Does anyone know if there is a channel on Youtube (or Twitch) dedicated to Linux gaming/streaming? I’ve found a couple of channels that sometimes talk about the state of Linux gaming at a rather high, abstract level. But I haven’t seen what yet that actually had gameplay videos, Let’s Play videos, or in-depth technical tutorials on various methods of Linux gaming (Steam Proton, WINE+DXVK, or VM/Looking Glass) or about recording/streaming in Linux.
If anyone has any links I’d appreciate it…
The Chris Titus Tech YouTube channel had a few how to vids on Proton gaming, as well as native Linux gaming, as I recollect.
The Linux Gamer (AKA - Gardiner Bryant) and HexDSL also come to mind as being focused on Linux gaming. Though it seems that Gardiner has gradually been branching out into more general Linux topics.
Lots of content producers touch on Linux gaming, but there would seem to be very few who are specifically dedicated to the topic.
I’ve watched a few of Chris’ and The Linux Gamer’s channels, but they don’t seem to be focused on how-to’s or gameplay footage. That’s unfortunate. It would be nice, for example, to see a discussion of the various pros and cons of Proton vs Lutris vs GPU passthrough, or how to implement each.
Or just some gameplay footage and performance info…
Honestly, your preference is going to be driven by your use case, but constrained by your hardware. Do you have hardware which is conducive to passthrough? Can you get away with simply dual booting? Do you even want a copy of Windows on your box?
Dual booting can work well, but it is inconvenient because you are limited to one OS at a time. For instance, if I’m in the middle of struggling with a warchief in Shadow of Mordor, the last thing that I want to do is to reboot into Linux in order to access a document that I may need.
With passthrough, you have access to both OS’s simultaneously and you avoid any potential game incompatibility, since the game is running on an actual instance of genuine Windows. You also achieve near bare metal performance. It’s the next best thing for game performance to running on a Windows box. If this solution interests you, you’ve come to the right place, as several how-to’s can be found here.
Running native Windows games on Linux will likely always be a compromise, because even if all of the possible system calls can be anticipated, there will still be some overhead due to translation. But, if I can get 60+ fps without booting up Windows, I’m deliriously happy to make that compromise, especially since Linux tends to be more stable.
It seems to me that I used Lutris to run UPlay, in order to claim a free, promotional game from a GPU purchase. Apart from that, I don’t have any experience with it. I would suggest, however, that If you are a Linux guy/gal who wishes to run the odd Windows game from time to time, there is no such thing as a one size fits all solution. Some games may run fine under one, or more methods, but choke, if it even runs at all, on other methods. I’m afraid that experimentation with your specific games, on your specific hardware will be the best solution. That said, there are some resources, such as https://www.protondb.com/ which may assist you in your search.
I’ve actually tried a number of these different methods. While passthrough probably is the best option for performance, it’s got a lot of issues particularly with Nvidia hardware. Even AMD GPUs seem to be afflicted by a reset bug which can cause issues if you want to spin up and shutdown your VM occasionally.
For those reasons, I’m mostly focusing on gaming with plain old WINE+DXVK, Lutris or Steam/Proton. But using those methods introduces difficulty in using 3rd party mods and modding tools. I would’ve been interested in content about how to manage such things, along with performance information (and possibly tips & tricks.)
Do you think there’s any interest in that kind of (video) content?
Take a look at https://www.twitch.tv/toastylinux
I don’t know if he still works for Red Hat, but he was working on dxvk and those things that have allow us to play those Windows locked games. ArchToasty
I suspect that there would be some significant interest in this, particularly with some of the more popular games. I’d be interested to see a comparison of the performance of the same game running under different methods, along with a commentary on which knobs you had to twist to get decent performance.
Personally, I went cold turkey about six years ago and I haven’t bought any non-native Linux games since then. I do, however, have some old Windows favorites that I play from time to time, as well as some promotional games, that I mentioned earlier. I usually dual boot for this, as the only GPU that I have to passthrough is an antique GTX780. I am hoping to get a RDNA2 card, so long as it does not have the reset bug, because I’d rather run Windows in a VM.
It’s been a long time but there was a guy named Glorious Eggroll who did linux gaming stuff. I think he was mostly on Youtube but may have been on Twitch as well.
Found his website -https://www.gloriouseggroll.tv/
Not sure if he does it anymore.
Thanks for the link. I found this site listed on his blog. It’s like Phorinix, only it’s gaming-centric.
Hmm, I know there’s a “Glorious Eggroll” build of Proton available. I wonder if it’s made by the same person.
I did come across some that show game play via proton or wine but they were not tutorial based and seemed to have disappeared over time.
Below are a few I know of currently:
Blast from the past: Penguin Recording recently came back to life a few days ago. He used to do game play, tutorials etc so I assume he will resume with the same type of content.
The Linux Experiment has another channel, The Linux Gaming Experiment where he does play throughs etc.
Jakejw93 - Linux Gaming
Intelligent Gaming - Linux Tutorials & Gameplay
FlightlessMango - Benchmark comparisons
Geer Seekers - Tech review channel but one of the few that benchmarks on Linux