I’m planning on building a new gaming PC in the next couple of months. I haven’t done so in about 7 years, so I’m a bit behind the times on hardware. Is there any special considerations you all would recommend when it comes to gaming on Linux? I already run Linux as my daily driver and have a home server, etc, so I’m mainly looking for suggestions regarding current hardware that I would want to consider for my new build.
I haven’t done so before, but I’m interested in running Windows in a QEMU VM to avoid some of the pitfalls for certain multiplayer experiences in certain titles. If anybody has any experience with this also, I’d love to hear about it!
Thanks for any input you all have!
I think the current received wisdom on Linux gaming boils down mainly to three letters: AMD. As a company they’re “friendlier” to Linux for drivers and such.
That said, I’m running an 11th gen intel i7 and nvidia 3080 and not having any problems. I haven’t tried starfield yet but Baldur’s Gate 3 runs like a champ.
I’ve got an old vega56 in hand because I upgraded an old mac pro and I’m wondering whether I can build a usable Linux gaming rig with it.
I don’t use a Nvidia card, nor play Starfield, but I’ve seen some videos explaining that Nvidia drivers 535 don’t work well with Starfield. People had to downgrad to 530 or 525 to have it work. I don’t know if nvidia released new drivers since, but if you have issues trying Starfield, you can keep an eye on that.
In contrast I am having lot of problems with Baldurs gate 3 and new AMD 7600 card, their driver oss constantly causes kernel panic.
I’ve seen some things about maybe stick to a 6000 series for now until AMD gets their 7000 series drivers worked out? Do you have any experience with a 6000 series card?
I’ve got a 6600XT and have had zero issues with Ubuntu and Fedora.
Not really, just jumped from gtx 960 to 7600, hope they iron it out.
Today i installed Debian with the intention to initially set up my linux gaming system. The installation was ok, but everything after that seems like a lot of effort e. g. installing Nvidia drivers, apt doesnt know steam or discord…
Do i really have to Invest that much research or so i miss Something? Is there a better distro for me?
Yes, there are a bunch of gaming-oriented ones. I’m using pop!_os (stupid name) and it took me nearly zero effort to start playing steam games. There’s also Drauger OS, Garuda, Lakka, and Bazzite, among others.
I’ve not got an nvidia card in this computer, but the easiest and fastest distro setup I’ve ever had was with Nobara.
Which is a game focused linux distro created by Glorious Eggroll, the guy that does the custom proton versions.
I’m interested in running Windows in a QEMU VM to avoid some of the pitfalls for certain multiplayer experiences in certain titles.
This may not be such a good idea. Many multiplayer games detect VMs and can ban your account. It’d best to keep Windows around in a dual-boot setup if you’re intending to play online games. In saying that, are you up-to-speed with the current developments in Proton? If not, you should check ProtonDB to see if the games you’re playing is supported now or not. Proton receives updates quite regularly, and more and more games are becoming compatible with every new release.
Beyond that, you can’t really go wrong with an all-AMD build: AMD CPUs are better for gaming in general, and AMD GPUs have excellent support in Linux (you only need the opensource drivers btw, so you don’t need to install anything special or proprietary).
If you are going to get WiFi, try to get Intel Wi-Fi, it’s usually pretty solid.
Outside of that, AMD is generally better for graphics (esp. if you’re interested in messing with Wayland) and CPU is fine with both. I don’t think RTX or DLSS really works on Linux, but I could be wrong there.
But honestly, pretty much everything works fine. I used NVIDIA and a ghetto WiFi chip set for years and it was fine. I couldn’t use Wayland and variable refresh didn’t work properly with my dual monitor setup, but eveningy else worked fine.
So I wouldn’t put a ton of energy into Linux compatibility, unless there’s something that you really need to ensure stays compatible.
