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Comment by rubyn00bie | Hacker News Reader

Gaming on Linux has been so fucking good. I switched from Windows to Linux a month ago and literally haven’t found a game I can’t play. Even Red Dead Redemption 2, Hades, Fallen Jedi, Ghostrunner...

Oh the really icing on the cake is just how easy it all is. You literally just install the Windows version and things “just work.” Its amazing.

I’ve said this a lot of times now but it’s pretty amazing to write code and play games on the same machine. Truly, I don’t think I’ll ever have a bare metal install of Windows again. I don’t even have a VM with it right now even.

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Agreed, however after months of being "Linux only" (Manjaro KDE + Proton), just this weekend I broke and installed a Windows as a dual-boot option.

90% of games with Proton "just work" like you said. It is amazing.

But then there's that one game that doesn't work, or works but with half the fps... for me, it was Death Stranding. It runs at 60+ fps at 1440p on Windows, but runs at half that on Proton, with horrible artifacts/frametime on Linux + Proton (even the community mod "GloriousEggroll" Proton version).

If CyberPunk is any good, I'm going to buy it and want the best experience... for now, that probably means Windows, unless by some miracle it works on Proton with no issues.

For me it was Fallout 4, the voice sounds don’t work on Ubuntu and it was a shame because I’m dying for that Elder Scrolls itch. After a decade and a half I’m just not using Windows, though, so I messaged Steam and they refunded me within an hour. That and Mass Effect are the only two games I’ve ran into trouble with which is a definite improvement over just five years ago.

If you're privileged enough you could buy another GPU, pass it through to a Windows VM, install looking-glass to pass display output over a shared memory buffer, barrier for mouse sharing and bam, you have Windows in a window in your Linux machine running close to bare metal performance. (It does eat memory bandwidth linearly with refresh rate though).

This won’t get passed anti cheats though.

I've heard of noone so far getting banned for playing in a VM. The anticheats can install their kernel modules as they want, and the lookingglass capture is using the direct X capture API, so nothing weird there. A SHMEM device is nothing out of the ordinary either.

I mean sure they could detect that you're running in a VM, but I'm yet to hear about any cheats where you edit the memory of a VM, so until that's a thing i safe.

There are companies like shadow.tech that builds their entire business around this implementation, so one can only hope it stays this way.

Personal experience: Playing both Overwatch and Counter Strike without any issue (VAC enabled servers)

You can do DMA from outside the VM into the VM. This is why most of the more serious anti cheats won’t allow it - vanguard, EAC, battleeye, EASA, ...

VAC and whatever Blizzard uses is enough for me, but thanks for the tip. I'll keep this In mind if Im ever to encounter either of these ACs

It will if you configure it correctly.

Nah, there are many ways to detect virtualization

I know you are wrong (as in I have not seen the detection not beaten, it's probably hypothetically possible in some edge case - at least for a while), so you can only be speculating about the "many ways".

I would think that Cyberpunk 2077 would have good Proton compatibility on day one. It runs on Stadia, which uses Vulkan.

There's been no word of Vulkan support in the public Windows build though, as far as we know it only uses DirectX 12

So they have Vulkan support because of stadia but won't release it publicly? That's kinda stupid

It wouldn't be the first time, there's a bunch of games on Stadia that have no public Linux build or Vulkan support in their Windows build

Maybe Google are licensing a proprietary DX->VK wrapper for Stadia developers to use, so they can't release it elsewhere?

> Maybe Google are licensing a proprietary DX->VK wrapper for Stadia developers to use, so they can't release it elsewhere?

If they are using a wrapper it is probably just dxvk with extra stadia specific patches. ( https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk )

DXVK is for DirectX 11 and earlier, not for DirectX 12

Sometimes your Stadia build is done by another company, or is using some obscure Stadia_VK extension, or your renderer is statically linked, so you'd have to do another build to switch to VK. Whatever it is, it's probably just enough work, and DX11/DX12 works better enough anyways that there just isn't enough incentive to spend the effort to get your VK backend running on Windows.

> DX11/DX12 works better enough anyways

DX isn't performing better than Vulkan, is it? The performance of Vulkan titles has been almost absurdly good.

It's entirely possible that the Stadia version is a separate version of the game contracted out to some other studio, with heavily invasive changes that would break if blindly rebased on top of the Win32 version.

