Hey all!

I'm currently looking to upgrade my Radeon 6600 8GB GPU in my primary gaming rig and I'm currently torn between the Radeon 9600 XT 16GB, which is a "known variable" or the Intel B580 12GB. Obviously, the B580 is around $75-100 cheaper comparing MSRP to MSRP and I've been seeing both pop randomly into stock the last few weeks where I could nab either with a properly timed deal alert.

I'm wondering how all of you Intel Battlemage gamers on Linux have been enjoying your cards. I know Intel has done a lot of work to make it work well on Linux, but there is MUCH less coverage of performance on Linux than on Windows. Most stuff I see is from launch time, which is 6+ months ago, and I know driver support has gained a lot of ground since then.

My primary rig is an AM4-based system with a 5800X CPU, so REBAR and PCIe 4.0 are not a problem for me.

Would this even give a significance preformance gain? allocating only P-Cores to games, and for games that make my laptop thermal throttle (it gets hot then very laggy until it cools), would the inverse (E-Cores) do anything? Mainly im looking to improve the performance of games, also how would i do this?

I'm putting together a gaming system for the kind of person who needs help if their TV is set to the wrong input. Obviously I'm committing myself to providing a certain amount of tech support no matter what, but I'm wondering if any of these modern Linux distros can provide a user experience at least on par with Windows in terms of ease of use and reliability for someone who doesn't know how to do much more than check their email and log in to Steam.

So far, I've looked at Bazzite, Cachy, Nobara, and PopOS based on what I commonly see recommended here. I'm leaning toward Bazzite based on its stated goal of being friendly to Linux newcomers, and the quality and amount of available documentation. Are there any other distros I've missed, or other considerations that might sway my preference?

I'd also like to hear about your subjective experiences with Linux gaming:

1. What distro are you using for gaming?
2. How long have you used it?
3. How often have you had issues that require Linux knowledge and/or searching the web to solve?
4. Have you had any other minor/annoying complaints?

I read a few posts from a few years ago that they suffered from some sort of ring crash bug frequently.

If you're currently on either of those cards, how is the stability nowadays? Any hiccups or problems, or is it 100% in gaming now?

Bonus question, does the Mesa driver allow you to access the VCN video encoder on the gpu?

EDIT: Thanks for all your responses, everyone! The consensus clearly shows they're pretty balin', and definitely worthy of switching away from Nvidia to. :D

• Added ntsync support:

Enable with PROTON_USE_NTSYNC=1

NOTES:

1. Your kernel must be patched with ntsync patches. If your system does not have /dev/ntsync then your kernel does not have the patches required to use ntsync.

2. Some applications, mostly 32 bit, may also need PROTON_USE_WOW64=1 when using ntsync

• Added FSR4 upgrade support via PROTON_FSR4_UPGRADE=1 (auto upgrades from amd directly https://download.amd.com/dir/bin/amdxcffx64.dll)

• Added fixes from upstream for flicker/rendering issue when using wine-wayland

• Refactored a lot of the patches section and cleaned up outdated or merged patches

• Update wine-wayland patches

• Updated wine to latest bleeding edge

• Updated dxvk to latest git

• Updated vkd3d-proton to latest git

• Imported all upstream proton changes

• protonfixes: added a fix for winetricks wget gnutls failing inside fex

• protonfixes: add fix for sifu freeze (thanks UsernamesAreNotMyThing)

cross-posted from: https://reddthat.com/post/45525722

What's new in this release:

• Optional EGL backend in the X11 driver.
• Support for Bluetooth Low Energy services.
• Moreover support for generating Windows Runtime metadata in WIDL.
• ARM64 builds enabled in Gitlab CI.
• Various bug fixes.

The source is available at https://dl.winehq.org/wine/source/10.x/wine-10.12.tar.xz

Binary packages for various distributions will be available from the respective download sites.

You will find documentation here.

Wine is available thanks to the work of many people. See the file AUTHORS for the complete list.

[SOLVED] The custom launch command below works to force it to use the correct GPU!

DXVK_FILTER_DEVICE_NAME="NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU" %command%

[ORIGINAL] So, I have this new laptop I got which has an NVIDIA RTX 4090M GPU, and also an integrated Intel GPU. Obviously, I only want to use the Intel GPU for less intensive apps, and to use the NVIDIA GPU for games or other intensive applications, such as AI.

Through trial, error, and lucky searches on the internet, I figured out some things that do and don't work.

