I’ve been running Pop OS strictly for a few months now, but in terms of gaming, it just doesn’t quite feel like it’s quite there for me.
Take Half-Life 2 for instance. Valve is one of the few devs/publishers actually making an effort with Linux, and it shows, but it still manages to be inferior.
By default, it uses OpenGL, which is… a mess. Just plain a mess. It’s bad. Busted lighting, models look off, effects don’t draw right. This has no business being the default.
So, command line options, turn on Vulkan. 1 billion times better. Looks right, feels right… crashes on boot occasionally… and the workshop uploader crashes too…
Well, there’s always Proton, except… yeah, performance is decreased a bit. That’s nothing major here, but since I don’t have the best hardware, it becomes more of an issue with newer games. In regards to HL2, though, it also introduces microstuttering, which is absolutely a big deal.
The graphics API isn’t something superficial. The source engine was designed from the ground up around APIs from 20 years ago. Any Vulkan adapter will be a bodge.
Eh, in my testing, I’ve found a drop of a few fps across the board, with a few games that are just plain problematic. I haven’t found any performance improvements yet myself, but I also only have a part of my library right now due to a drive failure.
I’ve been running Pop OS strictly for a few months now, but in terms of gaming, it just doesn’t quite feel like it’s quite there for me.
Take Half-Life 2 for instance. Valve is one of the few devs/publishers actually making an effort with Linux, and it shows, but it still manages to be inferior.
By default, it uses OpenGL, which is… a mess. Just plain a mess. It’s bad. Busted lighting, models look off, effects don’t draw right. This has no business being the default.
So, command line options, turn on Vulkan. 1 billion times better. Looks right, feels right… crashes on boot occasionally… and the workshop uploader crashes too…
Well, there’s always Proton, except… yeah, performance is decreased a bit. That’s nothing major here, but since I don’t have the best hardware, it becomes more of an issue with newer games. In regards to HL2, though, it also introduces microstuttering, which is absolutely a big deal.
You are talking about a game that was developed before Vulkan was a glint in Khronos’ eye.
That response doesn’t make any sense. You do know this game received a major update just last week and has native Vulkan support, right?
The graphics API isn’t something superficial. The source engine was designed from the ground up around APIs from 20 years ago. Any Vulkan adapter will be a bodge.
I’ve been playing Half Life 1 on windows (geforce RTX 3080, latest drivers etc) and it’s buggy as hell. I guess my expectations are low…
“Proton decreases performance” isn’t a fact. Benchmarks tend to very from very minor drops in some games to meaningful improvements in others.
Eh, in my testing, I’ve found a drop of a few fps across the board, with a few games that are just plain problematic. I haven’t found any performance improvements yet myself, but I also only have a part of my library right now due to a drive failure.