Poll—do you play on Windows, Mac or Linux?

Do you play on Windows, Mac or Linux?

  • Windows

    Votes: 25 92.6%
  • Mac

    Votes: 1 3.7%
  • Linux

    Votes: 1 3.7%
  • More than one OS

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    27
Jan 19, 2020
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Windows is my main gaming OS (and main OS period). Most everything is targeted for Windows and the experience is essentially seamless. Additionally GamePass offers a lot of value to me personally and I love the idea of a hybrid service that offers local installs, streaming, and the ability to purchase titles I really like.

That said, I have played a lot on Linux though over the last several years. I've been using Linux since around 2003 and am very fond of the OS in general. Linux offers some great strengths and features, one of which is file system performance. Valve has dumped a lot of money, effort, and time into SteamPlay Proton, which is a custom WINE compile couple with a set of tools to help game compatibility. They offer a containerized runtime called the Steam Linux Runtime or SLR, which helps Linux native games run across various distributions. The Proton compatibility layer now allows more Windows native titles to run on Linux than ever before. It's quite amazing.

However, there are some pretty serious holes in the compatibility ecosystem. Anti-cheat is a big one. Studios targeting Windows only proprietary media formats is another. And finally, some studios and publishers are outright hostile. Those that aren't often ditch or break Linux compatibility for business reasons with little to no regard for the small but very loyal grass roots fanbase that have supported them.
 
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I've been using Linux since around 2003 and am very fond of the OS in general
I've only been exposed to the server side of Linux, which it does very well.

Have you looked into the built-in Linux within Windows 10? I know nothing about it, wondering if it helps with Linux gaming at all…

With Windows becoming a lesser part of Microsoft's revenue—currently maybe 1/6th—I won't be surprised to see them integrate Linux more into Windows and perhaps eventually settle on Winux or Lindows :)
 
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Jan 19, 2020
77
181
720
Visit site
Microsoft's WSL2 is pretty cool tech and I've read some developers do use it to help debug issues on their Linux ports. It isn't really built for gaming though. The way the windowing system and graphics works it doesn't lend itself well to gaming, although I think people have hacked some things together.

WSL2 runs on a virtual machine layer and, if I understand things properly, so does Windows (some or all of it) when WSL2 is enabled. The short of it is that virtualization doesn't lend itself well to gaming. It can with a lot of tinkering and effort, but out of the box it doesn't. Drivers running in most VMs don't have the same kind of hardware access that bare metal OS layers do. I have used WSL a long time ago, but mostly if I need a Linux desktop I run it in VirtualBox or Hyper-V on my local Windows desktop.

If Microsoft made a Linux based OS that ran Windows apps like native, with a quality desktop environment, I'd be very interested. I'd even be interested in a posix desktop using a Microsoft kernel with GNU Utils and driveless file system with mount points.
 

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