r/linux_gaming

I've been on Linux for about a year now, and I've seen a few distros spike in popularity. Pop!_OS and Bazzite are two that come to mind.

I played around with a few when I started, but ultimately settled on the Fedora-based Nobara. It's been great! Rock-solid, gaming-focused, easy to swap out proton versions and whatnot.

But, I suddenly see CachyOS everywhere in comments and forums. It feels so sudden, almost meteoric - is it just that good? I've been using proton-cachyos, and it seems fine, although I don't really know how to tell the difference between it and other protons. Is there some secret sauce inCachyOS that makes for a better user experience? I'm really curious!

(I'd consider trying it out, but I've got so much installed and configured on my machine, the thought of re-doing it all gives me a headache!)

Original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1sxa85y/dx12_games_do_not_launch_on_nvidia_gpu_595_open/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button.

So, I had issues with NVIDIA not properly working with modern DX11/12 games through DXVK/VKD3D. I then found out that the issues stems from my nvidia gpu not being recognized as CUDA device.

Eventually, the issue was fixed by removing `page_poison=1` from boot kernel parameters (you typically find it in `/etc/modprobe/*` or `/etc/default/grub`). Second issue was the `nvidia_uvm` (on debian, it's `nvidia-current-uvm`) not being loaded at boot (you can load it manually after boot, or add it to `/etc/initramfs-tools/modules` for debian or `/etc/mkinitcpio.conf` for arch).

I tested the fix on arch and debian. Both work great! This post is for those people who are striving to death to find fix for such issue (I am one of them)!

Hi, I've been trying (and failing) to install CachyOS onto my computer. I first removed bazzite, and everything relating to bazzite from my computer using windows disk management & command prompt. All good. Go to install CachyOS, no "USB" option in my boot menu. Go to UEFI firmware settings, boot from USB is enabled, yet no USB entry to be found. Guess I'm stuck with windows now...

I've been on Nobara Linux for the last four months and have had little to no issues playing Arc Raiders. Does the change to Denuvo change that?

Hey guys, I often see people on protondb enabling Wayland for various games. Is there a benefit? I only notice that Wayland makes the window in Windowed mode a bit buggier and Ubisoft launcher shows only a whitescreen.

If you're getting FH101 (CPU cores) or FH201/FH205 (GPU not supported) errors, here's how to bypass both on Linux.

How it works:

The game runs arbitrary hardware checks that have nothing to do with whether your machine can actually run it. The GPU check queries D3D12 feature levels and Enhanced Barriers support, both of which VKD3D-Proton can expose on Polaris via Mesa's Vulkan drivers. The CPU check just counts logical processors, Wine can be told to report more than you physically have by remapping existing cores.

4-core CPU + RX 500 series (e.g. RX 570/580):

WINE_CPU_TOPOLOGY=6:0,1,2,3,0,1 VKD3D_FEATURE_LEVEL=12_1 VKD3D_CONFIG=descriptor_heap,no_upload_h_vram,single_queue RADV_EXPERIMENTAL=heap,sync2 radv_wait_for_vm_map_updates=true %command%

6-core CPU + RX 500 series:

VKD3D_FEATURE_LEVEL=12_1 VKD3D_CONFIG=descriptor_heap,no_upload_h_vram,single_queue RADV_EXPERIMENTAL=heap,sync2 radv_wait_for_vm_map_updates=true %command%

Paste into Steam → right-click FH6 → Properties → Launch Options.

Tested: 720p, Minimun, 30-60fps, fully playable.

Why WINE_CPU_TOPOLOGY=6:0,1,2,3,0,1 works: Wine can't invent CPU indices that don't exist, so instead of 0,1,2,3,4,5 you repeat 0 and 1, Wine reports 6 logical processors, the game passes the check, real work still runs on your 4 cores.

Pictures on the game working on a I5-2400 (4 Cores), 16GB DDR3 and an RX570, take in consideration that my CPU its overclocked, so if you have this specific hardware your fps might be worse.

https://preview.redd.it/kigpd18c962h1.png?width=1400&format=png&auto=webp&s=67702836f4da591d47705a5928e03428a03959da

https://preview.redd.it/y1bei6pd962h1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=e672fc3055cc86c0abf2ebf9b45f67c45f8135a3

Hardware checks on games you can physically run are dumb. Period

Additional notes:

Kinda expected but the city part will make you drop your graphics settings and its highly demanding, expect to be playing at lower fps than the tutorial.

The game was trouble with non 60hz resolutions at least on my system, so i will recommend play the game on a 60hz mode, or at least not on 75hz thats where i had the issues with performance and visual glitches

When launching Baldurs's Gate 3 on steam as is, no Larian launcher pops up. When forcing Proton-GE and passing [PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 PROTON_ENABLE_HDR=1 %command%], the Larian launcher does pop up, HDR works, but my FPS drops by about 20% (GPU is NVIDIA). Looking at the store page for BG3, it doesn't look like it has a Linux native build.

Could someone explain what is going on under the hood?

I had this thought today while reading comments on Windows-related posts across various subs. I think Linux gaming has reached a point where it is no longer a niche curiosity and it basically has enough market share. There are enough users, enough momentum, and enough technical maturity for it to be genuinely relevant.

Mesa GPU drivers have evolved dramatically over the past decade, going from rough and limited to genuinely excellent in many cases. And it is not just the drivers. The whole stack keeps improving: the kernel, package managers, desktop environments, compatibility layers, tooling, and the general user experience. Thanks to the open-source nature of the ecosystem, everything keeps getting more polished, more optimized, and more resilient over time.

Given that, I think the Linux gaming community (and maybe the Linux desktop community in general) no longer needs to actively evangelize Linux as a Windows alternative. The ecosystem works, it keeps improving, and it has enough value to stand on its own. At this point, maybe the best form of advocacy is simply building good tools, helping people who are genuinely interested, and letting the platform speak for itself.

If someone stubbornly wishes to rot in proprietary hell with data harvest, ads everywhere and no control over owned device, who am I to stop them?

(see link if you're curious what this is about)

I wanted to write this down for anyone who might be interested in trying this or already does. The readme currently makes one believe that you need many env variables to activate this layer but from my testing this is not the case.

On AMD Anti-Lag 2 works out of the box with both native and proton games (provided the game supports it). No tinkering needed after installation. (e.g. CS2, The Finals, Expedition 33 etc.)

If the game uses reflex, using LOW_LATENCY_LAYER_REFLEX=1 should do the trick in many of them like Deep Rock Galactic, Overwatch (DX12), MH:Wilds etc.

Others might not work like that (they probably do something like additional vendor checks). In those scenarios we can use optiscaler.

For those who don't know optiscaler comes with a tool called fakenvapi which is made specifically to expose reflex to other vendors.

Using this you again don't need to do anything. After installing it, turn on reflex in game and you are good to go.

The variable PROTON_FORCE_NVAPI=1 should not be used as it can mess things up (e.g. FSR4 overwrite will no longer work, some games like Doom:TDA refuse to start). This is currently being discussed here:

https://github.com/Korthos-Software/low_latency_layer/issues/2

A less invasive option is to try DXVK_CONFIG="dxgi.hideAmdGpu = True" (supported by dxvk/vkd3d; in case optiscaler is not an option)

Hope this helps someone. :)