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I recently spent some time with the Framework 13 laptop, evaluating it with the new Intel Core Ultra 7 processor and the AMD Ryzen 7 7480U. It felt like the perfect opportunity to test how a handful of games ran on Windows 11 and Fedora 40. I was genuinely surprised by the results!
…
The Framework 13 is perfectly capable of gaming even with its integrated graphics, provided you’re willing to compromise by lowering the resolution and quality presets for more demanding games. (It’s also a testament to how far AMD’s APUs have come in the past decade.)
Summary of results:
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Linux wins
- Total War: Warhammer III: Windows wins
- Cyberpunk 2077: Linux wins
- Forza Horizon 5: Windows wins
These results are an interesting slice of the Linux vs Windows gaming picture, but certainly not representative of the entire landscape. A few shorts years ago, however, I never would have dreamed I’d be writing an article where even two games on Linux are outperforming their Windows counterparts.
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sometimes i still can’t believe i’m running every game i want on linux. like its still surprising and surreal to me.
thanks to all the contributors that made it possible for us to ditch microsoft.
I felt the same way, after dual booting linux and windows for a while, I stopped booting into windows so decided to just wipe both drives and do a raid0 install of linux. Finally I got to messing with games expecting to have to tweak settings and everything but nope it just booted up. even better running on raid0 now I dont even see load screens with games like starfield.
Dual booted for the longest time, until sometime last year. Windows partition is still there, but it’s been long enough that I’ve forgotten the password. 😳
Hey genuine question what does everyone use for office apps these days? I’m extremely over being charged a yearly fee to use word and excel
Libre Office
I have been a user since the 90s. Back then it was still called StarOffice.
Its feature set differs from that of MS Office, and its performance could be (a lot!) better, but I strongly prefer the LibreOffice user interface, and the features that matter to me (like CSV import) are way better in LibreOffice. However, LibreOffice does not have all the features of MS Office, and some are notably worse (for instance auto-fill in spreadsheets, where Excel is way better at guessing the next value).
Sadly it’s not only a matter of preference, because file exchange between different office suites is not flawless. MS Office and LibreOffice don’t agree 100% on how to load each other’s files…
I’ve been trying OnlyOffice recently - seems pretty nice so far.
Unpopular opinion but I just use Google Sheets instead, because most of my spreadsheet usage is due to work and my employer uses Google Workplace
In addition to LibreOffice I often use standalone tools.
If I want a high quality document, I use LaTeX. Same for presentation slides. However, writing stuff in LaTeX is only worth the effort if the quality is needed. For non-important stuff I just use LibreOffice.
For calculations it depends on what I want to have in the end. If I just want to play with the data a bit, then LibreOffice Calc it is. However, if it is for something serious, I tend to write script files, or even full programs, that do the processing. That way computation and data is in separate files, and the used formulas are clearly visible and easy to debug.
@Lemonparty
Collabora Office, tied into an instance of nextcloud. So essentially like the Google office suite but self hosted. Then Libre office if I need to do anything offline.
@umbrellaI pay for the Softmaker Office suite, it’s pretty good and has Linux native versions.
One I quickly gave up on trying recently was Star Citizen. Failing myself with dumb errors I found out that you need to follow a rather elaborate tutorial. I decided that it was very much not worth it. Not sure how it is possible to fuck it up that badly.
The other I am bummed about is Talos Principle 2. Last time I played at release it worked perfectly. Now it runs so slow that it takes like 10 minutes to even get to the main menu. In the realm of tens of seconds per frame and I am at a loss how to even debug that.
One dumb thing for native (!) Unity games (at least Valheim and Shapez 2) is that they disrespect the default audio output device.
Otherwise, plug and play. It’s so nice!
I’ve run Star Citizen on Linux a few times (not a regular player), there was a Lutris configuration that Just Worked™ for me. There’s also the Linux Users Group for SC, which maintains some scripts for working around issues if you want to do things manually. They’re the ones maintaining the Lutris configuration too.
I did run into the same issue with Shapez 2 recently, though! A quick stop in
qpwgraphto connect it to the right audio output and everything else about it worked perfectly, but it’s not a permanent fix.
When I started using linux 15 years ago, my friend recommended to keep a windows partition for gaming. At least for me, I have deleted windows a few years ago and I’m not looking back.
If you play DRMed AAA stuff, that’s still true unfornately (if you can’t do VM with PCIe passthrough).
Personally I just opt to not play these games. The market dicides in the end.