I think people should start thinking of Stadia as "a console that happens to use the Linux kernel," not as a server running a Linux distro. It's getting the equivalent of a console port.

Cyberpunk only uses DirectX12 on Windows.

> If CyberPunk is any good, I'm going to buy it and want the best experience...

from past experience with CDPR games, you should really wait a good year for all the patches to happen. TW3 was only really playable, like, two years after release

After playing many Bethesda titles I think I can handle CDPR bugs. Skyrim and Fall out are about the buggiest games I’ve played and I never played on launch. Still fun to play.

Once Cyberpunk gets unlocked I might change my mind but for now I’m hopeful.

This is true for nearly all AAA games now. They're buggy garbage when they come out.

I remember watching the DXVK developer work on Witcher 3 support. Progress was lightning fast and then, suddenly, Proton appeared. Even VR games work!

Thank you, Valve. You guys are my low key hero's.

I've been playing Witcher 3 on Pop!_OS 20.04 recently using Steam/Proton. There's a few edges that occasionally popped up. For example, the wireless keyboard I was using would freeze the game when I tried to change the volume, but that's not an issue with the wired one I have. Overall, the experience over a couple hundred hours (oh, quarantine) of play has been overwhelmingly positive. I don't have a Windows machine, so if it can't be played using Proton, I can't play it. Valve are also my low-key heroes.

I recently ordered a Valve Index + gaming PC. How's the VR support on Linux looking like? I'd rather not install Windows if I have to.

I own a Valve index and have eben running it exclusively on a linux gaming PC for the last couple months. There are problems. The VR games themselves are generally good. Games generally "just work" but some of the other VR bits and pieces are troublesome. Each time I play I have to bounce around menus to enable sound through the headset. And very few media players work in linux (codex issues). Skybox VR works, but not on the latest version of proton. I still haven't figured out how to watch youtube in VR.

I would still recommend VR gaming under linux for all the same reasons I would recommend linux over windows generally, but not to a casual gamer expecting a seamless experience.

You usually have the sound using HDMI/Display port output ? I suggest enabling simultaneous sound output.

It works, but still beta quality. Steam still crashes every time I start SteamVR (restarting Steam afterwards works though). There is no official way to play VR videos. Half-Life: Alyx has enough bugs that Valve still does not advertise that it supports Linux on the store page. SteamVR and Half-Life: Alyx have both not been getting many updates on Linux. Maybe I'm wrong and there are fixes coming up but honestly it feels kind of like whoever at Valve got VR running on Linux lost interest.

Is there a Linux version of Half Life Alyx without Proton?

Yes, but as I said it still has some bugs and Valve themselves don't advertise it on the Store page.

It works somewhat, but the more advanced VR features like async reprojection or motion smoothing don't work, and there's a definite performance hit. The FPS drop for general gaming is less noticeable, but it's really important for VR.

Through proton, it's fantastic. The native Linux stuff is hit or miss unfortunately.

Agreed. Watching Philip pump out release after release, and getting to test and see the daily progress was a game in itself. Whatever Valve paid (pay?) him wasn't enough.

Yeah it's so good that I haven't bothered to boot Windows in months. The odd game doesn't work (Horizon, Zero Dawn for example) but it's so convenient to use Linux for everything I would rather just not play the game than to have to boot into Windows.

Linux is just such a more quiet and less pushy experience, I find it relaxing.

I've not tried it myself, but I think Horizon:Zero Dawn was mentioned as explicitly fixed by Valve in the latest Proton runtime.

Lots of the crashes are fixed but it still needs performance work. Not quite playable but seems to be improving regularly.

Good to hear...was thinking this last week about making the leap just from all the good news from Proton.

Now that Davinci Resolve works well on Linux I don't see why not to make the shift.

I haven't been able to get any game that requires Origin or UPlay to work.

I can't even get either of those to install via steam. I can install them via, e.g., Lutris or PlayOnLinux, but then steam doesn't see the clients.

Otherwise, yeah, I used to run a GPU passthrough to a Win guest for a few games. Now I don't even do that. Gaming on Linux is quite good. Mostly good enough, anyway.

