I’ve got a cheap old ten years old low-end laptop and didn’t know what to do about it. I installed Steam and played Half-Life 2 and Dota 2 (both aren’t very new, I know). They were very snappy. Also, I tried WarCraft 3 via Wine, and it was very good also. I didn’t know what else to test, but for the record Windows itself wasn’t very snappy with it.
It’s some low-end Intel i3 processor. Let’s say it’s something about 2 GHz, each core, with 2 or 4 cores. Sorry, I need to check it if you want the precise specs, but they don’t really matter.
It was super smooth, and considering that laptop basically a garbage (Nvidia GPU, which is not used in Linux, I use the integrated Intel one), it played quite well for me. It looks like the difference with Windows is not in its favour. It’s really easy to try it, especially if you have a spare hardware. Eg Dota 2 is free to play, so all you need is to install Steam and download the game. I use Fedora Silverblue, which I can recommend for an average user. (I use Arch on my primary laptop and PC.) Also, I’ve heard good things about Bazzitte, but I personally don’t like Linux distros based on other distros.
Also, I recommend avoiding Nvidia GPUs, unless it’s a high end very new card. (I have heard them being good.) Apart from that, Linux gaming is quite easy, especially if all your games are in Steam. It allows easy installation of things like Proton and is perfectly manageable by a non-pro user via graphical interface.
I mean I have a water-cooled Ryzen 9950X, Radeon 7900 XTX, 64 GB DDR5, 4 TB nvme, and 5120x1440 HDR monitor.
Plays borderlands 4, Rocket League, Horizon Zero Dawn, Horizon Forbidden West, Jedi survivor, elite dangerous, Sifu, star wars outlaws, god of war, cyber punk, and Elden Ring. And most of those run better for me on Linux than they did on Windows. For one, the various launchers(Ubisoft, epic, etc) actually stop when you stop playing the games, but fps is better too.
Have you had issues playing games on Linux? I can help if you need it. Highly recommend Nobara. It is based on fedora, a fairly well known and reliable version of Linux. The main difference is instead of the fedora kernel, it uses the kernel built by CachyOS. This optimized kernel results in roughly 10+ fps in games.
Idk why your switching off of Windows, but for me it is all the Microslop spyware they’ve been installing. Good God, I just installed Windows 11 home(instead of pro) on a PC for the first time and they literally showed ads during the installation. Plus the AI nonsense… ugh… Why do I need notepad to send my data to an AI? That’s stupid, I want my data to be local and never leave my computer without my permission.
But maybe you use a high-end gaming PC? No?
Steam deck is the preeminent system that uses proton.
I’ve got a cheap old ten years old low-end laptop and didn’t know what to do about it. I installed Steam and played Half-Life 2 and Dota 2 (both aren’t very new, I know). They were very snappy. Also, I tried WarCraft 3 via Wine, and it was very good also. I didn’t know what else to test, but for the record Windows itself wasn’t very snappy with it.
How powerful was the laptop’s processor? Did you mean game like Dota 2 run smooth on a laptop? I think that’s for a desktop PC.
“cheap old ten years old low-end laptop”
It’s some low-end Intel i3 processor. Let’s say it’s something about 2 GHz, each core, with 2 or 4 cores. Sorry, I need to check it if you want the precise specs, but they don’t really matter.
It was super smooth, and considering that laptop basically a garbage (Nvidia GPU, which is not used in Linux, I use the integrated Intel one), it played quite well for me. It looks like the difference with Windows is not in its favour. It’s really easy to try it, especially if you have a spare hardware. Eg Dota 2 is free to play, so all you need is to install Steam and download the game. I use Fedora Silverblue, which I can recommend for an average user. (I use Arch on my primary laptop and PC.) Also, I’ve heard good things about Bazzitte, but I personally don’t like Linux distros based on other distros.
Also, I recommend avoiding Nvidia GPUs, unless it’s a high end very new card. (I have heard them being good.) Apart from that, Linux gaming is quite easy, especially if all your games are in Steam. It allows easy installation of things like Proton and is perfectly manageable by a non-pro user via graphical interface.
I mean I have a water-cooled Ryzen 9950X, Radeon 7900 XTX, 64 GB DDR5, 4 TB nvme, and 5120x1440 HDR monitor.
Plays borderlands 4, Rocket League, Horizon Zero Dawn, Horizon Forbidden West, Jedi survivor, elite dangerous, Sifu, star wars outlaws, god of war, cyber punk, and Elden Ring. And most of those run better for me on Linux than they did on Windows. For one, the various launchers(Ubisoft, epic, etc) actually stop when you stop playing the games, but fps is better too.
Have you had issues playing games on Linux? I can help if you need it. Highly recommend Nobara. It is based on fedora, a fairly well known and reliable version of Linux. The main difference is instead of the fedora kernel, it uses the kernel built by CachyOS. This optimized kernel results in roughly 10+ fps in games.
Idk why your switching off of Windows, but for me it is all the Microslop spyware they’ve been installing. Good God, I just installed Windows 11 home(instead of pro) on a PC for the first time and they literally showed ads during the installation. Plus the AI nonsense… ugh… Why do I need notepad to send my data to an AI? That’s stupid, I want my data to be local and never leave my computer without my permission.
Regardless, good luck on your gaming journey! XD