Some of the “anticheat” systems straight up decide not to work on VMs even with PCIE passthrough et. al. For example, I cannot run Elden Ring with its trash DRM because it says it cannot run under VM. I have PCIE passthrough, and the CPU id also passes through. Only the chipset reports anything VM, yet the “anticheat” decides not to run.
Fuck DRM. It has done nothing except push me to pirate more when I LITERALLY AM buying the games. Fuck those greedy actual morons (corporations who deploy DRM, not FromSoft specifically).
Elden Ring does run quite nicely on Linux via Proton, though.
A little birdie told me there’s a fit girl on the internet who might be able to help
I will always upvote Amelie. She needs donations too
Infind most AAA games to be such shit compared to indie games these days it’s almost laughable.
My gaming PC was the last one I had running Windows. I couldn’t take it anymore and this year I switched that one too.
Now if only I could run (my perfectly legal copy of) SOLIDWORKS decently, it’d be great.
Suprised that forbes is reporting about linux
It’s their community blog. This specific person has been writing there about Linux gaming for a long time now.
ah alright, thank you
It’s just easier to get old windows games running on Linux.
For some reason I just can’t get warcraft 3 and StarCraft 1 running through wine
Try Bottles! Available as flatpak so as long as you don’y have hate for flatpak, Bottles is there. All the normal flatpak benefit + a pretty great UI.
Not sure to WC3 suppose to run, but SC1 I owned on Bnet and I can tell, it works well with just a standard b.net install button in Bottles. SC2, HotS, D2R, D3 and so on I own run just fine, and fast too
I’ve tried lutris before never heard about Bottles. I’ll give it a try. Thanks!
You can also check out Wargus for older Warcraft games
I think it says a lot more about how much recent versions of Windows have bogged down the whole gaming experience.
Microsoft seems to have forgotten that people want an operating system that works, not something bloated with bullshit like telemetry, advertisements, tracking cookies and artificial intelligence. The only reason they even have a market lead in the desktop space is due to marketing and monopolistic practices.
I wonder how Windows would perform against Linux with all bloatware removed and telemetry disabled.
would there even be an OS left?
That’s not an OS, that’s three spywares in a trenchcoat!
Isn’t that just spyware with extra steps?
I don’t see a problem with anonymozed telemetry. I see a problem with it when it’s used for other things than making your own software better directly though.
At this point Windows should be free of charge.
Oh, they know what people want in an OS, the thing is that they don’t care. People who know better can complain all they want, normies and most corpos will get windows anyway
Im so glad I fully switched to Linux. I was amazed how good the gaming performance have come nowadays. I tried out Ubuntu back in 2007 and have tried some other distros too during the years, but always went back to Windows because of games. Not anymore.
What I’m still missing unfortunately is how seemingly all modern online games require stupid kernel level anti-cheats that don’t work on Linux.
Yea, but honestly that’s not a Linux problem imo. Invasive anti-cheat has been a deal breaker for me since its inception. It started as “I don’t want to deal with your shitty software always running in the background eating up my CPU cycles, need maximum performance baby” and then quickly became “I’m not giving your shitty software kernal access to my entire machine, I don’t trust you”.
It’s made so much worse when you realize it doesnt even actually stop cheaters…
I must admit that my evil self impatiently waits for a crowdstrike-like event, but with a kernel-level anti-cheat instead. On the more serious side, it baffles me how much the vast majority of people don’t care about privacy or security problematics. They literally don’t give a f**k.
They probably don’t even know it’s happening.
You’re right it’s not a Linux problem but it is a problem more to the point it’s our problem and anyone who would want to switch
Cold hard fact is that people just do not care what causes the problem and people do not care if something is %1 worse or %1000 worse they will always pick the one slightly better that’s why monopoly’s are an inherent part of nature eventually competition is unviable.
The only hope is that either Linux crosses the critical threshold of being slightly better than Windows or windows gets so invasive and counterintuitive that even normies can’t use it for productivity
I use Linux all the time I have three physical servers running probably 20 or 30 VM’s and containers but even I am hesitant to switch my gaming Pc because even though I can play everything I want now what if tomorrow something comes out I really want to play but it’s locked down to windows?
I just don’t agree. First, I don’t think a monopoly is an inherent part of nature, and further I disagree that monopolies exist because some company just makes the absolute best product and people end up always choosing it. A monopoly’s key feature is not giving the consumer a real choice through shady and unfair business practices.
Also, windows is not the better product. They don’t make the best OS. Arguments could be made that they have a better OS for gaming, but for almost everything else they are worse than basically every alternative (not just Linux) but still dominate market share due to lack of consumer choice. At the retailer, hardware is tied to an OS - if you want macos you have to buy Mac hardware. If you want chromeos you have to by an underwhelming netbook.
