Noob Question Thread: Ask Any Questions About Linux!
I thought I'll make this thread for all of you out there who have questions but are afraid to ask them. This is your chance!
I'll try my best to answer any questions here, but I hope others in the community will contribute too!
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I feel like I'm getting performance below what I've been getting on windows for the same games when I'm booting in Linux. Top of the head example is COD WWII, the gameplay and cutscenes stagger a lot but runs fine on windows with the same hardware. I've checked that my graphics card is being used by Linux but I just feel like I'm missing some settings that would optimise it.
I'm running Linux mint with a NVIDIA GTX1070. I know there's some issues with NVIDIA and Linux but would that be the full reason?
I’m running Linux mint
I'd say that's your main issue. Mint isn't really optimised for gaming, as it uses an old and non-gaming optimised kernel, and most packages in general are pretty old. When it comes to Linux and gaming, the #1 rule is to try to get the latest kernel and graphics drivers. You could install a more recent and optimised kernel on Mint, but if you do that you risk breaking things, which may especially happen when you do your next OS upgrade. So I'd recommend switching to either a gaming-optimised distro such as Bazzite, or a distro which has the latest packages and is optimised for performance, such as CachyOS (although I wouldn't recommend it if you're still very new to Linux, since it's based on Arch - if you're new to Linux then Bazzite would be a better option).
The second issue is - which version of Proton are you using? If you're using the official Proton, I'd recommend using Proton-GE instead, as it includes a lot of extra patches and tweaks not present in the official Proton + uses more up-to-date components like DXVK. You can install Proton-GE easily using ProtonUp-Qt. Once you've installed Proton-GE, go to the game's property in Steam and change the compatibility tool to Proton-GE.
Thanks for the recommendations! I was already kind of considering switching to Fedora so Bazzite sounds good, although CachyOS sounds interesting too.
I'm also currently running Linux Mint but want to start gaming on Linux as well. Given what you've said it would seem that I need to consider distro hopping.
I have a "working" knowledge of Arch, I say working loosely as I have a home server running Manjaro and kinda maybe know what I'm doing with it and I'm comfortable following guides etc.
Which of the 2 distros you mentioned would you recommend? CachyOS looks great on the surface but Bazzite definitely seems to cater to gaming and it's website heavily leans that way
I think you'd be fine with either, but in the end it comes down to how "hands-off" you want to be, or how much customisability, flexibility and performance you're after. Unlike Manjaro, Cachy is closer to Arch, which means things may on rare occasions break or may require manual intervention (you'll need to keep up with the Arch news). Bazzite on the other hand is the polar opposite, being an immutable distro - updates are atomic (they either work or don't, and in case an update is no good, you can easily rollback to a previous version from GRUB); but this also means you lose some customisability and flexibility - like you can't run a custom kernel or mess with the display manager (logon screen) etc, and you'll need to mostly stick to installing apps via Flatpak or Distrobox.
Overall, if you're after a console-like experience that just works™, then choose Bazzite. On the other hand, if you're a hands-on type of person who likes to fine-tune things and is after the best possible performance, choose CachyOS.
Thanks for the detailed response! I think CachyOS is the way to go for me. I like to be more hands on and have more flexibility
I do not have a lot of knowledge on this, but I suspect that nvidia does not support the GTX1070 that well on Linux.
AND supports Linux better. As for nvidia, newer cards have a bit better support but I bet there's still some disparity.