ManofGod
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Forbes Tries To Game on Linux
- Thread starter AlphaAtlas
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Zarathustra[H]
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Nah, that wouldnt be way too frustrating.
Windows makes me want to bash my head against a wall every time I use it
Zarathustra[H]
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Which version did you try (Cinnamon? Mate?) And when?
I've never had that issue personally, but CuG back when he was on here used to talk about how the log in screens were really slow on his old Atom Ultrabooks.
The default MDM login screen would load high res slide shows that would cause problems.
Since that time they have changed the login manager they use, and are now on LightDM (since 18.2 I believe) so I don't know if this is still an issue. It might be gone.
Either way, I've always run it on desktops with pretty capable video cards though, so I have never experienced this. Feels as fast as any other distribution I've ever used.
SamuelL421
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I haven't tried gaming on linux in years but I have had no video driver issues in recent memory. I built a ubuntu system maybe 15 years ago that had some terrible circa-2000 Nvidia AGP or PCI card. It was a test of will and I fought with drivers for days until I finally got it working and played some Open Arena. I have to assume the driver situation for gamers on linux has improved since then.
I think the bigger issue is that a large number of "non-technical" people (most?) and even the majority of gamers don't update drivers unless prompted. Even in that prompted situation, they would have no idea what to do if told they had to go to the Nvidia / AMD website and search for themselves.
I think the bigger issue is that a large number of "non-technical" people (most?) and even the majority of gamers don't update drivers unless prompted. Even in that prompted situation, they would have no idea what to do if told they had to go to the Nvidia / AMD website and search for themselves.
We are on the same side here BI don't get me wrong.... but sadly no the workstation Distro Ubuntu does not go that way unless your running a AMD GPU. It goes.
1. Install Ubunti
2. install third party PPA... which to me and you and anyone that works with Linux all day its no big thing. But to a new user its not an "official" Ubuntu thing and not as simple as we say it is really. If said regular user is using something like say a AMD 2200/2400G part they are also going to run into issues with installation... as the older Ubuntu install media isn't going to be using the latest working stable raven ridge kernels.
3. Install steam
4.... your right mostly just go and play.
I'm not saying its insanely hard or anything. Its just a different way to install drivers.
Ubuntu is way overrated imo... and it does Linux in general no favors. Its a fine workstation distro... but for regular end users its got a terrible distribution model. Its just in way shape or form ready to go at install for almost any home user. If you want proof... how many PPAs are you using ? Let me guess its well over 20 isn't it. lol I have argued with Ubuntu boosters that claim to be running over 100 PPAs.... which means a huge % of their system isn't even Ubuntu anymore. Better to run a disro that gives you access to all that latest versioning in the official repos.
NoOther
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This conclusion is actually not spot-on. The problem is getting vendors to write drivers for Linux. The problem isn't on the Linux side for installing those. Drivers that are written for Linux are generally easy to get and install. The graphics arena is slightly different because the main Vendors AMD and Nvidia, do not put out drivers as regularly for Linux and graphics drivers are a main component for gaming. There is really nothing that Linux distributions can do about this except try and make their own...
Zarathustra[H]
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I think that it had more to do with the considerable performance difference in many titles.
Look at Phoronix limited testing from last summer and their more comprehensive testing from the year before.
For some people losing this much performance may not be a big deal if it means they can stay in Linux.
For me this is huge. I struggle to get to 60fps in most titles at 4k with my overclocked Pascal Titan X on water. I can't afford to lose any performance at all.
This just isn't an option.
Zarathustra[H]
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Couldn't disagree more.
Linux IS Debian/Ubuntu/Mint.
If it's not built around Apt it doesn't matter. It's an also ran.
Nothing else matters.
And no. I don't have any PPA's on my desktop.
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Here is the thing though. Your not an average user. Asking an average user to setup a PPA so they can update their video card driver is scary as heck. Asking them to do the same for a bunch of other stuff gets worse and worse. You know what your doing and your not going to use a shady PPA or install some super RC version of an NV driver and run into a ton of issues.
Manjaro which is my suggestion is rolling but not rolling like Gento or arch proper. It follows a ring release the same way MS intends windows 10 to be. There are 3 levels of testing into every manjaro package release... and they skip new package versions.
I know you know but for those reading.... software has a version number.... a release number and a minor bug fix release number..
x.x.x So Version one 1.0.0... Version one.one with new features 1.1.00... version one.one bug release one 1.1.1
Manjaro never ever ships a X.X.0 of any package.
