Which Linux OS can used to game with ( Windows PC Games)?

Simmonz said:
All I can say is that experience goes against every experience at work when I do a fresh build with 10. Just today I had 3 builds on the bench and had the same experience. I install all updates before going to Nvidia's website and the Windows driver is always 37X.xx (forget the exact model) instead of the 382.53 I get from their site.
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Nonetheless they are workable drivers for average people who probably don't need the latest and greatest drivers.
 
heatlesssun said:
Download something and double click on it. It's actually too easy in Windows because that's how a lot of malware gets installed.
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Yeah but getting that .exe is the hard part. The average user who I deal with on a daily basis has never been to Nvidia's website and if they tried to Google it would probably end up in the bowels in the internet. I'm not calling the windows way difficult, i'm just saying how low of an opinion I have of the average PC user.
 
Simmonz said:
All I can say is that experience goes against every experience at work when I do a fresh build with 10. Just today I had 3 builds on the bench and had the same experience. I install all updates before going to Nvidia's website and the Windows driver is always 37X.xx (forget the exact model) instead of the 382.53 I get from their site.
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My card is older, and the last new drivers were from Feb, and that is what I got.

For newer cards it might lag by a couple of months, but does that really make much difference? Maybe a couple of FPS is the latest games, but those "older drivers" are still excellent proprietary drivers.

Nothing like the crappy Free drivers you get in Ubuntu.
 
ChadD said:
I like Antergos nice simple Arch installer with a few nice touches. I haven't installed a system with it awhile, the non free driver option is new nice. Manjaro and Mint both offer the same thing non-free at install meaning nouveau never gets used and setup so it never needs to be blacklisted ect. It seems more and more distros are adding NV driver installers, Mint Manjaro Solus Kubuntu (not sure about any other buntus) and now Antergos are all starting to offer one click GUI non-free driver installs.
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Yeah I was very impressed with Antergos. The main complaint I had was unlike on Mint not every game from GOG runs smoothly. It's something i'm sure I could work out given the time.
 
Snowdog said:
My card is older, and the last new drivers were from Feb, and that is what I got.

For newer cards it might lag by a couple of months, but does that really make much difference? Maybe a couple of FPS is the latest games, but those "older drivers" are still excellent proprietary drivers.

Nothing like the crappy Free drivers you get in Ubuntu.
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Then maybe the average user should use a distro such as Antergos which allows them to pick the proprietary drivers during install. That's the wonderful thing about Linux, lots of choice, lots of freedom to do things how you please.
 
Simmonz said:
Yeah but getting that .exe is the hard part.

The average user who I deal with on a daily basis has never been to Nvidia's website and if they tried to Google it would probably end up in the bowels in the internet. I'm not calling the windows way difficult, i'm just saying how low of an opinion I have of the average PC user.
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I guess that's one of the interesting things about tech these days. I know that a lot of people don't like Cortana and all of the stuff they think is invading their privacy. But you can literally say "install nvidia drivers" and get walked through the process without having to type a SINGLE thing on a keyboard. You can literally ask a Windows 10 PC all kinds of stuff and you get answers. Again, I get that some people hate this stuff but it's extremely powerful.
 
heatlesssun said:
Download something and double click on it. It's actually too easy in Windows because that's how a lot of malware gets installed.
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Drivers are too easy to install in windows that is true. I'm not saying it should be hard or course. No doubt though average users get themselves into a lot of trouble cause windows allows third parties way to much access. Normal people get used to just clicking accept accept yes yes yes when windows is warning them about driver software.

