Trying to break through the 'Linux gaming' wall

XanII · 2024-05-16 09:23:04

So the case for me is that Bunsenlabs and Crunchbang has been the distros of choice for a long time but due to Steam gaming Windows is still the dominant OS in the house with almost a dozen PCs. So without talking too much about why i dislike Windows (for pretty common reasons in the now and future) i am now trying to seriously break off the chain with Steam+Windows combo.

I have some 2200 games on Steam plus a ton of retro stuff on Retroarch. Steam games has been the issue. Now i have dived into ProtonDB and cross checked my library and.... it looks promising. So i have decided in my next hardware upgrade coming soon to divert a SSD for Bunsen on the main rig and do tests there for each of the game i want to have working. And contribue to ProtonDB about how it goes as well. I have planned i wont be doing any dual boot setups, instead i'll just have the bunsen disk boot when needed and do the QA testing work and and when done decide if which one i will ditch for the main gaming rig.

I don't expect this to have particularly high chances of succeeding even'good enough' but i am willing to put some effort and time into this to entertain the possibility that in the end it would still somehow be 'good enough' to make a switch to Linux for good as Microsoft is more unbearable each year that passes. Microsoft is providing the motivation: Their OS quality is once again going down, meanwhile my other bunsenlabs machines are running good and my old timer parents even got a real 'renaissance' era machine from 2009 that started with Crunchbang and is still running a older Bunsenlabs fine being stable year in year out.

I want that unchanging environment too, but with games and preferably the drivers for wheels, joysticks, Nvidia cards and toolsets i need to troubleshoot and configure.

Got any advice before i go on to this mission?

Döbbie03 · 2024-05-17 05:49:23

I found this site extremely helpful in finding what I need to do and for troubleshooting.

XanII · 2024-05-17 13:11:36

Thanks. Yes that is the thing i am basing this on basically. Their Help section w/FAQ and wiki links is quite extensive.

XanII · 2024-05-26 18:16:21

Well game testing is in full swing. Tested some games and results are mixed. I got a dedicated ext4 SSD drive with latest Boron Bunsenlabs install. Nvidia drivers from the app store and protondb/steam. For each game in Steam that i install i have have possibility to use Experimental ProtonDB or named version from 9.1 and down.

Started with a older Steam game Wild Guns and it worked 1:1 as it's on windows but then i tried Easy Red 2 and Soulcalibur 6 things did not go well at all. First one launched once with very low FPS and graphics and then refused launch again with any possible launch combinations. It is native to Linux so quite surprised it worked so badly.

Soulcalibur 6 starts nicely but has non existent FPS. Long loading times seem to be normal according to ProtonDB entry but otherwise FPS was unplayable once you reach actual gameplay. Menus and cutscenes are somewhat normal speed.

Thing is what can be done to try to improve FPS? Of the things i have researched compositor is recommended to turns off. Well bunsenlabs compositor is still running but i wonder can that really have such a huge impact on FPS? Other than that trying to put together some type 'Linux gaming mode' probably would be next. But i am a bit miffed here what that could be. I think i have all the preequisites together for Linux gaming but now i would need some help on how to debug these issues. https://www.protondb.com/help/troubleshooting-faq is a work in progres for me but very helpful page that i base my troubleshooting on now. I have tested pretty much all items that protonDB has recommended for each game and then some but no dice yet.

Last edited by XanII (2024-05-26 18:22:57)

brontosaurusrex · 2024-05-27 10:24:08

I haven't tryed anything concrete on this gaming front, but I thought that one of the main ideas for steam-deck is wayland based compositing?

XanII · 2024-05-27 11:57:03

Disabled bl-compositor now so it's out of the picture. No effect.

Next i did a: lspci -k | grep -A5 VGA

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation TU106 [GeForce RTX 2060 12GB] (rev a1)
Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. TU106 [GeForce RTX 2060 12GB]
Kernel driver in use: nouveau
Kernel modules: nouveau, nvidia_current_drm, nvidia_current
01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation TU106 High Definition Audio Controller (rev a1)
Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. TU106 High Definition Audio Controller

... This troubles me. i have nvidia-driver installed and the tesla version as well but now it seems i got the noveau. Now i have read i should not be installing nvidia drivers on my own but as it seems right now performance is beyond abysmal. So i guess going for the latest nvidia driver outside the app store. Flatpak i assume even though that means annoying big updates all the time in case that works.

