Can the Linux gamers out there give me some insight?

[bloodborne pc when]

I'm currently building a new gaming PC, and it will be done in a week or so. I think I'll be installing linux (either ubuntu, mint, or opensuse) because I'm done with windows. Or, I want to be. So I'm wondering - for the people already gaming on linux, how does it work out for you? I know wine can run windows programs, but how does it handle games? How often do you have to go through something that gives you a headache in order to run something? Or how often do things not run at all? And lastly, what distro are you on? Thanks for any replies.

[Black Blade]

i think you may want to post on there Hub (Yes Linux users have there own hub with guides and all )
http://steamcommunity.com/app/221410/discussions/

[|Pro Kittens| Medic Plz]

I can't stress enough how important it is for you to get nothing other than a discrete NVIDIA graphics card.

[bloodborne pc when]

Publicado originalmente por |Pro Kittens| Medic Plz:

I can't stress enough how important it is for you to get nothing other than a discrete NVIDIA graphics card.

? I have an R9 270 and that doesn't really answer anything? Do they work better on linux or something?

[|Pro Kittens| Medic Plz]

NVIDIA + Proprietary drivers are currently the only way to achieve performance on-par or greater than that of Windows.

The AMD drivers are lackluster, in that they will give you lower performance (and, in my case, a slow-motion phenomenon that was really irritating). Sometimes, they are bugged enough that the open-source community can produce a driver that is less buggy and, in cases, faster. (This applies mostly to older AMD hardware, however.)

In this[www.phoronix.com] Phoronix article, it shows the R9 270 being out-performed by every NVIDIA card tested on Linux. Other articles describe it as being "not good" and a "wreck" on Linux.

So yes, NVIDIA works much, much better on Linux. Not to insult your choice of card or anything, it's just that objectively, NVIDIA is better for Linux usage.

[Fibbs]

As the guy above says. AMD makes some good graphics cards but their Linux drivers aren't that great. They're certainly improving all the time but compared to Nvidia's drivers which are as good (and in some cases better than) their Windows counterparts, there's really no competition.

I'm a Linux gamer myself but I don't want you to go into this with false expectations. Wine is an amazing piece of software, it'll run OpenGL Windows games almost as if they were native Linux games. For DirectX games though (which is most of them,) you'll be looking at 30 - 40% performance hit. This is simply because Wine has to translate DirectX calls to OpenGL on the fly.

[PixelGFX]

With ATI/AMD it seems to be like russian-roulette atm :)
Nvidia was the better choice for me.

Okay, back to topic...
With wine you will be able to play most of the Windows-Games on linux, but this depends on the distribution wich you will be using.
IMHO Debian (esp. Testing) will not the best experience in playing with wine, but hey it's a rolling distribution and you'll never reinstall or dist-upgrade again.

If you want to use Wine you should use Play on Linux. This would probably the best frontend for beginners.
PoL has the ability to configure a single wine individually for the selected game and install all the prequesits.

I'm using Debian-Testing/Mint-Debian with a KDE/Plasma, an i7, Nvidia GTX 560m, 16GB-Ram, 1TB-Hdd.
Mostly I'm playing games or programming some server/client-stuff in C++ and Linux is doing a good job (now the 3DVision2 is working on my Geforce via Bino too).

I had to reinstall the distribution 2 times, cuz I'd just forced some updates and this is a really bad idea... ;)
But in this case, you only boot the Live-DVD copy your User-Account to an external HDD and if the re-installation is done, create your User-Account, copy your Account-Folder back and thats it.

If you really wan't to use Linux, be warned that Linux is exactly the opposite from Windows.
Windows is doing the most things for you, including installing viruses and trojans.
Linux instead is like a child, you have to tell the system what you want from it.

[Zyro]

Congratulations for and good luck with your decision!

I'm doing well with Linux gaming. But that's probably because I' going the safe path and only use games available for Linux natively. No WINE or such.
I'm using Debian Wheezy with some sprinkles of Testing. The only issue I remember was with Gone Home, which did not start well. It turned out it was a problem the game was having with localization (it probably stumbled about the fact that the decimal point is a comma in my part of the world).

