The Linux Vs Windows Gaming Problem No One's Talking About

If content is king, then a strong ecosystem is the kingdom. Is Linux gaming healthy? You bet. But it's missing something crucial that no one seems to be talking about, and we need AMD and Nvidia to step up and fix it.

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DESTINATION LINUX NETWORK:

[tyrohellion]

As someone who dual boots. I’ve always wondered why amd doesn’t have something similar to this especially seeing how much they support linux

[MaxPrehl]

"If content is king, then ecosystem is the kingdom"
That quote in itself says a lot about current tech and media companies.

[ChrisTitusTech]

Couple things I'd add here:
1. Once Linux gets enough market share - These tools will be developed. Either by the manufacturer or an open-source project on GitHub.
2. I hate these tools in Windows. I can't tell you how many times I've had to fix Windows Users PCs that screwed things up by using these kits by someone that didn't know what they did.
3. Nvidia control center can't even be installed any more without the Microsoft store, which is a deal-breaker for me. I refuse to have the MS Store on my Win10 installs.

[driden]

Linux does not need a GeForce Experience client, It needs native games.
Nothing beats convenience.

[jacekjagosz]

I think the problem goes even deeper. It is not about the, as someone descried it, glittery console, it is that Windows drivers expose so many options Linux's doesn't.
On Windows I can force specific AntiAliasing, one for transparent textures, texture filtering, texture filtering optimisation, post process AA, driver level gamma and LOD... All of those can improve game looks massively!
Tools like Nvidia Inspector expose like 100 driver level options you can set for each game. It is not that we lack a glittery console, you simply can't set any of those options in any way.

[TheBigGiant_SpaceChiken]

I agree with you. I love Linux and use it as my daily driver. I have Manjaro Plasma on a 4 year old Toshiba Satellite and Kubuntu on my Lenovo Y720 Gaming Laptop. The only thing I use Windows for is gaming. For everything else, even mundane things like web browsing I use Linux. Why, because like you said, the ecosystem. The Y720 has the Windows only Lenovo Nerve Center to control the fan speed when gaming. I haven't been able to find a way to Speed up my fans manually on Linux on my Lenovo. That's the only thing I need to get rid of Windows for good on that laptop.

One thing you forgot to mention whan taliking about ecosystems is that gaming keyboards and mice also come with Windows only sofware to control the lightning effects, macros and other things. I find it frustrating when I see that some brands also have a Mac version of that software, comsidering that Macs aren't really known for / used for gaming and they completely ignore Linux.

Yes, I know that Linux makes up for only 2% to 3% percent of the desktop market, but that's still hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. If someone like Valve / Steam has gone to the trouble to make it possible for Linux gamers to be able to run games on their rigs, you would think that would get other companies to pay attention to Linux. Maybe someday. Sorry for the long post BTW.

[andrewvoutsinas]

I'll be honest here, a lot of my friends and I are genuinely pretty averse to all the "ecosystem" stuff AMD and NVIDIA provide. We just want to boot up some games and not worry about the other stuff. We have OBS for recording and sharing.

Nothing really appeals to us on Windows, aside from some games that run natively.

[LinuxForEveryone]

Update: though this is far from an all in one solution, I just learned about CoreCtrl and it's AMAZING! Will show you soon.

[SupaShang]

+1 for fan curve control, RGB profiles, gaming peripheral / mouse tweaking software, easy multi-monitor support for single screen / surround gaming, overclocking software... Just a few more things that will attract new gamers. I know most Linux vets will have already found solutions and software for the above, but for new users, these types of software need to look pretty, be easy to install and use.

