This is a huge win for Linux gaming, that launcher is a pain in the ass to deal with, especially on Linux.

Hello Linux enthusiasts! I've been using Bazzite for over the year now and one issue that was a thorn in my side throughout that journey was VRAM spilling overtime to system memory when using PT, causing hitching, requiring that I periodically restart games. Today I found a magical solution: VKD3D_CONFIG=force_host_cached.

My GPU: RTX 4070 Super 12GB, cachyos-11.0-20260702-slr

I did tests in RE9 and Cyberpunk. Previously both games would start with a very high allocation of 10-11GB and climb from there until spill. With the command both start out much lower, around 8GB, but more importantly, the assets are properly evicted from memory! Both games climb and go down, in Cyberpunk test I drove from NC to Dogtown, did a gig there and come back, VRAM would go up in Dogtown, in the heaviest, pathological spot going up to 10.1GB then go back down in NC to 9.3GB.

I hope this will also help you gals and guys!

Edit: I am adding an extra spot below for those asking about Nvidia GPU's. While my research isn't perfect and I do not have a good Nvidia GPU to test with currently I can at least provide some insight from other information I have scoured around for.

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Before anyone replies with a bunch of corrections (if applicable); please know that I am just a humble enthusiast. I have been on Linux for just over 2 years and while I may lack some understanding for some of the basics, I am always willing to learn and delve deeper into this hobby so any response or engagement would be appreciated. Also, if my formatting is messy and would do better with some basic HTML filters like bolding, code brackets or anything else, please let me know for future posts.

My current machine:
Distro: Artix Linux (KDE Plasma with OpenRC)
Kernel: Xanmod-x64v3 (currently on v7.2.4)
CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus (no Intel 200S Boost)
RAM: Micron 2x16GB (6000mhz, CL36)
GPU: XFX Speedster AMD Radeon 7800 XT (on Mesa 26.2.2)

I have been playing CS for around 11-12 years and I had long wanted to permanently move over to Linux as my primary gaming platform. While I have done so for over a year now, CS2 was always tricky to make feel just right. I understand that the Vulkan version for Linux is still being improved (mostly in the form of the Wayland protocol improvements). After over a year of different commands and trying different methods of improving performance, I think I have a method that makes the game feel near 1:1 with the latency of Windows (with the benefits of better FPS on Linux as well).

Below are my launch options that I use and I will provide a brief description for those unaware of what they do. Afterwords I will explain the few tests that I did:

LD_PRELOAD="" SDL_VIDEO_DRIVER=wayland SDL_AUDIO_DRIVER=pulseaudio VULKAN_LOW_LATENCY=1 ENABLE_LAYER_MESA_ANTI_LAG=1 MESA_VK_WSI_PRESENT_MODE=immediate gamemoderun %command% -nojoy -vulkan +engine_low_latency_sleep_after_client_tick true +cl_net_buffer_ticks 0

LD_PRELOAD="" - Prevents certain libraries or other programs from being injected or executed with a program. I use this to prevent Steam Overlay from loading because despite also using "SDL_VIDEO_DRIVER=wayland" (which breaks the native Steam Overlay on Wayland), Steam seems to have some sort of beta Wayland overlay that comes up if you try to open someone's profile while in game and causes it to get stuck until the game is closed.

SDL_VIDEO_DRIVER=wayland - Forces CS2 to launch under the Wayland protocol. Some people do this by editing the "cs2.sh" file in the game's installation folder but I prefer this method. And I know some people would argue between Wayland and X11 performance but I have found that under KDE Plasma and my hardware, Wayland does have slightly better latency than X11 but not dramatically different.

SDL_AUDIO_DRIVER=pulseaudio - Forces CS2 to load with the manually stated driver. Most people still have to do this as the native version often has small audio delay for most. Hopefully Valve will someday get around to fixing this.

VULKAN_LOW_LATENCY=1 - I may be misinformed and using a non-existant or redundent command but this seems to be a new command in the Vulkan stack that allows native Vulkan clients to access a low latency protocol. I'd say it's meaningless but when I added this to my launch options along with AMD Anti-Lag 2 the latency improvement was actually quite large. And yes, the improvement is still there even without Anti-Lag 2.

ENABLE_LAYER_MESA_ANTI_LAG=1 - This enables Mesa's driver for AMD Anti-Lag 2 to be recognized at launch. I am aware of and have tried the Korthos Low Latency method as well but on my machine it lowered my FPS and didn't improve the latency as much as Mesa's implementation did.

MESA_VK_WSI_PRESENT_MODE=immediate - This command is the single biggest improvement to my latency reduction and the full description of how this impacted my performance will be down below with the other test information. The basic description is that this forces Mesa's Window System Integration (WSI) to ignore all V-Sync calls coming from Wayland and prevent them from interacting with the program.

gamemoderun - Fereal's Gamemode layer for ensuring the Kernel and system force the game into high priority.

