this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2025
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Linux Gaming

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Hey folks. I’m a new dad which means my gaming time is at a premium, but I am going through a big cleanse of the enshittification era of the internet right now, and Windows 11 is kinda giving me bad vibes.

Last time I tried to run Linux it was ok and worked the majority of the time, but ray tracing and a few games caused some issues. I was also using game pass which of course doesn’t work on Linux, so I dropped back to windows.

How is Nvidia life these days? I’ve got a 3080 and an AMD 9800X3D so it should be fine for most games I imagine.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 19 minutes ago

Linux Mint, a 3090 and zero problems

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 hours ago

A couple years ago I swore off Nvidia on principle. For periods things would seem fine but updates would randomly break games and other things. Sold that card and got an amd haven't seen that issue since.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 hours ago

I just did a new build with AMD 9800X3D and RTX 5080. I’ve been dual booting Win 11 and Nobara. I haven’t done direct head to head benchmarks but Deep Rock Galactic, Deep Rock Survivor, Satisfactory, Skyrim, Atomic Heart all have run fine on Nobara.

The big difference I’ve noticed is Cyberpunk 2077. For whatever reason the AI frame generation tool doesn’t seem to work on Nobara so max FPS is around 65-70 with max raytracing/graphics settings. On Windows I got around 75+ and with the AI frame generation it goes up to 180 (I realize this is not a feature that some people like, please just realize I’m reporting my testing results).

Now all of that said, there is this weird jitteriness along the edges of objects with rapid camera movement in Cyberpunk on Windows, even at 180 fps, that isn’t there on Nobara. So even though the objective frame rate is much lower on Nobara, it actually feels much smoother and nicer.

¯\(ツ)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

I'm using endeavourOS with Nvidia 4090 with proprietary drivers and it works fine for most games without tinkering. For issues with Linux gaming you can check protonDB. Steam, lutris and heroic game launchers are doing wonders for a big portion of the gaming options on Linux. I wouldn't change the 3080 with AMD if I were you.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

AMD is ideal but Nvidia is fine. Basically any game that would work on AMD will work on Nvidia (~~only exception I know of is the VR mode of Phasmophobia~~ edit: apparently this was fixed ~1yr ago). Gamepass still won't work though - blame Microsoft for that one.

That said, Nvidia has more of a performance hit when switching. Ancient Gameplays recently did a video comparing Nobara vs Windows 11, with both the RX 7900XTX and the RTX 4080 Super. These were his average results across 20 games:

RX 7900XTX: 1080p +2%, 1440p +0%, 4k -2.2%

RTX 4080S: 1080p -13.8%, 1440p -13%, 4k -10.2%

So your games will work. They just might run 10%-15% slower until you can snag an AMD card. If you're interested in fully committing, looks like most used 3080s are going for ~$500 on ebay, so you could probably get an AMD card and get most of your money back.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 hours ago

Don't buy nvidia. Intel and AMD opensourced their drivers and, more importantly, care for their customer needs. And i am talking about gaming customers.

The only thing nvidia cares about is AI and lots of money.

They lie to their customers (fake frames, paperlaunch) und neglect the gaming needs in favor of AI.

And, after all, AMD does not use 12V high power connectors, just simple, non burning, dual 8 pins

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

It’s much better these days - at least it works fine on arch and fedora. I wouldn’t worry about nvidia on Linux. That said, I’d go AMD for another reason - $. There’s just no reason to spend the kind of money nvidia wants when you can get something just a tad slower for 1/4 the price. AMD makes cards that can drive a huge monitor at high fps.

Bottom line: whatever is fine.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 hours ago

Some things to consider:

  • RTX on AMD sucks, though not sure how RTX on Linux is
  • AMD drivers are FOSS, which means things like Wayland work better sooner (I think Wayland works on Nvidia now?)
  • if you're on a rolling release, you'll occasionally have breakage with Nvidia due to kernel mismatch (happened to me on Arch and openSUSE Tumbleweed); no issues with AMD

In short, AMD will be more seamless on Linux and cheaper for raster performance. Nvidia may be a little annoying, but has higher top end performance.