It means as a distro they are some where in between a full GIT rolling distro like Gento... and a locked down Enterprise class distro. For regular end users though... no PPAs for something simple like a GPU driver, or PPAs for a new MESA for open source gaming. I think for regular users not Linux die hards like you and me this makes a lot more sense then pointing newbies to multiple PPAs to futz with.
Then your not a gamer.
Cause Ubuntu ships out of date NV drivers... and out of date MESA versions.
Of course your games may run... I mean who needs those extra 10-20fps that the newest drivers have likely unlocked since Ubuntus official repos last got locked down.
Zarathustra[H]
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Linux overall has performance issues. That's why I game in Windows, and keep linux for everything else.
NoOther
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And by that I am sure you mean that:
Games not programmed or designed for Linux running on drivers that are not up to date or fully designed for Linux have performance issues.
You know, much like PC ports from consoles generally run like crap on Windows PCs...
Zarathustra[H]
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Even with the latest drivers and packages, you can see anywhere from a 15-35% performance hit in many titles compared to windows.
Phoronix did testing on this as I linked a few posts back, and they are some of the biggest cheerleaders there are for Linux.
NoOther
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Titles not programmed for Linux. You also sometimes get hits on titles that are designed for console but ported to Windows. This isn't a "Linux" performance issue, these are specific applications running on Linux, the majority of which were never designed for Linux in the first place...
Zarathustra[H]
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Sure, that may be the case, but it's kind of besides the point.
I'm a huge fan of Linux, and I know Linux is capable of many more things than it is typically used for. The truth - however - is that it doesn't really matter whose FAULT it is that those titles take performance hits. They still take performance hits. So why try to fit a square peg into a round hole. We already have a platform in Windows that they run very well in, and unlike everything else in Windows, there really isn't a downside to running games on the platform. So just do it?
I hit reboot in Windows, and in our modern NVME drive age, I'm booted up in Windows 10 in a matter of seconds, and from that point on 100% of my games run well without any performance hit. Why would I even bother trying to get them to work in Linux? Linux is great! I use it for everything else, I just don't see the point in even trying Linux gaming. Every now and then I've been curious and gone back and tried it again, and every time it has been disappointing.
That, and I've been rebooting to play games for so long now (I started back before I started using Linux as my primary desktop OS in 2001 when I dual booted Windows 2000 for work and Win98SE for games) that I've really started to appreciate having two isolated environments for gaming and for everything else that don't collide with each other ever. A dedicated Windows install just for games, with no other resident software leeching performance, and no creepy game DRM impacting my main OS. I can also configure windows without any regard what so ever for power efficiency because if I'm booted in Windows, I'm going to be in game. Graphics drivers and CPU power plan are all set to maximum performance mode all the time. No need to change anything back and forth. it's really a quite nice way to do things. Keep 'em separated.
At this point even if there were no drawbacks or performance hits to gaming in Linux, I still think I'd dual boot for gaming.
NoOther
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I mean it's not. You generalized it as a Linux performance issue. As if Linux itself were the problem and wasn't designed for performance. There are tons of things that actually perform better on Linux than on Windows. This is specifically about running games on Linux, and the rest of your messages was all gibberish about Windows. I don't understand how people can keep bringing that up. See that is the real problem is people continually conflating issues. It is not a Linux issue. It is not even necessarily a driver issue. It is typically an issue with things not designed for Linux. There is not a lot Linux can really do about that except to keep encouraging groups to program and design for their platform. I mean the one thing they can do is promote an Open Source environment where you could can have any kind of development happen...oh they do that already... I am just confused why people have such a problem with understanding the inherent issue.
Zarathustra[H]
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It doesn't matter at all if it is a Linux issue or not.
This is not a Linux vs Windows fandom battle.
The ONLY thing that matters is the end result.
In Linux today, can I play any game I want without a performance hit?
And the answer to that is No.
Whether it is the fault of the studio that ported the game, or of magic space elves really doesn't matter at all. One OS works at full speed in all titles every time, the other doesn't. That's really all that matters.
The fact that a game takes a 30% performance hit under Linux isn't just going to stop happening because it isn't the fault of Linux.
It doesn't matter how true it is (and I do believe you are right by the way,in most cases the performance impacts are a mix of poorly ported titles and in some cases poor hardware driver support on the part of the hardware manufacturers)
But that still doesn't matter. The comparison still is 100% performance all the time under Windows, with every title working, and potential large performance hits in Linux with many titles not working at all.
