The consolidated Linux gaming thread.

cybereality said:
Yes, I know all about this. Basically you will need to use the AMD Pro drivers to get HDMI audio. However, the latest driver is for Ubuntu 16.04. I tried for about a week to get it working on 17.10 and no dice.

It seems there was some debate about integrating AMD's audio code into the Linux kernel, and I'm not sure when (or if) that will be resolved. So you may want to use Ubuntu 16.04 for now.

I'd expect that AMD will update the driver when Ubuntu 18.04 releases, so that's not too far away. I'm actually liking 16.04, since the default desktop environment supports 4K resolution better.
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Thanks, I had a feeling you were going to say that. Downloading the ISO right now and starting completely over. As I mentioned, I am having fun and learning or re learning as I go but, this is not ready for an average user at all. Maybe if someone sets it up for an average user but, then again, I do not do that kind of stuff for free, after all. :D
 
Well, I have the primary system setup and running. Steam is installed, a bunch of games are installed, with the newest being Shadow of Modor: Middle Earth. (Think I will try that one sometime this weekend.) I have the driver from AMD installed and if there is one thing I found out, it is that when they say secure boot must be disabled, they really mean it! :D I have the Steam Controller hooked up and Steam Big Picture mode running. I am also looking through GOG.com to see what they have.

I have a R7 1700X at 3.7Ghz, 2 x 8GB DDR4 2800 ram and an XFX R9 380 4GB card running in it so that should be good for at least medium settings at 1080p. Question though: In Windows, Asrock provides a utility to boot into the bios if you have Ultra Fast Boot enabled but, I have not found a way in Linux, yet, to access the bios, once it is set, besides resetting the bios?
 
ManofGod said:
Well, I have the primary system setup and running. Steam is installed, a bunch of games are installed, with the newest being Shadow of Modor: Middle Earth. (Think I will try that one sometime this weekend.) I have the driver from AMD installed and if there is one thing I found out, it is that when they say secure boot must be disabled, they really mean it! :D I have the Steam Controller hooked up and Steam Big Picture mode running. I am also looking through GOG.com to see what they have.

I have a R7 1700X at 3.7Ghz, 2 x 8GB DDR4 2800 ram and an XFX R9 380 4GB card running in it so that should be good for at least medium settings at 1080p. Question though: In Windows, Asrock provides a utility to boot into the bios if you have Ultra Fast Boot enabled but, I have not found a way in Linux, yet, to access the bios, once it is set, besides resetting the bios?
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You don't always have to disable secure boot, I've found that need varies between motherboards and is actually becoming far less of an issue as time goes on.
 
Shadow Of Mordor has performance issues that are going to be worse running AMD Pro drivers. Don't be at all surprised if the game runs poorly, it's a pretty poor port unfortunately.

Luckily enough this isn't the case with all titles under Linux.(y)
 
Mazzspeed said:
You don't always have to disable secure boot, I've found that need varies between motherboards and is actually becoming far less of an issue as time goes on.
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Perhaps not but, in my case, AMD HDMI Sound would not even be listed or work without disabling secure update.

Mazzspeed said:
Shadow Of Mordor has performance issues that are going to be worse running AMD Pro drivers. Don't be at all surprised if the game runs poorly, it's a pretty poor port unfortunately.

Luckily enough this isn't the case with all titles under Linux.(y)
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Oh well, I am going to give it a swing and see what happens anyways, thanks.
 
ManofGod said:
Perhaps not but, in my case, AMD HDMI Sound would not even be listed or work without disabling secure update.
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Bear in mind that Linux is actually more secure than Windows and in many cases you actually have to add yourself to the audio group in order to have access to ALSA. I had to do this on my home theater PC running Linux with an Intel iGPU before I could get sound to pass.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if that was your issue.

https://askubuntu.com/questions/54741/only-root-can-play-sounds
 
Mazzspeed said:
Bear in mind that Linux is actually more secure than Windows and in many cases you actually have to add yourself to the audio group in order to have access to ALSA. I had to do this on my home theater PC running Linux with an Intel iGPU before I could get sound to pass.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if that was your issue.

https://askubuntu.com/questions/54741/only-root-can-play-sounds
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Could be and I will try that this weekend, thanks. Ubuntu did flag disabling secure boot because some third party drivers do not support it though.
 