Really with DKMS Linux shouldn't have any issues with things like GPU drivers once their installed. Many distros run as you would expect using DKMS to recompile the current NV driver whenever their is a kernel update. It is one area where Linux is still improving and in a bit of flux... in so far as some distros have a belief in open source so strong they simply refuse to build simple Third party driver installs for things like NV, AMD and Intel GPUS. (technically they are all capable, DKMS has been around for something like 15 years and is pretty ubiquitous even in distros like Suse where GPU drivers involve re-installation manually when you install a new kernel. Every Linux system with DKMS is techiniacally capable of using DKMS to recompile those modules on kernel update... it seems some distros including major ones like Suse simply refuse to bow to the likes of NV an their closed PITA to deal with ways. lol)
 
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Simmonz said:
Then maybe the average user should use a distro such as Antergos which allows them to pick the proprietary drivers during install. That's the wonderful thing about Linux, lots of choice, lots of freedom to do things how you please.
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Gee, yet another Linux distro I just learned about. Downloading Windows drivers is easy than figuring out what the hell is the point of all these distros.
 
Simmonz said:
Then maybe the average user should use a distro such as Antergos which allows them to pick the proprietary drivers during install. That's the wonderful thing about Linux, lots of choice, lots of freedom to do things how you please.
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Yeah, sure average users should just use more bleeding edge distros, with even less support if something goes wrong.

FWIW I tried Manjaro based on this kind of thinking.

The problem is, the repos it used were stuck on older version of the NVidia drirvers, that would not work with the "forceCompositionPipeline" setting in the xorg.conf that is required to fix screen tearing in Linux.

So, not a better solution.

But I get it, the average user should just keep trying different Linux Distros until they get lucky with one that works better. :rolleyes:
 
heatlesssun said:
Gee, yet another Linux distro I just learned about. Downloading Windows drivers is easy than figuring out what the hell is the point of all these distros.
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Anttregos is #6 in popularity right now according to distrowatch. Its not really even a distro per say... its more a GUI arch installer. When its installed you have a fully operational Arch install.

All the distro options are only slightly less confusing then all the various versions of windows, and odd update version names. ;) lol
 
Snowdog said:
But I get it, the average user should just keep trying different Linux Distros until they get lucky with one that works better. :rolleyes:
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Or... if they have 10 year old video cards. Learn how to edit one character into their grub boot... to boot into Linux "Safe mode with networking" run mode 3... and run the Nvidia installer from their website. (either download it first... or use wget I guess) Boom newest drivers, from their you force the pipe line if required (as not all NV users do require it) and your golden. :)

I get it, things where easier when you installed 10 on your current hardware. I am just not sure why you seem to hate Linux so much based on having to perform a few basic tweaks to get it running on your hardware properly. I mean you did say once you got it setup it worked properly right ?
 
The argument that the average person doesn't understand the concept of installing Nvidia drivers on a clean install is a moot point as the average person doesn't have any idea how to install an OS - Period. Most have never even heard of the scenario. So sorry, if you're going to attempt to form an argument you've gotta do better than that.

Now, onto moot point number two:

Nouveau drivers are generally regarded as garbage in relation to performance, however for general desktop use they work fine. I installed five Ubuntu based distro's and not one had issues with the Nouveau driver, it worked exactly as intended, although there's no way I'd even attempt to game with it. Really no different to the situation regarding the MS display driver and Windows 7, even Windows 10 will install using the MS driver until such time as the OS deems it necessary to get online and update to a sort of half Nvidia driver package - A procedure that as a tech that works on many machines doesn't always go as smoothly as planned and you still need to install the whole driver package to get the other half of the drivers that aren't installed by default. Once again, if you're going to form an argument against Linux than you've really gotta do better than this.

Ubuntu installs software via repositories, that's an additional measure of security Ubuntu derivatives use and in my experience it works perfectly and I've added countless repositories to my OS install without issue. Obviously if you add 'TomscoolwarezPPA' to your install you may encounter issues, but I've yet to encounter any problem after a good six years running Ubuntu based distro's. Furthermore, adding a PPA is copy/paste in most cases, far from difficult and where the user is not technically inclined they can simply download software from the software centre without ever touching the terminal, as technically speaking the only time I really use the terminal is to add a PPA.

