The "quit having fun" meme is ironically becoming as cringey as the thing it is originally complaining about.
You will help the community more by telling non-Linux people why Linux gaming is better, and this meme is doing the exact opposite of it -- "oh Linux can't play some games, yada yada. But we are still better! Switch over!" -- like what's the logic of it?
What's the purpose of this meme other than circlejerking?
Disclamer: I am a Linux user myself, started with Debian and is now using Arch Linux.
I will share some advantages I experienced in Linux gaming:
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Alt-tabbing old fullscreened games won't mess with my monitor.
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The compatibility of Wine when it comes to some older games is wild. SimCity 4 actually crashed less when I played it on Linux.
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Better performance across the board. Granted it's just a mere 5% difference but I will take it, why not.
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Can't play league on linux
Actually a good thing
I've switched for over a month now and did had problems with 2 games out of the 6 I tried so far (all of which were both games installed via Lutris and I found solutions to fix them both).
Funnily enough one of the games I got via Steam which did not work before in Windows now works in Linux. Further, I was running Windows 7 (yeah, I know it was a bad idea security wise), so there are AAA games whose minimum Windows version is 10 which I now can play in Linux that I couldn't before in the Windows I was using.
All in all it has been great and I have no intention whatsoever to go back to Windows.
Even if there are games that won't work in Linux, there are so many good games out there that can entertain me for hundreds of hours that I won't miss the handful I cannot get to run in Linux.
I dunno. I'll probably get hate for this, but it's not ready. It's better. But Linux isn't a good replacement for Windows yet. I love Linux. Love the customization, the *NIX filesystem makes sense, and it's beautiful. Also no ads in my start menu!
I want to use Linux regularly, and I tried last week. It failed. Kind of miserably.
I need to pick a distro. Mint and Pop_OS were consensus recommendations.
Try mint: Installing dual boot alongside windows was beautiful. But no internet connection, says cable is unplugged (it's not). Realize I downloaded an earlier version (20). Get the most recent version, and problem resolved. It's kind of odd to me that even a pretty recent version wouldn't support my adapter, but whatever. I tried to update and install Nvidia drivers: update fails because dependencies were not installed. Okay.... Why not prompt me to install them? Why make me apt-get all the dependencies by hand? I don't expect handholding, but some things should be. If I NEED something as a pre-req for what I'm trying to do, queue it up!
Fuck it. Let me try Pop_OS, instead - that has some gaming chops, right? Dual boot was more challenging to stand up, but it all worked. Nice. Fire up game: get ~20 fps drop compared to windows (108 from 130) with the same settings. I don't want to troubleshoot the performance hit. It should just work. I want a tool not a project.
Never mind if you want HDR support. That seems to vary by distro. Variable refresh rate also seemed to be spotty from what I read in gaming distro recommendations. ALSO, do you need UEFI support? RIP. Enjoy toggling that on and off when you have to jump back and forth between Windows and Linux. Nvidia driver support I chalk up to those arseholes only now starting to open source some things.
And I don't care that you were able to run everything fine. You had a flawless experience: great. Love that for you. I didn't. I'm not a computer novice - I know to Google shit and how to implement it. I remember trying to fuck around with Ubuntu back in 2002.
I'm gonna continue trying to stand up Linux for everyday use because I love Linux and I want to use it, but it's pretty clear that even as someone that wants to use Linux. I've been trying to switch to Linux every few years for decades. It's still far short of being ready for average users.
To be fair there still is a lot of tinkering involved to get gaming on Linux working properly (unless you're on the steamdeck, but even them you'll have to tinker for anything that's not verified). Switching proton runners, changing launch options, fighting updates. It's definitely more than most people are willing to deal with. For me personally, I've had to stop updating my video drivers because Nvidia 555 causes all Proton games to crash for me.
I enjoy the experience of tinkering and troubleshooting, so I'm okay with all that, but I completely understand why most people wouldn't want to use Linux for gaming.
Great! I tend to avoid DRM'd games by buying from GOG. Don't use their launcher, lutris tends to have auto install scripts for games.
I run Linux on my gaming machine and it fucking dominates
I would never install a rootkit on my system to play a video game anyway.
Mfing world of goo 2 offers an appimage file instead of a flatpack, so I have to monkey around with the console or lutris to get it to work on steamdeck.
