With all that’s going on. I’ve been really considering setting up a dual boot and testing Linux Mint properly. (i hate virtual desktops, but I have Mint running on one now) I know I have to make some changes to my productivity workload, as I’m an Adobe Lightroom user. I’ll keep that on Windows for now.
But my question is regarding gaming.
I play a lot of varying games, from new singleplayer and multiplayer stuff to old games back up to about 1999. I know I have to do a bunch of research setting things up, but right off the bad I have a question.
What games will not be possible to use on Linux?
For example, will something like Escape from Tarkov work? That’s a game I do not want to even install of there’s a chance it will lead to a ban.
And is comparability with older games better or worse than W11?
What games will not be possible to use on Linux?
Most online games that have anticheat. (yes some work but most don’t even if the anticheat could support linux.)
For example, will something like Escape from Tarkov work?
No
And is comparability with older games better or worse than W11?
YMMW. but often linux plays older windows games better than windows.
I mostly play single player indie games, but still. The amount of games that I can’t play on Linux can be counted on one hand (sadly on of them EFT). Older games generally work great, very old games can be a bit cranky. I would roughly compare the compatability to windows 7 regarding old games.
ProtonDB is a popular site for checking how well a game runs on Linux systems. Users upload reviews that rate the level of support along with their system specs.
I switched to Pop!_OS and I’ve rarely run into issues with games. Games with anti-cheat typically won’t work. It seems like Escape from Tarkov doesn’t work. It uses Battleye which requires special configuration to work on Linux and it seems the devs don’t care to do that. Other games that use Battleye work fine.
Performance Is about on par with windows for everything dx9 to dx12. Dx8 and earlier I think are not supported by wine.
In general you will be able to play almost all games, as long as they don’t require kernel level anti cheat, but some online games do block Linux users. In the case of tarkov I can’t help, you should read online.
Older games should be fine, personally I played Max Payne 1 an 2 a couple month ago, and the original Hitman series runs better than on windows.
Expect to do some tinkering on some more advanced games. E.g.: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Alan Wake 2 require the experimental version of proton, God of War Ragnarok requires to enable SteamDeckMode on a config file to disable PlayStationSDK, usually you will find suggestions on protondb.
Some Nvidia proprietary things will not work in games on wine, e.g.: GPU accelerated physix will not work, also on some games dlss will require editing wine’s registry.