Well this article is pretty disingenuous…
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The distribution “managed by a single person” depends on hundreds of people working on different sofware to keep up. It’s not “one person doing better than the thousands of Microsoft employees combined” implication they are pushing
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Windows 11 beat the linux distros by up to 20% in 1% lows which are argued as much more important by most tech reviewers. It wasn’t consistant at all which means that there was a giant margin of error.
I love linux and linux gaming has gotten radically better, but I am tired of tech “journalism” literally just cherrypicking, misleading, clickbait trash.
Not to mention the major hurdle for Linux gaming is anti cheat software being brought over. Too many games are 100% unplayable because the devs don’t allow their anticheat to be installed on Linux systems
Honestly I can’t say that I miss installing rootkits with terrifying privileges just to play games. I’d rather limit the privileges games have with Flatpak etc., not give them even more.
Yeah, what the heck Valorant. I’m not installing that.
Sure but gaming is predominantly a social pastime. Meaning that most gamers will make the trade off between installing anticheat and not playing the game their friends are all playing, much like the overwhelming majority of people will trade privacy in favor of being able to send a message to friends on Facebook.
It doesn’t matter how much you value your privacy: most people don’t care and never will. So without the option to give away privacy to play the latest Ubisoft game they won’t be using Linux. Full stop.
This is because most anti cheats for windows are kernel level rootkits that have full access to your entire system, and gamers just trust that known to be ineffective, scammy and profiteering, anti cheat companies software companies would /never/ do anything nefarious.
How can you trust them?
You can’t! Black boxed code, babyyyyyy.
Anyway yeah on linux systems basically the designs of all common anti cheat systems would be laughed at as hilariously insecure code that no sane person would allow on their computer because you would have to give it root level access.
This is basically insane as in the linux paradigm, root level access is reserved only for a bare minimum of system processes, whereas on Windows, well with the new Pluton tech in the latest lines of major CPUs, Windows has the ability to DRM literally anything you install on it and just get rid of your ability to run or install it, as they see fit, with a network enabled sub layer of the CPU that you as a user cannot override from within Windows.
The only hurdle for linux gaming is for more gamers and game developers to realize the truth of what I just said.
Its possible to do anti cheat in less invasive ways. But that requires more work from game development studios, and is costly.
Anyone else remember when servers had like actual human admins that would respond to player complaints, and would work on the backend of a server to come up with their own ways to detect cheating server side?
As if the anti-cheat even worked.
Doesn’t matter if it’s a prerequisite
Client-side anti-cheat has always been a scam to offload server processing onto client machines.
This results in worse cheat detection and wastes client resources, but companies like EA can spend less on servers.
In the defence of client side AC; if the entire game runs on the server, then network delay makes FPS:es awful to play. Being able to trust clients and let them do hit detection is quite important in making online FPS:es responsive. In addition, cheats that remove walls/grass, highlight players or even autoaim are near impossible to detect server side. One could try to use heuristics and statistics but it would be difficult to tell the difference between cheaters and players who are just good at aiming and map awareness.
Anti cheat = rootkit. You should not install it at all.
1% lows are way more important. I also think frame time is very important.
Yeah, the only time proton can actually outperform windows is when it spots a fundamental performance error that the app has made, and is able to optimize it out, AND no windows driver does the same. This is comparing Linux+proton at its best vs windows+native at its worst.
What we really want to see is Linux+native at its best vs windows+native at its best. Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of demanding games that natively support Linux.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eKSQT5mV-c
Important: Nobara is way less Secure than Fedora.
- no Secureboot
- monthly updates instead of often daily
- purposefully removed SELinux (because the Dev doesnt know how to use it)
- still no Fedora39!
If you want to game, stick to regular Fedora. A project that is actually secure is ublue with dedicated NVIDIA images that should just work and never break, and they even have Bazzite, an Image specifically for the Steamdeck but also for Desktop.
These images are only ½ day behind upstream, apply minimal additions and patches (like drivers, codecs, packages, udev rules for controllers) and Nick from the video above found out that the Nobara patches with their weird less supported Kernel arent really worth the hassle.
