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.
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.