this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2024
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Linux 101 stuff. Questions are encouraged, noobs are welcome!

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So I am new to Linux and have made it my main driver in the last month. So far I have been able to solve problems as they come up and I have not had major problems.

What I need from my machine is a platform to do my mechanical engineering homework, do some hobby programming, and play video games on it. I have been able to get things working for my needs on the first two accounts. I need help setting my computer up for games now.

My problem is quite a few games I have tried to play slow to a crawl then freeze my entire system. I have checked the protondb website and on games I am having problems with people often are saying that with proton it works out of the box, sometimes even when they are using similar setups as I am. I use an NVIDIA graphics card, which I know is part of the problem, but don’t have the money or means to buy a new graphics card that is comparable for the next while. My drivers are updated and most things “should” work but maybe I am missing some basic setup somewhere to help proton, and steam do their thing. I am willing to go so far as changing my distribution but am stuck right now with the hardware. Any suggestions or thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I've been having a lot of problems on debian with nvidia since I upgraded to Bookworm. I even tried a few fresh installs but I think there is a bug that has something to do with screen tearing and the force composition pipeline settings.

I haven't found or fixed it in the last 6 months and my games are running very, poorly, something like you have described.

I'm kind of thinking it may be due to the nvidia transition to wayland. At the moment though I have to spend the next several months on Windows to study but when I return to debian I'm hoping wayland will be re-enabled with nvidia and I can get my games running again.

Good luck and I'll be keeping a close eye on this thread for updates.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That's good to know that I am not alone. It would also be good news at least to me that its new and might be something that will get patched out as these system changes become less new. I have toyed with the idea of switching distros just to try more options. However I feel like I am only finally getting my feet wet and don't really want to have to make massive adjustments unless someone tells me all my game problems will go away by just making that simple switch.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Speaking of switching, I have a friend using Nobara mainly for gaming and they are having a great time. It's been very tempting for me..

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Can you start with telling us some of the games you're trying to play, and how you're launching them?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Absolutely. Pretty much all of them are normal launch from steam since it seems to be the most linux friendly. I will maybe venture out into other things later. And the main games I am struggling with are things like the finals and other quick fast paced games.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Are these games on an NTFS filesystem, or did you completely reinstall?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

I completely wiped my computer and did a fresh clean install of Debian to really dive into Linux. It's how I learn best. Looking at the disks they show Ext4. I don't know if that's the counterpart to NTFS for Linux for sure though.