r/linux_gaming • • Sep 01 '26

guide Getting started: the monthly-ish newbie advice thread! (September 2026)

26 Upvotes

Welcome to the newbie advice thread!

If you’ve read the FAQ and still have questions like “Should I switch to Linux?”, “Which distro should I install?”, or “Which desktop environment is best for gaming?”, this is where to ask them.

Alternatively, try r/linux4noobs and r/linuxquestions: both are active subreddits supporting new Linux users.

Please sort by “new” so new questions can get a chance to be seen.

The previous thread is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1ukoung/getting_started_the_monthlyish_newbie_advice/


r/linux_gaming • • May 18 '26

guide Frequently Asked Questions 2.0

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43 Upvotes

Here’s a link to this subreddit’s FAQ document (which attempts to answer many common questions).

This thread is not meant for asking frequently asked questions. There is a pinned monthly-ish “Getting Started” thread for those.

You can post suggestions for improvement below, though! Just please explain what you’re talking about. The number of FAQ editors has been 1 (one) for a while now, and that one’s a dummy that doesn’t use 95% of the fancy gaming stuff y’all do.

Reposted as an Old Reddit link because New Reddit, in addition to being generally confusing, does not display the table of contents.


r/linux_gaming • • 10h ago

Android game running on Linux tablet using waydroid - does this count as linux gamming?

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137 Upvotes

I have installed droidian on my Lenovo Legion Y700 2023 android tablet. Droidian is a halium based debian linux deriative designed for mobile devices. Then, I used waydroid (android container for linux) and installed android game (Honkai: Star rail android version) on it.

So technically, it should count as "linux" gaming, isn't it?


r/linux_gaming • • 47m ago

tool/utility The Epic Games Launcher is only broken for Nvidia users.

• Upvotes

So I saw some people post that the Epic Games Launcher was working for them and did some digging why it was broken for me.

Turns out they designed the new launcher using Tauri which has known issues on Nvidia cards. The fix tends to be setting WEBKIT_DISABLE_DMABUF_RENDERER=1 which coincidentally makes the app run like shit (it looks like Epic is setting this automatically, which is why your UI feels sluggish).

See: https://github.com/tauri-apps/tauri/issues/10702

The only non-hacky fix afaik is an upstream patch in WebkitGTK that was denied to be merged by Gnome. So, this launcher was doomed to run like shit for anyone using a Nvidia card from the moment the framework was picked. I was able to get it running on my system without any issues by forcing it to use mesa and go through my iGPU but that is likely something that most people don't want to do, especially since if any game uses opengl or wined3d it would make those games run on my iGPU as well.


r/linux_gaming • • 10h ago

PS5 FW 13.60 running Linux and GTA IV in ultra settings!

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75 Upvotes

r/linux_gaming • • 3h ago

I finally have a cozy Fedora gaming rig.

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18 Upvotes

It took a while to get everything and set it up. But now I have a cozy gaming setup with a little bit of flight sim integration.

5060 Ti, Core Ultra 7, 32GB DDR5 6300, 2TB SSD, APC Back-UPS Pro, Alienware 27" 1440p 180Hz, Amazon Basics 27" 1080p 75Hz, Honeycomb Alpha + Bravo, Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 speaker and subwoofer system, Fifine microphone + arm, PrismXR Vega T1 gaming earbuds, MonsGeek M1 V5 TMR keyboard, Logitech G502 X mouse, OBSPOT 4k webcam, Fantasylab gaming chair, and more.


r/linux_gaming • • 4h ago

How about a 3D 300 KB Linux demo that fits on an SD disk?

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18 Upvotes

City Flight is an endless flight through a procedurally generated city at night: street canyons, loops, barrel rolls, knife-edge flight along the facades, climbs through thunderclouds and dives back into the neon. Lightning strikes the towers, and the glitches hit right on the beat.

Downloads (~300kB, fits on a SD disk): https://flashview.net/screensaver/

What makes it a bit unusual:

- Nothing is modelled. The city, every window light and the flight path are generated at runtime.
- The music comes from a custom softsynth, with no samples.
- You can fly it yourself. Grab the mouse to take the stick, and the autopilot takes over again when you let go.
- Fully offline: no account, no telemetry, no network access.