Whose fault that is doesn't matter at all. I'll pick the one that works the best, regardless of whose fault it is that the one that doesn't has issues.
And I think most others would too. Seriously, why would you pick the one that works worse, regardless of whose fault it is that it works worse?
Zarathustra[H]
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Now, if I could only choose one. If there were no way to dual boot and I had to put up with just one, Windows or Linux. Then I see doing this. I don't think I'd be willing to give up Linux and use Windows which is inferior in almost every other way. But that isn't the case. Why not choose the best of both worlds? Gaming on an OS in which it works perfectly, and everything else on a system that is more secure, flexible efficient and customizable than anything Microsoft has ever offered.
But they have drunk the coolaid. They run systemd on their once great distributions.Couldn't disagree more.
Linux IS Debian/Ubuntu/Mint.
If it's not built around Apt it doesn't matter. It's an also ran.
Nothing else matters.
And no. I don't have any PPA's on my desktop.
Slackware64 14.2 baby no compromises necessary.
NoOther
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You can say that about any OS honestly.
This is false. As I have stated, and this is you equating them yet again. With Windows, you still need to get updates for Nvidia, those updates sometimes crash things, some people don't always get the updates and have performance issues. Console ports still run like crap on Windows. There are also differences depending on what graphics card you have. So no, it is not always 100% better.
The problem is when people continually want to blame the wrong thing. No progress is made that way. The intent of this thread is about the state of gaming in Linux and how that can be improve. Identify the problem, developers and hardware makers not developing for Linux. That is the issue. A single market that pushed closed source development early on that helped to create a monopoly. Blaming Linux and saying it is a "Linux performance issue" is just incorrect.
ManofGod
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You are absolutely correct. Reality remains a constant and until gaming is fully native on Linux, it will require Windows just to run the games in Linux.
ManofGod
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Sounds to me like you are simply playing the blame game. Oh well, nothing on the Linux Desktop will change as long as it does not look at itself in the mirror and realize it's own faults. (Of course, it can do nothing but the users, on the other hand......)
Hmm - I'll have to check that out. Thanks for the recommendation! I hope it is as good as you say it is; some choice would be great!
https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=manjaro
#1 on Distrowatch for almost 2 years now with good reason.
As I have already said and I know I say it a lot. Best Linux gamer distro by a mile. Nothing against any of the majors people talk about... they are all great in their own respect. But the "majors" are almost all aimed at the enterprise desktop market. They are great if your a web coder that doesn't game... or a server developer / tech that wants a solid desktop distro. If however you really are a Linux gamer... or attempting to be one. Manjaro is the perfect blend of stability and cutting edge... it doesn't force any choice on you in regards to DE. It's DE agnostic so no need to argue over Gnome or KDE or openbox. If your a new Linux user and your not sure... go with Gnome or KDE or XFCE, and if you want install the others after and try them out, manjaro makes it painless to install another DE or more then one, or run a window manager like openbox or i3. Anyway... ya if your curious about Linux and Linux gaming in general its the logical distro to go to imo. As a Linux gamer its one of the few distros I can think of that you can install... and just go and game (at least via steam) without having to do anything else.
This in a nutshell is the core issue.
It doesn't matter who the weakest link in the "Linux" chain is. If there is one, Linux is weak.
Period. Either own it and solve it or stop being mystified why gaming on Linux hasn't surpassed Windows. Microsoft, Nvidia and AMD all have motivation make stuff as smooth as possible. Step into Linux land and watch the finger pointing begin.
Screw that. I don't want any more science projects; I want to game!
I prefer to use Linux 100% of the time if possible. I don't use windows personally anymore... I keep a windows drive around on one machine for times when I need to test something windows related. I do my bit and report what I can... and I really don't have the chops or the time to contribute super helpful code but I try and do my bit to help improve things.
The number of titles where we see 30%+ performance hits are mostly gone frankly. It also of course depends on the types of games you enjoy playing. Frankly I'm not a bit 60 dollar console port type game player. I play a handful of older GOTY $20 and under titles from steam... and those are mostly running under proton via steam now with a click, with low teens performance hits, and in some cases low single digits. (at least on my admittedly mid range to low end gaming rigs lol) Recent testing of Radeon VII on Linux show that performance levels are extremely playable.
