Millions of gamers are facing a critical decision; upgrade their operating system, invest in new hardware or explore alternatives like Linux with the end of ...
  • moody@lemmings.world
    191·
    1 month ago

    Are there distros that are actually unsuitable for gaming, besides ones that are designed to be CLI-only or specific to antediluvian hardware?

    I feel like gaming-specific distros just include stuff that you could otherwise just manually add to any other distro and make it suitable.

    • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
      10·
      1 month ago

      I will say there is something to be said for out of the box experience. Im on zorin mainly because it has a lot out of the box. Granted its not a great gaming one necessarily as it is stability focused over bleeding edge but I could see ones where the gaming elements are ready right after install as being desirable.

      • moody@lemmings.world
        6·
        1 month ago

        Agreed, I’ve been running gaming-focused distros mostly because of the convenience of everything being ready and set up, but I’ve never had any issues on a non-gaming distro to set it up for gaming either.

    • tiddy@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      3·
      1 month ago

      Bit of misinformation on this thread, but generally the only thing that can actually get in the way of someone dedicated enough will be compatibility and security systems.

      You probably won’t have any luck getting nvidia drivers on android for example, nor take the time to back port those drivers to an outdated kernel.

      I suppose you could also have an OS that takes most your system resources for non-gaming tasks, making games unplayable. Something like nixos is non-gaming centric and could reasonably be more optimised than bazzite, less background processes making games actually run better on it.

    • Mora@pawb.social
      31·
      1 month ago

      Depends on what you want to play. If you want to play current games with current hardware then current kernel and drivers help a lot. A base Debian would (if it even works) probably less FPS than an current gaming distro.

      • utopiah@lemmy.ml
        2·
        1 month ago

        A base Debian would (if it even works) probably less FPS than an current gaming distro.

        Can you please elaborate on why? I’m running Debian stable with NVIDIA drivers and… it “just works”. I’m using Steam to get Proton and game content (e.g. was playing Elden Ring minutes ago). I didn’t tinker much so wondering what I could be missing.

            • TheFinn@discuss.tchncs.de
              31·
              1 month ago

              Oh I’m not advocating that you switch distributions. If you’re happy with performance there’s no reason to change.

              The only thing that gives me pause with outdated drivers is the possibility of being exposed to unpatched security vulnerabilities. But in my experience Debian does provide updates when it’s critical.

              • tiddy@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                2·
                1 month ago

                Theres a difference between stable and outdated. Generally bleeding edge will introduce many more vulnerabilities than will go unnoticed in stable.

                Debian is known (almost exclusively) for only updating their repo when they’re certain it is safe, but also rapidly pushing security patches; its a server oriented distro where security is paramount.

  • theoli@startrek.websiteEnglish
    13·
    1 month ago

    I have a dual-boot Windows partition just for games and I keep using it less and less. Valve has done incredible work with Proton. It has been months since I have booted into Windows, and that’s with a weekly games night where we are generally trying something new every week.