only possibility, but a game might query the system capabilities/performance and enable/disable features to compensate. This makes it harder to have an apples to apples test.
Yeah, it wouldn’t be the first time an app dropped support for a feature for a benchmark gain. I also wouldn’t be surprised if things were being dropped that were completely harmless. I understand games nd 3d engines are very well optimized, but they also include things that slow them down on purpose like anti cheat or telemetry info , its possible that the linux porting dropped much of that.
Also possible, missing features aren’t always noticeable if they aren’t used. I ported a rendering engine years ago to DOS ( from linux, it was a strange time) and it worked faster than Linux !! … Because I took short cuts that caused only some of the api calls to work , but if the game only used the ones I supported, then it was faster.
Linux has always been better on gaming since the opengl says of ID software with Quake3, URT and Enemy territory. The problem had always been full support, SB audigy (upgraded by hand , Samsung Kies (now odin), QPST, itunes (now solved),, Keyboard (g20 screen) support, mouse support (gaming), All data, Ondemand, Quicken and too many to list. You can’t seriously run Lunux/FBSD when you have to support other people or work professionally. I wouls take xfe any day of the week, but you can’t seriously say Linix ia better. I know FreeBSD is, just on the fact they slices for partitions how easy is it to use the ports collection, the installer, compiling,built in jails, upgrades and too many things that just make sense, but only if you work in a certain very limited scope and only run GLgears.
Gaming on Linux has never been easier, more compatible (sometimes more compatible than Windows 11!), or more stable than it is now. The only feature I miss on a regular basis is HDR support for my specific monitor (and other annoyances that are beyond Linux’s control, like the AMD/HDMI feud…). it’s not perfect, but it’s beyond acceptable – it’ s good! There’s no reason to feel stuck on Windows any more.
KDE as a desktop environment has also never felt better. It used to be terminally ugly, now it’s actually pretty good – at least as good as Windows. They even recently solved the other blocker – screen capture in Wayland. That was the second big blocker for me after HDR support, and now it’s solved. It’s never been better!
(The other issue is some games will actively ban you if you use Linux, because the company that backs them are run by cavemen, like Destiny 2 – it runs fine on Linux, but they don’t it, and they’ll ban your account over it… That’s not really a Linux problem, that’s an ass-hat problem.)
Super, now convince the rest of the world. One little problem I see though – most Windows gamers don’t feel “stuck on Windows”.
For League of Legends – that’s not a game with high requirements. Would that run in a Windows VM? I bet it would.
Not allowed by their rootkit.
Unfortunately, the problem isn’t that the game won’t run, it’s that the anti-cheat won’t run. Running in a VM is one of the scenarios the anti-cheat explicitly tries to prevent.