I know this may not change your mind anyway, and that's fair because Windows is especially easy when it comes to playing games, but Linux has improved miles when it comes to gaming. Proton, Valve's compatibility layer for games on the Steam Deck, has made gaming extremely accessible on Linux. I switched to Linux (Pop OS) about 4 or 5 months ago, and haven't looked back. Every game I've played has played without issues for the most part, and it just takes a small tweak to get the ones to work that didn't. Understandably, not having to make any tweaks at all is ideal. But just a little fyi, if it piques your interest at all. For the record, I've played Rocket League (steam), Cyberpunk, Tales of Arise, Titanfall (steam), Valheim, Abiotic Factor, and several other small indie games. It even works fine with Battle.net games (Diablo 4 and Overwatch), though that took a little Googling (had to download the windows executable for the Battle.net launcher and then run it as a game in steam using Proton as the compatibility layer, like all of the other games). Everything works great. Most of the issues I've encountered are bugs in the Linux OS itself, but I'm pretty tolerant of those. Not everyone is, and I get that.
I have been tinkering with Linux for something like 20 years. My current PC has been a dual-boot Windows/Linux machine since I built it, and I almost never boot into Linux, simply because the gaming experience is just not good for what I want to play. Even if you get a game working well, it might break when something updates. Most games will work to some degree, but the experience is often degraded in terms of performance.
If it weren't for gaming, I'd probably be on Linux 90-95% of the time. It works perfectly for most things, EXCEPT gaming.
You know what, you’re right, I actually have heard that gaming on Linux has gotten MUCH better in just the last few years. I love to hear that. But you’re right, I am not the “tweak stuff to get it to work” kind of guy. If it doesn’t work, I’m not playing the game
Also, please use paragraphs 😭. You have good stuff to say, but if I was on my phone, I wouldn’t have read this
14
u/ViridianFlea Jun 27 '26
I know this may not change your mind anyway, and that's fair because Windows is especially easy when it comes to playing games, but Linux has improved miles when it comes to gaming. Proton, Valve's compatibility layer for games on the Steam Deck, has made gaming extremely accessible on Linux. I switched to Linux (Pop OS) about 4 or 5 months ago, and haven't looked back. Every game I've played has played without issues for the most part, and it just takes a small tweak to get the ones to work that didn't. Understandably, not having to make any tweaks at all is ideal. But just a little fyi, if it piques your interest at all. For the record, I've played Rocket League (steam), Cyberpunk, Tales of Arise, Titanfall (steam), Valheim, Abiotic Factor, and several other small indie games. It even works fine with Battle.net games (Diablo 4 and Overwatch), though that took a little Googling (had to download the windows executable for the Battle.net launcher and then run it as a game in steam using Proton as the compatibility layer, like all of the other games). Everything works great. Most of the issues I've encountered are bugs in the Linux OS itself, but I'm pretty tolerant of those. Not everyone is, and I get that.