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.
Honestly? Don't let anyone shame you for having a Windows dual boot partition for gaming. While it would be great if WINE worked well with all games, it just doesn't. Currently, some games still need Windows, and if your choices are between not playing those games and having a Windows partition dedicated to those games, anyone who tells you you have a moral obligation to not play those games is a clown.
I actually made a comment against dualbooting recently but that was only a joke obviously. If the only thing that is holding someone back from Linux is gaming and they don't find WINE/Proton adequate then absolutely dualboot. I'd just suggest checking which games actually don't work well on Linux and only playing these on Windows so you boot it less.
This wasn't directed at you or anyone in particular -- I don't think I even saw your comment. I have seen this take unironically in the past though
is it easy to keep those games on a shared drive so that they're accessible from both OSes? would be cool to not have to download games twice if i want to try it out on a diff OS
Yes! I do that, actually. My laptop has a 2TB hard drive that the Windows partition sees as D:\ and the Linux partition sees as /DATA.
On Windows, I moved all my user libraries (pictures, documents, etc) to that drive, and on Linux I replaced the library directories in the home folder with symbolic links to the folders on /DATA. For individual games, you have to manually set the install location to somewhere on the shared medium each time. For something like Steam, you can set the install location in settings.
nice! what file system do you recommend for that? is there any you recommend for compatibility across mac os x, windows, and linux as well?
My shared drive is NTFS, but that's just because it came that way and I didn't bother to re-format it. Linux can read from it and write to it just fine. Someone else might have a better suggestion though. Don't use the default Linux file systems, Windows can't read them.
i think the best option i've seen is exFAT, but i forget why i don'l like using that. incompatible with more advanced hard drive setups maybe?
Yeah, my hope is that one day I can dedicate my current computer to games and keep it mostly offline (except for downloading games and playing online ofc) and then do everything else on a laptop or cheap build running Linux. Until then, I'll look into doing this.
I'm just... asking for a friend...
:side-eye-1: :side-eye-2:
If you loved your friend, you would turn them in to your local neighborhood office for deprogramming. Games are a brain poison designed to turn us into goomers.
go to https://www.protondb.com/
type in your game
read its compatibility rating.
this only works for games on Steam though
Oh and piracy is available for linux too.
Since the linked thread doesn't mention it, for the best source of Linux game torrents: rutracker. Also sometimes cs.rin.ru.
For a large bunch of direct download, native Linux games: The Eye > Games > Linux.
I can add that same comment to the linked thread if you plan on linking it again in the future.
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.
Steam Proton is pretty amazing. My experience is that a game is on Steam it will probably play.
I still keep a Windows partition for when I have to collaborate with some MS ecosystem dorks or if I want extra good performance on a non-Steam game.
I've been thinking if trying out Xen with GPU passthrough though, where I'd run windows on top of Linux.
Nice, I'll see what games in my library run on Steam Proton, although dual boot partition does seem like the move.
I have it in the mode that ignores whether it's been officially verified to work, and so far everything has! It's pretty neat.
I recommend subscribing to r/Linux_gaming on redd*t if you still use it or subscribe via libreddit if you don't need an account.
Oh so you haven't heard huh? Redd*t is controlled by Chinamen and full of CCP propaganda smh
libreddit lol but thanks, glad there's a way to not have to make an account
I guess it shows the dev got no problem with libs lol it stands for libre though.
some work out of the box, some work fine with a lot of faffing about, some just will not work at all