• Plugging in the laptop makes the NVIDIA GPU run much faster
• The default Fedora NVIDIA drivers work fine, I don't need to install any alternatives
• To make a normal app use the GPU, all I have to do is right click the icon and click 'Launch with discrete GPU' (on GNOME), or to make it open with discrete GPU by default (and launching with the integrated GPU would be an option in the context menu), I have to copy the desktop file to ~/.local/share/applications, and edit the .desktop file so it contains the line PrefersNonDefaultGPU=true
• For Steam apps, the previous method doesn't work (for some reason - maybe it uses a custom launch process?), but after trying many different ways, I was able to get most Steam apps to use the correct GPU (GPU 0) by adding the custom launch option PROTON_USE_WINED3D=0 %command%
• For some reason, this doesn't work for Hogwarts Legacy. It, of all games, really wants to use the Intel graphics - even with the custom launch command, PrefersNonDefaultGPU=true, and in game setting the preferred GPU to my NVIDIA one - yes, it is listed and recognised in game - I can tell both from the Resources app and the abysmal performance that my NVIDIA GPU is not being used and my Intel GPU is
• Other apps like Portal RTX, The Witcher 3, ComfyUI (running through Krita AI Diffusion), Blender, and Civilisation 6 are running great with the NVIDIA GPU
• I do not have prime-run installed and do not need it

My laptop model is MEDION Beast X40.

I'm honestly at my wits end.

Any suggestions?

This is a super interesting project, and the video is really well presented and explained, if you prefer that format.

I think this method could be brought even further by using 'thin clients' (a cheap laptop or used office mini-PC), making it possible to access the main gaming rig from any room in the house as long as you have access to a good network speed.

Utilizing a 'dummy' HDMI or Displayport stick, which simulates a monitor for the GPU, you could then remote into the gaming rig from a thin client-like PC through Moonlight/Sunlight, allowing you to use it as a fully fledged gaming or workstation PC.

If anyone decides to go that route, be aware that AMD GPU's have pretty notoriously bad encoders, so I'd recommend sticking with Nvidia (Pascal/1000 series or newer) or Intel GPU's/Integrated Graphics (6th generation 6000 series or newer) for the Host machine. It's a little less important for the client, I think.

EDIT: AMD did actually improve their encoders in recent years, starting with the Raven Ridge integrated graphics APUs, and the first generation Navi cards (RX 5700 onward, the lower end cards don't have it).

I recently upgraded from an RX 580 to an RTX 3060 Ti, but The Finals now runs significantly worse than before. I’m getting around 40 FPS with frequent micro-stutters, making it nearly unplayable for competitive play.

This issue only occurs with The Finals, all other games, including other Steam titles, run fine.

It also doesn’t matter what settings I use. The game runs at 40 FPS whether I set everything to Ultra or drop to Low with DLSS on Ultra Performance.

The best performance I’ve managed (around 40–50 FPS) is using the following launch flags:

mangohud gamemoderun %command%

Here’s what I’ve tried so far (without success):

• Tested Proton Hotfix, Experimental, Proton GE, and Proton EM (both Flatpak and native).
• Ran the game with and without GameMode, MangoHUD, and Gamescope.
• Updated drivers and system packages to the latest versions.

None of these made any improvement. Some configurations even caused the game not to launch at all.

Since changing my gpu from an RTX 2060 to an RX 9070 XT, I have been getting pretty random freezes when playing cs2. I can’t think of a time where this has happened in another game.

I’ve removed the nvidia drivers, and I’m running the latest mesa version in the Arch repository.

Has anyone else encountered this? Should I reinstall my system?

A bootstrapper for Sober (Roblox client for Linux). - Wookhq/Lution

What is Lution?

Lution is a third-party bootstrapper (like Bloxstrap) for Sober. It enhances your experience with Roblox on Linux with QoL tweaks/extra features.

And the best part, ALL OF YOUR BLOXSTRAP MODS WORK.
Well, so far, atleast they have been tested to work 100%.

Showcase video linked below...

The only drawback is that you will have to build the software yourself from scratch...
Which is why, if you can, help out the developer and ship packages for your distro.

Have an awesome day ahead!

So far all of my Linux gaming has been without mods, but I would like to play Grim Dawn with all of the community tools and QoL mods that make the game a great experience. Does anybody know of any good guides to get Grim Dawn and all of its mods going on Linux? Is this something that I will need to do in a sandboxed setup like Bottles?

I own GD on GOG and Steam (bought it twice to support the devs).

EDIT: I could not find a definitive guide, so I am using this post to collects instructions for the different mods into one place.