Do FromSoftware Games and Steam Run Smoothly on Linux?

[Sami]

Hello fellow Linux users, I’m considering switching from Windows 10 to Linux Mint, and I’d love to hear your thoughts. Do FromSoftware games and Steam run well on Linux systems?

I know I could just search this on Google, but I’d much rather hear it from fellow Tarnished and Ashen Ones who’ve walked this path before. Have you faced any issues running these games? Would you recommend Linux for gaming, especially for FromSoftware titles?

Looking forward to your experiences and advice!
Thanks a ton!

[Ghost]

I have a pretty good experience with some exceptions in the DLC where there is some fps drops. But from what i have seen even windows users complain about the DLC in this regard.
I had no issues with the base game though and even the DLC was minimal.

[nfinite.recursion]

Generally speaking, they do run a bit better on Linux. Particularly when it comes to games like Elden Ring and others that do not precompile their shaders ahead of time. If you get a lot of stutters due to shader compilation, those aren't a thing on Linux since Steam will by default automatically download these shaders from its servers and compile them locally when you launch the game.

You're still going to need to meet minimum system requirements. Linux won't magically make everything run better if your PC is too weak to run a game even close to properly.

[Greywander]

I've had a pretty good experience gaming on Linux. My PC is quite old, i5-2500K, GTX 970, and 20 GB RAM, using spinning platter drives instead of SSDs. Elden Ring still runs, though the FPS isn't the greatest (all other Souls games run fine, might be EAC killing the FPS). I tend to play more on my Steam Deck, which also runs on Linux and has mostly better specs than my desktop.

The only time I remember having issues with a Fromsoft game was trying to run Sekiro and DS3 on my desktop. I would load into the game and be unable to move. This is apparently an issue that can occur if you're running the game from a second hard drive, which I was. Clearing enough space on my (pretty small) boot drive, I was able to run Sekiro without issue.

If you ever have issues running a game on Linux, you can look the game up on ProtonDB to see if other people are able to get it to work and what tweaks they recommend. But honestly, most things just work, to the point I'll just buy a game and expect it to work. You may have to go into the game properties to the Compatibility tab and check the box before it lets you install it.

The only other issues I can think of with Linux gaming have to do with using 3rd party software and modding. Something like Mod Organizer (e.g. for Skyrim) won't work on Linux I don't think. I've also had some issues with mods that use DLL files, e.g. for Subnautica. I think at least some of these are specific to the version of Linux I'm running (I'm also using Mint, but I'm a few versions out of date). I did try Manjaro recently and actually got some games to work that I'd been having issues with, but I had some other issues with Manjaro (mostly user errors, I'm sure).