[linux_user_83]

A lot of this is only true if you only have the most basic setup or you are playing the most played games. Outside of the top 100 or so games or unity games (unity games seem to just work as unity is cross platform anyway) it is extremely variable and there are all sorts of odd issues.

While many games work there are hundreds of annoyances, crashes and quirks that don't exist on Windows at all.

* alt-tabbing out of a game will often crash a lot of games, so you can't really use discord or similar team chat software properly without risking crashing out of the game. * If you have a multi-monitor system the game will frequently start on the wrong screen. Thanks to how mondern video drivers identify the monitors even switch the cables round might not work! * A lot of games will work fine at 1080p. At 4K you will see performance problems, also streaming to other people can be terrible. * Single player games that require high refresh rates and stable framerates like Doom Eternal will have variable performance for no reason what-so-ever and are rock solid on Windows (I had two game crashes in the past year and I play a lot of Doom Eternal). * Loads of older games that use the build engine or the KeX engine like Blood does not work properly with Proton. * Lots of indie games do not work at all. * Game streaming on discord will tank framerate on a lot of games in Linux, but it works flawlessly in Windows. * Some graphics setttings just don't take at all, it doesn't seem to error.

Everytime one of these articles get posted there are comments such as this where people say that it is flawless and it simply isn't true. Having a dual screen setup isn't a strange setup these days at all and using Discord is the choice of most PC gamers these days. I stream games to friends (some are disabled and can't play the games, others might want just to watch me play the game as I am good at these games).

I am quite proficient with Linux (I've been using it since 2002) and I cannot recommend it. Maybe it is good enough for you but you and many the people on this thread are giving a false impression of the solution. I have about 450 games in my steam library (I've had a steam account since Half life 2 was released) and about 50 in my GoG account and I've tried a fair few, everything from modern triple A titles to older games, so I have a good sample size for anyone claiming that is merely ancedotal.

[smoldesu]

It's certainly not flawless, but I haven't seen some of these issues you're mentioning. I'm running a dual-monitor setup off my 1050ti, with my primary display being a 1440p 144hz display. I only have windowing issues on games that already had windowing issues natively (the Fallout and Elder Scrolls games are a particularly large sore thumb), and I have never seen a game spawn on the wrong display. I haven't played Doom Eternal, but Doom (2016) ran at a locked 60hz for me. I could push it higher, but at 1440p I'm already stretching the capabilities of this card. Game streaming, while partially broken (eg. you can't stream an individual display), never had that considerable of a performance impact for me. I streamed Valheim over Discord the other day, and only lost ~3 or 4 FPS overall.

Besides that, I understand where you're coming from. The experience isn't flawless, but neither is gaming on Windows. It's ultimately up to you to pick and choose your battles, but the majority of the games I play work relatively well, even compared to Windows.

[kodachi]

It would be more fruitful if you both mentioned your concrete specs/drivers/proton-version to compare experiences. Remember to check your game in protondb.com and contribute if you want.

[linux_user_83]

The issue is the OPs mis-representation of how well it works.

[linux_user_83]

> It's certainly not flawless, but I haven't seen some of these issues you're mentioning.

You previously said for single player it was.

I experience them all the time and I tried different distros (Ubuntu, Fedora, Manjaro) it has been quite consistent issues over at least the last two years.

I find it very hard to believe you haven't seen any of these issues (especially alt-tabbing). I actually sometimes think people are just straight up lying but I have no hard evidence.

> I'm running a dual-monitor setup off my 1050ti, with my primary display being a 1440p 144hz display. I only have windowing issues on games that already had windowing issues natively (the Fallout and Elder Scrolls games are a particularly large sore thumb), and I have never seen a game spawn on the wrong display. I haven't played Doom Eternal, but Doom (2016) ran at a locked 60hz for me. I could push it higher, but at 1440p I'm already stretching the capabilities of this card. Game streaming, while partially broken (eg. you can't stream an individual display), never had that considerable of a performance impact for me. I streamed Valheim over Discord the other day, and only lost ~3 or 4 FPS overall.

