I installed Mint recently but a lot of my games don’t show as playable. I’m not as tech-savvy as I was 20 years ago, so I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. Any advice?
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derpgon@programming.dev 1 day agoAnything works really. Mint, Gentoo, Fedora, Arch all work - usually just need to install Steam and done, possibly install drivers using your package manager if it doesn’t come pre-installed. Hell, you can even do SteamOS or something like Bazzite or Nobara if i remember correctly.
Typhoonigator@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Wolf@lemmy.today 1 day ago
A lot of times when a game isn’t listed as ‘playable’ on Steam, it simply means that particular game hasn’t been test yet, and will probably still work just fine if you actually try and run it. The only real exceptions to that is games that require ‘kernel level anticheat’.
Typhoonigator@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Thank you so much, I was worried I’d have to scale back my gaming significantly
Wolf@lemmy.today 1 day ago
Not a problem at all. If you do end up having difficulties you might try a different distro, I’ve heard a few people complaining about Mint lately. In theory though it should work just fine.
In my personal experience every game I’ve tried to play works just as well or better than it does on Windows. Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3, Prey, Red Dead Redemption 2, The Outer Worlds, No Mans Sky, Pathfinder Kingmaker, Pillars of Eternity 1 & 2, Divinity Original Sin 2, Skyrim SE, Fallout 4 & 76 etc. Even older games like Baldur’s Gate and the Original Fallout work great :)
derpgon@programming.dev 1 day ago
Depends, the best source for running games is www.protondb.com
For games that are not on Steam, you can try Lutris.
Jesus_666@lemmy.world 1 day ago
In addition to what Wolf told you, here’s a few little extra tidbits:
Some games have native Linux versions. If they don’t, you typically play them through Proton, a gaming-ready version of the Wine compatibility layer. Steam directly supports this through compatibility settings (Steam -> Settings -> Compatibility for default settings or Game properties -> Compatibility for per-game settings). Sometimes specific Proton versions will be better for specific games but usually you don’t need to worry about it much.
Proton is damn good. Expect performance for most games to be within ± 5% of the performance you’d get on Windows. Yes, some games run better on Proton than on native DirectX.
Valve recently decided to enable Proton by default for games that don’t have a Linux version. You can enable it yourself in the settings if it isn’t enabled yet.
You can even force games with a native Linux version to use Proton by setting it in the game’s compatibility settings. In that case Steam will download the Windows version.
moody@lemmings.world 1 day ago
Steam doesn’t have non-Linux games enabled by default. In the settings, you’ll find a compatibility tab. From there, enable the setting “Enable Steam Play for all other titles”
That’s what lets it use Proton for everything by default.
Wolf@lemmy.today 1 day ago
That used to be the case, it is enabled by default now.
aeiou_ckr@lemmy.world 1 day ago
SteamOS isn’t out for download if I remember correctly but you are correct about Bazzite and Novato being similar and great gaming specific distros.
RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Bazzite is modeled off of Steam OS
derpgon@programming.dev 1 day ago
Good news, it actually is and had been for a few months! help.steampowered.com/en/…/1B71-EDF2-EB6D-2BB3#re…
Wolf@lemmy.today 1 day ago
Those instructions are about how to reinstall SteamOS on your deck. A little further down the page it talks about how to install on other handheld PC’s like the Legion Go and ROG Ally.
While you technically can download it and people have been able to install it on their PC’s, Valve doesn’t recommend doing so.
They probably will (hopefully) have a version targeted toward PC’s in the future, but it’s not there yet.
If you want a SteamOS style experience on desktop you would be better off using Bazzite since that is what it’s designed for.
You are correct that it is possible to do, but it’s not recommended.