I've probably spent 100 hours trying to get Uplay to work on Linux. It's a nightmare and I would recommend just not purchasing Ubisoft games at all. Even if you get it to work, their games seemingly have more problems with wine/proton than most, and multiplayer has never worked at all (again, due to Uplay).

Nearly every other game I've tried has worked great with proton though! Even multiplayer games (through steam) tend to work very well.

Rdr2? Fuck, I'm in. I built a PC that i couldn't get windows running on due to some stupid uefi or something, i can't figure it out so it's sitting in the corner and I'm using a PlayStation now. I'll try putting Linux on it so i can use them games i bought but couldn't use because software is a fucking drm nightmare these days.

Okay, while I'd definitely suggest just saying "fuck off to windows" 100% at this point... I mean it plays RDR2?! That was the moment I said "holy shit, I'm never going back" haha.

Anyway to the point... If you do ever really need to install Windows from a USB stick the only fucking thing I swear always works is using Rufus:

https://rufus.ie/

Last time I had to like bootstrap a Windows install without an existing one; I could not get anything to fucking make the usb drive bootable using MacOS or Linux at the time (I could be an idiot though). Eventually, I created a Windows VM, passed the thumb drive over to it, and used Rufus... worked immediately no fuckery to be had. Has worked every time since...

Fucking fuck FUCK! Oh and by the way which distro do you use?

Can you explain that "UEFI thing"? There was a listing on ebay recently where the guy was selling his i7 8700+mobo+ram combo way under price because he said he couldn't run windows at all, only linux. It seemed so weird but google was not helping too much. What happened that you "bricked" it or was it factory setting?

Perhaps he was trying to install Windows 10 using a USB stick.

The various software for that builds the image for either legacy BIOS or UEFI, and they're not interchangeable. Rufus, for example, lets you specify the mode.

Alternatively, if you can't install it in UEFI mode, you can switch to legacy BIOS/CSM mode in your machine's BIOS (or vice versa).

It gets worse - some Win10 ISOs themselves are made for either UEFI (most common) or legacy BIOS, and they can't be set up the other way.

You can clone or run Win10 legacy BIOS/CSM installations on other machines/drives (useful if you plan on swapping/upgrading), while UEFI will only run on the specific motherboard/CPU you installed it on.

I've also noticed Win10 in UEFI mode can BSOD with no chance of recovery when undervolting too much and causing it to freeze/BSOD. Something must be getting corrupted, and it won't run again, ever. Legacy mode works fine.

> Perhaps he was trying to install Windows 10 using a USB stick

I was, yes, but even switching to legacy didn't help at all. I spent weeks trying to get it working, I looked at everything I could and tried every combination of settings (I had a grid).

How did you build the USB? I always have to use woeusb to install Windows via usb for my moms PC as just creating the disk will run but then throw a missing drivers error.

I meant the eBay seller. But yeah, the W10 bootloader is finnicky as hell, GRUB has nothing on it. Did you try an older version of W10, like LTSB or LTSC?

It was settings. I had a combo of AMD ryzen 2, nvme drive, windows 10, and couldn't for the life of me get windows to discover the drive and install, whether using uefi or bios. I haven't ever dealt with Windows without it just working, so I was unprepared, and my Googling did nothing. I'm not a dumb guy, but I determined with this combo of hardware it was impossible for me to get Windows installed. Combine that with a new kid, and I decided just to get a Playstation 4 (this was months ago) and not have to mess with anything.

Not OP but I had a terrible experience installing Windows 10 on my machine. UEFI boot, NVME root disk. Windows would boot the installer, but would refuse to install. Disabling UEFI would cause it to install but there were issues so I had to bite the bullet and keep trying UEFI.

I had to install linux(because Windows recovery is terrible and can't do much), fiddle around with pre-creating a partition table on the format it wanted, and then eventually got it to work. Don't ask me how, I spent hours trying every combination under the sun. Windows error messages are very cryptic and not at all helpful.

FWIW I’m having trouble installing Windows on my AMD B450 system where Linux also runs fine. It locks up during the boot process after the first reboot.

I have the same MOBO. Does it lock up entirely, or just gets stuck in that screen with the spinning white thing? If the latter, it just takes a really long time.

What do you install it from and what software do you use to build the installation image?