Once again. I've been running my current install for ~12 months now and I've never encountered a single issue, everything just works, and if Linux was half as bad as some are trying to portray than I quite simply wouldn't be able to use it - It's that simple. I installed five distro's and provided conclusive evidence that everything just worked straight out of the box on a half dead PC, you can't really argue with that and I'm happy to post the results here also.
 
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Snowdog said:
Yeah, sure average users should just use more bleeding edge distros, with even less support if something goes wrong.

FWIW I tried Manjaro based on this kind of thinking.

The problem is, the repos it used were stuck on older version of the NVidia drirvers, that would not work with the "forceCompositionPipeline" setting in the xorg.conf that is required to fix screen tearing in Linux.

So, not a better solution.

But I get it, the average user should just keep trying different Linux Distros until they get lucky with one that works better. :rolleyes:
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That's like saying the average user shouldn't use Windows because in searching for that driver on the web they will probably get a virus. Basically what this boils down to is no OS is going to be perfect for stupid people because they're stupid and will fuck it all up.
 
ChadD said:
All the distro options are only slightly less confusing then all the various versions of windows, and odd update version names. ;) lol
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Except who the hell ever heard of Antegos? It just funny how the pro-Linux folks talk about how easy Linux is then preach about how you have learn all of this stuff and bash very capable folks about how stupid they are. Then that distro isn't really a distro. But figuring out three different versions of Windows 10, that's hard.

This shit is so hilarious!:D
 
heatlesssun said:
I guess that's one of the interesting things about tech these days. I know that a lot of people don't like Cortana and all of the stuff they think is invading their privacy. But you can literally say "install nvidia drivers" and get walked through the process without having to type a SINGLE thing on a keyboard. You can literally ask a Windows 10 PC all kinds of stuff and you get answers. Again, I get that some people hate this stuff but it's extremely powerful.
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Yep....But you've still gotta jump the massive hurdle of installing the OS, which 90% of the population aren't capable of so it's a massively moot point!
 
heatlesssun said:
Except who the hell ever heard of Antegos? It just funny how the pro-Linux folks talk about how easy Linux is then preach about how you have learn all of this stuff and bash very capable folks about how stupid they are. Then that distro isn't really a distro. But figuring out three different versions of Windows 10, that's hard.

This shit is so hilarious!:D
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Why, because we have a number of burgers and you just have a cheese burger?

You're forgetting the fact that the average person cannot install your one version of Windows - To them it's all magical Voodoo. If they need the assistance of a tech to reinstall Windows, I'm fairly sure the tech knows the capabilities of the top five distro's on distrowatch and can provide advice as necessary.
 
heatlesssun said:
Except who the hell ever heard of Antegos? It just funny how the pro-Linux folks talk about how easy Linux is then preach about how you have learn all of this stuff and bash very capable folks about how stupid they are. Then that distro isn't really a distro. But figuring out three different versions of Windows 10, that's hard.

This shit is so hilarious!:D
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All were trying to argue is that the average Windows user will have trouble installing drivers on Windows. Who cares if you haven't heard of Antegros ? It's a valid distro with a valid advantage for those users: picking your driver during install.
 
At the end of the day it's really all nitpicking, splitting hairs, back up against the wall without a valid argument to whine about: As no matter whether the Nouveau, Microsoft or Nvidia drivers are used chances are the unknowledgable masses wouldn't have a clue what driver was running anyway and their experience would be fine no matter what package was installed. For the slightly more technically inclined, the procedure to install the correct Nvidia driver is hardly rocket science on both an Ubuntu based distro or a distro that allows for driver selection on install or Windows where the very latest full driver package is necessary.

It's a downright stupid argument.:rolleyes:
 
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Simmonz said:
All were trying to argue is that the average Windows user will have trouble installing drivers on Windows. Who cares if you haven't heard of Antegros ? It's a valid distro with a valid advantage for those users: picking your driver during install.
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No cares if I ever head of Antegros because no one outside of Linux fan forum ever heard of it. I'm not trying to be mean or anything but that's just honest truth.
 