I just want to play my puzzle game, not puzzle how to play my game. Ah well
What e-sports have kernel level anti-cheat? Isn't it just the crap published by Riot? I know both CS and Dota 2 work on Linux, I'm pretty sure you can get Overwatch 2 running. You can't exactly play Smash on a Windows PC either, but I think the other major fighting games like Tekken and Street Fighter work. Are there any other serious contenders for a major esport I'm just forgetting?
I don't think anybody ever told someone else not to use Linux when they are already using and enjoying it. This argument is often used as a defense against switching to Linux. And of course, if you just want to play your games without messing with all the bottles and Proton versions, Windows is still the way to go, especially for older games.
As a challenge I tried getting several older games to work on Steam Deck, and while it was fun for me, I like tinkering, I can totally see how it can be a huge hassle for others.There are a few dozen esport and AAA games tthat will never work because of their anti-cheat engines.
I see this as an absolute win.
I'm quite sad as a VR and HDR gamer because I really do want to switch. I have a steam deck, it works great for flatscreen gaming, but general HDR support across the linux ecosystem is apparently lacking and my headset manufacturer told me that they don't support linux and couldn't until the VR ecosystem they rely on supports it
I'm just waiting for better VR support (formerly WMR, now Quest 3), and my system (Thinkpad T15G) is Intel/Nvidia, occasionally with an Nvidia eGPU, and I've heard good support for that just isn't ready yet. Linux would be great if I had a budget to build something entirely optimized for Linux, but right now it's just not right for my system and budget.
I plan on trying it out again soon, but I just don't have time for a new learning curve right now, even if I'm fairly tech savvy.
I remember seeing someone in a comments section say why bother use linux for gaming bro got destroyed by the replies lol he also called linux users ekittens 💀
Good work is being done and I hope more and more games start to get native support as well.
The sheer power of instantly switching desktops in Linux makes the windows user afraid.
But I have seen a lot of old windows heads look at Linux for gaming performance where Microsoft is failing them with bloatware such as copilot.
I don't think the rootkit anti cheats would ever work to a level windows games developers want it to on Linux though.
Years ago I bought a ps4 controller to play in my Linux pc, but the games didn't recognize the controller input, I had to use some program to map the keyboard to the controllers but it didn't work well, so I installed steam and with it ir worked perfectly. Because work and college I had to stop gaming for a couple of years, and I tried again some weeks ago with Lutris, to my surprise that the controller got recognized and worked perfectly without the need for steam.
I like linux but this is stoopid.
Just wait until Vanguard pulls a Falcon and we'll never see those anticheats again. But still 4 years clean of LoL next year I get the medal.
I used to kinda complain about this but being unable to play lol or lostark has greatly improved my life. I don't mind being unable to play these games.
I am very grateful for proton and all of the technologies that allow me to play majority of my games. linux gaming in 2015 was painful.
Man i wish, to this day, no matter the distro its like russian roulette with a revovler loaded with 5 bullets
And when it even starts im lucky it even runs reasonably well
Solus was the only one that worked a little better
And than enadeavouros AFTER several hours of stupid searching and installing some random crap i never found again
I'm thinking about getting a handheld and putting Chimera or Bazzite on it. It's gonna replace my main gaming PC (so it needs to support egpu) once it bites it.
I am slowly chugging through the weird issues I have with trying to use Bazzite as my primary OS, but it will replace my Windows install soon, I can feel it. I still miss HDR, but my newest and most inconvenient issue is that Firefox just keeps crashing as soon as it launches now. No luck fixing it so far, and I installed Edge just to have a working browser.
If it’s not open source then it’s an advertisement not an esport
If someone goes to host a tournament and they can’t choose the patch or modify it then it’s not an even playing field between organizers. Think like 2 people go to host on consecutive weekends and there’s a patch between them now the person who hosted first has an unfair advantage in game quality as the players know how to play it
Also if the studio/publisher is hosting an event it’s just an advertisement
Good thing I have no interest in playing online with randos (or with anyone else at all, really) or paying through the nose for AAA games full of bugs, then!
"What, you don't like retro yet proper gaming on a 1W device?"
-- Me, if I were that lone guy holding a controller
No
