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Comment by anonymousab | Hacker News Reader

5% would already be well within the margin of difference for separate identical clean installations of windows on the same hardware.

But the issue is that it is many multiples of that, especially on the most common PC gaming hardware (Nvidia GPUs), often more than a 25% difference in framerates. Not so important at 144fps, but very important at a 60fps baseline and for genres like fighting games.

A lot of people don't mind, say, an extra 5 frames of input delay. They don't notice it. But a lot of people do notice even an extra 2 or 3.

I do think that frame pacing issues kinda do have a critical thin threshold where it's either bearable or an unacceptable difference. And the native windows version can often already be riding right on that line. So while it's not fair to the Linux version to demand better, it is unfortunately the case that it might tip over that line.

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I'd guess that the difference only matters if you have the latest most expensive gear pushed to the limit. I have a 2019 RX5700 XT and one of the DDR4 ryzen 5 cpus and all of my games run flawlessly on Linux with great performance.

I've long since decided that buying the latest top end hardware is just spending a lot of money to be upset by buggy drivers or not being able to get 5000 fps in a benchmark but has no real gains in how fun games are.

> all of my games run flawlessly on Linux with great performance.

Your definition of great performance is not mine, but it’s fantastic to watch Linux users continue to hand wave away real issues whilst continually claiming the same or better performance across the board, which is provably false.

> but has no real gains in how fun games are.

It absolutely does for me. Modern displays are absolutely dogshit. I won’t play at anything less than 144hz, as much as I can I aim for 200hz and I want that with consistent frame times.

This is exactly the mentality I'm talking about. People have entertained themselves for all of human history without anything nearly as sophisticated as modern displays. At some point this unchecked desire will suck all of the fun out of a hobby and leave you constantly buying the latest thing and dissatisfied at anything that isn't the highests specs possible to acquire.

The game story, gameplay elements, and such have become secondary to the real hobby of consumerism. If people could have fun gaming 20 years ago, there is no reason it isn't possible to have just as much fun gaming on low to mid range hardware today.

I think this is similar to how buying books is a related but different hobby to reading books, or buying board games is a related but different hobby to playing board games. I know people who have hundreds of board games, thousands of dollars worth, but rarely get to actually play them (for various reasons but mostly involving children).

The hobby of optimising your gaming desktop is a related but different hobby to actually playing games.

Completely agreed, I think most hobbies have this perverse side aspect that is just themed consumerism. And it's so easy to get sucked in to watching youtube videos about the latest board games that you just need to buy, while the reality is you aren't even playing the ones you already have.

It's much harder to step back and realise you don't need the new thing most of the time. Sure if you have a 15+ year old desktop and you can't run the new games at all then an upgrade could be good, but I'd guess most hardware purchases come from people who already have great hardware.

It’s a bizzare assumption to make that because people happen to have different preferences or needs than you do it must be “consumerism.”

I have very specific requirements for motion clarity in games on modern displays. Older display technologies like CRTs and plasmas achieved this naturally through the way they operated. Most modern sample-and-hold displays do not.

You may not notice or be affected by that difference, which is fine. Couldn’t be more thrilled for you, however I am affected. Anything below 120Hz on a sample-and-hold display causes noticeable discomfort for me, and for a long time I stopped gaming entirely because I couldn’t work out why playing anything had seemingly overnight become so bad to play from a comfort perspective. Eventually I realised the issue started when I moved away from CRTs and plasma TVs to modern sample and hold displays.

I was only able to comfortably return to gaming by using very fast displays at 120Hz minimum, preferably 240Hz, because that gets closer to the motion quality I was used to from years of using PC CRTs. For games locked to 60Hz or below, I still prefer playing them on a CRT for exactly that reason and I own a number of CRTs for this reason.

> At some point this unchecked desire will suck all of the fun out of a hobby

You’re projecting. I think I’ve got what I enjoy from my hobby figured out after 35+ years, but thanks anyway.

> The game story, gameplay elements, and such have become secondary to the real hobby of consumerism.

You’re projecting.

> If people could have fun gaming 20 years ago

I didn’t have to endure sample and hold slop 20 years ago, now I do. You may accept or tolerate it, I am under no requirement to do so, nor live in a world where I must accept a significant performance loss is “ok” in any circumstance.

If I wanted less performance, I’d buy something with less performance to begin with.

This. I understand that getting your desktop fps to ridiculous heights is a hobby in and of itself, an obsession that I don't share at all, and good luck to them that do. But I'm colourblind and have the reaction speed of a slug. Anything over 25fps is wasted on me.

After building a few PCs over the years something I've noticed is every time I've bought the highest end new part I feel bad about the money spent, and then I feel bad every time there's a delayed frame or feature missing, and then I feel bad when the next model comes out.

Every time I get something mid range or second hand I feel good about what a good deal I got, and how I'm getting 98% of the features for 40% of the price, and how realistically as soon as you stop pixel peeping screenshots, you won't even notice your settings are on High instead of Ultra. You just take in the story, the sound design, and the actual game.

> I have a 2019 RX5700 XT

So you have very old hardware, can barely play modern AAA games (if ever), and are still happy. Good for you.

But your opinion is relevant to average gamer who enjoys playing games released in current year in the same way that someone drinking instant coffee can advise on coffee beens that it's all just caffeine in the end.

Which games will not run on a 5700xt? I’ve played a load of latest release games on a steam deck which is like 15% of the power of that GPU.

Not a power issue but a feature issue. No ray tracing stops Indiana Jones and Doom Dark Ages (though you can do it in software on Linux): https://youtu.be/aU2qwlCLWm8 . Doom Dark Ages also added a check for Vulkan Variable Rate Shading, requiring a workaround to spoof it. Mesh shader requirement prevents Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth from running.

> 5% would already be well within the margin of difference for separate identical clean installations of windows on the same hardware.

what is the source of this non-determinism?

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