Hey folks. I’m a new dad which means my gaming time is at a premium, but I am going through a big cleanse of the enshittification era of the internet right now, and Windows 11 is kinda giving me bad vibes.
Last time I tried to run Linux it was ok and worked the majority of the time, but ray tracing and a few games caused some issues. I was also using game pass which of course doesn’t work on Linux, so I dropped back to windows.
How is Nvidia life these days? I’ve got a 3080 and an AMD 9800X3D so it should be fine for most games I imagine.
The only trouble I have with my card is having to prepend prime-run to every program that I want to use it.
I’m not sure if AMD gaming laptops have the same issue, but if they don’t then that would be a huge benefit in their favor.
I have an RTX 3080 Ti working beautifully on EndeavourOS (Arch based).
I haven’t done any research into GPUs on Linux in awhile. I wasn’t aware nvidia finally released an open source driver. Looks like it’s recommended for the 3080. Seems like this was a fairly recent development so you may have more luck?
I’ve been running Fedora for over a year now with an Nvidia 4090 RTX with no major problems. I can think of one game (Path of Exile 2) where I needed to make a minor configuration tweak to get it working.
Boycott Nvidia, their new cards are just overpriced hardware keys to fixing their software.
OP isn’t asking what card to buy. He already has a Nvidia card and is asking if it’s going to work on Linux.
Amd also have bugs and stuff, and they Arent much cheaper then Nvidia tho, but way worse features
This is the unfortunate reality.
AMD piggybacks on Nvidia’s scumminess.
Yep, no wonder why they lost 80% of theyre 50% marketshare last 7 years
I had a 3070 and now I upgraded to a 4070 ti super and havent had issues with either. Maybe I got lucky but I never understood all the negative views on nvidia and Linux.
I daily drive Linux, gaming quite a bit and I have a 3080.
There are occasional annoyances, for example when I wake from suspend one of my monitors doesn’t activate until I change display settings (which I do now with a script bound to a hotkey, though a fix is in the pipe). Most of the time it doesn’t cause me any issues.
I’ve kept a Windows install on a partition as a backup in case I have real compatibility issues but I haven’t booted it in weeks (even then, it was to play an anti cheat game, nothing NVIDIA related).
I use Hyprland (on Arch, btw) so I’m technically using unsupported software but I have had no major issues.
On the plus side, I can run local AI easily and DLSS/DLAA, to me, produce higher quality results and with less overhead. Ray tracing is technically in the plus column but most of the time I’d rather just have higher FPS than the visual quality.
I don’t have HDR gaming just yet (my biggest complaint) because gamescope likes to crash, assuming it launches in the first place. However, a Wayland update is going to fix this imminently (next major release) so you can get HDR without gamescope.
Basically, there were trying times in the past but currently (assuming you’re using current versions of things and not some LTS release from a year ago) it’s largely a smooth experience.
I’m using Garuda with Nvidia and it’s been painless. I do feel like a get a little less performance, but it’s been good enough to keep me happy.
I have a 7900 XTX. It just works™.
This. I moved to the 7900 XTX after trying to get my 4080 to work properly for a solid month. Works perfectly now.
I just stick to AMD, especially on Linux. The official AMD driver is open source on Linux, included in mainline kernel, and performance is better than their Windows diver now
Linux Mint, a 3090 and zero problems
Linux Mint and 3060 - no problems here either.
linux mint and 3060ti rolling smoothly
I got a 3080 and I have not encountered any issues on the latest drivers, released a few days ago.
Before that, I had a minor issue (artifacts) on some websites when on a high refresh rate. Fixed with latest drivers.
My next card is going to be nvidia, too.
Alrighty, I’m going to give it a real go when I finish moving house and see how it goes.
It’s much better these days - at least it works fine on arch and fedora. I wouldn’t worry about nvidia on Linux. That said, I’d go AMD for another reason - $. There’s just no reason to spend the kind of money nvidia wants when you can get something just a tad slower for 1/4 the price. AMD makes cards that can drive a huge monitor at high fps.
Bottom line: whatever is fine.
Some things to consider:
- RTX on AMD sucks, though not sure how RTX on Linux is
- AMD drivers are FOSS, which means things like Wayland work better sooner (I think Wayland works on Nvidia now?)
- if you’re on a rolling release, you’ll occasionally have breakage with Nvidia due to kernel mismatch (happened to me on Arch and openSUSE Tumbleweed); no issues with AMD
In short, AMD will be more seamless on Linux and cheaper for raster performance. Nvidia may be a little annoying, but has higher top end performance.
I go with AMD because I’m done paying more and having a bit worse experience, but I mostly stick to mid tier cards anyway.
RTX is Nvidia’s brand of gaming GPU’s. It can’t be “on AMD”
RTX means Ray Tracing Texel eXtreme, and people use it to mean “ray tracing” regardless of who is doing it. AMD can do it, just with crappy performance compared to Nvidia.
Don’t buy nvidia. Intel and AMD opensourced their drivers and, more importantly, care for their customer needs. And i am talking about gaming customers.
The only thing nvidia cares about is AI and lots of money.
They lie to their customers (fake frames, paperlaunch) und neglect the gaming needs in favor of AI.
And, after all, AMD does not use 12V high power connectors, just simple, non burning, dual 8 pins
OP already has a Nvidia card and isn’t planning on buying anything. Yes Nvidia is a horrible company, but that doesn’t answer OP’s question. What answers OP’s questions is: Yes, go ahead and try Linux, your Nvidia card is going to work just fine.
A couple years ago I swore off Nvidia on principle. For periods things would seem fine but updates would randomly break games and other things. Sold that card and got an amd haven’t seen that issue since.