I see your point of course. Most people do what the best they can get.... I understand hey I'm not expecting the PC game market to shift 50% to Linux tomorrow. lol Still I think Linux gaming becomes more viable for more people every day. At this point there aren't many titles that can't be run, and run well. I won't go on about some Vulkan games showing higher performance under Linux... cause ya its true but its also a couple games out of thousands. Every day though a Linux switch for average users becomes more realistic. DXVK is a great stop gap until hopefully more of the gaming industry moves to Vulkan. (I think the unreal engines latest version defaults to Vulkan now... so slowly it seems to be happening)... but that DXVK stop gap is super impressive, at its best the performance hit is 2-3%.
AMD and Intel do support Linux extremely well. Both pay developers to support open source projects. AMD and Intel coders work on everything from schedulers to 3D library stacks... not to mention kernel drivers. Both Intel and AMD for the past 2-3 years now have had driver code for every single product they have released in the kernel prior to release. Again one of the downsides of the enterprise desktop distros that are the popular suggestion for new Linux people hurt us here as they ship with stable LTS releases with often times 6+ month old kernels.... buy a brand new AMD RyzenG processor or Intel CPU and run into issues with a Ubuntu installer with a kernel without drivers for such... makes Linux look terrible. Another reason I always suggest Manjaro... its safe that way, the latest Live installers always have the latest kernel... meaning for instance the manjaro installer iso right now has drivers for completely unreleased hardware such as Ryzen 3000s.
Nvidia on the other hand is the bane of the open source world. They seem to go out of their way to F over the open source community every chance they get. Its why you are forced to use closed source drivers for NV. They don't support the open source GPU driver teams at all... they barely function well enough to allow live installers to boot, and if you buy a brand new zero day NV card there is a very real chance any live Linux USB will simply fail to boot cause the open source driers are that terrible. They also refuse to code their closed source drivers to use accepted Linux standards. I don't go into all the wayland display BS that NV pulled but if they where not trying to sabotage Linux they sure did a good job of making it look that way. Linus telling NV to go F themselves is a popular meme for a reason. lol
NVs reasoning for hating Linux.... who knows. Perhaps its as simple as the MS folks don't care if their driver phones home 60 times an hour... and leaks personal data to their phone home driver on command.
IdiotInCharge
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Given that they're an aggressive technology leader, it's always made sense to me that they keep their driver 'closed'. And aside from philosophical complaints, their drivers work.
Hell, they've worked longer than AMD's drivers have- I'd even call that 'support'.
They like getting paid for their work and don't see the competitive advantage of open sourcing a bunch of highly technical stuff that cost them lots of time and money to develop?
OpenSource isn't always the best solution for every situation. If it works for you, great. Expecting every hole to take a round peg is a bit arrogant.
I don't call it support... I call it ensuring their cards are used in render farms. As far as supporting the Linux desktop. No. Nvidia has went out of their way to hold key desktop elements back. I have no doubt they want server $... which means Linux drivers are a must. Do they ever want average users to be free of their windows spyware, I don't think so.
Intel and AMD both give their key software tech away. What is the point ? Selling hardware or software ???? Nvidia has nothing in software that isn't already in standards AMD and Intel both have full access to in terms of game (general 3d) tech. As much marketing as NV does about RTX or hairworks ect... they haven't reinvented the wheel. They are not DX 12.3 while everyone else is 12.0 or some such sillyness. Their cards run the same extensions... how they do it on the back end has no bearing on running a open source front end to the extensions. AMD and Intel don't detail how their GPUs and CPUs work internally they simply open source a driver that knows which registers do what. NV keeping that behind a screen isn't securing the Caramilk secret (that is a very Canadian reference I know)
CUDA is perhaps the acception... although NV isn't really doing anything special there accept locking things to NV hardware. I get the business sense on that one... on the other hand end users and developers are getting a little sick of that play. NV has created a good amount of ill will with CUDA... if AMD (or perhaps more likely Intel) ever release a OpenCL solution that one ups a NV generation that entire market could flip quicker then I think most people realize.
IdiotInCharge
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Providing a performance-oriented API to get the most out of the fastest hardware on the market? People are mad about that?
Can we not sling hate and organizations that actually innovate?
M76
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Market segregation, locking in many people to NV hardware indefinitely. Very few software support both cuda and opencl.
IdiotInCharge
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They developed CUDA- which is open- while there was nothing in terms of hardware or software on the market.
Sure!
And while Nvidia should be expected to promote CUDA as it's the best way to get full performance out of their GPUs, they're also not at fault for software developer choice in terms of API support.
