So I’ve been a little wary of installing Linux on my desktop since I have a 1660 ti as a graphics card and read that there are some problems with drivers and such. Are my fears unfounded/outdated? Anyone experienced any problems and what Linux distro should I look to use for gaming?

  • peeonyou@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    if you use the proprietary drivers you’ll be fine, probably not even noticable

    if you go with a Radeon card or try using open source drivers then go with god

  • Fratm@mistic.net
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    1 year ago

    I’ve been gaming on Linux with nvidia gpus for over a decade, it is fine… There is a lot of negativity about nvidia because the drivers are not open. But they work, and I have not personally had any issues.

  • linuxFan@vlemmy.net
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    1 year ago

    I’ve been gaming on Nvidia cards since I switched over 3 years ago and only had a few issues.

    On initial install, the opensource nvidia drivers wouldn’t work - I had to go into the terminal and select the proprietary ones. That’s pretty much it, really. Other than that, I’ve had about the same amount of issues with AMD(integrated graphics) and Nvidia.

    On the plus side, Nvidia has a nice little control panel. It’s basic, doesn’t have all that GeForce Experience stuff, plus there are command line utilities like nvidia-smi(basic info) and nvtop(temp, clock, usage, memory stats). AMD doesn’t have a control panel, that I’m aware of.

    As far as distro, I’d say just chose the one you’re most comfortable with. I don’t think there are any huge differences between them concerning gaming performance.

  • teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    As long as you can get the driver installed, you’re fine. The only time that might be a problem is if your distro updates something that breaks compatibility with the existing driver, and X refuses to start. You’ll need to know how to install the latest driver from the command line, but then you should be good.

    I’ve been running a 3080 with proprietary drivers on manjaro for a couple of years (I would not recommend manjaro, I now recommend endeavorOS if you want something Arch based) and it’s fine. I don’t think I’ve ever hit an nvidia specific bug.

  • AstronautOlympian@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I’ve just switched from a GTX 1080 to a Radeon RX 6650 because of problems I was having with the Nvidia binary drivers.

    Games performed just fine, but my desktop performance would slow down dramatically if I had a lot of things running at the same time, especially YouTube videos. This issue seems completely resolved now that I’m using an AMD card.

    However, based on what I’m reading online it seems that a lot of people are using the Nvidia binary drivers without any major issues. So maybe my experience isn’t very representative either.

    • timo@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      I am looking for switching to Linux as well and run a 1080 as well. How would you compare the general performance (desktop usage and gaming) of the RX 6650 versus the 1080? I am looking for getting a RX6650 or RX7600 as well, that is why I ask

      • AstronautOlympian@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        I haven’t played many intensive games on the 6650XT yet, but from what I found online the 6650XT is roughly equivalent to a 1080, slightly faster even.

        • timo@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          That is great to know, thanks! I plan to use it primarily for programming, but I would like to have the option to play some games every so often.

  • EponymousBosh@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I’ve been using Linux Mint with an Nvidia GPU for a few months now. I have run into a few issues where it hasn’t wanted to behave itself, buf nothing major or unsolvable.

  • Cyclohexane@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I have 3060 Ti and have had no trouble. I even used it with Arch and Gentoo, and all I needed was installing the drivers (the package manager did it) and it worked out of the box.

  • sexy_peach@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    It’s not great I can’t even use nvenc and have to use software encoding for OBS…

    I mean everything else works, so I guess this is a high bar? ?

  • Bulletdust@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Running KDE Neon here, my Nvidia experience has been faultless, adding the PPA and installing the drivers is reliable and straightforward. Wayland works acceptably, but running a single 4k 27" monitor X11 works perfectly, so at this point in time I see no reason to swap to Wayland - I’m sure in time I’ll adopt Wayland, I’m simply not quite ready to drop my ability to create custom fan profiles using GWE just yet.

    Nvidia X Server settings are nice, as is nvidia-smi.

  • ryuko@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I use Fedora 37 workstation with the Nvidia proprietary drivers from RPM Fusion. Relatively painless install, with the option to sign the kernel module if you want to keep secure boot on. Only downside is the Nvidia drivers still don’t work great with Wayland, so I normally login with Gnome on X for gaming.

    • marksson@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      Same here. Fedora 37 on 3070Ti. Sadly, not all nvidia options are available in games’ settings (like dlss). Also performance is sadly a bit lower than on windows. But according to Nick from TLE it should get better soon. No such issue on AMD.

      • ryuko@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        DLSS doesn’t seem to work in any of the games I play, so I’ve been using FSR in games that support it. It’s not as good as DLSS but it does the job for now.

  • zedro@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I use GTX 1660 Ti and I had some problems, but nothing of impossible to solve. I use Arch with zen kernel and nvidia-dkms with XFCE as DE. List of games that I play: Apex Legends, Hogwarts Legacy, Grime, Ironsight, Albion Online, Nostale with Steam. League of Legends with Lutris. Vampyr, Bioshock Remastered 1 and 2 with Heroic Game Launcher.

    • pleasemakesense@lemmy.mlOP
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      1 year ago

      That’s a good list of games. I almost exclusively play dota 2 and with valve’s support of Linux maybe the risk is negiable, thanks for the reply :)

      • Rudee@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        You definitely don’t have to worry about Dota because it runs natively on Linux. I have a 3060 and it functions about as well as it did on Windows. For specific games, check ProtonDB or ask here