Ummm… Yes, Proton was already mentioned in this thread so I won’t repeat it. But I’m curious which problems you have with games on Linux or did you just repeat what was true 5 (?) years ago.
Don’t get me wrong: I tried gaming on linux when proton wasn’t even remotely in the pipeline and it was horrible impossible. When I first heard about proton I tried again and ran into issues with the first game I tried (Europa Universalis 4, the new Paradox launcher was broken at the time) so I jumped ship again. Then I tried again in early 2025 and haven’t looked back since then. There hasn’t been a single game I tried that didn’t work (although some games needed some tinkering but that’s where protondb comes to rescue). There is one game I’d like to play (The Crew 2) that doesn’t work because of it’s anti cheat. But apart from that: Great experience!
You see, I get where you might be coming from but maybe don’t way until 2032 and give it a try again?
But I’m curious which problems you have with games on Linux
Not who you asked, but I still cannot get the Sims 2 ultimate collection to even work, and I’ve been struggling with this since october lmao. The problem seems to be EA trying to force everyone to buy legacy edition thus targeting everyone making UC installable, but I refuse to buy it because not only fuck paying more for a game I’ve owned for twenty years, it also lacks the Ikea pack and bodyshop and I desperately need both. At least Lazy Duchess, the modder responsible for RPC made a patch that gives some of the functionality to legacy as well…
Also, that’s only the first hurdle. There’s like four or five small programs you need to actually play and mod the game properly, and I haven’t even gotten far enough to try to get them to work. I don’t have enough skills to understand running virtual machine stuff either, so it seems like my main rig will be stuck in win10 forever as I will not upgrade it to 11 but I also cannot sacrifice my most played game (there’s also the problem with getting paint tool SAI running that’s keeping me on windows but that’s an entirely different affair, sigh)
I’ve been gaming exclusively on Linux for a few years now, and I can say Bethesda games, and specifically modding Bethesda games. That shit works a well as can be expected on windows, and if you keep the mod list light, can actually run better than vanilla.
I will say, the free Fallout 4 creation club content good enough as far as light modding goes, and runs extremely well.
Skyrim on the other hand, would honestly probably be fine if their creation club had half the mods that I want to play with.
Well Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 has weird distorted music. Apparently it’s due to .wma files and possible to convert them to MP3 (or use some weird fan patch of Proton) but that sounds like a lot of effort for something I was hoping would just work out of the box.
Not who you originally asked, but I am aware of an example where Windows is still better than Linux for a specific game: Guild Wars 2. Not because of anything directly in the game, but there is an insanely useful overlay program called BlishHUD that runs as a separate process. On Windows it just works; on Linux it is a pain to get it to mostly work.
But overall things have clearly shifted from gaming on Linux being a joke, to being possible but a huge pain, to being ok-ish but a bit clumsy, to finally being sometimes even better and on average equal. There will always be differences, and Windows currently still has the benefit of being the default. Maybe that too will change one day.
GW2 gamer here too, I’ve been switching over to Linux over the past few months and this is on one of my to-do lists(figure out HUD/overlay software for GW2).
Another hurdle I’ve had is getting mod support. For example, Tale of Two Wastelands. The standard installer is exe only and it runs via proton but it doesn’t use all CPU threads to decompile the game assets. Takes over a hour to do. Luckily someone was able to build something that fixes this for Linux, takes 10 minutes or so depending on your CPU: https://github.com/SulfurNitride/TTW_Linux_Installer
Ummm… Yes, Proton was already mentioned in this thread so I won’t repeat it. But I’m curious which problems you have with games on Linux or did you just repeat what was true 5 (?) years ago.
Don’t get me wrong: I tried gaming on linux when proton wasn’t even remotely in the pipeline and it was
horribleimpossible. When I first heard about proton I tried again and ran into issues with the first game I tried (Europa Universalis 4, the new Paradox launcher was broken at the time) so I jumped ship again. Then I tried again in early 2025 and haven’t looked back since then. There hasn’t been a single game I tried that didn’t work (although some games needed some tinkering but that’s where protondb comes to rescue). There is one game I’d like to play (The Crew 2) that doesn’t work because of it’s anti cheat. But apart from that: Great experience!You see, I get where you might be coming from but maybe don’t way until 2032 and give it a try again?
Not who you asked, but I still cannot get the Sims 2 ultimate collection to even work, and I’ve been struggling with this since october lmao. The problem seems to be EA trying to force everyone to buy legacy edition thus targeting everyone making UC installable, but I refuse to buy it because not only fuck paying more for a game I’ve owned for twenty years, it also lacks the Ikea pack and bodyshop and I desperately need both. At least Lazy Duchess, the modder responsible for RPC made a patch that gives some of the functionality to legacy as well…
Also, that’s only the first hurdle. There’s like four or five small programs you need to actually play and mod the game properly, and I haven’t even gotten far enough to try to get them to work. I don’t have enough skills to understand running virtual machine stuff either, so it seems like my main rig will be stuck in win10 forever as I will not upgrade it to 11 but I also cannot sacrifice my most played game (there’s also the problem with getting paint tool SAI running that’s keeping me on windows but that’s an entirely different affair, sigh)
I’ve been gaming exclusively on Linux for a few years now, and I can say Bethesda games, and specifically modding Bethesda games. That shit works a well as can be expected on windows, and if you keep the mod list light, can actually run better than vanilla.
I will say, the free Fallout 4 creation club content good enough as far as light modding goes, and runs extremely well.
Skyrim on the other hand, would honestly probably be fine if their creation club had half the mods that I want to play with.
Well Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 has weird distorted music. Apparently it’s due to .wma files and possible to convert them to MP3 (or use some weird fan patch of Proton) but that sounds like a lot of effort for something I was hoping would just work out of the box.
Not who you originally asked, but I am aware of an example where Windows is still better than Linux for a specific game: Guild Wars 2. Not because of anything directly in the game, but there is an insanely useful overlay program called BlishHUD that runs as a separate process. On Windows it just works; on Linux it is a pain to get it to mostly work.
But overall things have clearly shifted from gaming on Linux being a joke, to being possible but a huge pain, to being ok-ish but a bit clumsy, to finally being sometimes even better and on average equal. There will always be differences, and Windows currently still has the benefit of being the default. Maybe that too will change one day.
GW2 gamer here too, I’ve been switching over to Linux over the past few months and this is on one of my to-do lists(figure out HUD/overlay software for GW2).
Another hurdle I’ve had is getting mod support. For example, Tale of Two Wastelands. The standard installer is exe only and it runs via proton but it doesn’t use all CPU threads to decompile the game assets. Takes over a hour to do. Luckily someone was able to build something that fixes this for Linux, takes 10 minutes or so depending on your CPU: https://github.com/SulfurNitride/TTW_Linux_Installer
So I’m sure something is also available for GW2