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Linux is now the best gaming system. ｜ fernvenue's Blog
blog.fernvenue.comWhen it comes to gaming on Linux, many many many people’s understanding stil remains in the Jurassic era. For the past few years, I’ve been using Linux as my main operating system for both work and gaming. From my personal experience, the gaming experience on Linux is far superior to that of macOS and Windows. I know I know…whenever I mention this, there are always some old-school individuals who come out to say that Linux’s driver configuration is complex, its game support is not rich enough, and its compatibility issues are significant, among other problems. In this article, I will directly address these issues and let everyone understand how much the gaming experience on Linux has developed by 2025.
More people need to say that if you’re going to want ring 0, I’m not going to give you my money.
…which is a completely valid point if you don’t mind not playing those games. But if you do want to play them (for example because back when you got to love them, they didn’t have this), you have yourself a dilemma.
Unless you want to play against a shitload of cheaters every day (ruining the fun whenever you have 30 minutes to wind down), your game should have a decent enough AC to detect when someone loads a cheat, including the lowest level. And guess who doesn’t have a problem with 3rd party programs accessing ring 0.
So there you have it, you either stop playing all multiplayer games (not even just competitive ones!) entirely, or stick with Windows and all the awful things that come with it. I’ve been wanting to switch to Linux for the past 20 years, have been playing various multiplayer games over the past 2 decades, and it was always either the AC or just the sheer incompatibility (especially in the earlier years). There was even a time when people could happily cheat on Linux and get away with it in Counter-Strike: Source, because VAC simply didn’t work on Linux.
I agree with your overall point.
However, as a professional codemonkey, I promise you that root-level AC is in fact less secure than server-side heuristic AC + user reporting, and tends to be user-hostile due to false-flagging of modified systems. Root-level AC can be bypassed rather easily these days with DMA and other out-of-band tooling.
As a case-study, League of Legends lacked any root-level AC for well over a decade, and was arguably the most popular game in the world at points. Cheaters were extraordinarily rare; the average player would typically encounter well under a dozen cheaters per thousand games.
Riot Games then released Valorant with full root-level AC, and had an aimbot explosion within a few months - mostly because they devalued player feedback & reporting in favor of their “robust” automated AC solution. Their overall anticheat strategy became less reliable on the whole, but they stuck to it because root-level AC is cheaper and easier to execute from the corporate-profit POV.
There’s plenty of multiplayer games that run just fine on linux. Including FPS games with perfectly functional anti cheat, it’s just a select few which are unfortunately very popular that actively block linux. This is the part where you put your money where your mouth is and support the games that support the system you want to game on.
That sounds better - now I just wish those were the games that I play.
Try other games? Whatever kind of game you like, there’s likely a less invasive alternative. We’re no longer in the era of game scarcity.
I wish it was that simple… though I do like my games enough that it’s a pretty unpleasant choice either way, my friends who play also refuse to change games just for my sake, and they don’t mind using Windows. Therefore I can basically stop playing with them, or stick with this rubbish.
I agree with your first paragraph, if you just got hooked to these games and want to compromise your own privacy and security by playing these games, that is your own trade offs.
But your second paragraph claims that not compromising security and privacy means you have to deal with cheaters. That is false. The games who support Linux do not have more cheaters. In fact, there’s plenty of cheaters all over the anti Linux games, such as destiny and league.
Also there are plenty of multi-player and competitive games on Linux. It’s only a few who do not (who admittedly also happen to be some of the more popular titles). I only agree with this sentiment if you’re hooked onto the specific games that are anti Linux, not the competitive multi-player genre.
Apart from the problem of my friends sticking with the same games I play regardless of my decision, the other problem is… yes, most people usually play the games that most people play. I also happen to be in that (high) percentage, so there’s not much room.
BTW I’ve been playing League for a long time, and while cheaters have been a thing for a while, in my experience it practically became a nonexistent problem recently. It doesn’t prove anything, just saying that League isn’t in the ‘cheaters all over’ category anymore (imho).
Thankfully, Rocket League is actually pretty decent in this regard, so that’s a “safe” one - but there’s several more that still necessitates Windows, so I don’t see the point of going back and forth in dual boot every time I switch games.
Take 100 random gamers. How many of them will know what ring 0/kernel level anti-cheat even means? They don’t care. They will happily accept whatever the publisher puts inside the game.
The only exception to this is Denuvo because it was affecting performance.
Disclaimer - I’m an ardent linux fan
They don’t know ring 0, but they would understand “this anti cheat is the most privacy invasive kind, controlling and monitoring everything on your computer”.
Avg gamer: Woah that’s really bad.
Me: So you’ll uninstall the game now, right?
Avg gamer: What? Heck no. I’m Diamond in Valorant. And all my friends are playing it
They will understand what you said. But changing habit is way harder on a mass scale. It’s well known for years that Vanguard is a rootkit but the game is as popular as ever. If you tell this on any gaming community, you’ll be responded with “Oh and switch to LinSux and play decade old games?”