ChadD said:
Or... if they have 10 year old video cards. Learn how to edit one character into their grub boot... to boot into Linux "Safe mode with networking" run mode 3... and run the Nvidia installer from their website. (either download it first... or use wget I guess) Boom newest drivers, from their you force the pipe line if required (as not all NV users do require it) and your golden. :)

I get it, things where easier when you installed 10 on your current hardware. I am just not sure why you seem to hate Linux so much based on having to perform a few basic tweaks to get it running on your hardware properly. I mean you did say once you got it setup it worked properly right ?
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I was doing research about getting newer drivers straight from NVidia for Manjaro, but I read that installing drivers straight from NVidia into a rolling release was a bad idea, better to wait until the Manjaro Repos caught up. But hey I guess I should have just ignored that advice and went ahead anyway...

Having to perform a few basic tweaks?

I installed Windows 10 and spent <20 minutes tweaking it.

For Linux I spent >20+ hours going through 8 distros, fighting to just get the basics working.
Diskos.jpg
My MB doesn't play well with USB boot drives, so it was starting to eat into my DVD-R supply. But sure, the problem is I didn't want to devote the time to do a few tweaks. :rolleyes:

Like a previous poster I really wonder what the OPs Windows Hassles he wanted to avoid were, because, at best he is just trading for a different set of hassles, likely 10 fold increase in overall hassles.
 
So not only do where to trying to use a 10 year old GPU... your machine also doesn't boot from USB properly.

My friend I am not saying this to be trite or to downplay the frustration you clearly seem to have had. Your hardware is the main issue in your negative Linux experiences. Yes Linux does just work for the majority of systems its installed on... however it sounds like you have a system that clearly no one (including MS) would be testing things on. That Windows 10 worked so well for you is fantastic sounds like you should stay there. My main machine is older as well... I haven't bothered to upgrade quite yet as this old beast is still getting the job done for now, however if I have to jump through a few hoops because my machine isn't exactly the target system of any OS, game, or anything really anymore I understand its my hardware. I don't think X game sucks cause I am forced to turn the eye candy down to medium. Nor would I blame an OS for not installing super smoothly... as I understand current and even 3-4 year old boards have little in common with my old machine anymore. (although I can still boot from USB fine and things do just install. lol)
 
BulletDust said:
For the slightly more technically inclined, the procedure to install the correct Nvidia driver is hardly rocket science on both an Ubuntu based distro or a distro that allows for driver selection on install or Windows where the very latest full driver package is necessary.
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The latest drivers for Windows on the consumer side are generally related to the latest and greatest games. Hardly a concern of Linux users.
 
ChadD said:
My friend I am not saying this to be trite or to downplay the frustration you clearly seem to have had. Your hardware is the main issue in your negative Linux experiences.
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One can have even more negative experiences with the latest and greatest hardware.
 
heatlesssun said:
One can have even more negative experiences with the latest and greatest hardware.
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Surface doesn't = greatest. ;)

I think anyone who is being honest with themselves right now though knows what I am saying.

Linux doesn't have issues with new solid hardware... new hardware that is cheap winmodem quality stuff designed directly for an OEM sure can be iffy. Retail type parts have support when they hit the shelves these days. Still expecting 10 year old GPUs, and 10 year old motherboards that won't boot from USB anymore ect... to just work flawlessly seems a bit rich to me.
 
ChadD said:
My friend I am not saying this to be trite or to downplay the frustration you clearly seem to have had. Your hardware is the main issue in your negative Linux experiences.
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You are grasping at straws, for the same reasons your twin does. To defend Linux by making excuses.

Gigabyte P35 MBs have a known issue resetting BIOS is you boot with a USB drive plugged in.

That in no way affects software configuration in Linux. :rolleyes:
 
Snowdog said:
That in no way affects software configuration in Linux. :rolleyes:
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Dude your rig is 10 years old. That is the bottom line.