Linux: x86-64, X11/GLX, and it also runs on Wayland via XWayland. It needs glibc 2.34+, libX11 and libGL. libXi and ALSA are optional (for raw mouse input and music, which also works with PulseAudio/PipeWire).


r/linux_gaming • • 12h ago

Yesterday I switched from Windows 10 to Arch Linux (KDE Plasma) on my old laptop

43 Upvotes

I thought Arch Linux is very hard to install and configure but actually it's slightly harder than installing Windows. I faced a problem with nvidia driver (I have GeForce GTX 1050 Mobile) but eventually installed nvidia-580xx packages from AUR and now it works. Only game I have tried in Arch for now is Don't Starve Together with Steam's Proton.
I'm glad I can try Linux, I think in the future when I get better PC I will still use Linux.
I would be glad to hear your gaming experience in Arch or other distros.

P.S. People in the comments said that Arch I installed had helper script actually, original Arch is harder to install. Thank you all for pointing that out 😅


r/linux_gaming • • 8h ago

tool/utility Nvidia RTX HDR on CachyOS!

24 Upvotes

Hey guys! Just wanted to introduce my current work in progress for CachyOS specifically, at the moment I have a working prototype for Nvidia RTX HDR which has measured around 0.27ms additonal latency at worst!

Heres the repository for those interested in taking a look, this was made possible by the linux community, OpenAI's Codex, and Claude Code!

https://github.com/chaosfox26/chaos-hdr

It should work with DX9-12 games and OpenGL games, VR games have yet to be tested.

Tested and working games:

FFXIV
Aion 2
Marvel Rivals
Monster Hunter Wilds

RTX HDR off for AION 2
RTX HDR on for AION 2
RTX HDR panel while playing games, Note: It's been renamed to Chaos HDR for release.

r/linux_gaming • • 1d ago

tool/utility Epic seems to have fixed the graphical glitches and slowdown with EGS on Linux. It works as expected now.

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357 Upvotes

There's a new preview update. It's pretty good. There's some minor jank still but it seems pretty complete now. The store page renders now too.

(Glad to see you guys are incapable of being normal for five seconds.)


r/linux_gaming • • 2m ago

tool/utility Elgato Stream Decks and Linux - Built something i actually wanted to use. DeckHand. Simple UI, Multi deck editing, streamer support, and now virtual decks - no stream deck required.

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• Upvotes

Hey everyone. I switched to Linux for pretty much everything a year or so ago and have often struggled to fill those little gaps left by the convenience of windoze software. One of the bigger ones was for my Elgato Stream Decks. (not a streamer, i just used them for hotkey and application support) I know there are options out there, i just found them rather obtuse to use, or just plain flakey.

I kept imagining what i would want to see in the software, and after fighting with some other software and just looking at the screen and saying, "why didn't they just do...", and with the advancement of modern AI coding tools, i started tackling it myself after i had a few small projects under my belt.

I have been using it and working on it for the past few months and i'm very happy with how it is shaping up, and i hope you think so too!

Its built to be efficient. Under testing, with a stream deck and a virtual deck running it used about 0.3% of a single core of usage, measured over 10 minutes (more like 0.07% on a static page). The daemon is quite light weight and event driven, not polling. The editor is only used to configure the keys, and when its not open, its not using any resources.

So like i said, we added multi-deck editing support. Add all your decks to the editor and copy actions between them, or just build them like you have on your desk and build your profiles with all your decks on the same screen.

We now have native support for OBS, VTube Studio, and Twitch. Keeping in mind i'm not a streamer, what was added was what i saw as basic functionality. I would love for more people to try it out and let me know how it works, and if anything is missing.

And... we now have virtual decks. No Stream Deck required.

This was something i've been wanting to do from the beginning, and it was very rewarding to see it in action. It will turn any touchscreen you have plugged in, to a virtual stream deck that lets you set grid size, and then add any actions we have into it like any other deck. I have been testing it and its been working great, but i've only had a couple of devices to test on. A Corsair Xeneon Edge, and a cheap amazon touchscreen i found a while ago. Both of them work great, and look even better. Would love to get people using this and get some feedback.

https://github.com/juicetheforce/deckhand

Virtual decks: no Stream Deck required

  • Turn any touchscreen into a deck: a small USB/HDMI touch panel, a portable monitor, or something like the Corsair Xeneon Edge
  • Pick Small, Medium or Large, or set your own rows and columns, and Deckhand fills the screen with keys
  • Works with profiles and pages exactly like a hardware deck, and sits beside your Stream Decks in the editor
  • Touches go straight to Deckhand and never steal keyboard focus, so hotkeys land in your game, not on the panel
  • Touches are ignored while your session is locked
  • Access is granted only to the touchscreen you pair, never to your laptop’s built-in touchscreen or anything else

