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Gaming on Linux?

Self-Ejected

Joseph Stalin

Totally not Auraculum
Joined
Jul 16, 2020
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796
So far I've received a lot of good feedback from people. Please continue if you have anything further to add. More questions though:
1. Does Linux run smoother than Windows, on average?
2. How do you customise UI etc.? Via terminal, separate apps?
 

Catacombs

Arcane
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How do you customise UI etc.? Via terminal, separate apps?
It depends on what distro and desktop manager you're using. Most, if not all, desktop environments can be customised to your liking. So, if you want certain things to show on your taskbar -- date/time, CPU usage, network stats, price of bitcoin -- it's possible. You'll just need to do some research on how to accomplish that.
 
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Codex Year of the Donut
I've used XFCE for almost a decade since GNOME became an abomination released GNOME3. If all you want is a classic desktop experience, it works fine. Pretty much all DEs will support customizing though.
1. Does Linux run smoother than Windows, on average?
yes
especially with regards to anything related to file I/O, NTFS is a pile of shit.
 

Morpheus Kitami

Liturgist
Joined
May 14, 2020
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One more question, though - is MODDING more troublesome on Linux?
As long as its not using some proprietary weird exe to install mods you'll be fine. Something like Morrowind is fine, as would be drag and drop and self-extracting zip/rar files.
1. Does Linux run smoother than Windows, on average?
Yes, most Linux distros will work better than a Windows machine on the same specs. For really older machines, which I suspect you don't care about right now, I hear the various Puppy Linuxes give it even better performance.
 

Luka-boy

Arcane
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One more question, though - is MODDING more troublesome on Linux?
Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.

Steam Workshop mods should almost always work exactly the same as in Windows, though you can find the odd issue like those requiring DX12 or some Windows-only tool installed. Mods requiring only to drag and drop files and maybe editing a line in a file have usually worked fine for me, like for Kingdom Come Deliverance, Battle Brothers, Minecraft or Morrowind. But it's a bit of a lottery, as for example I was shocked by how easy I got Jagged Alliance 2 1.13 to work but of all fucking things GZDoom + Launcher(s) was a pain in the ass to get to work.

1. Does Linux run smoother than Windows, on average?
That's an easy yes. If a Linux Distro is running worse than Win10 then either its code is shit or something went wrong during its installation like choosing the wrong drivers.

A couple of years ago I had fun optimizing startup with Manjaro XFCE so from the moment I pressed the power button to me using the Os's desktop it took only 7 seconds and the system was using barely 650MBs of RAM.

2. How do you customise UI etc.? Via terminal, separate apps?
I'm going to assume you want to use a Desktop Environment and not a Window Manager as your main way of interacting with the computer, in which case pretty much all of them are customized the same way you would do it in Windows with the Display Settings or Folder/Taskbar Options, only you usually have many more options with Linux DEs. You can easily do some research on the topic to find which one fits your needs/taste the most.

Personally, I liked XFCE the most for many years because it's very light and pretty customizable. It's the default one for Manjaro too. But I switched to KDE earlier this year and I don't think I will look back for a long time. It's surprisingly light too (about 80MBs more of RAM consumption than XFCE in my case), it's incredibly customizable and has much better support for 4K.

Again, just my two cents.
 

Morpheus Kitami

Liturgist
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as for example I was shocked by how easy I got Jagged Alliance 2 1.13 to work but of all fucking things GZDoom + Launcher(s) was a pain in the ass to get to work.
I remember being put off by playing that again due to the .ini editor not working and manual editing of those files didn't work. Is there a workaround for that?
 

Luka-boy

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as for example I was shocked by how easy I got Jagged Alliance 2 1.13 to work but of all fucking things GZDoom + Launcher(s) was a pain in the ass to get to work.
I remember being put off by playing that again due to the .ini editor not working and manual editing of those files didn't work. Is there a workaround for that?
It has been two years so maybe I'm forgetting some detail, but I remember doing the same things I did for my Windows installs. That is, installing 1.12 Gold from GoG, downloading the 1.13 folders and executable files from that OneDrive storage that can be found in the Bear Pit forums, copying that stuff to my 1.12 Gold install folder and manually editing the .ini files with NotepadQQ (I think that's the only difference, since in my Windows days I used Notepad++), then running the JA2_VERSION#.exe file. Worked for me out of the box with Wine, no tinkering whatsoever required.

I never use the .ini editor because after over a decade of using the mod I'm so familiar with the 1.13 settings I find manual editing more comfortable, so I don't think I even tested if it worked.
 