I know you installed windows 10 no issues.... if you build a half decent machine its surprising how much life you can stretch out of them. I wouldn't expect very many Vista era machines would install 10 very well. So score one for MS... they have the 10 year old hardware market locked down. :)

My point is simple... if you know you have a 10 year old rig that is already iffy using a 10 year old video card (seriously that is 4-5 years longer then a GPU has ever lasted for me, they either die start acting flaky or I just replace them for something newer) I don't know why you would expect anything would just install zero issues.
 
ChadD said:
Dude your rig is 10 years old. That is the bottom line.

I know you installed windows 10 no issues.... if you build a half decent machine its surprising how much life you can stretch out of them. I wouldn't expect very many Vista era machines would install 10 very well. So score one for MS... they have the 10 year old hardware market locked down. :)

My point is simple... if you know you have a 10 year old rig that is already iffy using a 10 year old video card (seriously that is 4-5 years longer then a GPU has ever lasted for me, they either die start acting flaky or I just replace them for something newer) I don't know why you would expect anything would just install zero issues.
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Dude its about 9 years old (purchased Mid 2008), would Linux have installed better 3 years ago when it was 6 years old? Did Linux Drop support C2Q CPUs in the last three years?

You are just making excuses. What happened to Linux is the best solution to run on old HW?
 
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I used hardware from the same era with the same reference GPU and had no issues.

If there is a hardware issue at play here it is due to non reference hardware, not the first time I've encountered issues with non reference hardware of that era by any stretch if the imagination as non reference hardware of that era was more than just a couple of additional voltage regulators and a non reference cooler, it was a completely custom board with differing firmware.

Once again, to hammer the point home so that there's no confusion whatsoever: I ran the same GPU, reference design, with no issues. So linux certainly supports the GPU in question and so do the Nvidia drivers. Furthermore, running the same GPU multi monitor worked perfectly.

If the issue isn't related to non reference hardware than what can I say? This twin had everything working fine out the box, using the same hardware, trying my best to induce issues and if someone can't seem to overcome hardware acceleration issues that I tried everything to encounter....?

If you like I can dig up a plethora of results. Lots of screenshots to clog the forums. For both yourself and your twin.
 
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BulletDust said:
Really? You game under Linux?
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Actually yes, I do have my sig rig setup for Linux Steam VR, at least of about six weeks ago. And yeah, that required latest drivers. Linux folks get way to full of themselves. Do you really think I'd ever come to this forum asking for help to use VR under Linux. Fuck and no. There are experienced Linux folks out there who don't lug around insults and BS and help. And they don't shrug off sometimes how fucked up Linux is when comes to stuff that's far easier under Windows. They just say "Yeah, needs to get better" and they move on.
 
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heatlesssun said:
Actually yes, I do have my sig rig setup for Linux Steam VR, at least of about six weeks ago. And yeah, that required latest drivers. Linux folks get way to full of themselves. Do you really think I'd ever come to this forum asking for help to use VR under Linux. Fuck and no. There are experienced Linux folks out there who don't lug around insults and BS and help. And they don't shrug off sometimes how fucked up Linux is when comes to stuff that's far easier under Windows. They just say "Yeah, needs to get better" and they move one.
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I wasn't talking about SteamVR though was I? I was talking about general gaming and I didn't know that you played a selection of games under Linux when you can simply play them under your OS of choice? ;)
 
BulletDust said:
I wasn't talking about SteamVR though was I? I was talking about general gaming and I didn't know that you played a selection of games under Linux when you can simply play them under your OS of choice? ;)
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Linux folks are always making claims. You yourself has said how compatible Linux is with VR. As I have stated repeatedly I don't give a fuck about operating systems beyond what I need them to do. I've been doing this shit for most of my life. You like to slam me for being the 50 year old that can build a PC, throw in VR that just came out last year, but hopelessly able to deal with desktop Linux. Even when I have desktop Linux running stuff even the overwhelming majority of Linux fans have never done.

