The TRUTH about gaming on Linux! - An honest review from a new user!

hello and welcome to a new linux discussion video where today i will be answering the age-old question on uh computing and linux and things like that is gaming on linux actually good is it better or is it worse than windows gaming uh can you even game on linux how was the experience for an average user it depends god that's such a bad answer but really that's the truth in that it depends a lot on the kinds of games you play how you play them where you play them who you play them with things like that now i do not know your specific gaming sensibilities and your gaming habits i don't know what games you play i don't know where you play them i don't know how you play them i don't know who you play them with what i can describe is how i play games and how that has worked out for me in my 9 or 10 months of running linux so let's start off with that let's talk about what i play here is a list of all of my favorite games of all time if you notice there is a trend none of them are multiplayer games minus dark souls and elden ring but that's kind of kinda i do not play multiplayer games i'm not a fan of halo i'm not a fan of call of duty i've never been a fan of uh battle royales i hate league of legends i hate valrant even more i am just not a fan of the always online types of games gaming to me is an escape and the last thing i want to do is interact with chucklefox online who are getting mad because i'm using a specific gun i know that a lot of that is hyperbolic and the point of this is to make you laugh and have a good hoot and a holler but uh jokes have a little bit of truth in them you know what i mean so when it comes to me running games on linux i don't really run into a whole lot of problems because i don't play online games that require the use of anti-cheat software and that's like the big thing that will determine whether or not you have a good or a bad experience on linux when it comes to gaming does your game have anti-cheat if yes there's like a 50 50 chance that it's just not going to be compatible games like rainbow six siege or fortnite or destiny 2 for some reason like these games just don't work but apex legends uh league of legends slip gate i think works i'm pretty sure slip gate works and a few others like i'll put like some pngs up here next to me in the video these games all work but there are a bunch more that just don't and it's not because of the game itself or even because of linux it all comes down to the developers just don't want to support the platform good examples of this would be epic games just saying like you linux we're not gonna let fortnite be playable on this and destiny 2 same thing like strange like okay i don't like destiny 2 but i'm just one person if you like destiny 2 that's fine but i just think it's weird that bungie has just taken this like weird anti-linux stance on on this case where it's like they're not gonna let people play their game on linux and if you do you run the risk of getting banned like if they were to give us a reason as to why i don't follow destiny 2 news last time i heard about this was when they first announced that like hey we're not supporting linux i don't know if they gave a reason or not i'm sure someone in the comments will correct me but like i like it it's bizarre to me like why would you not want people to play your game i don't know so if you play any of the games that i just talked about you're gonna need to do your own research and figure out if your game works or not if it doesn't i'm not gonna judge you for not switching to linux but if it does you can give it a try you can you can slap linux on an old hard drive or on an old laptop somewhere just have it as a side machine or a side install you know because that's how i started i dual booted on my system and technically i still have my hard drive in my system that has my windows install on it but um i don't use it anymore my point for all this is uh i've had no problems on running games on linux because a lot of it is more seamless than you would expect and this is due in no small part to the efforts of the open source community and valve in uh creating and developing wine and proton respectively because like it really is just that easy you click a button in steam to enable a steam compatibility layer the steam play and then you just turn on a game that's it you turn on a game and it'll just work here's a good example uh recently i purchased the game red out that it's kind of like a wipeout f-zero kind of game it's closer to wipeout than it is f-zero but it's a fast-paced you know anti-grav racing game very good highly recommend it but uh i did not do any research into how that game runs i did not go on proton db i did not go on a forum i did not do any of that i'm just like hey we're gonna turn the game on and we're gonna see if it works and guess what it worked now you might say to yourself like oh red out that's a bit of an older game that came out a few years ago so obviously the proton devs had time to uh bump up that compatibility and and make that game work better right because that's obviously how it works right well no because uh card shark the game that just came out published by devolver digital i played that last night with a friend of mine and i just turned it on and it works matter of fact proton db lists it as a platinum rating meaning that it runs perfectly even though it is not a native linux game but a card shark that that's a that's an indie game right of course indie games are gonna work i want to play the big triple-a hard-hitting biggest budget biggest flopping dick games possible have you heard of eldon ring because i don't know if you're aware of this but the reason why elden ring runs so poorly on pc is because the pc port of the game straight up just does not have a shader caching system i mean it might now they might have patched it in in uh the in the latest updates or whatever but when it first came out did not have a shader caching system at all now you might be thinking to yourself what the is the shader caching system to be honest i don't really know what i do know is that uh effectively every time you turn to the camera