ManofGod said:
Could be and I will try that this weekend, thanks. Ubuntu did flag disabling secure boot because some third party drivers do not support it though.
Click to expand...

How interesting, I've never seen that.

Having said that I always disable secure boot where possible.
 
Mazzspeed said:
Bear in mind that Linux is actually more secure than Windows and in many cases you actually have to add yourself to the audio group in order to have access to ALSA. I had to do this on my home theater PC running Linux with an Intel iGPU before I could get sound to pass.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if that was your issue.

https://askubuntu.com/questions/54741/only-root-can-play-sounds
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And if you want secret functions and hidden free porn, add your user to the neckbeard group. :D
 
scharfshutze009 said:
I don't use any antivirus, but Antivirus Live Linux and it doesn't mess up my system because it's the only thing that fixes the corruption I get from malicious websites. I don't install install illegal software under Linux either as there is no need to and hardly possible. I try to block out malicious websites with the hosts file, but pricks out there keep making more to block.
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Wait, you're saying you're getting 'corruption from websites' when using linux? Which other dimension of reality are you browsing at? I have never _ever_ had something like that happen on linux or Mac.
 
cybereality said:
Yes, I know all about this. Basically you will need to use the AMD Pro drivers to get HDMI audio. However, the latest driver is for Ubuntu 16.04. I tried for about a week to get it working on 17.10 and no dice.

It seems there was some debate about integrating AMD's audio code into the Linux kernel, and I'm not sure when (or if) that will be resolved. So you may want to use Ubuntu 16.04 for now.

I'd expect that AMD will update the driver when Ubuntu 18.04 releases, so that's not too far away. I'm actually liking 16.04, since the default desktop environment supports 4K resolution better.
Click to expand...
Oddly enough, I'm evaluating Mint from a live USB iso, with an ancient AMD/ATi HD7870, and the audio passthru actually works, where it NEVER did with Win7 and their latest drivers.
 
B00nie said:
Wait, you're saying you're getting 'corruption from websites' when using linux? Which other dimension of reality are you browsing at? I have never _ever_ had something like that happen on linux or Mac.
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And here I was trying not to necrobump old posts... :p
 
Big_Rig_Stig said:
Oddly enough, I'm evaluating Mint from a live USB iso, with an ancient AMD/ATi HD7870, and the audio passthru actually works, where it NEVER did with Win7 and their latest drivers.
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It's probably because I'm running a 4K TV as a monitor, so it needs HDMI 2.0 to work properly. Things always get more tricky when you're on the cutting edge.
 
I'm loving Thimbleweed Park, takes me right back to my childhood and I'm enjoying a relaxing game instead of running around in FPSers, well priced and available on Steam.
 
Mazzspeed said:
I'm loving Thimbleweed Park, takes me right back to my childhood and I'm enjoying a relaxing game instead of running around in FPSers, well priced and available on Steam.
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I installed TuxKart and Minecraft once I got Mint installed--I just can't play driving games on a keyboard/trackball/mouse, I can drive IRL like I stole it, but virtual driving lacks the feedback I need to be decent.

I tried installing Steam, and something got hung up on the package installer, and it wouldn't install--when I was trying to install PIA from command line, Steam installed (finally), but PIA failed. :wtf:

So, I haven't tried anything off Steam yet, and right now I'm evaluating UBUNTU-MATE, to see if it's any better. I went to watch some YouTube videos on Mint today, and they were acting wonky on playback and control, like something inside Mint was going wrong. I switched to my roomie's Win7 Brix, and everything ran fine, which prompted me to dl Ubuntu-MATE.

