What e-sports have kernel level anti-cheat? Isn’t it just the crap published by Riot? I know both CS and Dota 2 work on Linux, I’m pretty sure you can get Overwatch 2 running. You can’t exactly play Smash on a Windows PC either, but I think the other major fighting games like Tekken and Street Fighter work. Are there any other serious contenders for a major esport I’m just forgetting?
Personally, I see incompatibility with kernel-level anti-cheat as a feature rather than a limitation.
People can still cheat without involving any software on their PC because the game needs to display something to the user (which can be analyzed by another device, either intercepting the stream before sending it along to the monitor or even by using a camera to grab the pixels from the monitor, if there’s encryption used on the signal to prevent mitm). And it needs to accept input from the user, which another device connected to the device analysing the display can adjust to improve aim, prevent friendly fire, or just auto shoot when you’re pointed at a target. You could even write a full bot using that.
On the other hand, kernel level anti-cheat can be an attack vector to get into your machine in a way that existing malware detection will have a hard time detecting. Kernel modification is the level rootkits work at and an arbitrary code execution flaw could mean your hardware is forever compromised, or at least anything with flashable firmware storage (especially if that firmware also implements the flash capabilities, since it could then add its own code to any new firmware you try to flash).
I just don’t play many multiplayer games these days to avoid the cheating. And if I do get back into multiplayer games, I’ll either do it on a console where I don’t care as much about the kernel getting exploited or I’ll play a game where the servers are managed in a way that cheaters will get banned because an admin can see what they are doing.
It’s just the usual “AAA” suspects
Valorant Battlefield 2042 Rainbow Six League
Even CS technically if you play competitive on faceit, which is still pretty dumb.
There’s plenty that actually work though, even with anticheat: https://areweanticheatyet.com
Anti cheat preventing gaming on Linux is honestly an outlier at this stage. It just means the devs don’t want to deal with working with an additional OS which several other devs and valve itself has shown is not a major issue anymore. Both EAC and BattleEye have had linux userspace clients for years, and both support WINE now.
Also because they probably can’t convince linux users to install a kernel level anti cheat as if that isn’t rootkit spyware lol. Akmod and dkms devs would probably laugh if Riot tried such a thing.
The sheer power of instantly switching desktops in Linux makes the windows user afraid.
But I have seen a lot of old windows heads look at Linux for gaming performance where Microsoft is failing them with bloatware such as copilot.
I don’t think the rootkit anti cheats would ever work to a level windows games developers want it to on Linux though.
It doesn’t matter to me if games that use rootkit anticheat don’t work on Linux. I would never install anything that requires a rootkit.
Anticheat will have to just come from other methods that people will also hate.
Imagine, for example, if they required a form of government issued ID and the account was tied to you specifically. Despite privacy nightmare that it is (plus other issues, especially around globally accessed games), bans would have significantly larger impact if they’re tied to a real-world identity.
Yeah, AC overall is very anti OSS philosophies
I hope steam can fix big picture mode with nvidia. It’s sooo slow.
That’s nvidias burdon. But I’m sure RedHat/Canonical will coach them to an ideal outcome.
I am slowly chugging through the weird issues I have with trying to use Bazzite as my primary OS, but it will replace my Windows install soon, I can feel it. I still miss HDR, but my newest and most inconvenient issue is that Firefox just keeps crashing as soon as it launches now. No luck fixing it so far, and I installed Edge just to have a working browser.
That’s cool games thar require anti cheat measures or have sports are generally speaking games I’m not interested in as a rule.
Hell yea brother!
My beef is with the machine.
“We need kernel access to prevent cheaters from ruining our game” is the dating equivalent to a guy asking for your phone password on the first date.
sudo give me your phone password
It’s not even that. I have zero interest in multilayer games even less so “seasonal” games. Basically all the stuff AAA says is dead I like and all the stuff they say I should like I dislike
The season nomenclature is fucking stupid and I hate it. If a game makes its DLC or quarterly updates and calls them “Seasons” I am revolted.
This is what made Clash of Clans alien to me.
I will say that in general I also agree, but there are games where I have been completely okay with it, like DRG. But those updates are always free and really just define (formerly) time period in which a long-term event is contained within. I do love that the latest season is really more of a chapter than a season since you can pick and choose whenever you want to jump into whichever season you want to play and progress through. Only seasonal events have time constraints now.
This is particularly nice since my DRG group has moved to playing Grounded instead, with the occasional DRG night and don’t want to feel tethered to a release schedule.
More like asking for access to your email and keys and phone pin code, or (if people have it) their password wallet, to make sure you aren’t hooking up with other guys on the side.
Just as crazy
I’m just waiting for better VR support (formerly WMR, now Quest 3), and my system (Thinkpad T15G) is Intel/Nvidia, occasionally with an Nvidia eGPU, and I’ve heard good support for that just isn’t ready yet. Linux would be great if I had a budget to build something entirely optimized for Linux, but right now it’s just not right for my system and budget.
