Maybe a dumb question, the biggest reason I can’t fully move is i do enjoy VR and sim racing, both of which I’ve seen have limited linux support still, and though I enjoy figuring things out and fixing stuff, I don’t want to always be tinkering instead of just racing/gaming.
Would it be possible or safe to keep gaming on win 10 until it’s totally not supported, but not using it for any shopping etc where sensitive info is being transferred ?
I did just order a 2 tb drive to put linux mint on, to give gaming on linux another try. I haven’t had a linux install for a few years now and kind of miss it. But i do wonder if I’ll need to reinstall all my games again or can just access them off the existing hard drives (I know, NTFS formatted wont be optimum for linux).
If I’m in the wrong spot to ask, please inform.
You can dual boot both Windows and Linux, and the reboot to Windows when you want to play games, and reboot to Linux for other stuff.
A bit of work, and extra space needed, but you can easily do that.
If you have the hardware for it you can run windows in a VM with GPU passthrough to a 2nd GPU
Having done this myself, multiple times (I write a lot of graphics code and like being able to test stuff on AMD, Nvidia and Intel GPUs on multiple operating systems without having to switch physical machines), it’s a huge hassle and frankly if you just need a Windows machine to play games on occasionally a dual boot setup is way more convenient, not to mention less buggy.
I get really tired of rebooting just for a single round. A full 2nd machine would be more convenient but that means another CPU, RAM, MB, PSU, SSD, case, wires and more desk space. Try at your own risk, warning there be dragons. I’m a Gentoo user with older AMD cards your milage may vary
Would it be possible or safe to keep gaming on win 10 until it’s totally not supported, but not using it for any shopping etc where sensitive info is being transferred ?
That’s how many of us upgraded to Linux.
That’s what I’m going to do. My main game is Elite Dangerous and between VR, HOSAS, a future IR Track, and all the helper programs Linux just doesn’t keep up. As we approach October the gaming rig is going to be isolated. Looks like I’ll be learning how to make subnets to wall it off completely.
I love ED also! And vr it’s so fun.
Ah. That’s a good plan. I hate having to change to 11 and give MS the satisfaction
I’m just not going to do it now that they are moving to always-online membership required bullshit.
Fuck’em. SteamOS will be along shortly, I can hold out until that works well enough.
Just a word of warning, SteamOS is designed for the Deck (and Deck-like experiences). It’s immutable, which creates some limitations. It’ll also be set up for the controls on the device, not mouse and keyboard. These probably aren’t total deal breakers, but it’s worth considering. It’s designed to be a fairly locked down console-like experience. If you want a desktop experience, you’re better of elsewhere. I recommend Garuda, which has a great preset for gaming and tools to get everything running easily right after the install.
I’ve got several friends that game 100% in Linux, and play E:D with flight sticks and shit. Not into the game so I don’t know anything about the specifics, but seems perfectly doable…
It seems to be hit or miss. I hear people online have no issues with HOTAS/HOSAS/other sim gear on Linux. But I could never really get mine to work 100% correctly.
Plus it was a lot more fiddly every time I wanted to play my games than windows. Idk I just keep windows for my sims and do everything else on Linux
I’m not saying you’re wrong, but is it actually more fiddly or are you just used to it working the other way? I hear people often complain about Linux not working exactly how their Windows install worked, but it being them just not used to the work flow. People get so used to dealing with Windows garbage that they forget it exists, but they notice everything when switching to something new so it feels worse even if it’s technically better.
It’s a bit advanced, but I have a GPU in my server that doubles as a home theater / couch gaming thing. I PCI passthrough the GPU to a windows VM where I get near baremetal performamce.
It runs ontop of proxmox and has a bunch of containers and VMs for my other stuff.
Currently, the linux part is headless, as in I don’t need a screen for the linux stuff on there, but it’d be a matter of hooking up the onboards graphics to another monitor input.
I like the idea because unlike dualboot, it all runs at the same time.
My other desktop’s mobo has issues with vfio and iommu groups so I can’t really do this on that other machine, but for my next build, good iommu groups will be a deciding factor.
I’d love to have a similar setup for my desktop and just switch monitor inputs or KB/mouse USB switch between both.
You would need to reinstall your games on Linux, to answer your question. Steam and Heroic Games Launcher make this process quite painless, but yeah, still gotta do it. NTFS supports ignoring upper/lowercase, whereas Linux (and other Unix-y systems) do not, at least by default. This can cause all kinds of weird issues down the line.
Now that said, one thing you could do is make a new steam library on Windows to a drive or partition formatted as ExFAT, then use Steam on Windows to transfer your games to that new library. If you did that, I think you could simply add that steam library to your instance of steam running on Linux Mint. Combined with setting steam to use Proton for any Windows game (it’s just one checkbox to do so), I think maybe you’d be in business.
Hosting the games on NTFS and loading them into Steam from there under Linux is possible. It is inconsistent and a hasssle, though.
I will say the setup the OP suggests is totally doable, but when I’ve had it that way it turned out to be easier to just do everything else on Windows than to flip back and forth, so after I updated some hardware I haven’t been on a hurry to set up Linux again.
I’d say it’s more convenient to do this long term if you have two PCs. Maybe a laptop for Linux work and a desktop with a powerful GPU for gaming. Being able to have both on sleep and quickly switching back and forth is less likely to make you (well, me, at least) lazy than having to reboot each time.
I mean, personally I do all of my gaming on Linux and fully removed Windows from my gaming desktop in 2022 and haven’t looked back. My VR headset is a Vive, so it works just fine with SteamVR on Linux, no additional issues there, even while using Proton.
I was just thinking exFAT would work more consistently for a steam library under Linux than NTFS and it would also not introduce any issues on Windows.
You’d think, but at least in my Manjaro install I had the exact same, if not a bit worse, of an experience trying to share an exFAT drive than a NTFS drive. I don’t recommend it either way.
I definitely play enough games without full Linux support that I wouldn’t have switched fully, even if I didn’t need Windows for work. The anticheat issues are one thing, but with a high end Nvidia card I found a bunch of proprietary features either didn’t work or underperformed compared to Windows. Mix that with a HDR, VRR display and it was a bit of a mess.
Linux was snappier for desktop office work most of the time, though.
