[frfl]

You're just describing a Linux distribution[1]. With the added benefit of being 0x the price.

[1]: Assuming you're not married to some Windows only software that you can't get working using Proton/Wine, or don't want to run a Windows VM.

[vivzkestrel]

primary use case: gaming. needs to support everything from 90s to cutting edge modern games without hiccups

[tapoxi]

https://bazzite.gg/

Should work out of the box, no configuration needed.

The only caveat is games with kernel based anti-cheat, but I don't play many of those. Arc Raiders works just fine, for example.

[krige]

I'm sorry but linux gaming absolutely does not support "support everything from 90s to cutting edge modern games without hiccups"

I'm sure for some users it's acceptable, solid even, but I know several people, including myself, that keep hitting edge cases and invisible walls when on Windows these games "just work". And no, it's not about kernel anti-cheats or any other DRM.

[dombili]

Agreed and it's frustrating that people don't admit this.

I recently started dual booting Linux again and tried both Arch and CachyOS. Former with Hyprland, the latter with Gnome just to see how well the games run. I knew going in that tiling window managers don't behave well with games and that was indeed the case. With Gnome, even some native games made by Valve had terrible performance issues where I have none on Windows. There are also cases, and I wouldn't even describe them as edge cases, that you have to tinker to get things to work properly.

I have a very basic dual monitor setup, but yesterday I spent an hour trying to fix a problem where my cursor would escape the game's window into the second monitor. The obvious solutions (gamescope) didn't work for some reason. Did I end up fixing it? Yes. But that's only because I know my way around Linux. That's an hour I'm never getting back.

I'm not making an argument for Windows, I very much dislike using it but Linux folks need to accept reality. A reality which isn't fair, but reality nonetheless. That's when you start to make progress. (Which, to be fair, they have. Tremendously so. But there's still a long road ahead!)

[Draiken]

I use i3wm and I have this issue with escaping mouse in CS2. I thought about using gamescope but never did. You mention you found a solution so would you be kind enough to share it?

That would definitely save me part of that hour you lost :) But honestly, I'd trade that hour on linux a thousand times to not have to close another notification from Windows about this amazing new game they have for me to install. And I don't even have Windows 11.

Linux has quirks, of course, but every OS has them. People like to dismiss quirks on Windows because they're used to it, but a lot of the time they're worse than Linux's quirks.

[drooopy]

I use crossover and/or Lutris on Linux in order to run most of my 90s Windows games as it's a complete pain in the ass to get them working under Windows 11.

[Grimblewald]

Neither does windows tbh. You're not getting most early 2000s let alone 90s games working on W11 without a lot of time and effort having gone into getting it to work. E.g. try run original (not gog) vampire masqurade bloodlines, or black and white without the community patches running. Running both in original form is feasible on linux, but straight up not possible on w11 without patches.

[tapoxi]

I've had a pretty opposite experience. I was able to get an old adventure game (Titanic: Adventure out of Time) working just fine on Wine and it refuses to run on modern Windows.

If Wine doesn't work I'll run it in 86box.

[tpxl]

> I'm sorry but linux gaming absolutely does not support "support everything from 90s to cutting edge modern games without hiccups"

Neither does Windows. W11 (or was it W10) famously broke a bunch of old games. Running Windows games from the 90s is easier on linux than on Windows at this point.

[krige]

That's really nice but that still doesn't make Linux the better option, or even "easier" when PCGW has everything covered for Win. And most Windows issues is just slapping dgVoodoo or nGlide in and it's done anyway when solving a linux problem might be anything from picking a specific (arcanely divined) proton version to elaborate hacks and batches.

[frfl]

Well, guess you're married to Windows if those are your requirements. Proton runs most games these days[1] (but not all). Apparently older Windows app/games run better on Proton/Wine than Windows (better citation needed) [2].

[1]: https://www.protondb.com/explore

[2]: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1kjib0y/is_th...

[anhner]

They can just run a windows VM which shouldn't require too much memories for the kinds of games they want to play.

[Anamon]

No VM solution I know of supports 3D-accelerated graphics. VMware Workstation used to, but they removed it years ago because it was a security risk (direct access to 3rd-party drivers on the host).

VMs are useless for most gaming.

For games up to around the late 90s, and if you have a real beast of a machine, full emulation such as with PCem is the best option.

[anhner]

I haven't used a VM for gaming recently so I didn't know they don't support graphics anymore. That's a bummer!

[krige]

It doesn't. Case in point is my spare late 00's laptop running mint and early 00's / late 90's games. Some (Age of Wonders 1) don't work at all under wine/proton. Others (Age of Wonders SM, dosbox games, Majesty) technically work but keep hitting snags like midi just flat out not working, display resolution being read and set incorrectly, visual artifacts. Everything tested worked perfectly fine under Win7 and Win10.

[int_19h]

Age of Wonders 1 used to work. That patch that you need to get it running on Win10+ was originally made for Wine: https://aow.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?actio...

Is that not sufficient these days? I might take another look; this is one of those games that I intend to keep running one way or another until I die.

[krige]

Aight so when using Wine, AoW1 just instantly fails silently upon launch, no error message to see. When using proton it technically works - clicking randomly I launched the tutorial, judging by the sounds - but the screen is black all the time and shutting down alt-f4 it throws an error:

Exception EWin32Error in module VCL30.dpl at 00010E4F

Win32 Error. Code 1400. Invalid window handle.

[krige]

It isn't I'm afraid. I'll see if I get any crash log or report that could help later in the evening.

[Zardoz84]

Should work without issues, except when an "anti-cheat" rootkit is needed by the game.

Source: Someone using Debian to play games from the 90's (Master of Orion 2, HoMM 2&3, etc) to recent games like Helldivers 2

[m4rtink]

So not modern Windows, right ? ;-)