My thoughts after 4 months of Linux Gaming

[Toquita]

When I first began playing TF2 on Linux some bugs almost set me on fire. Of course, we're still porting the game, we're in beta stages (I guess we still are), so I decided to cool down my Linux gaming experience atm.

Yesterday I installed Steam, CSS and TF2. CSS runs great the game itself, but after minimizing the game (ALT+SPACE), it closes itself. I'm also experiencing mouse lag on CSS, just like running CS 1.6 at 60Hz and fps_max is set to 72, I move the mouse but there's a slight delay on the movement on the game.

Now let's talk about TF2, which I think is the most buggy Valve game right now.

I read somewhere that the fps drop bug was fixed. WRONG. Played today, after the 1st round fps dropped to 10.

Also read the HDR problems were fixed. WRONG. Tested playing with HDR enable, once it froze the game at the server welcome screen. Second time fps was 5-10, even when just joined the server.

Also read those problems were because of Steam Overlay. Again wrong, disabled it and still fps drops on the match.

Other problem is the fact that when someone starts a chat with you, no window is opened. If I go to get a coffee and someone chats with me, he/she will never get any response untill they say something again.
_______________________________________________________

Athlon II X2 250 @3.6GHz
4GB DDR3 1600
9800GT
Ubuntu 12.04 64 bit

[d10sfan]

What are your systems specs? Have you submitted bug reports to github?

So far, TF2 and CSS have been running great on Linux, at least for me

[dirrtymartini]

Do you have github issues opened for the problems you described? Because you are in the right place and Valve has developers actively working on this project. You can make things better by reporting your bugs / findings.

Linux Gaming is by no means bug or hassle free yet. It's made some healthy strides in less than a year but there are still plenty of things to fix. The key is making developers aware of wtf those issues are.

Hang in there. :)

[Toquita]

Yes I opened two bug thread at github.

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/452

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/506

But still nothing.

[noobslayer69]

Here are my thoughts:

I've been using Linux since 2003. Up until this previous Fall, when Steam for Linux came out, I had played exactly three Linux games (the tux game that's like mario, 0AD, and Red Eclipse). Now, I'm a big gamer. I love games, but I decided years ago not to buy or play any game unless it had a Linux version (I really miss WoW).

Now I have 52 games in my library that work under Linux, and dozens more that are waiting for the Linux binary to be uploaded or for Valve to port them.

Does TF2 work perfectly? Hell no (see my thread: http://steamcommunity.com/app/221410/discussions/2/864960353833217076/ ). But I waited 10 years. I can wait a little while longer.

[arc| Gps]

After 4 months I am very happy.
TF2 runs great on my pc

I have chatted with a few friends in game, no problems.

Today bought Serious Sam 3, this games runs incredible smooth at my pc.
Only one issue when watching the in game vids, when a camara view changes, the sound stutters.

Played through half life on linux.

But given the relative short time Valve is working on this, I am very happy.

[Oerthling]

None of the described problems are universal.
I have been playing a lot of TF2 last week. All graphics options (texture, shader, etc...) are set to max (anti-aiiasing is off).
I don't have any fps drops or slowdown issues. Not after the first round or the 5th round.
Overlay works fine.
Chat works fine.
Voice chat - no problem (I was pleasantly surprised - this is an area where I expected problems in these early days). Chatted with a friend for hours couple days ago - 0 issues.

It's weird that OP (and a few others) has all these problems and so many others don't.

My personal experience is the opposite. Even throuigh beta most stuff worked OK. Sure - there was a problem here and there (early version of SS3 had graphic glitches in entry menu, etc..) - but stuff mostly worked either right away or after a couple of updates that came fairly quickly.

Since release Steam has bern running smooth and the games I tested (CK2, Galcon Fusion, TF2 and some others) are close to flawless.