I go with AMD because I'm done paying more and having a bit worse experience, but I mostly stick to mid tier cards anyway.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 hours ago

I just stick to AMD, especially on Linux. The official AMD driver is open source on Linux, included in mainline kernel, and performance is better than their Windows diver now

[–] cyborganism 2 points 3 hours ago

I have an Nvidia RTX 3070 and it works fine in kubuntu.

One of the latest games I played where I used HDR and ray tracing was Ghostrunner. It worked fine but with some intermittent slow downs.

I also have an AMD processor and that works great. You get a lot more bang for your buck.

You'll be fine. Although if you ever change, go with an ATI Radeon card for graphics because it's better supported by Linux and will have less potential problems.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago

I'm on a 2080 on Mint and have been for the past year, haven't had any major issues so far.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 hours ago

I have been using a 1080TI for years on Linux. It works fine for the most part. If I am going to build a new system which I am planning to do. I would avoid it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I've been doing almost all of my gaming on Linux for 2 years now, running a 5800X3D and an RTX 3080.

Why the "almost"? I love to fly flight simulators, mostly DCS World, in VR and am still using an HP Reverb G2 (Windows) headset.

Everything else works without issues on Linux for me. I've been sitting on Pop!_OS 22.04 but if I were to install today, I'd go for Linux Mint

[–] cecilkorik 2 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

I'd also recommend considering a more gaming-focused distro, they are increasingly popular, easy to use and tuned for gaming with everything you're going to need. SteamOS, Bazzite, PikaOS are all strong choices with rapidly ongoing development at this point (and there are others).

Gaming distros may not be as inherently "stable" as more productivity-focused distros like Mint, but for gaming you don't really want to be. Gaming is pretty cutting-edge, even on Windows you need to get your updates promptly and keep your drivers up-to-date etc if you want many games to work properly. And that situation is doubly true on Linux since it is still a bit less mature for gaming and some parts of the ecosystem are a bit "experimental". A gaming distro balances the need for stability with the need for the latest and greatest games to run properly and with good performance.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

For gaming, pop os has always been good for me on amd

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Same here. I've never run into any of the edge cases that need the bleeding edge updates, and I've been running the same install for a while without any stability issues.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 14 minutes ago* (last edited 13 minutes ago)

Yeah, I literally tested my whole steam library. Around 100 games. Only like 3 wouldn't work at all, and those were old somewhat wonky games. I even got most non steams working too. In steam, a minute looking at proton db and making minor adjustments to the config was needed maybe 5-10% of the time.

Important to note that most of my games are 10+ years old

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

I'll second bazzite, works amazingly well for what it's intended!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

Don't get a 50 series card. If you must upgrade I'd go for a second hand 40xx. But honestly with a 3080 you're perfectly fine for now if you're not married to ultra 4k 144hz.

I'm on a 3070 and it does fine for most games. That said I don't play a lot of AAA titles but the ones I do play fine at medium or high settings mostly.

Also I used to dual boot, but since about a year I moved to 100% Linux and have only had the occasional issue. Mint with Nvidia send l seems to work pretty well these days.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I mean, if you can get a 50 series card at MSRP then do, the scalping sucks but otherwise it's still a slight perf/€ win over 40 series.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

Even at msrp it isn’t worth it right now. They’re having issues with the melting cables still, the drivers not working properly, and things like you might just not get the correct amount of components on your chip die. This series has been abysmal. With the amd 9070 coming out I’d still wait and just look at those to see if they take this gift nvidia is giving them and run with it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Try Linux Mint or CachyOS, most will work out of the box also Nvidia graphics cards.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

I heard that CachyOS is pretty good with NVIDIA so maybe that’s the best bet and just see if all my games I’m currently playing work.

[–] drangus 4 points 5 hours ago

Nobara with the nvidia build has been great for me

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 hours ago

Multiplayer with anticheat in kernel won't work in any linux distribution, the rest is fine with proton.