Performance wise, does anyone know if Linux is actually better than Windows?

As for performance, as you mentioned, it depends on the title. Personally, I’ve found that games running natively on Linux tend to perform better than their Windows counterparts. For games that aren’t natively supported by Linux, such as Rocket League, there might be a brief delay during shader compilation. With a 1650, this process takes less than 5 seconds, and with newer hardware, these times shouldn’t increase significantly.

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Where can I download Steam games in Linux?

You can download games directly from Steam! While some games run natively on Linux, others might initially be incompatible. However, you can still play them using Steam Proton, which is seamlessly integrated with Steam and enables you to run titles that aren’t natively available for Linux. To check a game’s compatibility with Linux, you can visit protonDB and search for the specific titles you’re interested in.

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Is it a good idea to Dual Boot between Windows and Linux?

I dual boot Linux with Windows, using Windows for multiplayer titles that require anticheat or don’t run optimally on the Linux platform. If possible, I prefer Linux; otherwise, Windows is my secondary choice.

I can answer some of these from experience.

Performance is a wide metric, and it really depends. It will use less resources due to less software bloat, and scales better on older hardware, but thats not applicable here. AMD does better because its software is integrated better, but I’ve used nvidia just fine on linux in the past year or so without too much hassle. Some video games do run better, but case by case basis, and there doesn’t seem to be consistency. I’ve found some games running better with steam proton vs native as an example.

The current version of mint should be fine with cinnamon. I haven’t tried edge, which uses the latest kernel, but it should also be fine with your hardware setup.

I’ve attempted to use VR with little success on my end. I have a CV1 oculus rift, and wasn’t too happy with how much additional work was necessary. Maybe the index has better implementation, but I can’t say for certain.

You just download steam, and download the games via steam. Inside the game options, you enable compatiblity and and either the latest version of proton, or proton experimental. You can use protondb.com to see what games require what. For a vast majority of games, steam experimental works just fine. There are some edge cases where GE Proton was necessary, or maybe some launch command options needed to be addressed, but overall the experience of playing a game is extremely smooth now.

I dual booted with linux mint. It ran just fine switching between partitions, and it also gives you time to experiment and test drive without committing to it.

I can also recommend Nobara as well, since your friend uses fedora. Its a fedora spin that has gaming done for you out of the box, but these things can be replicated with a bit of effort.

Performance wise, does anyone know if Linux is actually better than Windows?

For games that run natively on linux, performance is usually a little better but not always. For games that use Proton on Steam performance is rarely as good and even more rarely better but it is usually comparable and playable.

So, to people who are familiar with Mint, or actually use Mint, what Edition would be the best for me?

I’m currently using a laptop as my main device:

It doesn’t matter, just choose the one you like the look of best, you can always install multiple Desktop

Environments if you want to try the others out.

Does anyone know the current state of VR Gaming in Linux?

Sorry don’t know this one.

​Where can I download Steam games in Linux?

From steam, just like Windows.

​Is it a good idea to Dual Boot between Windows and Linux?

Nothing wrong with Dual Booting for those times when you need Windows, I suggest using separate Hard Drives for this though.

Performance wise, does anyone know if Linux is actually better than Windows?

As we are probably talking about gaming, it’s mostly the same. You’ll always find games which run better on Windows and games that run better on Linux.

The performance you get not running all the bloat Windows offers is often the same you loose using Proton to translate these games.

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So, to people who are familiar with Mint, or actually use Mint, what Edition would be the best for me?

Your hardware is completly irrelevant for that, take what looks the best for you and enjoy the experience.

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Does anyone know the current state of VR Gaming in Linux

A very mixed bag. Especially with Nvidia it wasn’t possible until recently iirc. You probably can get most working with SteamVR, but if you’re using something like a Meta Quest, you need third-party software like ALVR as Meta doesn’t support Linux.

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Where can I download Steam games in Linux?

Short answer: Steam.

Not the question, but if you have games from GOG, Epic Games or Amazon, you can use software like Heroic Games Launcher and for everything else Lutris or Bottles.

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Is it a good idea to Dual Boot between Windows and Linux?

It’s very dependant on which software you use/which games you play. Best would be to check ProtonDB, AreWeAntiCheatYet and maybe WineHQ to answer the questions yourself. Generally I would advice to do it at the beginning, because if you don’t like it/can’t use it for whatever reason, you can just go back.

