Made with Ubuntu in mind using 23.10 right now but waiting for 24.04 to rock on it for other tests.
This is a video testing 64 steam games on Ubuntu. Showcasing the current hardware support of Ubuntu along with performance of the distro. It is a testament to the effort that the whole linux community has done for the past 15 years I have been tracking it.
A really nice showcase, which tracks with my own experience on much more limited hardware (a low-end gaming laptop) - as someone who grew up in the 8-bit console era, the graphics on these games (even at the “medium” settings at which I run them) amaze me.
Out of curiosity - what was the software configuration involved here? You mentioned Steam, running Proton Experimental - was anything else done to a stock 23.10 installation to achieve these results?
Only additional change was mitigation=off as a kernel parameter and making sure 545 nvidia driver was installed. I tried to keep it without minimal custom changes.
That’s where I think the power is - in most cases, it’s easy to use Ubuntu to set up a high-performing system, without having to delve into custom kernel patches from random GitHub repos, intricate custom configuration files, etc. Most of the rough edges that stem from the various upstream pieces themselves, and from the process of compiling them together into an operating system, have already been handled by the Ubuntu team.
Just a note here. For the past 3 months while using reddit, I have helped more users migrate to Ubuntu for gaming than in the past 2 years.
Most coming from arch, manjaro, fedora, endeavouros or nobara.
Using Ubuntu it just works. And with minimal effort you xan solve all common issues for gaming. Of course there are linux specific issues that are being tackled but for the love of linus, I have been able to create https://www.youtube.com/@xtremelinux ONLY on Ubuntu.
From hardware support, to performance, to ease of setting games up and more.
Yeah, ever since Proton became a thing, gaming on Ubuntu has become a breeze in my experience. Maybe it’s due to me having an AMD GPU (RX 5700XT), but pretty much everything in my Steam library either just works (with sufficient performance) or needs a few minutes of tweaking in order to make it run fast enough. Compared to my experience with gaming on a Mac, Linux is pretty much a console-level of user-friendliness nowadays.
Where specifically on reddit, we (and by that I might mean I), might have a lot to learn from you.
I have an AMD/Nvidia hybrid laptop and an Nvidia-only desktop - no issues on either. I think explicitly trying to support system configs with Nvidia graphics, as Ubuntu does, makes a big difference - I suspect much of the bad rap that the current state of Nvidia + Linux user experience gets is folks working on distros that either actively exclude directly supporting that setup for philosophical reasons (Fedora, Debian) or theoretically support it, but leave it up to the user to figure out (Arch).
And when I mean supporting, I mean actually including Nvidia drivers in the repositories, supporting Secure Boot + proprietary modules, aligning kernel + driver updates…not just linking to a loosely-affiliated third-party’s repositories.
For as crash-prone and clunky as the UI is, it is amazing how much complexity Valve’s Steam package manager abstracts away from the user.
I should also learn how the hell to reply to comments lol. You wrote this more than a month ago. Talk about me being efficient. Well the ones I use are:
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/
https://www.reddit.com/r/wine_gaming/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/
My user I think it is xtremeLinux in there. And for Telegram I use https://t.me/ubuntulatino
And of course the youtube channel so that if you leave a question I can make a video for everyone. I have 5 pending videos to do including installing Ubuntu 24.04
Was your testing done with the Steam deb? If so, I would like to also see the same test done with the Steam snap given how Canonical recommends that one over the deb.
Speaking from my own personal experience, there have been a few new game releases that I ended up picking up day 1 not even considering compatibility and they just worked. It’s a testament to how far we’ve come with Proton and the improvements to the Linux graphical stack. I also think our desktop team does a really nice job of opting for sensible defaults that allows users to focus less on tinkering and more on playing their games.
Currently the only one I tested on snap was CS2 which outperformed both the deb and flatpak. The fps was 2x more, there was absolutely no stuttering snd sound was fixed.
But again this is one game. I have a 250+ list that iw publicly available. If you give me a list of games I can test them on snap.
You lost me. You are looking for games that work on deb or snap?
If its deb then all games here are deb https://www.youtube.com/@xtremelinux
If it’s snap then I only tested CS2.
Are there really any show-stopper issues anymore that aren’t related to kernel-level anti-cheat systems in competitive multiplayer?
There’s some jank sometimes around “launchers” (the EA App, the 2K Launcher, etc.), but otherwise, it seems like the Valve folks have pulled off an end-around by making “Proton” functionally a platform target that game developers can hit - which they can do without ever needing to specifically target Linux, but that delivers them the full Windows + Linux audience.
I’m not a competitive gamer, so I’m happily working on my Hades clear times on my gaming laptop while helping my son unlock Darth Vader in LEGO Star Wars with not a Windows boot-up in sight 
I don’t know that it would fit with the current graphical design of the main Canonical website, but a fun promotional graphic could be that exact sentence, but with different use cases for a desktop operating system rotating in and out of view at the end
e.g. “…less on tinkering and more on playing your games”, fades into
“…less on tinkering and more on creating your art” (Studio)
“building your future” (Education)
“changing your world” (Development)…etc.
Perhaps fanned out in some way around the center of a desk/screen/etc., showing that between all the underlying capabilities and external forces we all must interact with, the desktop is quite literally the center of all that activity, and reducing friction there means more effective doing all those other things. Maybe relevant to Shuttleworth’s comment around (paraphrasing) “developers change the world, they should have a nice desktop to do it on”
As an end user I have been quite happy with Ubuntu as my gaming computer distribution (23.10).
If there is anything to give feedback on, I would say that the stone inside my shoe is waiting for the Nvidia 550 series driver to trickle into the main repository. Currently that is the only driver that has support for the newer Super GPU lineup that I am waiting to then install. I do understand that this takes time to make sure everything works.
What about the Proprietary GPU Drivers : “Graphics Drivers” team which already has the 550 (And in a couple of days it will have the latest 550 from a couple of days back).
I would currently rather not run any PPAs.
I did use that specific one on my older rig, but my current build is quite default on everything and I’d like to keep it that way.
It’s not a massive issue, I can wait, and at the same time I do admit I want to start my first Cyberpunk playthrough on my new 4080 Super.
Absolutely! I’ll mention it in one of my upcoming marketing team meetings!
Anecdotally, there seems to be far less issues with gaming on Ubuntu than on Windows 12 at the moment.
I’ve used Ubuntu for work for many years now - but recently switched my gaming machine over about 5 months ago due to ongoing driver issues with Win12 and NVidia. I hadn’t tried steam and proton on Ubuntu before – I was a firm windows gaming fan.
Made the switch and havn’t looked back. I get better performance on Ubuntu 22 LTS than I ever did on Win 12. I use NVidia and everything just worked from install and no messing around with getting steam to work - it just did.
+1 sub for your YT chan too - would love to see some playthroughs on Ubuntu.
Thank you buddy. Play through like in which cases? Currently I am updating the way I do the videos to make it easier for me (So it does not affect family or work time hehe), but any feedback is always welcomed to showcase Ubuntu (Specifically Ubuntu) for gaming.