Moved from Windows to Linux Mint

[Dethe]

Hi folks,

I chose Linux Mint in part because folks said running Steam was a non-issue, but I have not been able to get any games to run.

Manufacturer: MSI
Model: Z170A GAMING PRO CARBON (MS-7A12)
CPU Brand: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz
Linux Mint 22.1 (64 bit)
Steam Runtime Version: steam-runtime_1.0.20250519.130917
Driver: NVIDIA Corporation NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070/PCIe/SSE2
Driver Version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 570.133.07

(Pasting what seemed relevant from System Information, happy to add details if I missed anything)

Most of my games are Windows-only and do not have Linux versions. When I try to run, say Fallout 4, it will start running, process Vulcan shaders for a while, then quit without an error dialog or message. Other games act similarly, but not all have the Vulcan shaders step.

I am trying to run games I had already downloaded under Windows, don't know if that is a mistake.

I have tried forcing different versions of Proton, but nothing had a noticeable effect.

I suspect the problem is my Nvidia card, but not sure what, if anything, can be done about it. Also not sure where Steam saves its log files to. Any helpful suggestions appreciated.

Kind regards

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Look up how to enable and make use of the Proton options. This is how you get WINOS games working in Linuz for the most part

Why do you have an RTX 40 series on such an outdated CPU/Chipset. It's not even a good enough CPU and you have PCIE 3.0

Minimum for RTX 4070 would be around Intel 10th Gen CPUs

[DonMcK]

What format is being used on the drive that the games are installed on?

[Zef]

Mint is terrible for gaming out of the box. First check whether you are using the propriatary nvidia drivers or not.

It prefers stability over performance, they are always behind on something, be it kernel related or otherwise.

If you want something with nvidia drivers out of the box get Pop OS, or just get Bazzite with the new nvidia driver option so you can't screw anything up seeing as it's an immutable distro.

[AbedsBrother]

Originally posted by Dethe:

I am trying to run games I had already downloaded under Windows, don't know if that is a mistake.

This is likely your problem. Steam doesn't play nice with NTFS-formatted drives (the Windows default). Re-downloading & re-installing your games in linux should fix the issue. If you made a backup using the Steam backup feature, those should work and save you a ton of time & bandwidth.

[Chaosolous]

You need to install games under Mint.

Use compatibility layers like proton;
- When you're in Linux Mint:
-=- Open Steam > Go to "Steam" in the upper left > "Settings" > Left side "Compatibility" > "Default compatibility tool" > Pick a proton layer (if you're unsure what one to use, the latest one is usually fine).

I don't know if you're dual booting or not. If you are, you'll need to install your games on Mint as well and run them through Proton.

If you're not dual booting and you're running games off an external drive, format it to a format that plays nice with Linux. IDR the name of it, someone here can tell you what to format it to.

If you're installing games on your primary drive and they're still not working, even with Proton enabled, come back and make a post about it.

My guess is you need to format your drive.

[Electric Cupcake]

Update kernel, and standalone drivers if need be.
In Steam, enable the Proton compatibility as described above.

Installing Protontricks and Glorious Eggroll is a good idea, too. And Flatseal can be useful, if you installed the Flathub version of Steam.

[kingjames488]

Originally posted by Dethe:

I chose Linux Mint in part because folks said running Steam was a non-issue, but I have not been able to get any games to run.

yes, steam runs fine as advertised.

I hate how they bait in uninformed people...

[PopinFRESH]

Originally posted by Chaosolous:

…

If you're not dual booting and you're running games off an external drive, format it to a format that plays nice with Linux. IDR the name of it, someone here can tell you what to format it to.

If you're installing games on your primary drive and they're still not working, even with Proton enabled, come back and make a post about it.

My guess is you need to format your drive.

ext4 or xfs is most likely what you’re thinking of. for an external drive being used for Steam games library on Linux I’d recommend formatting it as ext4 with casefolding.

I’d also recommend installing ProtonUP GUI to install and update/manage Proton versions along with ProtonGE (glorious eggroll) as mentioned previously.

Use protondb for reference to see if there are known issues with specific games and which proton version works best if there are issues with a game.

[Dethe]

Originally posted by Bad 💀 Motha:

Look up how to enable and make use of the Proton options. This is how you get WINOS games working in Linuz for the most part

Why do you have an RTX 40 series on such an outdated CPU/Chipset. It's not even a good enough CPU and you have PCIE 3.0

Minimum for RTX 4070 would be around Intel 10th Gen CPUs

I have Proton, ProtonTricks, etc. Have tried lots of options with that. Comments about moving files to an ext formatted drive did the trick.

Why I have this GPU on this computer is a bit involved. I bought a cheap desktop early in the pandemic to have something to game on. A year or so later my friend gave me this computer with no memory or drives, but it's otherwise better than my existing one. So my earlier gaming computer became my music computer and I put in a bunch of drivespace, M.2, and a new video card. I got the Nvidia because I wanted to play around with LLMs early on, before it was obvious those were a bad idea. And I did play with some for a bit, but they're crap and I got bored. So now I have a way too powerful GPU for gaming, which isn't a bad problem to have.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Yea honestly whether you use WinOS or a Linux distro... one of the best thing to do is configure everything that will go on the OS drive as if it can die and lose all of tbat at any time which actually is a fact we can't deny about electronics in general. That being said it's best to put all games and anything else you deem important have go onto a secondary drive of some kind. Since Win98 every PC I've bought or custom built it has had 2 drives minimum. My Pentium 90 that first had Win3 1 and DOS on it before I put Win95 on it was even like that but that PC was an expensive beast for its time.

