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Comment by lostcolony | Hacker News Reader

>> Gaming is no longer one of those reasons to choose Windows over Linux unless it's a specific game that simply isn't native or supported by tools like Proton.

Uh...yeah it is. Even if I didn't have a specific game in mind currently, every PC game targets Windows. Not every game works on Linux. Why would I artificially limit myself, both for existing and future releases?

In fact, just looking at ProtonDB...6 out of the top 10 games are 'borked' on Linux. The top 100 looks better, but the majority still aren't "native".

That's not a sleight on Linux; there are plenty of things it is better at. But unless you are willing to be limited in what you can play, a PC gamer will continue to pick Windows.

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> Uh...yeah it is. Even if I didn't have a specific game in mind currently, every PC game targets Windows. Not every game works on Linux. Why would I artificially limit myself, both for existing and future releases?

Because that's what "specific game" means.

There exist far more games than anybody has time to play, even if you limit yourself to the subset that are actually good. If you have time to play 20 games and there are 100 good games each of similar quality and 40 of them run on Linux, who cares about the other 60? You didn't have the time anyway.

It only matters if you need those specific games.

On top of that, many of those games will also run on a game console. Between a Linux PC and a game console, you have to have some pretty specific needs to actually require a Windows PC anymore.

As a data point - as a longtime Linux user, I hadn't tried Linux Gaming for a very long time until recently. On a fresh machine, I installed POPos, Lutris, Steam and a few other things I forget.

I've yet to find a game that didn't work. Triple-A stuff too. I'm sure there are exceptions, but I've yet to find it. I'm guessing there's a performance hit but that's just a guess - I haven't seen it.

By far the most challenging was Assetto Corsa which took an hour of installing sequential versions of Dotnet, but even that works flawlessly now. Including a Driving wheel, pedals, etc. (Logitech 920).

Seriously -- Steam/Proton/Vulkan has come such a long way.

Instructional: Install Steam.. goto Settings.. then "Steam Play". Turn on Steam Play and install Proton (either Experimental or the Latest non-Experimental). Lutris (for GoG) will instruct you on needed Wine.

>In fact, just looking at ProtonDB...6 out of the top 10 games are 'borked' on Linux.

You have a point but also if you switch the type of games there from "All Games" to "Single Player", situation changes a lot. So I'd say for the group of people who don't play multiplayer games much (like myself) gaming on Linux is pretty viable. The problem nowadays is more with anti-cheat than comparability.

> Why would I artificially limit myself, both for existing and future releases? > But unless you are willing to be limited in what you can play, a PC gamer will continue to pick Windows.

A lot more people are willing to be limited in what they can play. 10 years ago, it wasn't anywhere near 6/10 -- and in my case, all of the major titles I play (20k~ steam hours) except for one have worked perfectly fine on Arch; no longer a Windows user after 20+ years.

Not to mention a lot of indie games are released native to Linux and there's so many choices compared to 20 years ago, that I would just skip the game for something else if it's not at least Proton compatible.

> 10 years ago, it wasn't anywhere near 6/10

Right.

If your starting assumption is "games meant for Windows just don't work on Linux", then you'll be surprised by just how much Proton supports.

> In fact, just looking at ProtonDB...6 out of the top 10 games are 'borked' on Linux.

This is almost all due to incompatibility of the anticheat software with Linux. There might be improvement on this front very soon because Valve wants them working on the Deck.

I've been using linux as my daily driver for well over a decade and it's been great. I stopped giving a crap about games. I'm not trying to be a Linux salesperson here but I'm not going to use some crappy OS just because of games.

Yeah, if you are into games and not just a few specific ones then Windows is still it. Linux has gotten a lot better in this regard, but you will always be missing out on something you want to play.

Software compatability is Windows primary selling point. Well, that and it being the OS that is bundled with almost every new PC.

I don’t mind Windows 10/11 as much as others. The “house” ads for their own products are an annoyance, but I accept that as it being largely free. I think it is better than anything Microsoft has ever put out.

XP gets a lot of love, but it had a terrible default UX and was so insecure it spawned the antivirus industry. I don’t really understand when people look back on the halcyon days of Windows, because it was a second rate OS more often than not. My memory of XP was it being severely out classed by both Linux and OSX, but as is the case now, though to a lesser extent, Windows had the software compatability.

Not to mention there are entire categories of games, not just particular titles, that are not supported on Linux and might never be. I'm a sim racer and without high quality drivers for my gear it's a total non starter, even if the games were supported (they are not). Then there's the competitive gaming scene where most serious anti cheat systems are not supported in Linux and may never be.

> Then there's the competitive gaming scene where most serious anti cheat systems are not supported in Linux and may never be.

Hopefully the bit where Valve is working with anti cheat makers actually comes to fruition and works widely:

  Online games that make use of anti-cheat software didn't play ball with Proton,
  but Valve has been working with the developers to add support for its set of tools.
  Now, you can install and enjoy games that use tools like BattleEye and not need to
  fire up a Windows install to just play one game every so often.

That part actually scares me. Many anti-cheat softwares on Windows are basically rootkits. I don't want shit on my Linux machine.

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