ManofGod
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Oh, so you have the determination of what a gamer is and is not? LOL! Welcome to the biggest reason Linux will not take over on the desktop.
They have had 25 years and still have not succeeded in gaining any meaningful market penetration on the desktop. Oh well, this is not for lack of trying and they should just keep plugging away, regardless.Oh, so you have the determination of what a gamer is and is not? LOL! Welcome to the biggest reason Linux will not take over on the desktop.
He isn't a Linux gamer his follow up post admitted that. Just saying whats true. I wasn't attacking him just pointing out the obvious as per his own posts. He runs an enterprise class Linux desktop... and as he has no intention of gaming on Linux that is a fine choice. My point was simple if you actually intend to game on Linux a ringed release rolling distro like Manjaro is logical... a locked down stability first enterprise class workstation distro is not.
Its would be like someone saying windows s is what they use its secure and reliable and it sucks for games so therefor windows sucks for games. Its a logic error.
Lots of Linux people game on the enterprise Linux distros like Ubuntu... but to have a good experience they have to bypass multiple Ubuntu packages. Which to my mind seems insane.
Cuda is not open... or sure AMD and Intel and who knows who else would be making CUDA API drivers. The bits on the user end are open. The rest not so much. Is a propritary API.
And yes trust me I know cause I have talked to people with lots and lots of money sunk into volta. That they have zero choice bothers them.... that they been mushed by the market to over spend in there minds for volta stuffs bothers them. Nvidia did a great job of locking the market down with software. Kudos to them sure it was smart in terms of their stock price the last few years. Make no mistake though everyone that has anything to do with getting the cheques written to buy all that NV crap are looking forward to a fall... they will be all to happy to write cheques to Intel or AMD if they can boot NV and CUDA. But no doubt it will take decent product from either.
We'll see your not completely wrong NV was able to lock that market down.... but I would say it had more to do with aggressive software design and paying off the right people to support it on the software end to lock in the big hardware purchasers. They did things like ensure their opencl drivers sucked hard quite on purpose. They did that back when the heavy lifting was being done on the code.
This was already responded to, but just pointing out, you still need to update the graphics drivers to use something other than the Nouveau driver if you have Nvidia graphics. Also, this is a bit simplistic, as not EVERY game works in Linux. I do think Steam has made great strides in making gaming on Linux easier, but if you are trying to play games that are not installed/run through Steam then level of difficulty ramps up greatly compared to "run installer, let install finish, run .exe". My initial attempts to get games running in WINE resulted in a lot of frustration and me going back to Windows/dropping Linux for the past 4 or 5 years.
Seeing as how i recently switched a number of my home PCs from Windows based to Linux, I would agree with this. I think one problem is that those unfamiliar may get overloaded with all of the options and what the "intent" of that distro is, especially when Windows seems to give you the best of both worlds. While I was able to get what I needed using Linux, there was a learning curve to getting it all working and i spent part of that time installing distros, tinkering, and then wiping it to try another distro. Its like that psychology experiment that showed people actually were more satisfied when they had fewer choices in ice cream flavors than when they had more choices. With Windows, you only have 2 choices: Desktop or Server edition (ignoring the Pro vs Home vs etc. fluff), and really only one choice since most people wouldn't even think of the Server edition. When that single choice gives you compatibility with pretty much everything and the competition has different levels of compatibility depending on the "flavor" you choose, it just further overwhelms.
All of that said, I do not like the direction Windows has been taking. I now run Ubuntu for my Plex/Home File Server, with XFCE for a desktop when i want to VNC into it. I also installed Manjaro (KDE desktop) on one of my other PCs for tinkering and basic gaming. I still keep my main desktop as Windows for gaming, but I am finding that I can do almost everything I would do on the Windows PC just as easily on the Linux machine. I think I tended to overestimate what I thought I might do on the PC, and found that really 99% of the time I am doing things that don't really necessitate Windows (browsing the web/streaming Netflix, playing music, sending emails, reading [H], and even some basic gaming). I still have my Windows PC for that 1% of the time when i want to actually game.
NoOther
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I am doing the opposite of that. I am diagnosing the issue and where the problem actually exists. Your statement is also pretty absurd as Linux is Open Source and revolves around looking at itself and realizing its own faults and finding ways to fix them. That is the whole point of the entire project. But what they cannot do is write closed source drivers for hardware that they don't design or build... Or rewrite code for games that are not designed to run natively on Linux. The only real long term solution is trying to encourage more vendors and developers to code their software for Linux.