The conversation around gaming on Linux sure has changed in the last few years. And these benchmark results prove it.
I recently spent some time with the Framework 13 laptop, evaluating it with the new Intel Core Ultra 7 processor and the AMD Ryzen 7 7480U. It felt like the perfect opportunity to test how a handful of games ran on Windows 11 and Fedora 40. I was genuinely surprised by the results!
…
The Framework 13 is perfectly capable of gaming even with its integrated graphics, provided you’re willing to compromise by lowering the resolution and quality presets for more demanding games. (It’s also a testament to how far AMD’s APUs have come in the past decade.)
Summary of results:
Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Linux wins
Total War: Warhammer III: Windows wins
Cyberpunk 2077: Linux wins
Forza Horizon 5: Windows wins
These results are an interesting slice of the Linux vs Windows gaming picture, but certainly not representative of the entire landscape. A few shorts years ago, however, I never would have dreamed I’d be writing an article where even two games on Linux are outperforming their Windows counterparts.
One I quickly gave up on trying recently was Star Citizen. Failing myself with dumb errors I found out that you need to follow a rather elaborate tutorial. I decided that it was very much not worth it. Not sure how it is possible to fuck it up that badly.
The other I am bummed about is Talos Principle 2. Last time I played at release it worked perfectly. Now it runs so slow that it takes like 10 minutes to even get to the main menu. In the realm of tens of seconds per frame and I am at a loss how to even debug that.
One dumb thing for native (!) Unity games (at least Valheim and Shapez 2) is that they disrespect the default audio output device.
I’ve run Star Citizen on Linux a few times (not a regular player), there was a Lutris configuration that Just Worked™ for me. There’s also the Linux Users Group for SC, which maintains some scripts for working around issues if you want to do things manually. They’re the ones maintaining the Lutris configuration too.
I did run into the same issue with Shapez 2 recently, though! A quick stop in qpwgraph to connect it to the right audio output and everything else about it worked perfectly.
@Lemonparty
Collabora Office, tied into an instance of nextcloud. So essentially like the Google office suite but self hosted. Then Libre office if I need to do anything offline. @umbrella
In addition to LibreOffice I often use standalone tools.
If I want a high quality document, I use LaTeX. Same for presentation slides. However, writing stuff in LaTeX is only worth the effort if the quality is needed. For non-important stuff I just use LibreOffice.
For calculations it depends on what I want to have in the end. If I just want to play with the data a bit, then LibreOffice Calc it is. However, if it is for something serious, I tend to write script files, or even full programs, that do the processing. That way computation and data is in separate files, and the used formulas are clearly visible and easy to debug.
I have been a user since the 90s. Back then it was still called StarOffice.
Its feature set differs from that of MS Office, and its performance could be (a lot!) better, but I strongly prefer the LibreOffice user interface, and the features that matter to me (like CSV import) are way better in LibreOffice.
However, LibreOffice does not have all the features of MS Office, and some are notably worse (for instance auto-fill in spreadsheets, where Excel is way better at guessing the next value).
Sadly it’s not only a matter of preference, because file exchange between different office suites is not flawless. MS Office and LibreOffice don’t agree 100% on how to load each other’s files…
I felt the same way, after dual booting linux and windows for a while, I stopped booting into windows so decided to just wipe both drives and do a raid0 install of linux. Finally I got to messing with games expecting to have to tweak settings and everything but nope it just booted up. even better running on raid0 now I dont even see load screens with games like starfield.
Dual booted for the longest time, until sometime last year. Windows partition is still there, but it’s been long enough that I’ve forgotten the password. 😳
sometimes i still can’t believe i’m running every game i want on linux. like its still surprising and surreal to me.
thanks to all the contributors that made it possible for us to ditch microsoft.
One I quickly gave up on trying recently was Star Citizen. Failing myself with dumb errors I found out that you need to follow a rather elaborate tutorial. I decided that it was very much not worth it. Not sure how it is possible to fuck it up that badly.
The other I am bummed about is Talos Principle 2. Last time I played at release it worked perfectly. Now it runs so slow that it takes like 10 minutes to even get to the main menu. In the realm of tens of seconds per frame and I am at a loss how to even debug that.
One dumb thing for native (!) Unity games (at least Valheim and Shapez 2) is that they disrespect the default audio output device.
Otherwise, plug and play. It’s so nice!
I’ve run Star Citizen on Linux a few times (not a regular player), there was a Lutris configuration that Just Worked™ for me. There’s also the Linux Users Group for SC, which maintains some scripts for working around issues if you want to do things manually. They’re the ones maintaining the Lutris configuration too.
I did run into the same issue with Shapez 2 recently, though! A quick stop in
qpwgraphto connect it to the right audio output and everything else about it worked perfectly.Hey genuine question what does everyone use for office apps these days? I’m extremely over being charged a yearly fee to use word and excel
I pay for the Softmaker Office suite, it’s pretty good and has Linux native versions.
@Lemonparty
Collabora Office, tied into an instance of nextcloud. So essentially like the Google office suite but self hosted. Then Libre office if I need to do anything offline.
@umbrella
Unpopular opinion but I just use Google Sheets instead, because most of my spreadsheet usage is due to work and my employer uses Google Workplace
In addition to LibreOffice I often use standalone tools.
If I want a high quality document, I use LaTeX. Same for presentation slides. However, writing stuff in LaTeX is only worth the effort if the quality is needed. For non-important stuff I just use LibreOffice.
For calculations it depends on what I want to have in the end. If I just want to play with the data a bit, then LibreOffice Calc it is. However, if it is for something serious, I tend to write script files, or even full programs, that do the processing. That way computation and data is in separate files, and the used formulas are clearly visible and easy to debug.
I’ve been trying OnlyOffice recently - seems pretty nice so far.
Libre Office
I have been a user since the 90s. Back then it was still called StarOffice.
Its feature set differs from that of MS Office, and its performance could be (a lot!) better, but I strongly prefer the LibreOffice user interface, and the features that matter to me (like CSV import) are way better in LibreOffice. However, LibreOffice does not have all the features of MS Office, and some are notably worse (for instance auto-fill in spreadsheets, where Excel is way better at guessing the next value).
Sadly it’s not only a matter of preference, because file exchange between different office suites is not flawless. MS Office and LibreOffice don’t agree 100% on how to load each other’s files…
I felt the same way, after dual booting linux and windows for a while, I stopped booting into windows so decided to just wipe both drives and do a raid0 install of linux. Finally I got to messing with games expecting to have to tweak settings and everything but nope it just booted up. even better running on raid0 now I dont even see load screens with games like starfield.
Dual booted for the longest time, until sometime last year. Windows partition is still there, but it’s been long enough that I’ve forgotten the password. 😳