I plan on trying it out again soon, but I just don’t have time for a new learning curve right now, even if I’m fairly tech savvy.
Personally haven’t encountered a game that wouldn’t run, so as far as I’m concerned it runs anything. I’m not going to shed any tears over Fortnite.
It’s just too bad that Riot seems so inherently against supporting Linux. I still enjoy playing ARAMs for watching YouTube on the side and the occasional Val session. Obviously for Val I can just boot over but I do play league about daily.
Inb4 “just don’t play league, it’s bad anyway” yeah thanks, solid solution
The good thing about Valorant is you can just play (the better) Counter Strike instead and it doesn’t try to install a rootkit. I guess for LoL you could play one of the alternatives too, but I don’t know if any if them are good. They aren’t my thing.
Val was one of the reasons I still dual boot Win10 (plus VR gaming), but now that it released on PS5, I’d rather just relearn the game for controller.
Weirdly enough, the only game I tried to play that didn’t run was this random Indy game. Didn’t even have fancy graphics, it was one step up from macromedia flash games
The AAA games I’ve played are fine on Linux. Baulders Gate, No Mans Sky, Fallout 76, Cyberpunk 2077, Crusader Kings III.
I dunno. I’ll probably get hate for this, but it’s not ready. It’s better. But Linux isn’t a good replacement for Windows yet. I love Linux. Love the customization, the *NIX filesystem makes sense, and it’s beautiful. Also no ads in my start menu!
I want to use Linux regularly, and I tried last week. It failed. Kind of miserably.
I need to pick a distro. Mint and Pop_OS were consensus recommendations.
Try mint: Installing dual boot alongside windows was beautiful. But no internet connection, says cable is unplugged (it’s not). Realize I downloaded an earlier version (20). Get the most recent version, and problem resolved. It’s kind of odd to me that even a pretty recent version wouldn’t support my adapter, but whatever. I tried to update and install Nvidia drivers: update fails because dependencies were not installed. Okay… Why not prompt me to install them? Why make me apt-get all the dependencies by hand? I don’t expect handholding, but some things should be. If I NEED something as a pre-req for what I’m trying to do, queue it up!
Fuck it. Let me try Pop_OS, instead - that has some gaming chops, right? Dual boot was more challenging to stand up, but it all worked. Nice. Fire up game: get ~20 fps drop compared to windows (108 from 130) with the same settings. I don’t want to troubleshoot the performance hit. It should just work. I want a tool not a project.
Never mind if you want HDR support. That seems to vary by distro. Variable refresh rate also seemed to be spotty from what I read in gaming distro recommendations. ALSO, do you need UEFI support? RIP. Enjoy toggling that on and off when you have to jump back and forth between Windows and Linux. Nvidia driver support I chalk up to those arseholes only now starting to open source some things.
And I don’t care that you were able to run everything fine. You had a flawless experience: great. Love that for you. I didn’t. I’m not a computer novice - I know to Google shit and how to implement it. I remember trying to fuck around with Ubuntu back in 2002.
I’m gonna continue trying to stand up Linux for everyday use because I love Linux and I want to use it, but it’s pretty clear that even as someone that wants to use Linux. I’ve been trying to switch to Linux every few years for decades. It’s still far short of being ready for average users.
Hey! Sorry you had these bad experiences.
My setup is on Debian
testingand is documented on this blog post: https://blog.c10l.cc/09122023-debian-gamingI don’t have an Nvidia card but other than that, this should give you a head start, including virtual surround on headphones if that’s your thing!
I promise it’s not a lot of work and I tried to make it all easy to follow (feedback welcome though!).
If you decide to give it a go, let me know how it went!
Thanks, I’ll take a look!
This comment is tough because in its wrongness, it reveals a greater problem with Linux gaming. I think you’re right that it’s probably not ready outside of SteamOS. But it’s not correct to say it’s not ready in general. They are several distros that have all the latest features for modern gaming, the issue is you weren’t recommended even one of them. Pop_OS is currently outdated since they are working on their new desktop and mint is on the Ubuntu LTS version meaning they are both significantly behind. The community needs to take that into account when recommending things. That’s the reason I only recommend Bazzite. Cause it’s the closest to a SteamOS experience.
I appreciate your comment! I’ll take a look at Bazzite. How does it do with everyday tasks? Any other distros you’d recommend?
If what I said was so wrong, I feel even more like there’s a fragmentation issue with Linux (or something). This is especially true if some of the most well known distros have issues with gaming. It only fuels my urge to make a table of features for each distro and then evaluate pros and cons of what distro has what. But distro choice shouldn’t matter outside of UI, pre-installed programs, and maybe package management.
I was just super bummed that I didn’t have one of the perfect experiences that I had seen so many people talking about lately.