[DIRT]

I'd suggest using Play On Linux to manage wine with. It makes it super easy to install versions of wine that have the double buffer patch and other patches. Games like COD and Crysis I always had to use wine with the double buffer patch. It puts each game in its own little directory with its own wine so you can tweak each wine install to work the best for that specific game. This will come in handy too. (MouseWarpOverride is the regedit I end up changing the most) http://wiki.winehq.org/UsefulRegistryKeys

As far as Amd cards. They are opening up their drivers a lot. In the future there probably wont be a proprietary driver anymore. I think they are taking their linux drivers a little more seriously now on newer hardware. I have had Amd cards in the past they didn't all run very well but my last one a 4150 actually ran pretty decent on open source and proprietary drivers. This move Amd made is what made me decide to give Amd cards a try again. I got a R9 270 coming in today. I'll post on here saying if I hate it or not.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_catalyst_kernel&num=1

[bloodborne pc when]

Thanks everyone, definitely cleared things up for me. I actually hadn't decided between a 270 and 760 yet, so I'll be going with the 760 (unless AMD makes a big difference before I order it, because the 270 is way cheaper). I just kinda assumed AMD would be better because of Linus's "f*** you nvidia." Also, what about CPU? I have an FX 8320 and that one's already here and opened, so there's no turning back from that. And lastly, will things available as PPAs be available on SteamOS? What about play on linux? Once I found out it will be more than just gaming I think I may be leaning more towards that.

[Fibbs]

AMD and Intel CPUs are both very well supported. You should pick whatever will give you the best performance for your money. If you're using Mint or Ubuntu all the software you need is available in the repositories. You can easily install stuff from them using the Software Centre. I'm not sure what repositories SteamOS uses by default (maybe the Debian testing ones?). You can always add repositories to your system if you need to, or if you're really stuck you can install stuff using a .deb file (similar to an .exe installer on Windows).

[Krunchy the Clown]

I would strongly suggest you consider using Manjaro, its the best, and easiest version of Linux I've ever used. And the performance is great, and is extremely stable. And you only have to install it once.

[|Pro Kittens| Medic Plz]

To save you the trouble and disappointment: what kind of games are you expecting to run in WINE?

[bloodborne pc when]

Publicado originalmente por |Pro Kittens| Medic Plz:

To save you the trouble and disappointment: what kind of games are you expecting to run in WINE?

Actually, after finding which of my favorite games and games coming this year that I will be playing, a lot of them have/will have linux support (The Witcher 3, Insurgency, CSGO, gmod, dota). The only thing I'm worried about is BF4. I'm guessing not because of the Origin client not having linux support, but apparently Mantle will have linux support eventually, so maybe that will make porting it easier? That, and I'm hoping EA will follow in GOG's and Steam's footsteps with linux support.

[LightBulb]

I have been using arch linux since before steam for linux was released. I'm now very fond of it. I wouldn't recommend it for a linux beginner though as of the lack of a interactive installer. If you wanted to use it though it might be worth following joeyJoe's advice with Manjaro.

As for wine i've had mixed experiences. I use to have an AMD 5770 and about 3 or 4 years ago i tried running COD4 in wine which was successful but unplayable due to low FPS. Then after steam for linux was released with the AMD drivers improving i decided to try League of Legends on Wine. That didn't go well. It crash at the loading screen. Now i have upgraded my whole system now switched to intel and nvidia, and have had some success with league of legends working now. I wouldn't expect any modern games to run though. I think you are limited to dx9 compatible games with wine.

With the whole nvidia and AMD argument my 5770 drivers worked fine. It was a bit iffy on TF2 but it was in windows too. Since my nvidia card though i get far greater performance mainly due to the hardware upgrade but i have weird HUD issues with CCS. Its also been more difficult running multiple displays. So on a whole i wouldn't worry about the difference. An R9 is a very powerful card as long as the drivers aren't ridiculously bad i'm sure all linux games will be playable. Like overs have said they will also improve.

[bloodborne pc when]

Publicado originalmente por LightBulb Linux:

I have been using arch linux since before steam for linux was released. I'm now very fond of it. I wouldn't recommend it for a linux beginner though as of the lack of a interactive installer. If you wanted to use it though it might be worth following joeyJoe's advice with Manjaro.

As for wine i've had mixed experiences. I use to have an AMD 5770 and about 3 or 4 years ago i tried running COD4 in wine which was successful but unplayable due to low FPS. Then after steam for linux was released with the AMD drivers improving i decided to try League of Legends on Wine. That didn't go well. It crash at the loading screen. Now i have upgraded my whole system now switched to intel and nvidia, and have had some success with league of legends working now. I wouldn't expect any modern games to run though. I think you are limited to dx9 compatible games with wine.

With the whole nvidia and AMD argument my 5770 drivers worked fine. It was a bit iffy on TF2 but it was in windows too. Since my nvidia card though i get far greater performance mainly due to the hardware upgrade but i have weird HUD issues with CCS. Its also been more difficult running multiple displays. So on a whole i wouldn't worry about the difference. An R9 is a very powerful card as long as the drivers aren't ridiculously bad i'm sure all linux games will be playable. Like overs have said they will also improve.

Thanks, I'll probably just end up dual booting for some games then. I did check out Manjaro, but I like the cinnnamon desktop far more than the others, and I'm not a complete beginner (I used Mint without dual booting for a few months, but went back because I couldn't even play minecraft on it, let alone the other games I play), so I'll be going with Mint. Mint 17 will be out in May so :D