The only problem I have atm is that L4D2 has not been released for Linux yet. ;-)

My specs for comparison:
I7 ivy bridge, NVIDIA GTX 660M (2 GB RAM), 4 GB RAM, Ubuntu 12.10 (64bit) - Asus G75 Laptop

[Toquita]

I also don't know why I have these issues, and I really hope they fix all these so I can finally move to Linux =)

[thetargos]

@JUSTME - Comparing a GTX 660(M) Vs a 9800GT isn't very fair, now is it? Neither is comparing an i7 to an Athlon II dual core, even though the amount of RAM is the same.

I'm not a big game (not any more, any how), and though I do have TF2 installed (Fedora 18 on my end, AMD FX 6100 CPU, 8GiB RAM DDR3 1333, 9800GT GFX), I have not jumped to the servers (yet), it's been a while since I last played an on-line FPS, however all set to max (as high as my GFX card would go, anyway), even with 2x AA, the game runs amzingly smooth in the training assault sessions. I'm not so sure how does Internet (TCP/IP or UDP) overhead affects the game, though or if it is dependent on the actual connection speed rather than ping-times for the action sync the actual bottleneck. Another thing into play would be different distribution versions (12.04 Vs 12.10) and driver differences (31x Vs 30x, for instance) or Desktop Environment (Unity Vs Cinnamon Vs Gnome Shell, etc), running processes in the background, screensaver daemon... There are simply too many factors that may affect the performance.

[SUSEd]

For me Steam became much more stable. No more crashes in BP mode.
TF2, CSS and SS3 work fast and smooth.
Main problem is audio.

[Toquita]

Publicado originalmente por thetargos:

@JUSTME - Comparing a GTX 660(M) Vs a 9800GT isn't very fair, now is it? Neither is comparing an i7 to an Athlon II dual core, even though the amount of RAM is the same.

I'm not a big game (not any more, any how), and though I do have TF2 installed (Fedora 18 on my end, AMD FX 6100 CPU, 8GiB RAM DDR3 1333, 9800GT GFX), I have not jumped to the servers (yet), it's been a while since I last played an on-line FPS, however all set to max (as high as my GFX card would go, anyway), even with 2x AA, the game runs amzingly smooth in the training assault sessions. I'm not so sure how does Internet (TCP/IP or UDP) overhead affects the game, though or if it is dependent on the actual connection speed rather than ping-times for the action sync the actual bottleneck. Another thing into play would be different distribution versions (12.04 Vs 12.10) and driver differences (31x Vs 30x, for instance) or Desktop Environment (Unity Vs Cinnamon Vs Gnome Shell, etc), running processes in the background, screensaver daemon... There are simply too many factors that may affect the performance.

O training mode everything works nice. Online is the problem, and the framerate drops are not realted to background process or anythig, but seems like a memory dump for me, because evem after quiting the game after que fps drop = HD usage is on max, PC is very slow untill a reboot.

[matt]

Have You filed up bug reports at github? If Valve folks don't know that there is a bug, they can't fix it :P

[Toquita]

Publicado originalmente por gutigen o) Linux:

Have You filed up bug reports at github? If Valve folks don't know that there is a bug, they can't fix it :P

http://steamcommunity.com/app/221410/discussions/0/864960353858732803/?tscn=1361431687#c864960353859133413

=)

[matt]

Publicado originalmente por Linux Junior s2 Camila:

Publicado originalmente por gutigen o) Linux:

Have You filed up bug reports at github? If Valve folks don't know that there is a bug, they can't fix it :P

http://steamcommunity.com/app/221410/discussions/0/864960353858732803/?tscn=1361431687#c864960353859133413

=)

It seems that I'm blind... >.<

[Toquita]

No problem =P

[Teisei]

TF2, CSS, CS1.6, HL, Amnesia, SS3 ... they all run smoothly at full graphics settings. Xubuntu 13.04 64-bit, kernel 3.8 and Nvidia 313 drivers (xorg-edgers).