Shouldn’t Arch be the recommended gaming distro? Not because any focus on gaming but because it is the distro SteeamOS is based on?
I will check out Bazzite over the weekend. Someone told me about Pop OS but this seems less of a tinkering hassle
thanks, your objective experiences are wrong too
I love my Steamdeck so much. Been like 2 years now? still rocking every game I want to play.
Playing through ZenlessZoneZero rn which isn’t even officially supported in any extent and runs flawlessly! Also it’s a real computer that you can do real work on.
I’ve been playing OG PS2 San Andreas. Absolutely loving it ❤️
Same. I was very impressed by the games that work despite being unsupported. Heck, I’ve got Rainbow Six: Vegas working on it with gamepad support. I couldn’t even do that in Windows.
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I find that happens if my docked and undocked resolution scales are not the same.
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Resolution scale, not resolution. On my monitor I run a 4k resolution with a 125% resolution scale. When I undock the resolution scale stays at 125% so everything looks too large on the decks display.
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My Steam Deck has been awesome, money very well spent.
And Valve has made a good chunk of money off me since buying it too lol. I keep getting games specifically for the Deck.
I upgraded my PC and now I barely touch my steam deck. The money spent on it is still VERY worth it. Even if I never touched it again, I use it when traveling, I would still be unbelievably satisfied with my purchase.
In a similar boat. However I now have games strictly for the Deck and games strictly for the Desktop.
I bought like 200 games since I had mine though mostly indie and actually played a lot of them! I spend quite a bit of time traveling and it’s awesome to play some strategy with the trackpad - the trip just flies by!
Linux is amazing for games thar don’t have anti-cheat and I don’t play those games. Saying that Linux gaming isn’t ready is just stupid at this point. And for emulation it might be better than Windows.
wine’s backwards compatibility is argued to be better than windows
but yeah. valve sells a linux console ffs
I’m one of the guys on the couch.
Based
Its not ready for VR. Thats why my vr headset is collecting dust.
The tech is cool but evidently not worth it to find motivation to go back to win.
If you have a headset that works on Linux, everything works just fine. A lot of headsets are just missing the drivers.
My Quest 2 has been running VR fine. ALVR’s latest update made me finally nuke my Windows partition I kept for VR.
Other than Angry Birds VR needing to have the recenter button hit after it’s first launched, so far it’s been fine for HL: Alyx, Beat Saber, Budget Cuts, and a few others I’ve tried. Literally the only workaround quirk I’ve found so far.
Maybe if you used VR Chat all the time, but there’s
vfiofor those cases, if needed. I just learned about it from another user, and so there’s really no need to keep Windows as your primary boot partition or even have a dual boot setup.
Are there people telling linux folks to stop enjoying linux gaming…? I say ask as a linux person
Nah. It’s just projection. Even though I use Linux myself, it’s nearly always the other way around with the lecturer trying to tell Windows users to switch to Linux while the average gamers are just happily gaming away on what works for them.
Hell, you could take many of the comments in this post and turn them into things the guy on the left is saying while Windows gamers are having fun.
Maybe I’m vain, but I posted a post a couple days ago celebrating my success with Linux gaming. So many games are like here.
You know it’s not ready for VR yet. yeah I played VR for about a month 4 years ago and that was enough.
You can’t play games with anti cheat personally I don’t play many of those, but obviously if you do that will play into your decision
Anyway, people are always negative about everything, especially against things other people like
For real though I’d like a VR system (modern) that can use the steam store natively.
The SteamDeck subreddit is full of Windows shilling.
The Finals subreddit during beta was full of complaints about SteamDeck users asking for them to allow Proton.
There’s def a vocal minority out there that will die on the Windows horse, infected with rootkits and all.
The SteamDeck subreddit is full of Windows shilling.
No. I visit there frequently, 1 in maybe 50 posts are about Steam Deck running windows.
I doubt that literally is a significant concern.
When I can’t join others is when I hear I hear confusion as to why I use GNU+Linux, and disappointed I refuse to use Windows to play a certain game.
disappointment when I refuse to use Windows to play a certain game.
Been there. They coolly suggested “why don’t you dual boot?”.
Windows literally cannot be run on my CPU architecture.
What CPU architecture are you running? Windows supports x86 and ARM.
RISC-V surely can’t run any games?
cpu : POWER9 (raw), altivec supportedWhat games are you running on this?
I have a buddy who kept asking me to install windows in order to play one of those rootkit games. Had to disappoint him every time. No fucking way am I doing that. Fuck that.
I’m trying to cut back on proprietary software until I’m only using free software but I make a small exception for some games (usually bought by friends, or to play with them).
Can’t play league on linux
Actually a good thing
deep rock galactic, stardew valley, and minecraft work on linux.
what more could you possibly need?
Not to mention Terraria and Don’t Starve (and many more).
Project Zomboid too!!
