I’ll be on break from college next week, and I really want to try a different operating system. I basically use my PC only for gaming, and I don’t care about multiplayer titles. I know Nvidia GPUs usually have worse support on Linux compared to AMD, and I have an RTX 4060 Ti with an i5-12400F and 32GB of DDR4 RAM.

Will I run into any major issues gaming on Linux with this setup? Will I lose a lot of performance?

btw any distro recommendations?

Hey everyone, I could really use some guidance. I recently made the switch to Linux (Zorin OS 18) and I'm trying to get into gaming on it, but honestly, I'm overwhelmed by all the tools and terminology.

I'm coming from Windows where you just install and play, and now I'm facing this whole new ecosystem of things like Wine, Proton, Bottles, Lutris, Heroic, DXVK, wine prefixes... and I don't know what any of it really means or where to start learning.

About my setup: I'm on a laptop with an Intel i5-6300U processor, Intel HD 520 graphics, and 8GB of RAM. I know it's not a gaming powerhouse, but I'm mostly trying to play older games and some lighter titles.

So far, I've tried: I installed Heroic Games Launcher from the Flathub store. I've managed to get a few games running by just clicking buttons and hoping for the best—sometimes choosing "Wine-GE" as the runner, sometimes choosing "Proton-GE," with no real understanding of what the difference is. When a game works, I'm happy but confused. When it doesn't, I have zero idea how to troubleshoot.

What I'm struggling with most are the basic concepts. Like, what actually is a wine prefix? Why are there so many different compatibility tools (Wine, Proton, GE versions)? Should I be using Lutris or Bottles instead of Heroic for certain games? And what's the deal with all these acronyms like DXVK and Esync?

I'm not looking for a quick fix for one specific game. I really want to understand this stuff from the ground up, but every guide I find either assumes I already know half of it or dives way too deep way too fast.

Can anyone point me toward a good, structured learning path? Like, what should I focus on understanding first? Are there any beginner-friendly resources that explain these concepts in plain language? What were the "aha!" moments for you when you were starting out with Linux gaming?

I'm willing to put in the time to learn—I just need someone to point me in the right direction. Thanks in advance for any advice.

Hello, I was writing post about input lag on linux earlier, but no one could say why my pc have this input lag, so stopped searching and thinking that this issue is because of my setup Nvidia Wayland.

But later when I was testing my games again, I noticed that this issue appears, when my game have less than 100 fps.
I was playing native Team Fortress 2, having 200 fps didn't seems to have some issues at all, but in spikes of lower fps is getting worse as fps gets lower.

I think that this is with x11 too, cause this was why I changed my system to Nobara, and as I on Nobara I can't tell right now if x11 will fix this, but as I have dual monitor setup with different hz I can't use x11, but can test this if needed.

I have this problem for 4 month already, I can't fix this no matter what I do, no updates have fixed this, and no one seems to know what is wrong besides my nvidia gpu. If anybody have some information, please tell me what is wrong with my linux setup.

I recently switched from Windows 10 to Linux Mint. I have a fairly old laptop with 16 GB of RAM, a 7th-generation i7 processor, and an NVIDIA GTX 1050 graphics card.
I usually play older games like Crusader Kings 3 in single-player mode. Since installing Linux Mint, I’ve been having problems with Crusader Kings 3 when using Proton version 10.3 from Steam: after a few hours of gameplay, the computer freezes completely, forcing me to shut it down manually and restart it. What could be causing the problem?
I’m using medium-low graphics settings and never experienced any issues on Windows. I also installed the NVIDIA 535 drivers, as recommended by Linux Mint.

Hi, I've been using Steam on Linux for a few months now and had no problems with any games on it except the Sims 4. Every now and again, the game will just decide not to load - I click the green play button which then turns to stop and then eventually back to play without actually loading.

The resolution each time has been to uninstall/ re-install the game via Steam but I'd like to understand what the actual issue is and try to resolve it.

How would I go about troubleshooting this? I have looked around in ~/.steam but can't see any log files so not sure where I would start? I don't see any error messages on the screen in Steam when the issue occurs

Hello guys,

I recently changed my laptop from gtx 1050 to a radeon 780m, and I took the same SSD in my new laptop.
I use fedora 43 with kernel 6.17.9 (worked fine on the old laptop)
Everything seems to work well so far but when I tried to play World of Tanks, I noticed the UI is half missing and broken (but I can launch and play a game fine).
I reinstalled the game, changed proton version (GE and steam) but nothing seems to solve it.

Thank you!

I've recently set up a dual boot situation and have been using Linux Mint Cinnamon and absolutely loving it, haven't booted into windows once in the past few days since getting everything set up and working reliably. Linux has legit made computing fun and rewarding again. This is my second computer mostly used for gaming and I'm like 2 steps from just wiping windows off the hard drive and making this a dedicated Linux machine for gaming.

I've only tested a few games so far but have had little to no trouble getting them working using ProtonDB as reference, except System Shock 2 Remaster. It's rated platinum and every report on protonDB said it should just work but no matter what I try it just won't boot, flashes onto the screen really quick then crashes immediately.

If anyone can help me get this working I'd be in your debt, this is no contest my favourite game I've played in the last 5ish years, aside from System Shock remake which is working beautifully.

Things I have tried:
-All Proton versions in compatibility settings

-any launch option commands I could find on ProtonDB

Specs:
Distro: Linux Mint Cinnamon 22.2

Ram: 16GB

Kernel: 6.14.0-36

CPU: i7-12700H

GPU: 3070ti (Laptop)

GPU Driver: NVIDIA 535.274.02

Sometimes when I play games (with native builds) on linux, like silksong, portal or whatever, the game sometimes has some issues, like for example when you ride the bell beast in silksong, it plays it in slow motion but in proton it works perfectly fine and in portal 2 I had this weird ui glitch where all the buttons graphically were on the correct spot but the location where you had to click was somewhere else and also the game thought I had a 4k monitor even though mine is 1080P.

So does someone know why?

I use Fifine H9 headphones, and in Windows I've always used Steelsiries Sonar for spatial sound, but I miss it in Linux. Is there a way to get Steelsiries Sonar to work in Linux? I've tried alternatives to EasyEffect, even with spatial sound settings, but they're nowhere near the same as Steelsiries Sonar. And yes, I know there's a way with a Windows VM, but the problem is that my headphones don't remember my hardware settings, so I don't think that will work for me.

how u make it work on arch linux? me have only cable connected mode

i have problem when i ever i go to workshop to click pop menu like in picture it just click right behind them
arch xfce

i5 , gtx 1650,8gb ram

tried using steam and steam(native)

https://preview.redd.it/hkys5c51wk5g1.png?width=708&format=png&auto=webp&s=9308793cf19d087537e485750a7aa42cc8b5100f

clicking addons or smt like it with menu that pop out like this make me click what behind it another example is the filter when you search

i enable context menu focus compatibility mode in steam nothing happend

thanks

I've always used Windows but this 11 is horrible, I tried to migrate to Linux Mint as they say it's good for beginners but there's a part of the installation that freezes, can anyone recommend another distro that's good for beginners?