Is Linux gaming only workable if you have an AMD GPU? I was bummed to hear its not viable with a NVIDIA card
Edit: I’m referring to this recent Gamers Nexus video where they tested Bazzite. My SO says that the 1% lows are a deal breaker? I’m not very savvy with the specifics. I really wanted to install Bazzite but SO told me that its not viable yet.
Most NVidia cards work well. Nobody will recommend them because NVidia is known to pull the rug out of your perfectly working card all the time, and being completely aggressive against people trying to make the cards work without by their own.
And some updates just break because they don’t include all packages for al versions of their driver. I updated a Ubuntu from 560 to 570 and I got a non responding graphic card and error missing the package nvidia-fs. I had to upgrade to 580 even if it it the latest and more buggy version
it works like a charm with my rtx2060 and the new rtx2080
there’s several distros with a focus on gaming like steamos and bazzite. I personally use cachyos as it worked right out of the box without installing any drivers.
I’m running a 3060 with CachyOS and no issues. Mint however gave me some problems. Fixable problems, but problems still. CachyOS worked straight out of the box.
I have 1065 Ti without any issues. The “nvidia not compatible” sentiment is outdated and they started playing ball recently by working on open source drivers. Nvidia is huge in the AI space and AI computing is pretty much 100% Linux.
There are gaming issues though on Linux in the form of anti-cheat systems, but other than that running things with Steam Proton just works although specific games that use obscure windows APIs might not be as performant.
Dirt 3 used the NTsynch for the NTFS filesystem and once it got fixed the frame rate saw a massive jump for example.
Long term people are supporting Linux gaming a lot more since it’s already 3% of the playerbase and requires pretty minimal effort for added 3% audience to make Steam Proton play work. Also with the release of the Steam Machine 2026 is going to be the Year of the Linux Desktop™
fyi, the driver code for AI and gaming is not the same. They’re in the same project, but they don’t use the same parts of that project. I wouldn’t use that to argue for the stability of gaming.
Just make a live boot drive and try it out! Maybe get a little partition setup. I’ve been running Kubuntu for 3 weeks just fine! I am tech savvy though, but most of the things I needed to be savvy at were only because my PC is also my media server. It was less than 1.5 hours to set up gaming and all my window management options and whatnot. And now everything just works.
Linux runs nvidia fine. It can run most games without a problem. Whether or not it can run a game that’s heavily gatekept is another matter altogether.
AMD is much more reliable and has improved for decades. Nvidia has their proprietary driver and new open source driver. Both work ok, but definitely less good than AMD.
Just a heads up, running Linux on Apple’s proprietary hardware can get a little complicated. If this is your first foray into Linux, I recommend using a standard PC laptop.
highly recommend installing linux on a separate ssd and removing the windows one for installation.
Also your steam library most probably won’t like being loaded from the windows drive, because it is formatted to ntfs, which isn’t perfectly supported on linux.
That’s a little more of a pain to remove/disable them, but yes the old SSD will work fine for Linux. Windows does not respect the user or their experience so if you dual boot MS will clobber your Linux boot loader at some point. Keeping thing physically separate allows you to retain control.
The only games that deffo have issues in Linux are titles with anti-cheat built in.
yeah, ARM software support is only so-so (but getting better), major issues are mostly hardware related. for example, DisplayPort and Thunderbolt don’t work yet.
use linux
Is Linux gaming only workable if you have an AMD GPU? I was bummed to hear its not viable with a NVIDIA card
Edit: I’m referring to this recent Gamers Nexus video where they tested Bazzite. My SO says that the 1% lows are a deal breaker? I’m not very savvy with the specifics. I really wanted to install Bazzite but SO told me that its not viable yet.
Most NVidia cards work well. Nobody will recommend them because NVidia is known to pull the rug out of your perfectly working card all the time, and being completely aggressive against people trying to make the cards work without by their own.
And some updates just break because they don’t include all packages for al versions of their driver. I updated a Ubuntu from 560 to 570 and I got a non responding graphic card and error missing the package nvidia-fs. I had to upgrade to 580 even if it it the latest and more buggy version
It works fine for both NVIDIA and AMD GPUs. There’s a slight performance loss on Nvidia cards but not enough that you will ever notice.
I have a 3090 ti without any issues
I have a 2080 and an Intel CPU – Linux Mint worked perfectly out of the box.
it works like a charm with my rtx2060 and the new rtx2080
there’s several distros with a focus on gaming like steamos and bazzite. I personally use cachyos as it worked right out of the box without installing any drivers.
I’m running a 3060 with CachyOS and no issues. Mint however gave me some problems. Fixable problems, but problems still. CachyOS worked straight out of the box.
I have 1065 Ti without any issues. The “nvidia not compatible” sentiment is outdated and they started playing ball recently by working on open source drivers. Nvidia is huge in the AI space and AI computing is pretty much 100% Linux.
There are gaming issues though on Linux in the form of anti-cheat systems, but other than that running things with Steam Proton just works although specific games that use obscure windows APIs might not be as performant.
Dirt 3 used the NTsynch for the NTFS filesystem and once it got fixed the frame rate saw a massive jump for example.
Long term people are supporting Linux gaming a lot more since it’s already 3% of the playerbase and requires pretty minimal effort for added 3% audience to make Steam Proton play work. Also with the release of the Steam Machine 2026 is going to be the Year of the Linux Desktop™
fyi, the driver code for AI and gaming is not the same. They’re in the same project, but they don’t use the same parts of that project. I wouldn’t use that to argue for the stability of gaming.
Just make a live boot drive and try it out! Maybe get a little partition setup. I’ve been running Kubuntu for 3 weeks just fine! I am tech savvy though, but most of the things I needed to be savvy at were only because my PC is also my media server. It was less than 1.5 hours to set up gaming and all my window management options and whatnot. And now everything just works.
If they want to try gaming though, they might get bottlenecks from running the OS from the USB port. I could be wrong though.
Linux runs nvidia fine. It can run most games without a problem. Whether or not it can run a game that’s heavily gatekept is another matter altogether.
I’ve been using Fedora with my RTX 3090 and it works great. I haven’t tried the newer cards, but the 30 series seem to work well in my experience.
AMD is much more reliable and has improved for decades. Nvidia has their proprietary driver and new open source driver. Both work ok, but definitely less good than AMD.
I’m planning on making the switch soon. Was thinking of using an old Apple Airbook M1 to explore Linux
Just a heads up, running Linux on Apple’s proprietary hardware can get a little complicated. If this is your first foray into Linux, I recommend using a standard PC laptop.
Ahh ok. Maybe a dual boot on my PC is a better option. I’ve just always had bad luck with dual booting. I always seem to mess it up
highly recommend installing linux on a separate ssd and removing the windows one for installation.
Also your steam library most probably won’t like being loaded from the windows drive, because it is formatted to ntfs, which isn’t perfectly supported on linux.
I have some spare SSDs from an old build, would that be a better option? Right now I have two nvme drives right on the mobo for windows and games.
That’s a little more of a pain to remove/disable them, but yes the old SSD will work fine for Linux. Windows does not respect the user or their experience so if you dual boot MS will clobber your Linux boot loader at some point. Keeping thing physically separate allows you to retain control.
The only games that deffo have issues in Linux are titles with anti-cheat built in.
Windows will fuck up that pc you have running a linux partition so fast. Its possible you’re not doing anything wrong, aside from using windows.
Especially on an M1. In a different architecture you don’t have Apple’s translation layer, so you’re stuck with ARM software only
yeah, ARM software support is only so-so (but getting better), major issues are mostly hardware related. for example, DisplayPort and Thunderbolt don’t work yet.