Biscotti

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If someone here with Manjaro experience has opinions, I'd defer to them, but some of the things I've read don't seem very optimistic: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/jfdtki/should_we_recommend_manjaro_as_a_user_friendly/
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gami...ould_we_recommend_manjaro_as_a_user_friendly/
Works On My Machine™

It was my first proper foray into Linux and for the 2 years I've been using it, I've never had any major issues. KDE is also a great DE for Windows users, because it feels and acts very similar in most ways.
I had my reasons for choosing Manjaro (a combination of being lazy, but still wanting access to the AUR), but Pop OS is definitely a good recommendation for people who want a gaming friendly distro that just works. I'm just not a fan of GNOME and how much of a pain it is to switch to a different DE or WM.
 

deama

Prophet
Joined
May 13, 2013
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Location
UK
How easy is it to get something like RTSS and cheat engine to work on linux? Last time I tried (back in jan 2018), it was pretty annoying, I think I had to spend a few days to get it to work on neverwinter nights 2, nevermind trying to get neverwinter nights 2 to work itself.
I'm mainly interested in cheat engine's speed hack, but I do have a few scripts I'd like to keep.
And I use RTSS' scanline sync, so if there is an alternative, it'd have to have that feature at least.

Also, is there a good autohotkey alternative in linux? I have several scripts, I guess I might need to rewrite them, but autohotkey has quite a lot of functions etc...
 

deama

Prophet
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It's an fps limiter tool that you can use the scanline sync feature to remove tearing without having to enable vsync.
Though this is only relevant if you disable the DWM (it forces vsync), I'm pretty sure linux uses it's own type of DWM, you can probably disable it I assume.
works fine except for speedhack
Ah damn, speedhack is very important for me, can't even play some games without it.

it depends on what you want to use it for
general purpose OS functions? shell scripting
game-specific things? just use it in wine
It's a combination of things, e.g. I have a script that when I CTRL+F1 it overlays a black box over everything, so basically I use it to blank my screen.
I also use another script that puts games into borderless windowed mode and fullscreens it.
And I also have a script that makes the highlighted window transparent and click through.
 
Last edited:

deama

Prophet
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RTSS' scanline sync

For nvidia you have nvidia-settings' driver-side composition. You can disable vsync and disable the window manager's composition for a performance boost.
Problem is though that would add extra input lag as I assume it works by working in a similiar to vsync. I normally have all compositors disabled and use scanline sync to adjust the tear line point and basically hide it, this gives the lowest input lag, for this chain at least.
 

Twiglard

Poland Stronk
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Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut
I believe it uses triple buffering behind the scenes, which doesn't add any input lag. Unless you consider a half-frame better.
 
Unwanted

You

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Bx6l07I.png
 

KazikluBey

Cipher
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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015
Also, is there a good autohotkey alternative in linux? I have several scripts, I guess I might need to rewrite them, but autohotkey has quite a lot of functions etc...
Things like xdotool and/or sxhkd plus shell scrips can probably most of what people use ahk for, but I don't know of any drop-in replacements.
 

Catacombs

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Also, is there a good autohotkey alternative in linux? I have several scripts, I guess I might need to rewrite them, but autohotkey has quite a lot of functions etc...
Things like xdotool and/or sxhkd plus shell scrips can probably most of what people use ahk for, but I don't know of any drop-in replacements.
simple x hot key daemon is awesome. A must-have for Linux.
 

Blaza

Educated
Joined
Jul 16, 2019
Messages
58
I've played games on Linux exclusively about 2 years now.

I noticed no one mentioned Lutris (https://lutris.net/) yet, it's a must for me. It is a collection of user made scripts to configure a WINE prefix for specific games. The only one I've ever had trouble with was Risen, but I got it working with a different script from the gog forums.

Another note is that a "normal" desktop environment will work a lot better than a window manager for WINE games. I had a ton of issues on dwm with various games but then noticed they worked fine on xfce.
 

Catacombs

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I noticed no one mentioned Lutris (https://lutris.net/) yet, it's a must for me. It is a collection of user made scripts to configure a WINE prefix for specific games. The only one I've ever had trouble with was Risen, but I got it working with a different script from the gog forums.
Is there something like this for Mac?
 

Blaza

Educated
Joined
Jul 16, 2019
Messages
58
Is there something like this for Mac?

I did some quick searching, and doesn't appear to be. Though if you're savvy enough you could probably download the Linux script and edit it a bit to fit in with the Mac terminal since Mac is all Unix under the hood and you should only have to change a few things. You can do this by finding the game you want on Lutris, then clocking the little arrow next to Install and "Download Install Script"
JfyqTYJ.png


Though I'm not sure if the deprecation of OpenGL on Macs affected anything in Wine games, I've never tried playing games on one and I only have to support like 2.
 

OSK

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I noticed no one mentioned Lutris (https://lutris.net/) yet, it's a must for me.

I mentioned it earlier! :argh:

Is there something like this for Mac?

PlayOnLinux has a macOS port: https://www.playonmac.com/en/

PlayOnLinux was Lutris before Lutris became a thing, but it's fallen behind both Lutris and GameHub. I was actually surprised to learn it's still actively being developed. That said, I have no idea how well the macOS version works.
 

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