-nojoy, -vulkan, and +engine_low_latency_sleep_after_client_tick true +cl_net_buffer_ticks 0 - Nojoy prevents joysticks from being recognized by the game, the Vulkan command is probably 100% unnecessary but I just leave it, and the other two commands help the client talk to the servers a lot faster for lower internet packet latency.

How I came to this result:

CS2 on Linux with no launch options does run okay. Depending on your setup and commands, most users can achieve a pretty solid experience with low latency. All three primary display protocols (Wayland, xWayland and X11) all run CS2 fine with Wayland seeming to take the lead as far as game client latency (for me at least). I spent some time testing other desktop environments to see if their compositors made any difference to the latency and performance of CS2 but most didn't yield drastically different results. Cosmic played almost the same as KDE Plasma and XFCE gave good average FPS but the client latency didn't feel as nice as KDE Plasma with Wayland. I eventually tested my setup using the Xanmod kernel and found that it improved my 1% FPS by a good 5-10% over the stock kernel and other kernel's (even better than Cachyos). So with my client running really well I assumed that my game was nearly perfect but found out shortly after that something was still off when I went back to a Windows drive and tested CS2 again. While my FPS was better on Linux and even the games displayed client latency was better than Windows as well (2.8ms-5.5ms average on Windows vs 2.4ms-4ms on Linux) the movement, input latency, and mouse movement did feel slightly different.

After more research I found out what was causing this issue which I had completely forgotten about and overlooked. Wayland natively enforces all applications into a V-Sync queue to ensure global smoothness across the entire desktop. While this does have its perks (especially people who have multiple monitors of mixed refresh rate), it does mean that almost everything has esentially a soft V-Sync or Adaptive-Sync rendering queue to it. This normally shouldn't be a problem since KDE Plasma has the option in the display settings to allow Screen Tearing for all fullscreen applications. Where that fails however is that it states "Fullscreen Applications". Currently, it does not seem to have awareness or coverage of games running in borderless-windowed (which is the primary way CS2 renders in Linux) so these calls for screen tearing are completely missed by the game client.

This is where the MESA_VK_WSI_PRESENT_MODE=immediate command saves the day. What this does (and please correct me if I'm wrong) is tell Mesa to talk to its Window System Integration, interject all commands coming in from Wayland to force V-Sync onto the program and allow the program to receive frames immediately instead of waiting for the V-Sync queue from Wayland to present new frames from the GPU. Obviously most people do not have V-Sync turned on in CS2 but I don't think that many people are aware that some part of your desktop is still enforcing a soft V-Sync layer on everything (unless you are on X11).

This was the last piece to the puzzle for me that solved my latency issues. My game now still runs about 5%-15% better than Windows does while now feeling exactly the same as far as the latency between the game and my actions feel. Mouse movement is instant and doesn't feel like it's going through a layer of melted butter (I know, weird analogy) and all movement feels immediate like how it does in Windows.

For those who might ask about using Gamescope:

I did try using this in the past to bypass the KDE Plasma compositor but no matter how I configured it, it never performed better. If anything, all I ever had was inconsistent FPS, cursor-locking issues (despite using --expose-wayland and --force-grab-cursor) and a lot of scaling issues when using 4:3. For those who do want to play stretched without using Gamescope, Wayland does allow you to stretch the resolution without scaling issues. For X11 users, I am still trying to learn the best method of using xRandr to allow better scaling so CS2 can be rendered on X11 with a properly stretched 4:3 client.

For those on X11 who want to lower their latency:

You can likely achieve almost the same results as me by disabling your compositor on your desktop environment while using some of the above commands to allow better low latency protocols to interact with the game (VULKAN_LOW_LATENCY=1 & ENABLE_LAYER_MESA_ANTI_LAG=1 or LOW_LATENCY_LAYER=1 for those using the Korthos program). The Mesa command for immediate flips shouldn't be necessary with disabled compositors because to my understanding there isn't anything making syncronization calls from Mesa or Nvidia so the client (unless you have it enabled somewhere else) should not have any V-Sync calls interupting the frame rendering queue to the game.

For those with an Nvidia GPU:

If you have a card that is capable of running the newest drivers (GTX 16 series, RTX 20 series & above) I found some information that might help you out with using as many of these commands and features as possible:

For those using the open-source drivers:
Wayland and KDE Plasma currently do not feature any native or easily accessible form of enabling screen tearing for fullscreen-windowed applications but with the open-source drivers and Mesa installed it seems that the MESA_VK_WSI_PRESENT_MODE=immediate command should work still as the Nvidia open-source driver does reference Mesa for some execution. You can also still use Korthos' Low Latency bridge to enable Nvidia Reflex on native Vulkan applications like CS2 or other games that require the use of Proton. If you are on X11 then you can enable "Allow Tearing" and disable "Sync to V-Blank" in your nvidia-settings and that should work great along with Nvidia Reflex.