Discord streaming literally halves my framerate and I have a 1080Ti with a Ryzen 3700X. So I just don't believe you. You won't see performance problems with Doom 2016 as even a medicore card back in 2012 can play that game decently (my old 660GTX played the game fine at medium on a i7 from 2014ish).

> Besides that, I understand where you're coming from. The experience isn't flawless, but neither is gaming on Windows. It's ultimately up to you to pick and choose your battles, but the majority of the games I play work relatively well, even compared to Windows.

It isn't flawless on Windows but it doesn't have any of the problems I've mentioned, it is generally very stable and it has worked consistently for year. I have no idea about the so called issues you have. I have a sizable library and I will fire up old games every so often and they work without issue.

However I know how to look after a Windows installation (a lot of people don't and that includes so called tech savvy users). I've played all sorts of games on Windows 10 fine. Games going back to 2002. The main problem I have is the resolution of my screen is soo high the fonts and sprites are tiny.

[jcastro]

> I find it very hard to believe you haven't seen any of these issues (especially alt-tabbing). I actually sometimes think people are just straight up lying but I have no hard evidence.

I've got thousands of hours gaming on linux and I've never had an alt-tab problem. Kind of weird to go right to claiming people are outright lying, maybe there's another issue you're running into?

[ycombinete]

> weird to go right to claiming people are outright lying

Rule 1 for having a good time on HN: Never argue with a green account.

[linux_user_83]

I've been around here for a while and I've been lurking for a while. If you are alluding I am somehow trolling or something else, I am not. I

If you actually have any solid rationale against my position other than the lies of these things never happening (even though on proton db there are reports of it happening in games).

Most of the arguments have anecdotes about how it works fine for them and then claim I am making anecdotes myself even though I have a very large steam and gog library and have tried a good sample of games on at least two machines now and a few distros. It isn't anecdotes when you have made a lot of effort to investigate the viability.

I really want to stop using Windows but unless the gaming situation improves I can't and people pretending these issues such as the ones I have mentioned don't exist they won't get solved.

Anyway it will be back to lurking again because this place is a total hive mind.

[ycombinete]

Tbh I don’t have an opinion on this matter as I don’t game on Linux at all. I’m inclined to believe your side actually. As I find doing almost anything on Linux is a harder than it is on windows.

My green account rule is separate to the matter.

[linux_user_83]

I don't believe you either it happens on quite a few games. I've even seen proton devs discuss it being a problen.

[smoldesu]

>You previously said for single player it was.

No, I had originally said

>...others give you a chance to have a flawless experience...

I'm sorry that Discord streaming doesn't work for you. It sounds like an isolated issue judging from the reactions of other commenters here, perhaps you should contact Discord? And as for Windows, I honestly don't know what you're going for here. Yes, games run "fine" on Windows, we are in agreement here. Many games also run "fine" on Linux, and that has been my argument from the start. If your concession is "it runs fine if you aren't tech savvy", then it sounds like this whole point is moot and we're back to square one.

[linux_user_83]

> No, I had originally said >...others give you a chance to have a flawless experience...

This is splitting hairs. You were making out like it "just worked". It doesn't for me and I know plenty of other people that have run into the problems.

> I'm sorry that Discord streaming doesn't work for you. It sounds like an isolated issue judging from the reactions of other commenters here, perhaps you should contact Discord?

It does "work". The problem is the performance is crap. I have far better GPU than you do and I have a pretty decent CPU, so if you were playing the same game you would have it worse. The fact that it is that variable is the problem. It just quicker and easier to reboot into Windows and not have to deal with the issue at all. Which is the real point I am driving at.

> Many games also run "fine" on Linux, and that has been my argument from the start. If your concession is "it runs fine if you aren't tech savvy", then it sounds like this whole point is moot and we're back to square one.

They don't run fine on Linux . If you have even the most non-standard screen configuration things do not work correctly (as I said in my original post) and I have the same problem on different distros on different machines I own (I have some computers in the graveyard with different GPUs). I have messed around with GPU pass through (GT1030s are garbage so regular desktop video playback was poor but the gaming worked fine).

Gaming on linux is a massive compormise in terms of either quality, reliablility, performance or compatibility. You cheer leading to people in your comment and giving them a false impression of the situation will just sour those that attempt it against using alternative operating systems (I am an operating system enthusiast and I use some very odd things for fun).