USB 3.0 flash drive made with Microsoft's own installer tool from their website (from another Windows machine). So just to be clear, it fully completes the installation and boots normally the first time, but fails to boot after I install the first Windows Update. I have successfully run Windows 10 on this particular device in the past, which is weird. I only reinstalled it to use a larger SSD.

Some Googling suggests it might be a USB device issue. I also have a weird issue where out of nowhere my onboard Realtek Ethernet stopped working in Windows (though works fine in Linux), so I've been using a USB 3.0 Ethernet dongle.

Something's rotten with my machine. But I'm not exactly sure what. I'd likely use it more for work related tasks, but it's so frustrating dealing with this crap that just plug my MacBook into my monitor and call it a day.

Well, sadly I can't think of anything that could help... but I will say that some update made my Win10 installation hibernate randomly (event log says due to "CPU overheating" - there is no overheating).

I thought it stopped when I converted 2 disks from dynamic (mirror mode) to basic (2 independent drives), but it still happens, albeit way less frequently. Create a mirrored volume and it's 2-3 times a day.

I sure as hell am not blaming my hardware, Win10 used to work fine, Linux works fine, Windows 7 works fine.

I fiddled with it again last night and found that enabling “Ultra Fast Boot” fixed the boot issue I was having. I think I disabled it when I was doing some Hackintosh silliness. My Ethernet is working again too, for some reason.

My issue usually has been with random indie games just refusing to work. Like Party Animals, which either refused to launch for me or my friends or had horrible performance. Among Us as well.

Also any multiplayer competitive games that use anti-cheats are impossible to play. Valorant, for example.

IMO it is well worth it to maintain a dualboot for windows games.

Agree. It’s odd that among us causes problems since there’s not a lot there and it works on android.

Most recent frustration for me was Firefighter Simulator. Ended up trying out a VMware product and playing it through a VM. Wasn’t great.

Which GPU do you use? I haven't been up to date on the state of drivers, specially for newer cards. Historically for me AMD has been better.

I've used both an AMD RX580 (90% of the gaming so far) and just got a 3090. Both of the graphics cards have had no issue, but I also didn't even hesitate to mash the "install proprietary drivers" option to a yes.

Even switching graphics cards was painless... Like it was easier than I could have hoped for. Download drivers, mark weird driver.run file as executable and ./driver.run my way to victory.

My motherboard is being a pain in the ass or I'd let you know how the GPU passthrough was working with the RX580 feeding the host... ugh that's tonight's adventure.

I'm to the point where I'll buy a game even if it isn't supported (yet) because I assume it will be eventually. They really have been doing a great job.

All of my computers are windows-free now.

Wait, what do you mean you can just install a windows version on linux? Were talking about a windows only game correct?

Yes. In steam you just hit "install" et voila! It installs. Using Lutris you can install games from Origin or the Epic Games store the same way... just download and hit install.

I honestly didn't think I was gonna get to play Fallen Jedi with ease since I bought it on Origin (regrets) but turns out I was wrong. Was easy as hell just like everything else on Linux :)

Trying to play anything through that requires the Origin client fails for me at trying to install OriginThinClient or something. Lutris install of Origin was fine though.

Mostly everything else works pretty easily.

That is insane. I'm going to have to try that. One of my colleagues is a linux nerd and he'd probably freak if I told him that.

That's what proton does. Runs windows .exe games on Linux.

Adding some context: in Steam on Linux, you can right click on a Windows game you've installed and in the properties, you can select various alternative runtimes for the game. If you select a compatible Proton runtime, then you are able to launch the Windows game on Linux and it usually works.

I don't have modern hardware but I'm easily able to play things like Mass Effect with Proton with no serious issues on an older graphics card (Radeon 7790). I'm not so confident that brand new titles would just work (even if I had a modern gfx card), but people tend to have good success overall. It's really good.

In case it's not clear, Proton is a Valve fork of the Wine project. The one problem I've run into is if I don't have the right dependencies installed. I didn't play any games for a long time, then went back and started playing some again, and through several `apt update` runs something had gotten out of whack; Proton is Wine, so you can still get into difficult "what does this error even mean" situations.

The only issues I've seen are with some games with third party libraries. Project Winter has been working on Linux for several months now, after some impressive efforts between the devs and the Linux fanbase.

That's so good to know. No wine etc needed?

Proton is Wine.

Escape from Tarkov

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