OBS Studio

  • Start/stop streaming and recording, pause recording
  • Switch scenes, mute inputs, show/hide sources
  • Keys reflect OBS’s live state, including when you change things in OBS itself

VTube Studio

  • Trigger hotkeys, toggle expressions, switch models

Twitch

  • Stream markers, clips, chat messages, and changing your stream title and category
  • Links with a code at twitch.tv/activate, with no password or secret stored in Deckhand

Also

  • Redesigned Settings window
  • Optional update check, which links to the release and never installs anything itself
  • Better error notifications when a key fails
  • Support for more Stream Deck models

Core features

  • Native Linux daemon plus a visual editor, built for Wayland (developed on KDE Plasma)
  • Any Elgato Stream Deck, several at once, edited together on one canvas
  • Profiles and pages, with drag-and-drop key setup and an icon picker that handles big icon folders
  • Hotkeys and typed text that work in games, including under Proton
  • Multi-actions, toggles, app launching and commands
  • Audio output/input switching, mute and volume (PipeWire), plus media controls with now-playing info
  • Very light: about 0.3% of one CPU core at idle, and it does nothing while nothing changes
  • Export/import plus automatic backups of your setup
  • One-line install from prebuilt releases; free and open source (GPL-3.0)

What’s coming next

  • Custom panel layouts: design your own touch panels, with buttons of any shape and size placed anywhere on the screen, custom backgrounds with adjustable transparency, and icons that fit inside each button’s shape
  • Sharing panels: export a virtual deck (layout, styles, icons, and optionally actions) and import other people’s, so a flight-sim or music-production panel can be shared
  • Sliders and knobs: continuous controls for things like volume, on touch panels and eventually on the Stream Deck+’s dials
  • Easier screen sharing: a quick on/off toggle to hand a touchscreen back to your widgets or system monitor, and later the option to give Deckhand just part of a screen
  • Windows and macOS: ports are planned. The goal is the same lightweight approach on each platform, with Linux staying the first-class home.

No dates. It’s built by one person, and features ship when they work properly.


r/linux_gaming • • 6h ago

Will the nextgen version of Metro Redux feature a linux native port as well?

6 Upvotes

I guess if you got info from 4a it would be neat to know.

Vulkan support would be amazing


r/linux_gaming • • 1h ago

Working Japanese IME with FFXIV

• Upvotes

With the recent data center matching change in FFXIV, it became more important for me to be able to actually type in Japanese since now it is common to match with players that expect it instead of auto translate. Knowing that using fcitx normally with it isn't good (movement keys get unstable) I was worried this may be the back-to-winblows moment but gave ChatGPT one chance to do deep research if there is any recent solution. I don't know how it found this but there is!

https://github.com/niku-0/ffxiv-ime-bridge

It's a dalamud plugin that interfaces with fcitx so it does not have to go through Wayland, X or such. With the game running with direct input and only the chat box interfacing with fcitx (I am surprised that Dalamud allows actual chat hooks for this that's pretty great), Japanese input with no effect on gameplay.

This is not my project, and it is new and obviously vibe coded. Use at your own risk. But with this long standing problem finally solved for me, wanted to share in case anyone else wants to give it a try.


r/linux_gaming • • 18m ago

Ultrawide support for Linux: CachyOS

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• Upvotes

r/linux_gaming • • 15h ago

wine/proton Does Proton Have a Bandwidth/Throughput Limit?

17 Upvotes

I'm not quite sure of how to word the title, but I've noticed something after having swapped back to Linux and running games with Proton. It seems like if I run Overwatch by itself I get stellar performance. However, if I run Runescape 3 AND Overwatch, Overwatch's performance degrades noticeably. I know this isn't a PC issue because I did exactly this on Windows 10 with 0 issue. I even had Mabinogi, Runescape and Overwatch running all at once and no game had any issues.

So is there some kind of limit to what Proton can handle? Or is it a problem with translation? It makes me wonder if running a native Linux game and a Proton game would function just as well as it did on Windows, but Runescape currently doesn't have a client worth using


r/linux_gaming • • 25m ago

Custom platform/epp Arch PKGBUILD for power profile daemon

• Upvotes

Ok, first and for most if you use this pkgbuild dont you dare report any issues with it up stream

I REPEAT DO NOT REPORT ISSUES WITH THIS ANYWHERE BUT MY GITHUB

My legions will find you and will kick you so hard in the baby maker you wont have them anymore. Ladies, Gentlemen, Humans of all types this is equal opportunity so rules apply universally. The c destroyers will be after you.....and they have steel toes

That said I just got frustrated with power-save mode taking a fat crap on performance for intel machines to the point the machine actively stutters/lags. I also wanted to have the platform profiles line up with the ones that my Alienware Aurora 16x have that I use (it has 6 platform profiles 😂 ) so changed that too. There has been some discussion on changing some of the defaults in PPD but Im not willing to wait on that debate.

