You don't need to know what Wine is anymore. You are on steam forum. If you play games on Steam, you have to tick a checkbox that you want to play game linux.

You can check on protondb website if game you are interested in works on linix.

Bazzite

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa8nMiEoti0

Pop!_OS is what I use. You could look into it as well

I've been using Linux Mint Cinnamon since January.

Other than my Kernel-Level Anti-Cheat games (not all of them, just the ones that the developers haven't allowed to run in a Proton layer), all my games have been working just fine. Some of them work better, some of them slightly worse, but the vast majority of my 200+ game library, work exactly like they did before.

Using Proton is a matter of clicking a box, it's pretty easy.

You can input your Steam Library data into ProtonDB.com and check how much of your library will work. On some occasions, mostly for older games, you might need to add a launch option to a game, but that's literally what ProtonDB is for.

Emulating on Linux works fine too. I have no problem emulating NES, SNES, N64, GC, DS, 3DS, PS1, PS2 and PS3 on my system.

Originally posted by Penguin:

I haven't touched Linux legit since 2017. Is it still any good?

Since 2017? Holy crap, so much better. Basically the only thing that will hold you back is certain multiplayer games with kernel level anti-cheat, so maybe don't do it if your favorite games are Fortnite and Destiny 2.

Originally posted by Penguin:

Any good methods of gaming / playing Windows games on Linux? I used to use Wine back in the day, but that was such a PITA.

What's the most highly effective method you guys would recommend?

Here's what you do:

• Download Linux. I recommend Bazzite[bazzite.gg] for most people these days. You'll need a USB thumb drive with at least 10 GB of space.
  
• Install. Dead simple and basically automatic. Boot to the drive and follow instructions.
  
• With Bazzite, Steam is already installed and ready to go, so just log into your account, download your games, and play them.

The thing that makes gaming so good on Linux now is something called Proton, which is based on Wine and made by Valve and Codeweavers. (The same company that makes Crossover for the Mac.) It's built into Steam, and Steam basically handles it all for you.

The reason I recommend Bazzite these days is is because it's gaming focused, and it's immutable, just like SteamOS. This means the core system is locked down and can't be (or shouldn't be) touched. Instead of updating packages here and there, potentially causing instability, Bazzite is atomic and image based, meaning it updates the entire system at once. If something goes wrong, no problem, roll back to the previous image. It's super solid and reliable as a result, even if you don't know what you're doing.

Originally posted by Chaosolous:

Using Proton is a matter of clicking a box, it's pretty easy.

Though it's a good idea to also do stuff like install ProtonTricks and GloriousEggroll and Flatseal and Heroic Launcher or Lutris Launcher.

Most anti-cheat still doesn't work right, and for the anticheats that DO have linux fixes, many devs don't bother implementing them.

Most single-player games work fine, though there are still a few outliers.

Originally posted by AbedsBrother:

Most anti-cheat still doesn't work right, and for the anticheats that DO have linux fixes, many devs don't bother implementing them.

Most single-player games work fine, though there are still a few outliers.

I remember the old TuxAim trick that was talked about back in the day - bypassed VAC, EAC, etc.

Then all those people got VAC bans sometimes 4+ years later. Lol

Regardless, thanks, guys ^^ I was going to go with Ubuntu or Linux Mint but I can try out Bazzite and hope it doesn't get hijacked. ^^
Proton sounds fun, much love ^^

Only issue these days with Linux is lower FPS than Windows (very noticeable if your hardware is mediocre and you use Nvidia) and anticheats

If your hardware is not good and you want to play games like Valorant, forget about Linux, if thats not your case, go ahead, Linux Mint is best one for noobs

Even though there is something about anticheats I dont understand since Linux is suppose to hate 3rd party software that has access to kernel but you have 2 kernel anticheats that are compatible with Linux so there is something im missing here

Originally posted by Varsik:

Only issue these days with Linux is lower FPS than Windows (very noticeable if your hardware is mediocre and you use Nvidia) and anticheats

If your hardware is not good and you want to play games like Valorant, forget about Linux, if thats not your case, go ahead, Linux Mint is best one for noobs

Even though there is something about anticheats I dont understand since Linux is suppose to hate 3rd party software that has access to kernel but you have 2 kernel anticheats that are compatible with Linux so there is something im missing here

REALLY? That's a strange thing - I've heard quite the opposite actually - higher FPS on Linux over Windows 11, probably due to M$ bloat.

Originally posted by Penguin:

Originally posted by Varsik:

Only issue these days with Linux is lower FPS than Windows (very noticeable if your hardware is mediocre and you use Nvidia) and anticheats

If your hardware is not good and you want to play games like Valorant, forget about Linux, if thats not your case, go ahead, Linux Mint is best one for noobs

Even though there is something about anticheats I dont understand since Linux is suppose to hate 3rd party software that has access to kernel but you have 2 kernel anticheats that are compatible with Linux so there is something im missing here

REALLY? That's a strange thing - I've heard quite the opposite actually - higher FPS on Linux over Windows 11, probably due to M$ bloat.

Yeah, Linux has always been faster and more efficient, even with Nvidia's crappy support.

Of course, anyone who is actually using fat, bloated, spyware-filled vanilla Windows instead of a pared down custom version is computering wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sri69idQV5g

if you don't care about games that use a kernel anti-cheat, it's at its best right now and you won't miss windows. proton pretty much works out of the box and there's only a few obscure cases where you might have to troubleshoot, usually involves copying and pasting one command in the terminal. as great as mint is you're much better off using a rolling release distro for gaming instead to make sure that the GPU drivers and other dependencies are up to date. there's "gaming-focused" and "optimized" distros out there but other than being easy to install and having a neat little welcome app, the patches they come with barely make a difference

If you don't care about Ray tracing also.

Originally posted by Fakken:

If you don't care about Ray tracing also.

with an NVIDIA GPU it's on par with Windows. tough luck with AMD/Intel since results with those are mixed. i'll argue that ray tracing doesn't make a huge difference still despite the performance impact, but this is for another topic :P

Originally posted by Fakken:

If you don't care about Ray tracing also.

Ray tracing works fine.

Originally posted by Trout:

tough luck with AMD/Intel since results with those are mixed.

It's worked as expected on my 7900 xtx, when I bother to enable it.