Plus, I got a really weird "frequency mismatch" message when I shut down the box, and restarted it to boot Ubuntu.
 
Big_Rig_Stig said:
I installed TuxKart and Minecraft once I got Mint installed--I just can't play driving games on a keyboard/trackball/mouse, I can drive IRL like I stole it, but virtual driving lacks the feedback I need to be decent.

I tried installing Steam, and something got hung up on the package installer, and it wouldn't install--when I was trying to install PIA from command line, Steam installed (finally), but PIA failed. :wtf:

So, I haven't tried anything off Steam yet, and right now I'm evaluating UBUNTU-MATE, to see if it's any better. I went to watch some YouTube videos on Mint today, and they were acting wonky on playback and control, like something inside Mint was going wrong. I switched to my roomie's Win7 Brix, and everything ran fine, which prompted me to dl Ubuntu-MATE.

Plus, I got a really weird "frequency mismatch" message when I shut down the box, and restarted it to boot Ubuntu.
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For steam if you're using an Ubuntu based distro don't just install Steam. That's wrought with failure since Valve still has it using binaries from 12.04.

For Ubuntu based distros use the snap instead:

sudo snap install --edge solus-runtime-gaming
sudo snap install --devmode --edge linux-steam-integration

https://solus-project.com/2017/12/19/lsi-0-7-2-released/
 
If you're running Nvidia hardware you can install the Steam .deb direct from the Valve website, however there's a common dependency that gets screwed up when running the open source AMD driver with Steam. The issue can be resolved fairly easily, I have done it in the past, but it's simply easier just to install the version of Steam available in the Ubuntu repo's.

You should fine .deb installers a bit easier to install under Ubuntu Mate as Mate includes Gdebi by default, plain old Ubuntu does not - Which is ridiculous.

EDIT: Or just use the snap package as supplied by Vermillion!
 
Steam seems to be working fine for me on Ubuntu and a deb file from Valve. Both AMD and Nvidia (w/ proprietary drivers).
 
I'm having great fun with Ruiner!

CaQ1GJfh.jpg
 
In case any one was thinking of CPU upgrades lately I wish to share some benchmarks from my FX-9590 to my Ryzen 5 2600X:

F1 2015 FX-9590:
Min 38.99/AVG 51.50/max 59.98

F1 2015 Ryzen 5 2600X:
Min 50.65/AVG 70.29/Max 84.18

Grid Auto Sport FX-9590:
Min 23.28/AVG 35.38/Max 52.81

Grid Auto Sport Ryzen 5 2600X
Min 49.90/AVG 66.03/Max 107.64

Shadow of Mordor FX-9590:
Min 11.87/AVG 46.02/Max 92.35

Shadow of Mordor Ryzen 5 2600X:
Min 33.49/Avg 60.17/Max 97.89

Tomb Raider (2013) FX-9590:
Min 30.40/Avg 41.50/Max 52.60

Tomb Raider (2013) Ryzen 5 2600X:
Min 38.80/Avg 52.20/Max 67.70

Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War II – Chaos Rising FX-9590:
Min 26.56/Avg 49.16/Max 100.50

Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War II – Chaos Rising Ryzen 5 2600X:
Min 38.49/Avg 69.13/Max 137.00

Rise of the Tomb Raider FX-9590:
Min 22.57/Max 72.53

Rise of the Tomb Raider Ryzen 5 2600X:
Min 12.68/Max 71.44

Overall I have been happy. Rise of the Tomb Raider was the only oddity. All tests were performed with my RX 580 and on Solus.
 