Performance in Linux is better overall but not gaming. Gaming on Linux is a hellhole and I really recommend you don’t get into it because it’s a far cry from what’s being promoted on Linux subs. I use both, Windows on my Laptop and I keep Pop!_OS on an external HDD. Out of the 3 distros I used, it gives you far less headache especially if you have Nvidia GPU. I also tried dual booting before but it’s not a very good experience especially during updates.

Every OS will give you problems. The particular set of problems just differ.

In theory Linux can provide better performance. It’s fundamentally better at process management and networking.

London stock exchange switched to Linux servers many years ago, because milliseconds equalled lotsa money.

But in practice it’s more complicated. Better fundamentals don’t always matter if your preferred game has optimizations in Windows drivers and was specifically written and tested and optimized for Windows, but not for Linux. Those optimizations will often beat any low level advantages.

Linux can be more performant and you have more options to tweak (selection of distro and DE, throwing components out that you don’t need, configure your own kernel if you want to).

But out of the box it often won’t be. Or rather it will be better in some cases and worse in others.

Performance by itself is usually not something that will sustain you on Linux.

To me the main reason is that I don’t like sharing ownership of my computer with a company. And that’s what you get with MS and Apple. They partially own your system and will make decisions for you and grab data from you.

I have a whole ass channel for gaming on linux with benchmarks, tutorials for setting up different wine launchers and some install guides for linux distros

https://youtube.com/@linuxbenchmarks?si=ZQnOLx7BC7nHTh9p

Dual booting on windows should be easy peasy and there is no shame in it as there are a lot of games still that dont work under linux because the devs simply dont want to support proton

I would say overall linux is better at performing on games then windows as for some reason dxvk and vkd3d can out perform windows under amd hardware. i cannot say the same for nvidia with its proprietary driver

On top of having similar performance to Windows using the compat layer you will have to take care of your games: some online games don’t like that dxvk is used and ban you. A lot of anti-cheat just plain doesn’t work, a shitton of older drm doesn’t work so you would need to crack those games first. Then you have denuvo drm that doesn’t really like Linux also.

And then all the bugs, games that work and suddenly stop working after an update (looking at you Tetris effect connected)

Some games that have a Native Linux version are either stuck on their original version without updates and/or DLC or their performance is MILES below the Windows version when comparing it to the compat layer (looking at you Civ6)

Features like HDR rarely work correctly and the state of VR is… Erm… Bad.

Performance on almost any OS comes down to 2 things: driver support, and OS optimization. Windows uses a shitload of resources at idle and it just gets worse from there, but it’s the first stop for driver support.

Linux has been getting vastly better with driver support and third party translation layers, a lot of this being driven by Valve and various efforts related to valve (proton for instance) but it’s also much more optimized. The places where Linux folks will say it’s unoptimized is still much more clean and fast than windows, and as such you get a weird seesaw of “this” not working or working worse, and “that” working better that averages out to “same or better, when it works”.

Performance is about the same, I didn’t notice much of a difference

I reccomend ZorinOS just for a great move from windows to Linux

Hey,I bought a quest 2 recently and I game on Linux,can keep you updated via DM on how it goes if you’d like

My advice and I am by no means an expert is to go with a rolling release rather than a debian based distribution that updates in cycles. Generally better for stability but if you want or need the latest software features you will have to wait.

Ive been using linux for a better part of the last half year at home. At the best of times i dont remember im using linux, and then there are the parts where i have to ask my little brother for help because for some reason my updates dont work or some other shit.

I have windows 11 on a separate drive for dualboot which i use for those mp games that dont work on linux, and some games that i use mods on.

Recently ive been playing SWTOR on linux and ive noticed that a really annoying bug which makes my mouse randomly flick into a random direction sometimes doesnt happen on linux, but ive also played darktide which crashes like every 20mins on linux and not on windows.

I havent really noticed performance difference between linux and windows in games, exept on Garuda linux which for some reason ran BG3 with 10 frames worse performance compared to Nobara and Windows. My garuda install also ran almost 30fps below the windows version in Starfield. I have no idea why this was happening, but my current nobara install has pretty similar perf compared to win11.

I think most of your questions have been answered, but in regards to VR, I recommend you watch this video. The games work very well overall, make sure you check ProtonDB to see if your games work on Linux.