Secure Boot is an utter piece of bullshit from the depths of hell.
Proprietary UEFI BIOS is, but for a secure system with local manipulation prevention it can be needed. Also secureboot is a security measurement against malware so no, its simply the best we have.
Look at Coreboot if you want a secure modern system
- novacustom
- 3mdeb
- starlabs
- system76
Secure Boot is just Bootloader Signature Enforcement controlled by M$, it’s not gonna prevent Superfish 2.0 from happening.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a coreboot-able system. When I move out I’ll make that a priority.
I mean you saw LogoFAIL right?
I never bought my current machines. Funnily enough, they don’t show any logos on bootup, (Windows Boot Manager is smth else)
The vulnerability actually isn’t in Windows Boot Manager, it’s a flaw in the image-parsing code of the UEFI itself. That’s why it’s able to bypass SecureBoot.
It just happens that for whatever reason you can easily update the image file from within Windows/Linux itself. The fact they don’t show a logo currently does not mean you’re immune, as the system might just be showing a black screen at that point. Code can be injected into an image file without perceptibly affecting the image output, so you’d likely be able to use a “black screen” logo. If your computer has a UEFI instead of a BIOS, which is pretty much everything from the last 10yrs, then you are more than likely at risk.
My computer likely isn’t susceptible, and that’s because it’s a Dell workstation. While the bug still exists in the image parser, Dell has locked things down so it’s pretty much impossible to change the boot logo from userspace.
Yes, IK WBM is not the problem here. My systems don’t show a logo at all, and they don’t have a “hide logo” options.
FWIW, some firmware allow changing it during the update procedure. I remember having to update my ThinkPad’s firmware and it had that option.
I 100% agree, its best to just stick to upstream Fedora imo. Glad you made this comment. The security issues of Nobara always put me off, especially since basically everything it does can just be applied to regular Fedora. I think Nobara would much better serve as a script or toolkit, similar to Brace, or something along those lines instead of an entire separate OS with the security issues it brings.
As a non-power user, I don’t want daily updates. Monthly is perfectly fine for me.
Linux desktop updates are handled totally differently than Windows. I don’t even see them, as my distro just has a timer that checks for updates once a day, then updates the whole system in the background. If anything, this behavior is intended for non-power users.
Then disable the updates lol. This is done in the background and includes all the security patches so you dont even see any of it, not a single popup.
We are not talking about backported security fixes, but literally no updates for an entire month.
Well since it’s slower that just means it’s being more careful and not prone to making mistakes
Open your source and prove that or else we know you’re lying.
Wait, isn’t a lower frame time better? Why does their screenshot show windows having the lowest and say that it scored last?
Looking at the source article, windows did have generally better 1% lows except for Starfield, so I think this article has it backwards. They also cherry picked 2 results where windows was worse lol.
I’m all for pro-linux stuff but articles like this just reek of making shit up so it looks better.
They probably didn’t label their axes properly. FPS is a clearly defined metric, and there, more is better. This indicates that the conclusion (Linux is faster) holds. Since frame times have an entry with value “100” and all other values are lower, I assume that’s in percent, i.e. Arch Linux is the fastest and picked as comparison point, and the others are shown with relative performance to Arch.
It says “Prozent” in the bottom left of the screenshot. You are correct. They use percent to compare them. So more is actually better here.
I think FPS was actually selected, not frametimes. 1% low frametimes of 89 does not make sense.
There is an issue with the image in the article, but not the one that you might think it was. The FPS should have been more clearly indicated that it was the selected tab and then it probably would have been fine.
edit: I went to the base website https://www.computerbase.de/2023-12/welche-linux-distribution-zum-spielen/2/ it’s in German, but, it seems like the frametimes and frame rates are nearly the exact same values - which doesn’t even seem to make sense to me?
Did they test against windows using DXVK? Because I know when Elden Ring launched that was the only way to get stable frames on Windows
I’ll need to give Linux gaming another chance at some point.