and you uh loaded in new objects into the scene into the the game scene that you see your computer had to do extra work to rebuild all of the shadows and the shading in that game from scratch because it has no way of storing that data for later and that's why you get those hard slowdowns and those like massive stutter spikes and stuff like that on the pc version none of that exists on the linux version because on proton that stuff's just built in so even if your game doesn't have a shader cache proton will just make it work i could be getting a lot of that stuff wrong i will admit i'm not a very technical person even though i daily drive linux so if i got that wrong please correct me in the comments and any corrections that i do get from this video will be in the pinned comments you can easily see what i got right and what i got wrong but again i don't know how you play games you could sit down and play halo every saturday night with your buds and have a blast and if you do that's great and i'm very happy for you and i'm glad you get enjoyment out of halo infinite because i don't you may decide that hey i want to just hate myself and everyone around me i'm gonna fire up league of legends i can't say that it i'm keeping that in i don't care but if you play single player games that don't really have any sort of online functionality hey those will just work even if you play games that do have online functionality like dark souls or elden ring those work too i admit i haven't played every game under the sun so i can't confirm every single game to you directly what i can do is i can again tell you my experiences you want to know what else i do a lot of the times when i'm gaming on pc i play on emulators and emulators let me tell you emulators run flawlessly on linux with the exception of uh project 64 for whatever reason project 64 is just not available on linux i don't understand the reasoning but n64 emulation has kind of been this like spaghetti wasteland of like plug-ins and different codes and all this stuff just mashed together and it somehow works i should clarify that movement 64 does work on linux so you still can emulate n64 games it's just you're gonna have to run through a different emulator and a different core and i guess that actually circles back around to the main point of this video linux is not better or worse than windows windows is not better or worse than linux they are different entities entirely so your approach to solving problems and getting programs to run on both systems is going to be different take for example all this right here the command line and all of this that goes into the command line what is it why do people care for the scope of this video uh i can't go over that i'll do that in the next video so get subscribed so you can watch me try to explain why people enjoy the command line so much and why i actually enjoy it like i've been i've been running linux for like nine ten months i probably already said this in this video and i hated the command line now it's fine i actually prefer it in some cases so i've changed my approach to how i solve problems because i'm running a different setup like this is how i've always put it you can't solve a problem the same way on windows the way you'd solve the problem on mac right so why would you expect linux to be exactly the same as windows why would you expect linux to be exactly the same as mac you can't all three of them are very different and if you have games or programs or software or whatever and you can't switch to linux because you rely on those bits of software that's fine look i'm not trying to convince you that linux is better or worse than windows right but i've noticed in browsing forums and watching people who've never used linux before talk about linux like there's a lot of misconceptions flying around about it and that just kind of sucks you know like i also find it really weird how there are like some staunch windows defenders on certain websites and um i don't get it but whatever like if you like windows then that's fine if you like linux then that's fine if you like mac that's fine i don't care what you use all i want you to do is just try it if you got a spare ssd or a spare computer laying around just throw linux on that test it out see what you think do you like it do you not like it it doesn't matter what matters is you tried it and you expanded your horizons a little bit at the end of the day linux gaming works for me i'm able to play my games i'm able to play them at the max performance and max resolutions that i could get on a windows pc honestly sometimes a little bit better performance beside the point and that's all that matters you know i can run my emulators i can run dark souls i can run god hand that's all i've ever cared about so whatever at the end of whatever this video was i uh i want to thank you specifically for making it this far into the video and if you enjoyed this video uh then click subscribe click like uh comment uh do all that stuff actually you know what i actually do want you to leave a comment because this is a discussion video after all so let me know what you guys think about linux gaming and whether or not it's there or not or whether or not it's better or worse than windows gaming again this is a discussion video so let's open the door for some discussion i also want to stop and thank my patrons which are i'm looking at the camera right here they're going to be listed right here uh they support me directly on patreon and if you want to support me directly on patreon you can follow the link in the description or at the end of this video uh and you can do all the normal youtuber to help me out even if you can't support me directly through monetary means you can still leave a like you can still comment you can still subscribe all that stuff helps me out more than you would imagine thank you again for watching thank you for making it to the end of this video and i hope you have a wonderful day [Music] you

Channel: PaV

Views: 10,323

Keywords: PaV_Live

Id: cmPR8Cs-mRI

Length: 13min 2sec (782 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 09 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Nokeruhm]

Good video.