IMO, keeping windows around just in case a company does some underhanded shit like kernal anti-cheat or invasive DRM so you can give your support to the company doing the underhanded shit is a detriment to progress.
I’d rather struggle to learn freecad than keep windows around even though fusion360 is easier (for me) to understand, because I don’t want to reward bad behavior. If those of us that can switch don’t, then things don’t get better. I couldn’t have made the switch if thousands of people more knowledgeable and talented before me hadn’t taken the first steps. It’s soapboxy, I know, but I also feel it’s important.
I won’t waste to much time on a generated question but businesses become monopolies by being better than others or one of the ones would have became the monopoly then when they have no competition they can get as bad as they like(NOTE: better doesn’t necessarily mean better for you it could mean better at collecting payments or better at logistics but better nonetheless)
And the fact of the matter is nobody likes competition so they all try too work around it.
It’s extremely invasive, but I won’t give up playing something that my friends all enjoy once in a while. The best hope is that companies realize that Steam Deck and other efforts make companies consider other markets.
Also, it sounds more like you’re advocating for kernal level anti-cheat being created for Linux by game devs as opposed to being against the horrible and invasive practice regardless of OS.
It’s all about where to draw the line, and what you are able to tolerate, I guess. The biggest problem with that though is continuing to support a game / Dev / publisher that is consistently doing these awful things.
If you aren’t able to tell your friends “no, I’m not playing that game, and here’s why” then the industry will just slide deeper into these terrible practices and the entire games industry gets worse. Some people don’t even understand what anti-cheat is doing (and think it works), and if those of us that do, that they trust, don’t explain it to them, they won’t have the opportunity to make an informed decision of whether to support it or not.
If Microsoft makes good on their threats to cut off all kernel-level access to third party applications, that might help with that
They said that?
I think it might have come about from the Crowdstrike thing?
All? It’s just Riot, right? I haven’t had issues playing anything else, but I also don’t play most AAA games so idk. What other companies are doing it?
I think battleeye too?
I don’t think so. This is from three years ago. https://store.steampowered.com/news/group/4145017/view/3104663180636096966
Oh right, neat!
I guess I’m just thinking of a couple games with BE who have not bothered to reach out for this.
I think EA and Activision also have newish, bespoke anti-cheat for Battlefield and call of duty respectively. I don’t believe either of those work on Linux but I could be mistaken.
Yeah, it looks like EA’s launcher/anti-cheat explicitly do not allow wine. Oh well. EA hasn’t published an interesting game in many years.
You’re not wrong. I have no idea about the call of duty one either. I’m guessing it similarly doesn’t work.
It sort of highlights another issue; even though a game technically leverages an AC system that can work in Steam, individual developers may not bother getting it running on Linux.
I’m no fan of Fortnite, but you can’t deny it’s massively popular. I hope the steam deck sees continued success in order to sway developers. Broadening SteamOS to other HW platforms may also help to an extent.
Only a few of them. Many just work.
I’m more surprised by the ease of use than the performance, honestly.
Oh, the article is written by Jason Evanghelo. Of course, he’s a giant Linux shill working at Forbes :D
Still great to see such press
I recognized that name… he’s working at Thunderbird!
Aw, I can’t get cyberpunk to run on my mint install - it gets the logos and stops responding.
Some people read about performance, sometimes I’m just motivated knowing someone on the internet did get a game running in the first instance! :)
I will say though, Baldurs Gate 3 works perfectly, as does anything else I throw at it! :)
Cyberpunk worked out of the box for me, but senua 2 absolutely refuses to start no matter what kind of voodoo I try (“fatal error”). I seem to always be on the opposite spectrum of protondb mint users I swear.
It wouldn’t run for me until I got the Steam version (in Tumbleweed). Works great now.
It would have been better if it had worked with just one copy though. At least I got it on sale.
How odd! I must admit with cyberpunk, I was reading ProtonDB and had a “that’s one fine game… why doesn’t mine look like that!” Simpsons moment. 😅
I managed to get it running on EndeavorOS!
Nice! Consider me doubly motivated to give it another go this weekend :)
A couple of months ago I had the same problem on Debian Unstable. Then I tried it on Fedora 40 and it worked flawlessly.
Oh no! I’m so cosy on mint, but now I’m eyeing Fedora and it looks snazzy, and maybe cyberpunk is a fun prospect too! :)
Mine runs in Fedora. Are you accessing via steam?