Tried passing these as options for example games Soulcalibur 6 and Easy Red 2. No effect.
__GL_THREADED_OPTIMIZATION=1 __GL_SHADER_DISK_CACHE=1 __GL_SHADER_DISK_CACHE_PATH=/home/.cache

used this as base for improving: https://www.protondb.com/help/improving-performance
and took from there the useful stuff. ex. no wine or proton tricks exist for these games.
Also wont do feral mode. i don't believe for a second i need to have the utmost 'gaming mode' there is to squeeze one or two more frame rates when current rates is so abysmal i just kill the game if it even runs.

Tried making logs with PROTON_LOG=1 %command% but nope, should create logs like this: $HOME/steam-379720.log but nothing there.

Any ideas anyone what to look for?

edit: added some more games to the testing mix: Terraria, Donut Dodo, Jamestown. Games that are small in size but can require some FPS sometimes as well. Terraria runs lovely but has low FPS. Jamestown a bullet hell has sub-par FPS otherwise it is not that bad but clearly inferior. Donut Dodo being like a real retro thing is like 1:1 to windows version. None of these require any settings.

Last edited by XanII (2024-05-27 13:13:09)

XanII · 2024-05-28 18:07:55

Well i have 525 nvidia drivers running now. Man was that a long RTFM session to try to figure out why nvidia refused to load and noveau was loaded instead. Nuked the X-session many times and dropped me to text login only but i was able to recover. I still seem to have some issues with 'nv' module it seems according to xorg.0.log

Now i lost the 2nd monitor and resolution is down to 1024x768 and arandr refuses to give better choices. Followed the help text that come with the distro about having a xrandr line in autostart to set 1920x1080 again but it gets ignored it seems and i am stuck at low resolutions for now.

But getting closer. Tested some big games and FPS is now what it is supposed to be.

Does bunsen initial screen defaults exist somewhere as when i got the system running it gave me a nice HD resolution and both screens? or is there commands i can run to have it detect it all again?

altman · 2024-05-28 22:15:41

Wonder if you have to blacklist Nouveau as I ve seen in somewhere.

Glad that you re getting closer in there.

Edit: & it s the driver that came out with your card, might ve been an update of some sort, never know ;

https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverR … 100/en-us/

If you re happy with the one that you have, I would stick with it, one doesn t want any weird stuff to happen.

Last edited by altman (2024-05-28 22:43:25)

XanII · 2024-05-29 09:26:30

Nouveau blacklisting manually was mandatory to do. 525 version i checked is October 2023, that is new enough for me and comes with the app store for the system. So far i am trying to stick to the 'dont install back ports or directly anything from debian or 3rd party sites so you dont break your system' Though i was looking into installing from Nvidia the latest as i could not get the nvidia-driver or the nvidia-detect recommended tesla driver to work.

It is looking promising. Steps left

1) Get the 2nd screen back and resolution back
2) Figure out how to back this all up so i can revert to working setup if i break my X session again. - Got any advice on bunsenlabs backup/restore points?
3) Then finally start doing some ricing work and getting my conky in and all that basic looks and feels jazz.

Been documenting my progress for my friends on Steam. They must think i am nuts for trying this. But i think this is a card that should be turned in 2024.

altman · 2024-05-29 11:44:52

I must say that you re a brave man in order to try that out!

XanII · 2024-05-29 13:19:26

This is lunacy yes but Microsoft provides the motivation. I have done 30 years in IT and i am shall we say a bit tired of the 'good OS, bad OS, forced upgrade' thing microsft got going on and i have been using linux here on the side all the time but concentrating on sftp, apache etc only.

Plus this stuff is net-positive all the way. I have learned so much in just 48 hours about Linux drivers and Steam and what not. Things i have never looked at before.