[neffscape]

Linux gaming support is actually an hack for the most part (they are not actually ports). And while I'm very impressed by the quality of efforts like lutris and by the commercial support by steam I always think that this is still mainly a joke. It is about time the industry looks at Linux as an opportunity worth some investments into rather than a worthless third OS for nerds. And while we complain about gaming, there are a lot of absolute market standards that are still missing on linux and still not well supported bt wine and crossover. I'm talking about Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft "we love Linux" Office and other very common software for mac os and windows that nobody cares to bring to linux. What are we doing about those. Is somebody asking Adobe and Microsoft to dosomething about it? Is gaming the only programs that you guys are actually missing?

[greob]

The question remains as to whether these extra stuffs are really necessary in the first place. Most of these can be done with third party tools anyway. It's up to people to develop them.
The first problem to solve is performance and "compatibility", these superfluous things come second. Very few people can actually contribute towards those goals sadly. And don't get me started on the nvidia side of things with their closed proprietary approach.
And remember these proprietary bloatwares are privacy nightmares. I'm glad I don't have to use those on Linux, compared to people who use Windows.

[MLP]

Finally someone brought up the important topic. This is why I still can't go full Linux yet, plus it would be nice to make the installation process easier for non tech savvy people.

[realdragonrude]

here is the thing about this point though
most windows users accuse linux of being too hard to figure out
yet they would take the time to learn amd and nvidias software on windows even if one of the companies changed the entire Ui

it's like saying well gee the terminal is hard but i'm gonna edit the windows registry

it negates the point

[craigw]

Just discovered your channel this afternoon, watch 4 of your postings. Love the positive outlook and optimism for the future. It's really a breath of fresh air. I'm now a subscriber.

[kintustis]

Literally the first linux user I've ever seen who actually understands this. This video explains the idea so much better than I ever could.

[juzujuzu]

Linux needs to be clearly better at something the normies appreciate, and "too hard to figure out" excuse would fly out the windows. The most obvious choice would be higher FPS or better 1% low, or lower latency in general for competitive gamers. That's a big mountain to climb, but not impossible. Lower latency would be great, and better frametimes, as it would naturally get competitive gamers using Linux. Getting there sure isn't easy, but it isn't impossible.

That would also change the mindset about Linux pretty effectively. Some easy way to compile custom gaming kernel directly to your hardware would help a lot. And by easy I mean script that does everything for you, or at most asks some simple questions. Assuming this is for the competitive gamers, performance and latency is everything, and everything else means nothing.

[praetorxyn]

This. A point I bring up frequently is gaming "tools."
From things like HWInfo, CPU-Z, MSI Afterburner, etc, to mod managers like Mod Organizer (best for Bethesda games, don't think it works with WINE), Vortex (at least somewhat works with WINE), EE Mod Setup / EE Keeper (tools for Baldur's Gate), etc...., even my preferred launcher (GOG Galaxy 2, which I use to launch everything), basically everything even ASSOCIATED with gaming tends to be Windows only (or sometimes Windows /Mac), and asking people to abandon all that just because games work fine in Proton / Lutris is asking a lot.

Even "tools" that work under WINE will only work with games run under WINE, when the goal should be native Linux games. To compete with Windows, we need native Linux tools as well.

[keyserxx]

I've jumped back into giving Linux a try. Though I quickly discovered the first barrier: scaling desktop to 125% for my 1440p 27" monitor. Pop_OS can't do this so off I go to try something else. That's the first rabbit hole.. kinda important, I can't read stuff without it :) Fedora w/ DDE maybe.. rabbit hole! You know what would be nice? If it just worked.

[saidbakr]

I think that technical institutes, CS colleges, in some how, should be involved in a such movement. They have enough free man power to maintain durability and motivation.

[savagetwinky]

The eco system is one of the worst problems with linux. I like linux. I develop embedded linux applications and roll my own distro. I gave up on linux desktop between Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04. Windows has a uniform eco system, linux has a fragmented ecosystem. It's a lot easier to build on top of windows for the long haul. I write this on a laptop with 20.04 and it's burning my finger tips. I'd much rather deal with uninstalling cortana via power shell then figure out why the speed step seems to be full bore constantly.