I've been feeling inspired by the posts here and on /c/libre and have been switching over to a lot of FLOSS alternatives to software I use. One thing holding me back from switching to Linux is that my PC is how I play games and, as I understand it, most games aren't compatible with Linux so you either can't play them or they need software like Wine. How much of a problem is this really, since I've also heard that Linux gaming has been getting easier over the years.

  • Windows97 [any, any]
    ·
    4 years ago

    It's great as long as you don't play major first person shooters or the odd other game with easy anticheat/battleye. If you use steam they have this thing called steam play/proton and it basically lets you play a lot of games with no extra effort, and even more games with some extra effort. Proton is amazing, it's single-handedly made linux so much more approachable and it's really made linux gaming a thing, sometimes games can run better than they do on windows with it. It's open source and they send a lot of their fixes to WINE.

    If you have games on the ep*c store there's an open source EGS client called heroic that lets you install EGS games and run them with WINE, including specific versions like the ones in lutris. It's not as good as steam but it's alright. Origin and Uplay I haven't used and I doubt they work well but you can install them with lutris and run at least origin games with wine. ubisoft's anticheat makes it impossible to play some of their games on linux like the division or rainbow 6 siege (rip). EA games like battlefront and battlefield work pretty well. You can also buy EA's games on steam which I'd reccomend. They still need a part of origin but it's a lot less messy than trying to run them from the origin client on linux.

    If you're curious about what games work on linux (more specifically steam but it mostly applies to wine though you might need more tweaks) check out ProtonDB. It's a really good list of games that people have tried to run and what works and what doesn't, if they need something extra they'll tell you what they did to make it work (or work better). I'd recommend checking you favorite games on there to see how they work.