I am indeed! I tried popping in the skip launcher commands from a few people on ProtonDB, and it seems to be rather grumpy with me 😅 I’ve read it could be the Phantom Liberty DLC being DRM’d, but not sure :)
You could test that by disabling the DLC temporarily. Click on the game in your list and scroll down on the game page until you see the DLC widget on the right side. Click “manage my DLC” and uncheck Phantom Liberty. Then run the game. You can re-enable the DLC again the same way.
Thank you! This is going to sound daft, but I had forgotten steam allows you to uncheck DLC like that! :) it’s so rare that I’d opt-out (in fact this might be the only time I have needed to!) :) thank you again
Oh that might be possible. I do not have the DLC which could do it. I run it on Proton 9 and it seems fine.
Sometimes i feel weird and impressed with Microsoft that allow third party to create windows emulation system that beat original windows in many ways
It is mostly a translation layer – WINE is Not an Emulator (WINE). The reason Microsoft ‘allows’ this is because they have no choice. WINE hasn’t broken any laws or violated any copyright or trademarks. Same goes for Proton with DXVK of course.
Although i never fully understand how wine works, how WINE doesn’t break any lawsuit ? It’s clearly mimicking windows itself with windows library (like VC Library, DotNet, DirectX, etc) as add-ons
Now i hope linux community can do the same with Nintendo Emulator or Sony PS emulator without triggering lawsuitIn a highly simplified way:
- Think of Windows as an electricity provider with their own specially shaped wall socket.
- Linux is also an electricity provider with a differently shaped wall socket.
- In this metaphor Wine is just some guys providing an adaptor that makes the electricity of the Linux electricity provider available in a wall socket that has the same shape as the Windows provider’s.
Wine isn’t breaking Windows copyright because it doesn’t copy any of the Windows internals: instead it provides the contact points with the right “shape” for programs which were made to work in Windows to connect to to get their needs fullfilled, and then internally Wine does its own thing which is mainly using the Linux under it to do the heavy lifting.
Mind you, this simplification seriously understates just how complicate it is to implement what was implemented in Wine because the Windows interface is a lot more that just the shape of a wall socket.
To add to your explanation
- most people have the specialized Windows plug. Microsoft has invested a lot of money in making sure people ONLY have access to the Windows plug
- Linux provides the same electricity signal that people need (maybe even better) but since people’s Windows plug don’t work on Linux’s wall socket, they get the impression that Linux doesn’t supply electricity.
- WINE is just the adaptor which people put on their Window’s plug. Now it easily fits on the Linux wall socket.
If I remember correctly, the only thing WINE has “copied” are the function calls and signatures (which are the adaptors as mentioned in the other response). The function implementation is completely original.
To add a more technical explanation, the main point is about the expectation on how it behaves and not what it really does. To get windows to do something, you read the specification (interface) and make a call against it. Windows interprets your request and does what you wanted. You do not care how it works but just that it works. As a developer, you can also switch to the other side and make your own program that interprets these calls and translates, them for linux.
Legally (I am not a lawyer), the specification is a fair game. The spicy part is how it is done and copying that gets you in trouble.
Of course, this is also extremely simplified since linux and windows differ wildly in many regards. Also a “specification” is often incomplete or the implementaion bleeds into the real world use. This makes it not reliable to look at it alone and so, often the “original” implementation has to be observed on how it behaves.
As a more relatable example, think about websites. On the one hand, it does not matter which browser you use. It “just” has to display the page and act accordingly. On the other side, it does not matter what server sends you the page. It could be a pre-computed static page, served via a proxy server or dynamically generated by any of the different programming languages.
Edit: grammar
Fun fact: With those 4 games it looks like a tie, but weighed by Steam scores, Linux wins. (Warhammer has like 3/5).
(Disclaimer: I have never played any of those 4 games and don’t plan to in a forseeable future. I also realize full well how ridiculously insignificant a sample of 4 is.)
Btw, anyone got the newest reshade to work? Even with the reshade-linux script, they just don’t load, no matter which game. I had 4.something working for the longest time but since 5, nothing.
If only we had a fix for the crazy performance discrepancy that pops up when running DX12 + RTX titles!
I just wish many of the multiplayer games I play worked on Linux (invasive anti-cheat).
Slightly off-topic, but when I stopped playing multiplayer games with anti-cheats (competitive FPS mostly), I’ve got more time to explore more productive hobbies, and my mental health improved. Might be worth trying 🙂
Yeah, could be worth a shot!