Simmonz said:
In case any one was thinking of CPU upgrades lately I wish to share some benchmarks from my FX-9590 to my Ryzen 5 2600X:

F1 2015 FX-9590:
Min 38.99/AVG 51.50/max 59.98

F1 2015 Ryzen 5 2600X:
Min 50.65/AVG 70.29/Max 84.18

Grid Auto Sport FX-9590:
Min 23.28/AVG 35.38/Max 52.81

Grid Auto Sport Ryzen 5 2600X
Min 49.90/AVG 66.03/Max 107.64

Shadow of Mordor FX-9590:
Min 11.87/AVG 46.02/Max 92.35

Shadow of Mordor Ryzen 5 2600X:
Min 33.49/Avg 60.17/Max 97.89

Tomb Raider (2013) FX-9590:
Min 30.40/Avg 41.50/Max 52.60

Tomb Raider (2013) Ryzen 5 2600X:
Min 38.80/Avg 52.20/Max 67.70

Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War II – Chaos Rising FX-9590:
Min 26.56/Avg 49.16/Max 100.50

Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War II – Chaos Rising Ryzen 5 2600X:
Min 38.49/Avg 69.13/Max 137.00

Rise of the Tomb Raider FX-9590:
Min 22.57/Max 72.53

Rise of the Tomb Raider Ryzen 5 2600X:
Min 12.68/Max 71.44

Overall I have been happy. Rise of the Tomb Raider was the only oddity. All tests were performed with my RX 580 and on Solus.
Click to expand...

It would be a ton of extra work perhaps... but I have been curious how bad the specter and meltdown stuff effected the Ryzen chips. I'm not sure really 100% if solus easily allows you to shut off the patches. I believe it should be as easy as adding "spectre_v2=off nopti " to you boot parameters. So you should be able to boot with or without them. Just curious if it makes a huge difference in a game like Rise OTR.

Thanks for the info, seems like a nice upgrade for the most part.
 
ChadD said:
It would be a ton of extra work perhaps... but I have been curious how bad the specter and meltdown stuff effected the Ryzen chips. I'm not sure really 100% if solus easily allows you to shut off the patches. I believe it should be as easy as adding "spectre_v2=off nopti " to you boot parameters. So you should be able to boot with or without them. Just curious if it makes a huge difference in a game like Rise OTR.

Thanks for the info, seems like a nice upgrade for the most part.
Click to expand...

I upgraded to kernel 4.15 the other day which included the Spectre and Meltdown patches, my system became faster.... :confused:
 
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I remembered that I actually in a weak moment of pure insanity actually bought ZorinOS in 2015 I believe so I tried it out again yesterday. Overall OK distro with a lot of stuff pre-installed (3.8GB) but I run in to
"corrupt update files" with source engine games. I install games on a secondarý NTFS drive and the fix is to edit fstab and put "defaults,exec,uid=1000,gid=1000" in there without the quotes. It's a fairly old
work around so WTF valve...if they really are serious about linux gaming that shit should not be necessary.

edit: assuming it's a steam thing, Might not be.
 
The issue has to do with execute permissions. I am assuming (as I don't run Zorian) that your OS doesn't assign NTFS partitions execute permission by default. (and it shouldn't)

Ideally you would want to install Linux games to actual Linux kernel supported file systems for best performance. So Ext4 / BTFS / XFS are the main choices. The Linux kernel can read NTFS but it can not write to it... for that your system uses fuse. Not saying that won't work and as you figured out you can set permissions and run software from an NTFS part if you wish. For performance reasons though I would put your linux games on a Native Linux file system.
 
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GOG has a huge sale on right now with 10 pages worth of Linux games on sale. May want to check it out. A couple other games I came across lately that may be worth checking out for some is Metanoia, a First Person Adventure in early access on Steam and Final Equinox: The Arrival which is a turn based rpg on Kickstarter. So far I am enjoying Metanoia and Final Equinox has promised Linux versions on Humble, GOG and Steam for release if funded.