[fuzxi]

I have only had issues with changing workspaces ("alt-tabbing" in other WMs) with games running through WINE. I've never experienced that with Proton.

[tines]

Not all these issues are specific to Linux though; I can't even alt-tab out of Skyrim on Windows 10 without it crashing.

[mdoms]

Skyrim is a ten year old game. Almost all modern games can be Alt Tabbed in Windows flawlessly.

[linux_user_83]

I can. I do it literally all the time.

[smoldesu]

The official user guide for Skyrim explicitly states that alt-tabbing can cause crashing. Maybe you're using some form of wiccan magic to avoid this issue, but Bethesda themselves acknowledge it's an issue. Perhaps you're referring to Skyrim Special Edition?

[linux_user_83]

Can being the operative word there. This is just dishonest. I've got about 200 hours in Skyrim (back in what 2011 or 2012) sometimes you've gotta double-alt tab back out sometimes so the game looks like it has crashed. Loads of games work with that trick btw (e.g Rome Total War, Medieval 2).

But it is rarely an issue with new-ish games (in Windows). But is a big issue in Linux with proton with a lot of games I've tried. Rome Total War 2 (which was at the time infamous for it bugs) could be minimised and left running for hours without issue and that is quite an old game now.

[galangalalgol]

Always hit esc before alt-tabbimg out, otherwise I always get two cursors with differing sensitivity. And only one is actually the cursor. It doesn't crash until you re-enter and I can usually fix that by selecting it from the task bar, and when I get a blank screen I then alt-tab through all the open applications and back to skyrim. Wiccan magic indeed.

[NullPrefix]

You mind if we come over to play on your computer?

[dleslie]

Basically all your points are valid for Windows, as well.

PC Gaming has long been a brittle experience due to moving OS and hardware targets.

[linux_user_83]

No they are not valid for Windows. I almost have none of these problems on Windows. I do have them constantly on Linux.

[smoldesu]

At risk of turning this discussion into a "my anecdata vs yours" discussion, I honestly have no idea where you're coming from on this. Many of those issues are very much present on Windows, if not exacerbated by the overhead Windows has.

[linux_user_83]

No they are not. People claim they have them. I simple don't believe them.

People usually have problems when they have bad hardware, gunked driver installs. As for the overhead of Windows. Linux and Windows benchmarks on games (from many many sites, even places like phoronix) show that framerates on games that have native versions of each are about the same.

[smoldesu]

Again, it sounds like you've come full circle here. You aren't making much of a case if your argument is "it works fine if you know what you're doing", because that is also the status quo on Linux. We could continue to argue about how we've both misconfigured our respective systems, but that's missing the forest for the trees. Your point is moot.

[linux_user_83]

I didn't say that though. I was specifically talking about poorly looked after Windows installs and many of the people who think they are tech savvy do the dumbest things (like turning off parts of th memory management the OS expects in Windows, not keeping things updated etc. etc) because they think they know what they are doing and they don't. It is pure dunning kruger.

So at no point does it make my point moot. Windows does not need any special configuration with the vast-vast-vast majority of games. Many things just work and that does include a lot of older games (btw compatibility with older software has actually improved under 10).

You mis-characterising what I said doesn't negate the fact that many of the things I mentioned are issues in my original comment are real problems that continue to exist (and have existed for many years) and are unlikely in my opinion to be ever be fixed. You and many other pretending they don't exist doesn't make them go away.

[dleslie]

Go pull out the game disks for any DX3 or DirectPlay games. I guarantee you're likely to have a bad time. The same follows for a great many games released on Steam that targeted WinXPSP2.

[ekianjo]

Fair comments and mostly true. I would however add that the point is the direction of where things are going. It was impossible to play more than 10 percent of steam games just a few years ago. Now the range has massively improved and support is progressively better. In another 2 years you can expect less odd cases and better monitor support.

[JeremyNT]

Peripheral support is an issue too. I managed to fiddle around and get my g27 wheel working in most games, more or less, but my TrackIR was basically worthless (it could kind of emulate a mouse, but that just gives you the xy position, not proper head tracking).