Or maybe they will launch Win 12 with optional TPM support.
Imho making the OS(es) TPM only cannot be good for their business, many people are still on Win 10 with no intention to switch, since their motheboard does not support TPM and do not want to upgrade PC / waste PCI-E slot on TPM extension.
If I was not using my PC for gaming also, I would probably say fuck them and be on Linux too. But gaming on Linux is cancer.
Do you only play Valorant and Rainbow 6 Siege? Most of my games work now by simply clicking Play, which wasn’t the case even 2 years ago.
There’s some bug between KDE, my Nvidia GPU, Prime, Proton and DXVK that causes my whole system to freeze (can’t even switch to console) if I try to play games with the GPU selection set to “on-demand”.
If I completely disable the Intel GPU, it runs fine, but that means I basically can’t use the laptop without a charger (because the battery drains so fast), unless I switch the GPU setting (requires a reboot) every time I want to game.
Totally fair about the laptop issues. I know sound, wifi, touchpads, fingerprint unlocks aren’t always fully compatible, and prime switcher can put up a fuss (though I remember using an alternative back in the day). I guess I’m just astounded from where I started (looking through WineHQ and GamingOnLinux forums, trying the scripts and crossing my fingers) to now, where my rig is beefy enough that a small performance hit that Proton could cause isn’t noticeable at all.
Thinking about it again, Gaming On Linux is cancerous, in the sense that it’s grown exponentially, and thanks to Valve’s support with Proton and the Steam Deck, the OS once was an afterthought for gaming has “metastasized” itself into relevancy.
Sure, it’s much better than it has been a few years ago.
But it’s still not nearly at the point where I would blindly recommend it to non-technical people and call it easy. There’s still a way to go.
On the other hand I have no problem recommending Linux to the typical “I only use an OS to run a browser” user. That wasn’t the case 5 or 10 years ago.
you got a lot of hate because Lemmy tends to be militantly pro-Linux, (it sort of goes hand-in-hand with the FOSS ideas that Lemmy is built on) but every Linux user who built their own rig has wanted to throw their computer out the fucking window while trying to get nvidia drivers to work.
Linux gamers point to the Steam Deck as the example that gaming on Linux isn’t awful… The Steam Deck is an amazing advancement, but it’s essentially just a console like the Xbox or PlayStation; It’s using a known list of hardware, with pre-installed and pre-tested drivers. As far as play-testing and QA is concerned, that’s as close as you can get to having a controlled environment. For people who build their own computers, drivers on Linux are still a fucking nightmare. You still occasionally have to fight with them just to get modern games working.
It’s better than it used to be, for sure. But it’s nowhere near as easy as many people want to claim. Especially when compared to Windows, where it usually is just plug and play. Microsoft can suck a chode for their invasive and monopolistic practices, but those same practices are also what led to gaming being so fucking easy on Windows. You buy the game, you install the game, and the game boots up first try. Because companies test for Windows. They know what to expect from Windows. They know how hardware will perform on Windows, and what the potential pitfalls will be. None of that is true for Linux, where the OS varies just as much as the user’s hardware.
I do genuinely believe it will continue to get better. But people who go “lol gaming on Linux is ezpz” aren’t doing Linux any favors. Because if someone hears that, tries it, and finds out it isn’t easy? They’ll be much more inclined to just go “fuck it, I tried and it didn’t work so it must not be for me” and default back to Windows.
My AMD desktop provides an almost identical user experience to the deck, just with more power. The problem isn’t Linux, it’s Nvidia not making a driver that actually works. Nvidia has always been hostile to gaming on Linux, desktop Linux users in general.
You can install any OS on the deck, it’s commodity hardware shoved into a handheld. Not a locked down device like a console.
I’ve built all my desktops and none of them ran Linux poorly, played lots of games. I’ve been gaming on Linux since my only option was unreal tournament.
Anti cheat is a show stopper for many Linux games though, if you are big into multiplayer games you might be disappointed to find out your favorite game blocks Linux users because reasons. Games outside of steam will require more work to get running, because steam does the heavy lifting for you.