 
Zuul said:
I remembered that I actually in a weak moment of pure insanity actually bought ZorinOS in 2015 I believe so I tried it out again yesterday. Overall OK distro with a lot of stuff pre-installed (3.8GB) but I run in to
"corrupt update files" with source engine games. I install games on a secondarý NTFS drive and the fix is to edit fstab and put "defaults,exec,uid=1000,gid=1000" in there without the quotes. It's a fairly old
work around so WTF valve...if they really are serious about linux gaming that shit should not be necessary.
Click to expand...

I'm sure if you used Ext4 under Windows with Steam you'd run into the exact same problems. As ChadD stated, you're issue is the fact that you're using NTFS. Why not use Ext4 or some other native Linux file system?
 
Mazzspeed said:
I'm sure if you used Ext4 under Windows with Steam you'd run into the exact same problems. As ChadD stated, you're issue is the fact that you're using NTFS. Why not use Ext4 or some other native Linux file system?
Click to expand...
It's a dual boot system. Might not be for long though, and ext4 is of course preferrable, but for now it is NTFS. When I learn how to use winetricks, POL, Wine to even a toddlers level of understanding that stuff, windows is gone from my G751JY
 
Zuul said:
It's a dual boot system. Might not be for long though, and ext4 is of course preferrable, but for now it is NTFS. When I learn how to use winetricks, POL, Wine to even a toddlers level of understanding that stuff, windows is gone from my G751JY
Click to expand...

I found I don't need winetricks too often. Mostly just wine staging and your golden. If your new and getting used to a system... and are likely going to end up rebuilding from in the not to distant future anyway. You don't have to worry to much about prefixes and such. Just setup the basic /home/.wine prefix and run your games from where they are.

Look into DXVK if your running any DirectX 11 games. Its unreal how well some DX11 games are running with DXVK now and that project I don't even think is a year old yet. I'm sorry I can't tell you if there is an easy way to install DXVK in ZorinOS.
In arch based distros its as easy as installing it via the AUR and running setup setup_dxvk64 and setup_dxvk32 from a terminal.
If you do find some older Ubuntu guides detailing installing of odd versions of wine ect... those are old. I believe as long as your running one of the last few version of wine staging now its mostly as easy as having the replacement dlls in the prefix and linking the libraries in winecfg.

On the older machine I'm on right now I get around 65FPS in Star Trek online for instance in Win 8.1. In arch linux with DXVK same settings I get around 55-60. I know time for a new mobo. lol With a faster CPU and GPU like your fury i7 combo I would think you wouldn't notice much loss in most DX 11 games anyway.
 
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ChadD said:
I found I don't need winetricks too often. Mostly just wine staging and your golden. If your new and getting used to a system... and are likely going to end up rebuilding from in the not to distant future anyway. You don't have to worry to much about prefixes and such. Just setup the basic /home/.wine prefix and run your games from where they are.

Look into DXVK if your running any DirectX 11 games. Its unreal how well some DX11 games are running with DXVK now and that project I don't even think is a year old yet. I'm sorry I can't tell you if there is an easy way to install DXVK in ZorinOS.
In arch based distros its as easy as installing it via the AUR and running setup setup_dxvk64 and setup_dxvk32 from a terminal.
If you do find some older Ubuntu guides detailing installing of odd versions of wine ect... those are old. I believe as long as your running one of the last few version of wine staging now its mostly as easy as having the replacement dlls in the prefix and linking the libraries in winecfg.

On the older machine I'm on right now I get around 65FPS in Star Trek online for instance in Win 8.1. In arch linux with DXVK same settings I get around 55-60. I know time for a new mobo. lol With a faster CPU and GPU like your fury i7 combo I would think you wouldn't notice much loss in most DX 11 games anyway.
Click to expand...
ok I'll look into DXVK..sounds great. ZorinOS is Ubuntu based
 
I burned a good chunk of the evening with Everspace. So far, I would recommend if you're needing a space shooter roguelike. (think Wing Commander + FTL)
 
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