The conversation around gaming on Linux sure has changed in the last few years. And these benchmark results prove it.

I recently spent some time with the Framework 13 laptop, evaluating it with the new Intel Core Ultra 7 processor and the AMD Ryzen 7 7480U. It felt like the perfect opportunity to test how a handful of games ran on Windows 11 and Fedora 40. I was genuinely surprised by the results!

…

The Framework 13 is perfectly capable of gaming even with its integrated graphics, provided you’re willing to compromise by lowering the resolution and quality presets for more demanding games. (It’s also a testament to how far AMD’s APUs have come in the past decade.)

Summary of results:

  • Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Linux wins
  • Total War: Warhammer III: Windows wins
  • Cyberpunk 2077: Linux wins
  • Forza Horizon 5: Windows wins

These results are an interesting slice of the Linux vs Windows gaming picture, but certainly not representative of the entire landscape. A few shorts years ago, however, I never would have dreamed I’d be writing an article where even two games on Linux are outperforming their Windows counterparts.

Archived Link

  •  umbrella   ( @umbrella@lemmy.ml ) 
    95•26 days ago

    sometimes i still can’t believe i’m running every game i want on linux. like its still surprising and surreal to me.

    thanks to all the contributors that made it possible for us to ditch microsoft.

    •  variants   ( @variants@possumpat.io ) English
      5•26 days ago

      I felt the same way, after dual booting linux and windows for a while, I stopped booting into windows so decided to just wipe both drives and do a raid0 install of linux. Finally I got to messing with games expecting to have to tweak settings and everything but nope it just booted up. even better running on raid0 now I dont even see load screens with games like starfield.

    •  Nithanim   ( @Nithanim@programming.dev ) 
      1•25 days ago

      One I quickly gave up on trying recently was Star Citizen. Failing myself with dumb errors I found out that you need to follow a rather elaborate tutorial. I decided that it was very much not worth it. Not sure how it is possible to fuck it up that badly.

      The other I am bummed about is Talos Principle 2. Last time I played at release it worked perfectly. Now it runs so slow that it takes like 10 minutes to even get to the main menu. In the realm of tens of seconds per frame and I am at a loss how to even debug that.

      One dumb thing for native (!) Unity games (at least Valheim and Shapez 2) is that they disrespect the default audio output device.

      Otherwise, plug and play. It’s so nice!

      •  barinzaya   ( @barinzaya@lemm.ee ) 
        1•20 days ago

        I’ve run Star Citizen on Linux a few times (not a regular player), there was a Lutris configuration that Just Worked™ for me. There’s also the Linux Users Group for SC, which maintains some scripts for working around issues if you want to do things manually. They’re the ones maintaining the Lutris configuration too.

        I did run into the same issue with Shapez 2 recently, though! A quick stop in qpwgraph to connect it to the right audio output and everything else about it worked perfectly, but it’s not a permanent fix.

  •  cron   ( @cron@feddit.org ) 
    45•26 days ago

    When I started using linux 15 years ago, my friend recommended to keep a windows partition for gaming. At least for me, I have deleted windows a few years ago and I’m not looking back.

    •  Damage   ( @Damage@feddit.it ) 
      12•26 days ago

      My gaming PC was the last one I had running Windows. I couldn’t take it anymore and this year I switched that one too.

      Now if only I could run (my perfectly legal copy of) SOLIDWORKS decently, it’d be great.

  •  Go-On-A-Steam-Train   ( @GoOnASteamTrain@lemmy.ml ) 
    8•26 days ago

    Aw, I can’t get cyberpunk to run on my mint install - it gets the logos and stops responding.

    Some people read about performance, sometimes I’m just motivated knowing someone on the internet did get a game running in the first instance! :)

    I will say though, Baldurs Gate 3 works perfectly, as does anything else I throw at it! :)

  •  corsicanguppy   ( @corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca ) English
    5•25 days ago

    I’m gonna get specific here, but show me WoW on Linux or GTFO. It’s the only game I really play (wz2100 and zero-k too but no more shooters), and while I’m just a casual scrub the old folks and the kids get together for some chatter and splatter and it’s really great.

    I don’t want my account blocked for false-positive on the cheat detector or something, so that’s really my blocker for going fedora on the desktop.

    Edit: -18? Guess us casual wow people don’t count? :-. I just wanna ride dragons, man.

    •  ulkesh   ( @ulkesh@beehaw.org ) English
      9•26 days ago

      Okay, challenge accepted.

      I removed Windows from my machine and have been playing WoW on Garuda Linux since April. I installed via Lutris and use GE-proton with umu-launcher (simply using GE-Proton within latest Lutris uses umu) and it works every time without fail.

      First, for WoW there is no separate cheat detector that somehow figures out “oh they’re on Linux, we must ban them”.

      Second, WoW plays considerably better on Linux for me (based on the framerates I’m seeing in various locations in Azeroth). Granted, I decided to dump NVIDIA so I didn’t have to deal with their closed platform garbage.

      Lastly, yes, anti-cheat is an issue, but not because of you running Linux — it’s because of game companies fundamentally misunderstanding operating systems. There is no easier method of cheating on Linux than there is on Windows especially if the game company properly supports Linux. So if a company were to ban you, either you are doing something ban-worthy (and running Linux objectively is not), or the company is garbage because they don’t understand what they’re doing.

      I have seen no evidence to support Blizzard banning people for playing WoW on Linux. Show me a preponderance of evidence of this that isn’t possibly some other ban-worthy issue, and I will happily change my mind.