Windows vs. Linux gaming: Test reveals clear winner, but community disagrees

[Redaktion]

Linux has evolved into a serious alternative for PC gamers in recent years. However, a new comparison by Meta PCs shows that while the open-source operating system can outperform Windows in some productivity workloads, Windows 11 still holds the lead in gaming performance and compatibility.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Windows-vs-Linux-gaming-Test-reveals-clear-winner-but-community-disagrees.1343363.0.html

[L]

If I have to choose a specific distro for gaming then it's not a viable solution, especially since more often than not some tweaks are required from my experience.

[captainobvious]

It's confirmed! Windows is the best gaming distro!

[Asch]

?? I ran Cyberpunk on Bazzite on my Onexfly Apex. RDNA 3.5. It did better than on windows more than 10fps. Fail.

[Joom]

If I have to choose a specific distro for gaming then it's not a viable solution, especially since more often than not some tweaks are required from my experience.

Ah, yes, because Windows is famous for not needing tweaks to be an enjoyable experience.

[julian.vdm]

If I have to choose a specific distro for gaming then it's not a viable solution, especially since more often than not some tweaks are required from my experience.

Nah, you don't need to do all that. Just use Bazzite or CachyOS. I've used both on a Legion Go handheld and a Lenovo Legion laptop with an NVIDIA GPU, and both have needed no tweaks.

[Joom]

Without having to rely on Proton or translate DirectX commands, Linux can make more efficient use of the available hardware resources.

This is a common misconception. Performance issues aren't at the translation layer, but rather the GPU driver. Proton and WINE are actually in a position now where there's little to no overhead from things being ran through them. Linux has better OpenGL/Vulkan support than Windows, which is why many games perform better, and thanks to them finally adopting Wayland support, this helped with performance quite a bit. You just have to be sure to set the appropriate environment variable in the launch options for your game (WINE_WAYLAND/PROTON_WAYLAND), because they still default to xwayland for the sake of compatibility.

[KennethL]

What's the point of comparing Windows and Linux? You're either on Windows or some Linux distro that works for you. I don't think a 5, 10 or 20% FPS advantage to Windows wouldn't get a Linux user to switch to Windows. I wouldn't switch if games ran 50% better on Windows with the same hardware.

[Dilli]

EAC is compatible. Arc raiders uses it and it plays just fine on my PC. Fortnite decided to no support Linux, not EAC.

[Joom]

I wouldn't switch if games ran 50% better on Windows with the same hardware.

Same. I ditched Windows 20 years ago, because Microsoft has been up to shenanigans for a very long time. I was a hacker and privacy advocate first, and Linux adopting gaming is just extra icing on the cake that further justifies the decision I made. It's single-handedly helped Linux climb the market share at an unprecedented rate, which has attracted the attention of more developers, which has only resulted in rapid refinement of the overall desktop experience. That, and my PC is a workbench that happens to play games, rather than a gaming rig that sees nothing productive. If your PC is nothing more than a toy, Windows probably is a good fit for you.

EAC is compatible. Arc raiders uses it and it plays just fine on my PC. Fortnite decided to no support Linux, not EAC.

I'm fairly certain it does use EAC, considering that Epic are who make EAC. The thing is that Linux support has to be checked off when bundling a game for release. Some studios don't do this, and this is because the Linux EAC runtime only runs in user mode. It doesn't have kernel access, like on Windows, so it can kinda be easily bypassed, depending on the game.

[Stoot]

The argument that they use the wrong distro to do the benchmarks is a little crazy to me. Distro hopping to hit a certain performance threshold isn't the right way to go about things, especially given gaming distros tend to have a lot of trade-offs. Performance on a normal, everyday Linux distro like Fedora, Ubuntu, or similar is perfectly valid.

[Sam Bridges]

I switched to Linux when the only games you could play were the native ones. I ain't the correct target audience here.

Still, I read it. My reaction is: Sure, slightly better performance on Windows. If that's more important than all the other reasons windows sucks. Keep using Windows.

[Jankrat]

Fine, use a tweaked-out version of Linux for the benchmark. To be fair, you then have to use a similarly-tweaked version of Windows for comparison,though - so all the gains folks are imagining will be erased.

[Zz]

What's the point of comparing Windows and Linux? You're either on Windows or some Linux distro that works for you. I don't think a 5, 10 or 20% FPS advantage to Windows wouldn't get a Linux user to switch to Windows. I wouldn't switch if games ran 50% better on Windows with the same hardware.

100% this. I didn't leave Windows because I thought games worked better on Linux; I left Windows in spite of my perception that games perform better on Windows. Game performance is a secondary or tertiary concern.

[The Yar]

Testing reveals but community disagrees. Not surprising.