[zeta0134]

The giant bugbear in this conversation is always multiplayer. That's because almost all of the big players in that space currently favor rootkits in the form of overly invasive anti-cheat, which the Linux wrappers (mostly the wine project) refuse to support for security reasons.

If you don't play PvP specifically, the rest of the library is significantly more open to you. Personally I have always favored single player experiences and indie games from smaller studios, and for the most part those run great.

[godelski]

It's unfortunate but at the same time if enough people switch to Linux then they'll be forced to change their ways.

So if you can go without those games or don't play MMOs that is rootkits then switch to force their hand.

Besides, them installing a rootkit on your machine is not an acceptable practice anyways. It's a major security issue. Sometimes we need to make a stand. Everyone has a line, where's yours?

[Macha]

MMOs are actually fine. WoW, FFXIV, RuneScape, all work great on Linux. They’re not really games that rely on hidden information, are not pvp first and need to simulate stuff on the server anyway, so can verify moves are valid there.

It’s the competitive progression shooters and ranked esports games that go in for the restrictive anti-cheat

[abustamam]

This is true in principle but most gamers are just gonna take the path of least resistance. If they can't play fortnite on Linux (I'm using an example, I don't know if it's actually unplayable on Linux) then they will use whatever OS lets them play.

People have been saying "vote with your wallet" every time gaming companies do something anti consumer like day one dlc or buggy releases (don't pre-order!) or $90 games, but gaming companies continue to push the envelope on what gamers will pay for because gamers keep paying for it.

It's a sad reality.

[ectospheno]

I switched to console gaming years ago. I can still play any major release while having whatever OS I want on my computers.

[johnnyanmac]

>Sometimes we need to make a stand. Everyone has a line, where's yours?

I just don't really play multiplayer to begin with. So I was never on the spectrum.

But tens of millions are. They won't even be aware of what's happening. That's why this remains.

[phr4ts]

>It's unfortunate but at the same time if enough people switch to Linux then they'll be forced to change their ways.

Nope. Not Nadella. He'll kill windows in a heartbeat.

[seanw444]

But standing on principle is too hard!

[jsheard]

> which the Linux wrappers (mostly the wine project) refuse to support for security reasons.

It's more that there's no sensible way they could do it even if they wanted to. Emulating the Windows kernel internals is well beyond the scope of what WINE is trying to do, and even if they did do it, there would be no way for the anticheat vendors to tell the difference between the AC module being sandboxed for compatibility versus sandboxed as a bypass technique. Trying to subvert the AC in any way is just begging to get banned, even if it's for beingn reasons.

[RamRodification]

As a competitive old school arena FPS guy, I have also had a very hard time getting the same smoothness and low latency (input, output, whatever it is) on Linux. The games I play are very fast and twitchy, and milliseconds matter.

There seems to be too many layers and variables to ever get to the bottom of it. Is it the distro itself? Is it a Wayland vs. X11 thing? Is it the driver? The Proton version? Some G-SYNC thing? Some specific tweak that games based on this game engine needs?

[cobar]

I've had better luck since the switch to Wayland. I don't play many FPS games but mouse input & overall smoothness for strategy games has been great. Check your mouse settings, you might need to set a higher USB sample rate. Piper is a frontend for adjusting them.

[bigyabai]

> Is it a Wayland vs. X11 thing?

Yes, most likely. Without a compositor I get lots of stuttering on x11, whereas KDE and GNOME's wayland sessions are both buttery smooth out of the box.

Might be my Nvidia GPU, but I've never gotten x11 to work flawlessly for gaming.

[eertami]

I know what you mean, though I have a device running SteamOS though and it runs extremely smoothly, the latency is no different than my windows PC (on titles where it can achieve the same framerate).

I'm sure that it must be possible to replicate whatever optimisations SteamOS has on other distros, but unfortunately I am not sure what those are exactly.

[simoncion]

> The games I play are very fast and twitchy, and milliseconds matter.

Out of curiosity, what games are those? I wonder if I also play a subset of them.

[hparadiz]

You should only ever be using Wayland from now on.

[aqme28]

> That's because almost all of the big players in that space

To the OP's point-- there are soooo many games nowadays, that if you and your friend group can skip some of those "big players," there are still hundreds of multiplayer games to play.

[simoncion]

> ...which the Linux wrappers (mostly the wine project) refuse to support for security reasons.

I mean, several of the major anticheats can be configured to work just fine on Linux. [0] It's up to the game dev whether or not it's permitted. So, yeah, unless the game is one where its dev makes huge blog posts about how "advanced" its anti-cheat is (like Valorant or the very latest CoD/Battlefield games) it's quite likely that multiplayer games will work just fine on Linux.

And if they don't, and the faulty game is a new purchase on Steam, then ask for a refund and tell them that the game doesn't work with your OS. Easy, peasy.

[0] I have 100% solid, personal knowledge that Easy Anti Cheat can work on Linux. On Linux, I play THE FINALS, Elden Ring, and a couple of other EAC-"protected" games without any troubles. I have perhaps-unreliable memories that at least one of the games I play uses Denuvo, which is only sometimes used as anti-cheat but does use many of the same techniques as kernel-mode anticheat.

[jsheard]

> I have 100% solid, personal knowledge that Easy Anti Cheat can work on Linux.

That's no secret, but the catch is that the Linux version is much, much easier to bypass. That's why some developers choose not to enable it, or in the case of Apex Legends, enabled it but later backtracked and disabled it again.

[bikelang]

Even PVP is starting to “just work” via Proton. Arc Raiders runs just fine on Linux and is a strictly PvP game. Over time I think this will be less and less of a problem.

[TulliusCicero]

Arc Raiders is a PvPvE game, like most extraction shooters.

[trinsic2]

Its not that they refuse to support the anti-cheat rootkits, its that its really difficult to emulate or abstract kernel level code. If you are using kernel level anti-cheat, you are just asking for trouble all-around.

[estimator7292]

Vote with your wallet, as the saying goes. If you quit paying money for the privilege of installing a rootkit, maybe they'll stop selling rootkits.

[johnnyanmac]

Lot of wallets are voting for AC, sadly. Sometimes the tyranny of the majority is a real thing.

[jmusall]

BattlEye works on linux nowadays, so there definitely is progress in this direction!

[logicchains]

The greatest PvP game, DOTA, works on Linux, and once you get hooked on that you'll never want to play another PvP game.