So yes best to house anything you wish to separate from the OS drive in case the OS needs to be wiped or thT drive prematurely fails... to other drives. Today's games should be on a secondary SSD. If they are small or not very demanding games, those can go on a secondary HDD even. When you download it should point to a secondary drive or if goes to OS drive, like loose file downloads from web browser, then organize those files you do wish to keep and copy them over to a secondary drive when you have time. Then delete those copies off the OS drive to free up space.

With Linux also the OS drive doesn't need to be large, even a 120/128GB ssd would do. So for the Linux OS drive, you could technically juat use a small sata ssd you had laying around and didn't really have a need for anymore with a modern WinOS build. Then for the secondary drive just use good quality NVME drives since many Motherboard have more M2 Slots nowa days and good performance NVME SSDs in a 1, 2 or 4 TB have come down in price quite a bit.

If you compile videos or backup videos to go onto your Twitch or YouTube for example, make room on an SSD as usable work space for doing video compiles and edits on. Once that video or project ia finalized you could go and back that content up onto say a large decent HDD like 8TB+ for example. Either internal or external does not matter for backing up stuff you don't need on the internal drives everyday.

[chewbachman]

Bit of a necro, but I just swapped to mint and got the drivers sorted pretty easily, it has been a practically seamless migration for me, thankfully. If Pop OS is that much better than mint it must mean Windows is a bigger pig than I already thought, because I am already seeing better performance out of Mint.

[skOsH♥]

The only thing I dislike about Linux mint is that not all my recording hardware works.

For instance, my microphone that was like 500

Apparently it works well with manjaro, which i used before...

[LeftPaw]

I installed Bazzite on my other drive and so far steam games work fine. I'm still getting the hang of it though. Doing anything else on Bazzite has me scratching my head.

[Zoltan]

Originally posted by AbedsBrother:

Originally posted by Dethe:

I am trying to run games I had already downloaded under Windows, don't know if that is a mistake.

This is likely your problem. Steam doesn't play nice with NTFS-formatted drives (the Windows default). Re-downloading & re-installing your games in linux should fix the issue. If you made a backup using the Steam backup feature, those should work and save you a ton of time & bandwidth.

I just want to add really quick that this doesn't necessarily mean that you have to lose custom configurations and mods that you have for your games on Windows. You may be able to just copy them over.

I use the Aslain Modpack[aslain.com] for World of Warships, which only installs natively on Windows. It can also be installed on Linux using Wine+Lutris, but that only works with the Wargaming native launcher, not Steam.

Since mods are really just files that get added to the game's directory, I decided to install the mod on my Windows laptop, then copy the World of Warships directory and paste it into the appropriate directory Linux. WoWS+Mods ran just fine.

I have only tried this with WoWS though. I have not tried to do the same with any other games, so I can't say this will always work, but I suspect it will work most of the time. I essentially just manually installed the mods rather than using the mod pack's wizard or a mod manager like Vortex.

I'm not intimately familiar with manually installing mods, so I'm sure there are caveats and exceptions that I'm unaware of, but as far as I can tell, as long as you can get direct access to the mod files, you should be able to just manually place them where the need to go.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Originally posted by Zoltan:

Originally posted by AbedsBrother:

This is likely your problem. Steam doesn't play nice with NTFS-formatted drives (the Windows default). Re-downloading & re-installing your games in linux should fix the issue. If you made a backup using the Steam backup feature, those should work and save you a ton of time & bandwidth.

I just want to add really quick that this doesn't necessarily mean that you have to lose custom configurations and mods that you have for your games on Windows. You may be able to just copy them over.

I use the Aslain Modpack[aslain.com] for World of Warships, which only installs natively on Windows. It can also be installed on Linux using Wine+Lutris, but that only works with the Wargaming native launcher, not Steam.

Since mods are really just files that get added to the game's directory, I decided to install the mod on my Windows laptop, then copy the World of Warships directory and paste it into the appropriate directory Linux. WoWS+Mods ran just fine.

I have only tried this with WoWS though. I have not tried to do the same with any other games, so I can't say this will always work, but I suspect it will work most of the time. I essentially just manually installed the mods rather than using the mod pack's wizard or a mod manager like Vortex.

I'm not intimately familiar with manually installing mods, so I'm sure there are caveats and exceptions that I'm unaware of, but as far as I can tell, as long as you can get direct access to the mod files, you should be able to just manually place them where the need to go.

Yes especially true if it's the kind of game that does not require you to open a game file and inject changed files. Stand alone mods should work.

Now if the game is a Windows only game that should still be fine as long as that game can run on Linux via Proton or similar means of compatibility layer launching