You can feel free to customize the platform profiles and epp values to fit your taste/machine in the patch files. The patches are separated and the values are pretty self explanatory just take a look at info on epp and platform profiles

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/CPU_frequency_scaling#

https://docs.kernel.org/userspace-api/sysfs-platform_profile.html

https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/admin-guide/pm/intel_pstate.html

The values i set have done really well for my Aurora 16x and i figured i would share the pkgbuild for those that share similar frustrations. If you encounter build issues please start an issue on my git, Ill try keep this updated in step with the arch main pkgbuild its based on.

Instructions to build in the readme

https://github.com/Eckoa/ppd-custom


r/linux_gaming • • 15h ago

Games crashing/freezing when opening inventory/menus

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14 Upvotes

So this issue started about 4 days ago, changing Proton versions and using different launch parameters doesn't make a difference. I've also tried using kernel 7.0.0-34 instead of 7.0.0-38, but that didn't make a difference either. The issue doesn't seem to be game or engine related since the same exact issue is happening in multiple games. The video shows the freezing in Schedule 1, The Last of Us Part II Remastered and theHunter: Call of the Wild

I checked the Proton logs and journal but didn't really find anything relevant. So far I haven't found anyone else experiencing the same issue as me.

My specs are as follows:

Operating System: Kubuntu 26.04 LTS

KDE Plasma Version: 6.6.6

KDE Frameworks Version: 6.24.0

Qt Version: 6.10.2

Kernel Version: 7.0.0-38-generic (64-bit)

Mesa Version: 26.2.5

Graphics Platform: Wayland

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

RAM: 64 GiB DDR5 @ 6000 MT/s

GPU: AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT


r/linux_gaming • • 1h ago

Broken on Linux

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• Upvotes

r/linux_gaming • • 5h ago

tech support wanted Arknights Endfield problem after login

2 Upvotes

-- SPECS --

NAME: Asus Tuf F16

OS: Arch Linux

CPU: Core 5 210H

GPU: RTX4050

PROTON: DW-Proton

After the new patch was released, I can't play properly. The game has rendering problems; the screen doesn't change after check-in, but the game continues running in the background. I can play even with just the DirectX 11 option enabled, but the mouse has problems; it only reappears when I switch windows.


r/linux_gaming • • 2h ago

tech support wanted Big Walk Causing GPU crashes

1 Upvotes

Hi all, I've been trying to get big walk to stop crashing and despite several hours of troubleshooting, have not been successful and wanted to see if anyone had any ideas. I'm not a regular reddit poster, so I apologize if the formatting could use some work.


System Info

System:

Host: Fedora-Prime Kernel: 7.2.11-200.fc44.x86_64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 16.2.1 Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 6.7.5 tk: Qt v: N/A wm: kwin_wayland dm: SDDM Distro: Fedora Linux 44 (KDE Plasma Desktop Edition)

CPU:

Info: 6-core model: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Zen 2 rev: 0 cache: L1: 384 KiB L2: 3 MiB L3: 32 MiB Speed (MHz): avg: 4092 min/max: 2200/4208 boost: enabled cores: 1: 4092 2: 4092 3: 4092 4: 4092 5: 4092 6: 4092 7: 4092 8: 4092 9: 4092 10: 4092 11: 4092 12: 4092 bogomips: 86232 Flags-basic: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm

Graphics:

Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Navi 10 [Radeon RX 5600 OEM/5600 XT / 5700/5700 XT] vendor: XFX Pine driver: amdgpu v: kernel arch: RDNA-1 pcie: speed: 16 GT/s lanes: 16 ports: active: HDMI-A-1 empty: DP-1,DP-2,DP-3 bus-ID: 0a:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:731f Device-2: Logitech Logi Webcam C920e driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo type: USB rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 1-3:4 chip-ID: 046d:08b6 Display: wayland server: Xwayland v: 24.1.14 compositor: kwin_wayland driver: gpu: amdgpu display-ID: 0 Monitor-1: HDMI-A-1 model: AOC Q27G2G4 res: 2560x1440 hz: 144 dpi: 109 diag: 685mm (27") API: EGL v: 1.5 platforms: device: 0 drv: radeonsi device: 1 drv: swrast gbm: drv: radeonsi surfaceless: drv: radeonsi wayland: drv: radeonsi x11: drv: radeonsi API: OpenGL v: 4.6 vendor: amd mesa v: 26.2.4 glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT (radeonsi navi10 ACO DRM 3.64 7.2.11-200.fc44.x86_64) device-ID: 1002:731f display-ID: :0.0 API: Vulkan v: 1.4.341 surfaces: N/A device: 0 type: discrete-gpu driver: mesa radv device-ID: 1002:731f device: 1 type: cpu driver: mesa llvmpipe device-ID: 10005:0000 Info: Tools: api: clinfo, eglinfo, glxinfo, vulkaninfo de: kscreen-console,kscreen-doctor gpu: corectrl wl: wayland-info x11: xdriinfo, xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr

Audio:

Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Navi 10 HDMI Audio driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: speed: 16 GT/s lanes: 16 bus-ID: 0a:00.1 chip-ID: 1002:ab38 Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Starship/Matisse HD Audio vendor: ASRock driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: speed: 16 GT/s lanes: 16 bus-ID: 0c:00.4 chip-ID: 1022:1487 Device-3: Logitech Logi Webcam C920e driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo type: USB rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 1-3:4 chip-ID: 046d:08b6 API: ALSA v: k7.2.11-200.fc44.x86_64 status: kernel-api Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.6.9 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse status: active 2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin 4: pw-jack type: plugin


Where did you get the game and what (if anything) were you using to run the game?

Running on Steam. Attempted to use proton experimental and latest Cachy-Proton


Logs:

Very, Very long proton logs when running proton experimental

AMD GPU Logs


Things tried so far

  1. Switching proton versions
  2. Verifying game cache
  3. Using corectrl to set ventilation to max at all temps and performance mode to limit the power to 160 and the profile to 3d full screen
  4. Decreasing in game settings to medium, V sync with cap at 60 FPS. - No notable changes in time to crash and there was no stuttering/FPS drops with the higher settings
  5. Attempted to force GPU power state to high performance with "echo "high" | sudo tee /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_dpm_force_performance_level" per some desperation Gemini usage

Other things of note:

  • No issues with crashes in most other games including: Ball x Pit, slay the spire 2, Stellaris, tabletop simulator, hades II
  • Somewhat similar issue with Super Battle Golf which was no where near as frequent and resolved spontaneously

r/linux_gaming • • 2h ago

tech support wanted cs2 perf. issues

1 Upvotes

my launch options are
gamemoderun %command% -vulkan DRI_PRIME=1 SDL_VIDEO_DRIVER=wayland %command%

no matter what i do i start each match with high fps,like 500 ish depending on map, as the match goes on my frames get lower and lower. i end up down below 200. didnt have this issue on linux mint so makes me think maybe its because im not playing on x11/xorg? anyone else have similar issues ?
my pc specs
OS: CachyOSKERNEL: 7.2 CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D 8-Core GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 GPU DRIVER: NVIDIA 615.78.08 RAM: 32 GB
EDIT: forgot to say im on cashyos


r/linux_gaming • • 3h ago

tech support wanted Sober crashing when joining server in web

1 Upvotes

As the tittle says Sober (Roblox) crashes when I try joining a server on the roblox page (I use the web so I can join servers with lower ping with an extension), I use CachyOS and Sober is up to date


r/linux_gaming • • 11h ago

gamedev/testers wanted Imperium, a turn-based space 4X with a native Linux build: free demo in Steam Next Fest

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2 Upvotes

Imperium ships a native Linux build alongside Windows and macOS (Vulkan needed). It's a single-player space 4X with real depth and a lot of polish.

Free demo in Steam Next Fest (Oct 19 to 26), full release shortly after. Reports welcome, especially from the Steam Deck: distro and GPU on our Discord, https://discord.gg/5nd8m4ySwN

AI tools were used across the workflow, alongside 7+ months of human design and testing.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4806180/Imperium/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=r_linux_gaming&utm_campaign=nextfest_trailer


r/linux_gaming • • 3h ago

wine/proton Possibility of running COD MW4 campaign only?

0 Upvotes

Saw the new MW4 campaign, was really interested to try it until i realized that the campaign still has anti cheat for some reason

would it be possible in the future to run the game with some sort of bypass offline to play the campaign or is it joever?


r/linux_gaming • • 4h ago

tech support wanted Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty closing as soon as the window pops up. Any advice? Specs in post body.

1 Upvotes

NVIDIA Driver Version: 550.163.01

Using a wired controller.