Bearded_Blunder · 2024-05-29 14:04:19

Xanll wrote:

2) Figure out how to back this all up so i can revert to working setup if i break my X session again. - Got any advice on bunsenlabs backup/restore points?

Nothing so useful or convenient as Windows System Restore, or even Windows Image Backup. if you're on btrfs or LVM you might be able to do something with snapshots & possibly some sort of backup prog like fsarchiver, with the possibility to restore from a booted live session.

There's ReaR, if you can figure out how to use it & script backing up snapshots... I couldn't.

Or you have to go "Off the reservation" (outside the repos), & use something like UrBackup, which once you've set up an external server to store backups, is now apparently able to image a running Linux system, assuming it's on LVM, btrfs, or that you can get dattobd working. I was relatively impressed, till my server hardware let the magic blue smoke out & ceased working.

VERY long pauses between steps while CloneZilla monopolises your machine so you can't do anything but wait is the simplest.

The lack of really good backup solutions for running systems is my biggest single bugbear with Linux.

XanII · 2024-05-29 17:53:41

Searching for 'backup' in the app store reveals a huge plethora of apps.

I was looking at timeshift and doing something with rsync. I do have LVM active though.

johnraff · 2024-05-29 23:40:34

LVM snapshots aren't much use as backups in themselves but they're great for making backups because your system can keep on moving while you copy the snapshot (eg with rsync) to some other drive/device. Then destroy the snapshot.

XanII · 2024-05-30 11:04:20

About to give up on the screen part. I am unable to raise resolution. My screens are just dead and seems to stay that way. All docs and videos i find about it are about using cvt first to get what you need for xrandr or using pre-existing settings but xrandr only thinks i got 'default' screen and 1024x768 as resolution and refuses to do anything about it even if i try to force settings. Seems like the nvidia driver somehow is not running properly and there just isn't enough material for me to troubleshoot it. I am at a total impasse other than going back to noveau and trying nvidia install again.

altman · 2024-05-30 11:27:00

XanII wrote:

About to give up on the screen part. I am unable to raise resolution. My screens are just dead and seems to stay that way. All docs and videos i find about it are about using cvt first to get what you need for xrandr or using pre-existing settings but xrandr only thinks i got 'default' screen and 1024x768 as resolution and refuses to do anything about it even if i try to force settings. Seems like the nvidia driver somehow is not running properly and there just isn't enough material for me to troubleshoot it. I am at a total impasse other than going back to noveau and trying nvidia install again.

That sux mate.

Wonder if your monitor s maxed out ! Or is there a way to know they re shot or on there way out !

How was the monitors before installing NVidia s gpu !

What are these !

Edit: Just cheked my ARander Settings & they re at 1600X900 on a 17 Inch Laptop, & it s maxed out on my end.I never looked at those settings before I guess on my BL installs.

Last edited by altman (2024-05-30 11:41:18)

XanII · 2024-05-30 13:28:07

All worked well when the system was newly installed. Screen 0 and Screen 1 and resolution at FullHD. Now after blacklisting Noveau and running nvidia driver (and ensuring tesla is gone) i only get bare minimum resolution. But to me it seems nvidia is running and i saw it in lscpi output as games work great, something that it did not with noveau. I don't quite understand what i am missing here.

I understand i don't/should not make a new Xorg.conf anymore like in the past? but i cant detect anything either. Screens i know can do fullHD and perhaps even more but this is the level i aim for.

Last edited by XanII (2024-05-30 13:28:41)

XanII · 2024-05-30 14:52:06

It is indeed something about the nvidia driver. Rolled back to noveau again, right after first checking with lspci -k | grep 'driver' that i had nvidia driver in use.

Thing is that now back with noveau xrandr and even arandr is awash with options again. 2nd screen is working and back to fullHD.

I don't quite get it what happens here, am i supposed to copy over or create a config somewhere when drivers change? I am at a loss at what kind of reading i am supposed to do now if this is meant to be fixed by 'doing some RTFM'

EDIT: AAand just like that problems are gone. I read about PURGING nvidia entirely from your system, ensured i was running noveau again and removed it all. Then i installed the latest driver from nvidias own page. Bless their hearts also for having such a great installer it guided me through to ensure i got all nvidia stuff gone, lightdm service shutdown and noveau disabled and it installed nicely.

