With all that’s going on. I’ve been really considering setting up a dual boot and testing Linux Mint properly. (i hate virtual desktops, but I have Mint running on one now) I know I have to make some changes to my productivity workload, as I’m an Adobe Lightroom user. I’ll keep that on Windows for now.
But my question is regarding gaming.
I play a lot of varying games, from new singleplayer and multiplayer stuff to old games back up to about 1999. I know I have to do a bunch of research setting things up, but right off the bat I have a question.
What games will not be possible to use on Linux?
For example, will something like Escape from Tarkov work? That’s a game I do not want to even install of there’s a chance it will lead to a ban.
And is comparability with older games better or worse than W11?
Edit: I just wanna extend a huge thanks to the community already! There’s some great info here so I’m gonna set up a dual boot soon!
Edit 2: Dual boot is now setup! Even though Mint makes sense from a long time Windows user. There’s a bit of a learning curve. But I’ll try it as a daily driver for a few days. Right now my disk setup prioritize Windows, obviously. But if I end up loving Mint, I’ll make a full switch and keep a small partition for Windows to run whatever Mint can’t.
Edit3: Spent hours trying to get anything to work. Games just would not launch and I exhausted everything I found online. Trying a reinstall and Pop Os this time. Learned a bunch of lessons my first try
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Be ready for shit to just not work for you
For protondb always look at the latest reports for the game. The rating on there is a rolling average type thing i believe, so when the devs break compatibility, the ranking might not list it as “borked” yet even tho it is.
You can also log in with your steam account on there to get a quick overview of how many and which games are working well on linux.
I find that a number of my games don’t say they’re Linux compatible, but work just fine. But that’s not what everyone says.
You mean they are listed as “borked” on protondb but they do actually work?
Yup. A few games are like that for me. I set Steam to use compatibility with all games, and the only ones that don’t work at all are the anti-cheat ones. Even the new Monster Hunter works great for me. I have a mix of Nvidia and AMD GPUs, so it’s not just smug Linux AMD talking, either.
Pretty sure neither mint nor PopOS supports VRR natively, if that is important to you. HDR only works well on Bazzite in gaming mode in my experience. Bazzite is great. I highly recommend it.
The best resource for multiplayer games is https://areweanticheatyet.com/. Every game with nonworking anti cheat will be impossible to get working.
That’s a great resource, thanks!
It’s at the point now where I just assume a game will work and am rarely disappointed.
Often the games that “don’t work” still run just fine, but the developers that use anti-cheat will stop you from playing.
Older games are hit or miss. If we’re talking Steam games prototondb.com is the single best resource. If we’re talking GOG or games installed from CD-ROM or something it may be a bit harder to get working perfectly. Often GOG’s remasters will work great minus controller support. I still can’t get LEGO Island working :( Feel free to DM if you have questions. I’ll try to help best I can.
What games will not be possible to use on Linux?
Most online games that have anticheat. (yes some work but most don’t even if the anticheat could support linux.)
For example, will something like Escape from Tarkov work?
No
And is comparability with older games better or worse than W11?
YMMW. but often linux plays older windows games better than windows.
Most do work. Anything with EAC or Battleye (the huge majority) work as long as the devs have updated it recently really.
EfT runs (with some effort last I tried, most of the issues coming from the launcher I needed to run to install the game, not the game itself) but I think multiplayer probably doesn’t work. I was trying to play the Single Player Tarkov mod last I played, and it was able to work.
It can work but most of them won’t check the box because Linux has a statistical overrepresentation of cheaters.
That’s a claim I’ve heard, but never from a credible source. Are you aware of actual data backing that claim up?
Which one?
The Linux having an over representation of cheaters one.
That’s the one I remember being skeptical of, since it also corresponded with a drop in players overall as the game aged.
My experience over the last few years of Linux gaming is: with Proton, it’s mostly a matter of It Just Works™.
When it doesn’t, switch to Experimental, and then usually it works.
Compatibility with older games is fantastic, too.
The exception to this are games which require kernel-level anti-cheat. This is a security nightmare on Windows as it is, and it simply doesn’t work on Linux. Luckily, these games are few – but they do tend to be big (e.g. Apex Legends).
Proton makes things super easy for the most part. I mostly only game on my PC and ended up distro hopping to bazzite. It’s mostly setup for gaming out of the box and is atomic, updating similarly to a console. I’ve found it relatively hard to break and easy to reset.
As most have said here, it mostly boils down to anti cheat
The EFT devs have their heads very far up their asses when it comes to Linux. They specifically banned the platform and have deleted forum posts about the topic. Fuck em, there are better games in the genre by this point (Hunt Showdown runs great on Linux for example…)
EFT and Hunt are two very different games.
Luckily I rarely play EFT anymore since I don’t have time to grind PvP. PvE is kinda stale anyways. I thought they tried to get their anti cheat to work in Linux a while back. But BSG is BSG I guess 😂
Look into Day-Z or Stalker—they both run on Linux and might scratch that Tarkov itch. There’s also a top down pixel art Tarkov lite called Zero Sievert. All of which run on Linux. Good luck!
Others have listed ProtonDB, which is an absolute necessity. Tweaking Proton versions and the like can be tricky but not too bad, especially if you’re used to using a PC.
There are also tools like Lutris and Heroic Games Launcher for third-party titles and further Proton support.
Oh, and there are also community-made custom Proton versions, such as ProtonGE, which can help if a game is giving you a lot of trouble.
Nice thing about having a dual boot setup is that you can play most of your games on Linux, and then just boot into Windows to play live service games with kernel anticheat. Best of both worlds!
ProtonDB is a popular site for checking how well a game runs on Linux systems. Users upload reviews that rate the level of support along with their system specs.
I switched to Pop!_OS and I’ve rarely run into issues with games. Games with anti-cheat typically won’t work. It seems like Escape from Tarkov doesn’t work. It uses Battleye which requires special configuration to work on Linux and it seems the devs don’t care to do that. Other games that use Battleye work fine.
To be clear, at this point BattleEye requires no effort from the devs to get working on Linux. On the contrary, the EFT devs have gone out of their way to ensure it does not run on Linux, and have deleted forum posts requesting a change in this policy.
I’m no good for compatibility layer help, but for an open source Lightroom alternative, I really like darktable.
It’s been a while since I tried it. I’ll give it a go.
I need the catalogue part of LR too, not just the editing.
Ah yeah, got it. That’s important!
You have plenty of good information regarding gaming already so as far as Adobe Lightroom goes, try Darktable. It’s a FOSS alternative and very nice software
Tried it but it did didn’t land with me to be honest. It’s been a year since I tried like 10 different programs
I mostly play single player indie games, but still. The amount of games that I can’t play on Linux can be counted on one hand (sadly on of them EFT). Older games generally work great, very old games can be a bit cranky. I would roughly compare the compatability to windows 7 regarding old games.
