alt Hacker NewsMany or most of those 95% who are just using Windows for PC games and using a web browser would be well served by either trying out or having a tech-savvy neighbor help them try out a Linux distro like Bazzite.
I used to boot into Windows regularly to play video games. I haven't booted into Windows in ages. Proton is really good, and the major web browsers work the same on -at minimum- Windows, OSX, and Linux.
Plus, it's been my experience that drivers for AMD's graphics cards just work better on Linux... especially for older games. It helps that the folks writing them aren't working for "AI"-crazy companies that have probably massively slashed the resources they're giving the driver programmers for their consumer-grade cards. (After all, why spend any money on software for video games when you can spend that money on software for "AI" stuff and get a much larger ROI?)
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The problem is most people "who are just using Windows for PC games and using a web browser" are not a good fit for Linux. They don't install their OS themselves so cannot install a Linux distro. They don't do their own regular maintenance so forced updates are necessary. They expect software like Office to be available - not alternatives that work a bit differently and have buttons in unfamiliar places. Computer literacy is going down so this is only getting worse. Hardware that ships with SteamOS is the best chance to get PC gamers onto Linux. It's already being used by nearly 1% of Steam users and Steam has a lot of users.
> Plus, it's been my experience that drivers for AMD's graphics cards just work better on Linux
That's why Valve went with AMD for the Steam Deck and Machine. But it's also another blocker because 72% of Steam users have an Nvidia GPU.
Last time I tried out linux (Earlier this year) I had to give up on it because my system would occasionally freeze to the point I needed to do a hard reset.
I thought it was a hardware issue, but it ended up being a linux amd driver issue. I haven’t had a problem since switching back to windows.
From what I can tell, gaming with an nvidia card on Linux is still rough. Is that incorrect?
> Many or most of those 95% who are just using Windows for PC games and using a web browser would be well served by either trying out or having a tech-savvy neighbor help them try out a Linux distro like Bazzite.
This is true until you consider what that exact casual market looks like. Mainstream casual PC gamers are overwhelmingly concentrated in live service multiplayer AAA games with kernel level anticheat. Fortnite, League of Legends, Valorant, Call of Duty, Apex Legends, etc.
So it's kind of a hard spot where yes, 95% of casual windows gamers would in theory be much better off on Linux but the Catch-22 is the games that market is mostly concentrated on is the single category that still does not work on Linux.
It's not like Windows is an OS they love, it's just a mandatory anti-cheat wall, but its a wall Linux can't breach yet.