There are also other edge cases where it doesn’t work great, like with CAD software. But Nvidia making garbage tier drivers has done more harm to the perception of Linux gaming than everything else combined.
One thing that people seem to dismiss, running windows games on Linux is fuckin magic. It’s not normal for an OS to be able to run another systems applications.
You are right with what you are saying, but for an average user it doesn’t matter who’s fault it is that their hardware and the OS don’t play nice together.
If they have Nvidia and it works perfectly out of the box on Windows, but not on Linux, it really doesn’t matter whether it’s the fault of Linux or Nvidia.
And sure, if you are buying a new device to run Linux on it, you can use that info to buy an ATI card that works better.
But more often than not people are switching from Windows to Linux on their existing hardware. Mostly because something doesn’t work (e.g. receiving updates on Win10 past 2024), and they’d rather switch OS than buy a new PC.
My problem is people saying Linux isn’t ready because Nvidia provides a terrible experience, and they are basing that opinion on their personal experience with Nvidias gpu drivers. Using any other gpu provides an experience so close to the deck that it’s not even a talking point.
No OS is perfect, Linux has problems, but Nvidia makes people think it’s a mess.
I think, there is another underlying problem, and that is that many Linux users are overly defensive about their OS.
If Windows frequently bluescreens due to a driver, people also say that Windows sucks. But I’ve never seen a single instance where then a more experienced Windows user says “You are wrong, Windows is great, it’s just the manufacturer of the hardware who is at fault.”
To an average user, there is no difference between OS, drivers or even user space software.
And, tbh, if the system doesn’t run correctly (no matter which part of it) nobody really cares who is at fault. Because it’s not about putting blame on someone, but rather about the user wanting to do something and it doesn’t work.
For a bad comparison: Imagine you got a new car and directly after the warranty expired, the motor breaks down and needs to be replaced.
Would you then say “The car is ok, it’s just the supplier of the sealing rings of the piston who sucks”?
I’d rather say, “This car sucks”.
Drivers aren’t really an issue anymore either…
Hybrid gpu laptops: I’m about to ruin this man’s whole career
I have a dual GPU laptop 🤷
I guess your experience must be universal and everyone who has issues must be really dumb. Is that how you see the world?
Your information is outdated
Gaming on Windows just works, gaming on Linux can work but might be problematic with some hardware (as is the case with OP based on another comment they made), let’s not pretend it’s as easy.
Having recently switched myself I actually have experienced less issues and better game performance from Linux than I did on Windows, at least with the games I play and the hardware I have.
Definitely not what I would call cancer
“at least with the games I play”
As mentioned in a recent article that was shared around here, for the games that work on Linux performance on average is 17% better, for the games that don’t work on Linux, performance is infinitely better on Windows 😛
For sure, but these days the main offenders are online multiplayer games with restrictive anti-cheats.
I would go so far as to say if those specific types of games are not your thing you aren’t likely to experience any issues gaming on Linux.
I’m sure there are exceptions, but every time I think “oh this game for sure won’t work” I have eaten my words.
And it’s like a night and day difference from the last time I tried to do this about a year and a half ago. The progress I’ve seen is almost more impressive than the performance gains. 🤷
But if you switch to Linux for gaming, and the game you want to play doesn’t work… Well it’s not like you can trade that 17% performance improvement in to get the game to function.
That’s a huge roadblock if you don’t know what games won’t work.
You can always dual boot for those games … A pain, I know, but doable.
Might even be able to run it on VM, especially if you set up a type 2 hypervisor. Again, that’s it’s own pain, but really should only be that on initially getting it to work rather than every time
But if I have to have a full Windows installation that I need to keep up to date, with the full setup of drivers and other software that I need to run games, what advantage does an average person (not software dev/IT enthusiast) have from running a second OS for the things that do work on both OSes?
It’s kinda like saying “This racing kit car is amazingly fast, you can tinker on it and reconfigure it, and for everything that you can’t do in the kit car, you can just keep a family minivan around”.
That’s nice for a racing/car enthusiast. But most people just want one car to do all they need.