It costs nothing but time and insult. I love to play around with shit Linux folks don't.
 
heatlesssun said:
Linux folks are always making claims. You yourself has said how compatible Linux is with VR. As I have stated repeatedly I don't give a fuck about operating systems beyond what I need them to do. I've been doing this shit for most of my life. You like to slam me for being the 50 year old that can build a PC, throw in VR that just came out last year, but hopelessly able to deal with desktop Linux. Even when I have desktop Linux running stuff even the overwhelming majority of Linux fans have never done.

It costs nothing but time and insult. I love to play around with shit Linux folks don't.
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Hangon,

If you want to imply that Linux users run outdated drivers as they don't game or the games available under Linux don't require the latest drivers like some form of bullshit blanket statement (suprise, suprise!), don't get all buthurt when someone calls you out over the fact that you don't actually game under Linux! No one's talking about VR, I never mentioned VR and I'm fairly confident that it's safe to assume based on your rantings that you have no intention of playing any of your games under anything but your prefered OS - Therefore you're in no position to make such blanket statements whatsoever!

Furthermore, if you did actively game under Linux using VR you'd most definitely be running the latest drivers! You just totally contradicted your own bloody argument!

Geezus! If you're gonna form an argument you're gonna have to start thinking about what you're implying I'm afraid. :)
 
BulletDust said:
If you want to imply that Linux users run outdated drivers as they don't game or the games available under Linux don't require the latest drivers like some form of bullshit blanket statement
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All I was saying is that a lot of Windows drivers are released for games that just don't come to Linux. That's plan fact. The last drivers I remember installing were recommended for Star Trek Bridge Crew and something else. And I know the first one wasn't for Linux.

BulletDust said:
(suprise, suprise!), don't get all buthurt when someone calls you out over the fact that you don't actually game under Linux!
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Why would I be but hurt over not using something that doesn't run my games? That's why I think Linux sux for gaming in the first place.

BulletDust said:
No one's talking about VR,
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You may not but nVidia has been pushing drivers for it. Oh that's right, you don't use VR. LOL!
 
heatlesssun said:
No cares if I ever head of Antegros because no one outside of Linux fan forum ever heard of it. I'm not trying to be mean or anything but that's just honest truth.
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The honest truth is this discussion is about the average user and let me tell you that when I ask them to do things such as click the start button I get responses such as "what's that". So at the end of the day you can say they haven't heard of Antegros but many of them haven't heard of the damn start button either so simple tasks are complex to them on Windows as well.
 
Just like running the latest hardware most definitely improves the gaming experience under Linux, I can assure you that running the latest drivers also helps immensely where DX to OGL wrappers and poor ports are concerned - In fact like the hardware situation under Linux it's probably more important to always run the latest drivers under Linux than Windows for this very reason as Nvidia and Valve are always manipulating drivers to gain the best gaming experience possible considering poor ports and making leaps and bounds in this area. Therefore your comment was an assumption, applied as a blanket statement, as always.

As for your opinion regarding Linux gaming, good for you! Please, stick to Windows.

And no, I see VR as a waste of hard earned $$. If you can justify it, good for you, doesn't mean you're in anyway a superior individual.
 
Simmonz said:
The honest truth is this discussion is about the average user and let me tell you that when I ask them to do things such as click the start button I get responses such as "what's that".
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Considering the amount of vitriol that Microsoft got from removing the Start Button in the original release of Windows 8 I just no idea what you're talking about. The amount of IT press over that was just incredible.
 
heatlesssun said:
Considering the amount of vitriol that Microsoft got from removing the Start Button in the original release of Windows 8 I just no idea what you're talking about. The amount of IT press over that was just incredible.
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What I am talking about is the average user who are far more moronic than I think many people know. I have literally had them ask me what I meant by the start button in 7 and 10 and I had to point it out to them. They didn't know what it was called in any sensible way. Start button is a pretty basic way to put it but they had no idea. You think the average user reads IT press ? Lucky to get them to read half truths from some Youtube hack.
 
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