What I like about this videos, is how the matter is treated in a very natural way. I mean other people makes videos about something, but this guy talks and tells about something and everything at the same time, is just like a conversation between pals. And those are very different forms of communication.

That being said, since I made the change from, or ditch, Windows what I learn for me is very valuable, not only new stuff but lessons too. And that's very important for any PC gaming matters. Windows was just the boring and always the same damn thing, but with every new version getting worst so much little things that at the end you are not just bored, you are even angry with the operating system itself.

For me it was very simple... I said to myself; I don't like this this and this bullshit of Windows. But instead of complaining about it (like a lot of Windows users does, unaware of the alternatives) I decided to take an alternative. A chance for a change. Hey! if you don't like something where you are and you can't change anything, why stay there?!, you can move on, you can move to other place for a change. Just try it, get away.

Linux was for me the "new air", new things, new ways to do the same; just gaming on PC, like I want, like I need. Like Pav says not better not worse, just different. But, that differences takes away those "a-lot-of-little-inconveniences" from Windows, and that is a very huge relieve. You depend on yourself again, for good or better if everything goes fine, but not for bad if something goes wrong.

I mean, what I see very commonly is some kind of "loyalty", a blind one, at some point I'd say that is some kind of devotion or even meaningless dependence. Change the operating system for convenience is not betray anything, is just a decision.

Why do people think they can't live without this or that?, if that game doesn't work where you are, just play another. Why so much dependence on habits?, because are just habits and no more than that. Something that can be changed. Any change is scary at first, especially when you are on your own. The place you know is just a shelter, and people fears changes cause of that, just people scared of changes.

That happened to everyone, is normal, is a natural behave, is not a shame be confused or hesitant, even insecure.

People still think that is impossible to breathe outside Windows, believing that they need Windows (and I purposely said "believing" and not "thinking"), and when somebody says, "hey I'm live and kicking outside, I'm not playing less nor worse on Linux, just some games are troublesome because of this and that", they don't believe, they don't want to think otherwise because they are in the shelter (Windows) and they believe outside is a storm in the middle of a hurricane (Linux).

That's why is so important to divulge about Linux. And Pav does very well in that regard (good work mate).

[u/WCWRingMatSound]

You and I are the kinda of guys that would totally be friends. I mean…we’d have each other’s numbers and only text memes, but we’d totally be friends lol.

But seriously — twins, dawg. Linux nine months ago, haven’t gone back. Zero multiplayer games. Your GOAT games list is suspiciously zoomer 🧐 lol, but otherwise everything looks good. Great video 👍🏼

[u/acAltair]

Since Proton, and since Deck, Linux has grown so much. Some people will downplay the growth by saying "Linux isn't ready" as if their video covers everyones use case. For singleplayer games Linux is in a good state. And multiplayer compatibility is increasing. The platform is moving forward and every year new games and features become available/compatible.

There is also the distinction between old/established games and new ones. Like with native Linux builds, it's easier to incorporate anticheat for Linux from start than it is afterwards. What this means is new games will have higher chance of anticheat compatibility. Elden Ring is a example of that. I wouldn't be surprised if new Call of Duty on Steam would also become compatible seeing how popular it is, Valve would want to ensure it works on Deck.

I skimmed through video so excuse me if I didn't catch it but I think its always important to put emphasis on that games run through Proton is not a apple to apple comparison, more like pear to apple. Newbies may be uninformed of Proton and DXVK and could think its native vs native.

Also important is pointing out that Linux ports will be as good as market share the platform has. What I mean is that native is not synonymous with quality and devs could have given a Linux build a fair release but not as good as Windows. Metro Exodus Enchanced Edition did not come to Linux last I checked. So a native build for Linux, by a company who isn't known for Linux releases, compared to native Windows is likely not 100% empirical either.

Good video, look forward to seeing more.