Hi, I am considering switching to NixOS and I was wondering what level of hassle I should expect for gaming.

I have been using linux for about 10 months so I don’t know a lot yet. I am wondering if it is worth it to try gaming on Nix or if it is going to be way too much of a headache considering my limited knowledge.

I’ve had wildly different experiences trying gaming on different distros, and very differently from what I expected. It went from fine for a weird niche distro (antiX), to really awful for a distro supposedly “easy” and “good for gaming” (Manjaro 😑), to absolutely amazing gaming distro (Nobara), and finally to surprisingly good for a “don’t try unless you are a Level 99 Tech Wizard dual-classed Zen Master you idiot” distro (Arch). So I really have no clue what to expect from Nix.

I really like Arch but my main issue is that I keep forgetting what I have already configured and how and with which settings, or I leave stuff partially configured because adhd then I forget it wasn’t finished and where I was at, so using config files instead sound insanely more convenient and I’ve been wanting to try Nix for a while.

I’d be really glad for anyone willing to share their experience of gaming on Nix 🙂

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2 points

I’ve played Stardew with no configuration on my NixOS install a few times before, I think you might have something else going on there?

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Apparently, I’m not the only one. https://discourse.nixos.org/t/help-running-stardew-valley-in-nixos/48574

How do you avoid those errors?

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Interesting… I’ve just been pressing the “play” button on Steam 🤔 Let me do some digging and see if there’s anything weird I might be doing.

Edit: Nope, confirmed, just pressing “play” in Steam using GE-Proton-9-9 works fine. Is there any reason you’re running it through nix-shell and steam-run instead of the Steam interface?

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Just tried GE-Proton-9-9 and the play button goes to “stop” and then right back to “play”. I tried launching from terminal using nix-shell and steam-run so I could see the error messages when it crashes. Thanks for looking at your setup to see what was going on.

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