Now the problem is Screen 1 is main screen instead of Screen 0 and audio comes via HDMI to the screen but yeah, looking again better.

And testing some frame rates for games and it is super smooth. But i did break now my principle of keeping to official packages. What kind of issues will there be now that i am using a driver directly from Nvidia?

Last edited by XanII (2024-05-30 15:29:58)

XanII · 2024-06-03 18:14:26

I think it's time to conclude this thread. End result: Success.

It is possible to make Bunsenlabs Boron into a proper Linux gaming machine. I have now Steam running and Bottles as flatpak and i have run programs there. Nvidia driver install was the singular hardest thing and there it seems the best (or least buggy/dangerous way) is to use nvidia official installer. May be a issue later but if 'getting there fast' is a thing then this is the way.

Lots of small things had to be figured out. Lots of small things and jank but i suppose my end advice is to have another machine or mobile around to use while you build your machine. If this would have been my only OS then it would have drove me crazy with all the jank but taken piece by piece it was doable. Noted items in a notepad and researched each item and returned back to try to fix. For this distro docs are lacking but if i could not find bunsen specific items then Debian related (and to lesser grade Ubuntu) has some docs/videos online that help.

And i think all of this is just net-net positive. I see no downsides in learning any of this stuff. I now have a plan B basically. Not quite there yet as a plan A for my current machine but maybe in time with some more configuring and ricing this could be the thing to make Windows 11 move over.

Thanks to the people who helped.

pozric · 2024-06-04 14:11:54

Hi you probably know about it, but just in case this is an awesome app for gaming, I tried the app-image and it works very good it creates prefixes for every game, new to gaming in Linux myself, but I managed to get GTA V going on. Ive read that Lutris with proton is supposed to be the best too use. I installed steam too but it feels very slow and takes time too launch etc. And the new Bunsen is awesome:) Thanks dudes.

https://github.com/Heroic-Games-Launche … esLauncher.

#1 2024-05-16 09:23:04

Trying to break through the 'Linux gaming' wall

#2 2024-05-17 05:49:23

Re: Trying to break through the 'Linux gaming' wall

#3 2024-05-17 13:11:36

Re: Trying to break through the 'Linux gaming' wall

#4 2024-05-26 18:16:21

Re: Trying to break through the 'Linux gaming' wall

#5 2024-05-27 10:24:08

Re: Trying to break through the 'Linux gaming' wall

#6 2024-05-27 11:57:03

Re: Trying to break through the 'Linux gaming' wall

#7 2024-05-28 18:07:55

Re: Trying to break through the 'Linux gaming' wall

#8 2024-05-28 22:15:41

Re: Trying to break through the 'Linux gaming' wall

#9 2024-05-29 09:26:30

Re: Trying to break through the 'Linux gaming' wall

#10 2024-05-29 11:44:52

Re: Trying to break through the 'Linux gaming' wall

#11 2024-05-29 13:19:26

Re: Trying to break through the 'Linux gaming' wall

#12 2024-05-29 14:04:19

Re: Trying to break through the 'Linux gaming' wall

#13 2024-05-29 17:53:41

Re: Trying to break through the 'Linux gaming' wall

#14 2024-05-29 23:40:34

Re: Trying to break through the 'Linux gaming' wall

#15 2024-05-30 11:04:20

Re: Trying to break through the 'Linux gaming' wall

#16 2024-05-30 11:27:00

Re: Trying to break through the 'Linux gaming' wall

#17 2024-05-30 13:28:07

Re: Trying to break through the 'Linux gaming' wall

#18 2024-05-30 14:52:06

Re: Trying to break through the 'Linux gaming' wall

#19 2024-06-03 18:14:26

Re: Trying to break through the 'Linux gaming' wall

#20 2024-06-04 14:11:54

Re: Trying to break through the 'Linux gaming' wall

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