All I know is that people were saying games run great on Linux a couple of years ago as well, but when I actually tried it for myself the performance was unusable.
Maybe that was my fault for over complicating my setup, but even when I tried a basic setup it still felt very janky.
Not sure if anyone’s able to advise, but does RTX and variable refresh rate work on Linux?
Those are absolute requirements for me.
nvidia is always hit of miss
All three major GPU manufacturers support ray tracing and variable refresh rate on Linux. When playing windows games, ray tracing has to be handled through VKD3D, which AFAIK supports most but not all DXR features. I haven’t had any problems with it though.
The one thing that can still completely make or break your (Windows games on Linux) gaming experience is anti-cheat software, since it’s up to the game developers to enable it for wine. The major anti cheat providers offer solutions for this, but not all game studios are interested in their games running on platforms other than windows. Games like valorant will probably never work. Good riddance though.
Valorant is a fucking awful game with über ban techniques when you force quit a game for some reason, like needing to go to the bathroom in middle of game play.
I can’t understand anyone can accept such a thing.
Thanks, I’ll definitely need to give Linux gaming another shot then.
The last bit that might hold me back is getting my Hue Sync stuff working. It sounds silly, but it really makes games feel so much more immersive that I don’t want to be without it.
There’s a GNOME extension called HUE lights that allows you to control everything from your tray, entertainment zones and all. Similar probably exists for KDE/etc.
Same, I could not get a single game to run normally on Fedora Kinoite, AMD GPU, Wayland. Idk maybe amdgpu pro and x11? But xwayland should also work normally…
Steam from Flathub just works.
Okay I went more the ProtonUpQt + Bottles + oversea way
For whatever reason, Windows 11 is worse at Cyberpunk 2077 than Arch for me. Constant stuttering. It might be that Arch has much less going on than Windows, but it’s enough for me to use Linux as my main gaming OS now.
A typical Linux distro, especially lightweight and simpler ones like Arch, will of course be better than a bloated OS, like Pop or Windows. The only problem with Linux distros might be the choice of tools - X and AMD will work much better overall than Wayland and Nvidia.
Just that many people may have an Nvidia GPU before deciding to use Linux, and some people just prefer to use Wayland over X for literally everything else.My PC with Wayland + Nvidia has so many problems with gaming, especially flickering and performance, while my Laptop with Wayland + integrated Intel graphics has no problems at all - even in games, that I wonder if Nvidia + Wayland still really sucks ass or if my GPU is just broken. Currently there’s a bug where frames are ‘switched’ somehow, so it’s not Frame 1, Frame 2, … Frame n, but Frame 1, Frame 3, Frame 2, Frame 5, Frame 6, Frame 4 etc.
I expect it to be fixed by an update of nvidia in the future, but there are always such bugs.That frame issue is because of the fact that Nvidia uses “explicit sync” and AMD/Intel use “implicit sync” - XWayland is built to only support implicit syncing for now (Nvidia is trying to get it changed), and since most games right now run under XWayland… Along with a ton of apps of course.
Until then, that issue won’t be resolved sadly. It’s what finally pushed me to get an AMD card since the issue has been open for over a year with a ton of back and forth.
How your performance with X11?
the proprietary drivers work pretty great on X11 for me
Same, except the most recent update causes random bouts of lag, but rolling back to 535 works for now.
Just curious about the other persons since they only mentioned Wayland
Cool what about games with anti-cheat
Cool what about malware? /s (no really anticheat is malware)
Anticheat isn’t malware. Malware has adverse effects on your system.
AC uses some techniques that some forms of malware also use (but far from all)
Malware defined as any software that does not benefit the user but wastes systems resources would fit here.
Anticheat benefits the users by…reducing the number of cheaters in games. Big concept to wrap your head around, I know.
There are several forms of anticheat. The ones that just run when the game is running, is usually fine. However, there is the Riot anti cheat which just runs all the time and isn’t uninstalled when Valorant is uninstalled. That is malware.
Notebook check isn’t reliable
While true, they are reporting findings from somewhere else
according to testing by German outlet ComputerBase
