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.
I’m gonna get specific here, but show me WoW on Linux or GTFO. It’s the only game I really play (wz2100 and zero-k too but no more shooters), and while I’m just a casual scrub the old folks and the kids get together for some chatter and splatter and it’s really great.
I don’t want my account blocked for false-positive on the cheat detector or something, so that’s really my blocker for going fedora on the desktop.
Edit: -18? Guess us casual wow people don’t count? :-. I just wanna ride dragons, man.
Okay, challenge accepted.
I removed Windows from my machine and have been playing WoW on Garuda Linux since April. I installed via Lutris and use GE-proton with umu-launcher (simply using GE-Proton within latest Lutris uses umu) and it works every time without fail.
First, for WoW there is no separate cheat detector that somehow figures out “oh they’re on Linux, we must ban them”.
Second, WoW plays considerably better on Linux for me (based on the framerates I’m seeing in various locations in Azeroth). Granted, I decided to dump NVIDIA so I didn’t have to deal with their closed platform garbage.
Lastly, yes, anti-cheat is an issue, but not because of you running Linux — it’s because of game companies fundamentally misunderstanding operating systems. There is no easier method of cheating on Linux than there is on Windows especially if the game company properly supports Linux. So if a company were to ban you, either you are doing something ban-worthy (and running Linux objectively is not), or the company is garbage because they don’t understand what they’re doing.
I have seen no evidence to support Blizzard banning people for playing WoW on Linux. Show me a preponderance of evidence of this that isn’t possibly some other ban-worthy issue, and I will happily change my mind.
WoW has been running well on Linux since before Proton existed. Here’s the WineHQ application page for it: https://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?iAppId=1922
Yeah, blizzard games have pretty much always worked for me on Linux, they were among the first games to “just work” on Linux without a lot of hassle for me.
Ok cool now make a distro that handles my peripherals. Oh that’s not happening? Ok, fuck linux.
“I’m going to keep throwing exorbitant amount of many to companies that refuse to stop supporting Microsoft’s monopoly, and then blame the OSS community for not doing their job for them. Look, I’m smart!”
Last I tried a keyboard and a mouse work just on every Linux distro out there. It’s OK to bend over for companies over some stuff you’re personally attached to (we all do it to some degree) but you can go fuck yourself with your offensive comments about distro maintainers, who have nothing to do with your problem.
Holy sense of entitlement Batman. What as asshole. If it doesn’t work for you, fine, don’t use it. But no need to be a prick about it. Free software doesn’t owe you anything at all.
Driver support is down to the manufacturer. Distros can’t give you things that don’t exist.
That changes nothing for the user, most of us aren’t gonna write out own driver or convince a company to support something they have no interest in.
You’re not wrong but I don’t see what that has to do with my point, which was - don’t blame distros for this. They can influence the conversation but not control it. If you find what you want isn’t supported then pick something that supports most things like Ubuntu, or Nobara.
Do you honestly think linux will be desktop ready if people can’t just install it and go?
It doesn’t matter who’s fault it is, it only matters if a solution is forthcoming.
If the manufacturers don’t make it, then one of you has to. But you are all too busy working on your fuckdamn vanity distros to actually unify and do something to forward the OS.
What I’m still missing unfortunately is how seemingly all modern online games require stupid kernel level anti-cheats that don’t work on Linux.
Yea, but honestly that’s not a Linux problem imo. Invasive anti-cheat has been a deal breaker for me since its inception. It started as “I don’t want to deal with your shitty software always running in the background eating up my CPU cycles, need maximum performance baby” and then quickly became “I’m not giving your shitty software kernal access to my entire machine, I don’t trust you”.
It’s made so much worse when you realize it doesnt even actually stop cheaters…
I must admit that my evil self waits a crowdstrike-like event, but with a kernel-level anti-cheat instead. On the more serious side, it baffles me how much the vast majority of people don’t care about privacy or security problematics. They literally don’t give a f**k.
It’s extremely invasive, but I won’t give up playing something that my friends all enjoy once in a while. The best hope is that companies realize that Steam Deck and other efforts make companies consider other markets.
It’s all about where to draw the line, and what you are able to tolerate, I guess. The biggest problem with that though is continuing to support a game / Dev / publisher that is consistently doing these awful things.
If you aren’t able to tell your friends “no, I’m not playing that game, and here’s why” then the industry will just slide deeper into these terrible practices and the entire games industry gets worse. Some people don’t even understand what anti-cheat is doing (and think it works), and if those of us that do, that they trust, don’t explain it to them, they won’t have the opportunity to make an informed decision of whether to support it or not.
You’re right it’s not a Linux problem but it is a problem more to the point it’s our problem and anyone who would want to switch
Cold hard fact is that people just do not care what causes the problem and people do not care if something is %1 worse or %1000 worse they will always pick the one slightly better that’s why monopoly’s are an inherent part of nature eventually competition is unviable.
The only hope is that either Linux crosses the critical threshold of being slightly better than Windows or windows gets so invasive and counterintuitive that even normies can’t use it for productivity
I use Linux all the time I have three physical servers running probably 20 or 30 VM’s and containers but even I am hesitant to switch my gaming Pc because even though I can play everything I want now what if tomorrow something comes out I really want to play but it’s locked down to windows?
I just don’t agree. First, I don’t think a monopoly is an inherent part of nature, and further I disagree that monopolies exist because some company just makes the absolute best product and people end up always choosing it. A monopoly’s key feature is not giving the consumer a real choice through shady and unfair business practices.
Also, windows is not the better product. They don’t make the best OS. Arguments could be made that they have a better OS for gaming, but for almost everything else they are worse than basically every alternative (not just Linux) but still dominate market share due to lack of consumer choice. At the retailer, hardware is tied to an OS - if you want macos you have to buy Mac hardware. If you want chromeos you have to by an underwhelming netbook.
IMO, keeping windows around just in case a company does some underhanded shit like kernal anti-cheat or invasive DRM so you can give your support to the company doing the underhanded shit is a detriment to progress.
I’d rather struggle to learn freecad than keep windows around even though fusion360 is easier (for me) to understand, because I don’t want to reward bad behavior. If those of us that can switch don’t, then things don’t get better. I couldn’t have made the switch if thousands of people more knowledgeable and talented before me hadn’t taken the first steps. It’s soapboxy, I know, but I also feel it’s important.
All? It’s just Riot, right? I haven’t had issues playing anything else, but I also don’t play most AAA games so idk. What other companies are doing it?
I don’t think so. This is from three years ago. https://store.steampowered.com/news/group/4145017/view/3104663180636096966
If Microsoft makes good on their threats to cut off all kernel-level access to third party applications, that might help with that
Surprising?
I just wish many of the multiplayer games I play worked on Linux (invasive anti-cheat).
Slightly off-topic, but when I stopped playing multiplayer games with anti-cheats (competitive FPS mostly), I’ve got more time to explore more productive hobbies, and my mental health improved. Might be worth trying 🙂