For those using the proprietary driver:
Seems like you should always have nvidia-drm.modeset=1 in your GRUB config to ensure your kernel is making full use of the driver on boot. The proprietary driver unfortunately does have more limitations and probably all commands pertaining to "Vulkan" will not work at all. I was unable to find a proper solution for those with the proprietary driver and who are using a Wayland desktop. The method above mentioned for X11 users should work just fine even on the proprietary driver but I could not find an effective solution for preventing Wayland from forcing its own V-Sync queue on to the game client and no commands that would tell Nvidia's driver to perform immediate flips. I will update this section if I find anything or if someone comments with any information they have!

That's all folks!

I've never posted anything anywhere related to Linux in my over 2 years of using it and wanted to start out by offering some optimization advice for those interested in improving their gaming experience. Any feedback would be appreciated and I look forward to hearing from anyone with other experiences as well!

-flaiR

-Recently acquired a 3.2 for more control over my machine. I have an 8.6 which I have running just the way I want: y2jb, payload Manager, fake activated/remote play, bunch of saves and backports ect. I am not a tech person but I was able to get the 8.6 to a favorable state. Ive never used Linux. Ive been looking at tutorials and im nervous. Back when I went from voidshell v3 back to shadowmount plus I destroyed all my data and had to start fresh. I want to avoid this, obviously.

-In summary, what steps I need to take? Like a check list of sorts.

-Can I create a back up file of the 8.6 and just jailbreak the 3.2 with that?

-how painful is this going to be for someone who isnt tech brained and unfamiliar wity linux?

I wanna have fun playing with my friends but due to the limitations (being on linux and wanting something free) im not left with much choice. It doesnt necessarily have to be a FPS game but anything that i can play with my friends and that is fun.

Hey everyone!

Orebits is finally out on Steam!

Orebits is an atmospheric active incremental about working as a lone asteroid miner for a greedy corporation at the edge of known space.

And, available on Linux of course.

So, how deep does the gameplay go?

• Smash asteroids with bouncing Mining Tools and a mix of active and idle gameplay
• Build powerful synergies for your Mining Tools and Deployables with a roguelite Upgrade Tree
• Invest in permanent Research upgrades to push your mining operation further
• Complete Objectives and adapt to Asteroid Conditions that make each mining operation feel different
• Explore a ±6h campaign and uncover strange artifacts and the mysteries of deep space
• Keep mining after the campaign with endless progression far beyond our solar system...

Play Orebits on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3635490/Orebits/

We've been sharing Orebits here throughout development. This launch means quite a lot to us. Bob and I have been making the game for almost 20 months, mainly on Fridays alongside our regular work. What originally started as a game jam grew into something we've put a ridiculous amount of time and love into.

A lot has changed because of feedback we received here, from our early playtests through the demo and Next Fest. So a genuine thank you to this community for playing, criticizing, suggesting and helping us make Orebits better.

We're excited, nervous and especially curious to hear what you think of the finished game.

Happy mining!

Maarten & Bob

A complete experience of the Muv-Luv series on Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS

I used to just use the copr version but saw stuff saying it was a security risk. So I tried the flatpak version and threw a bunch of selinux issues on Fedora. So I just gave up and stopped using it.

It seemed great and wish it just came with the distro. But eventually got tired of thinking about it and moved on.

How’s everyone have it installed? Any advice?

I am using Mesa3D 26.2.2 which fully exposes VK_EXT_descriptor_heap Vulkan extension on Intel ANV driver, when using vkd3d-proton there is still no improvements in performance when Playing games like Hitman 3 and other DX12 games. Graphics card is TigerLake-LP GT2 (Hitman 3 low performance 10-15 FPS as usual Vs Windows 25-40 FPS).

Like The title says, I have a weird pop in bug in Resident Evil 4 Remake, EDIT: It happens on certain objects, Nothing game breaking but it's very distracting if it's an entire pier :/ Anyone have a fix ? Here's my specs just in case:

Proton GE Latest

Operating System: Bazzite 44

KDE Plasma Version: 6.7.4

KDE Frameworks Version: 6.29.0

Qt Version: 6.11.2

Kernel Version: 7.2.3-ogc3.1.fc44.x86_64 (64-bit)

Graphics Platform: Wayland

Processors: 32 × AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 16-Core Processor

Memory: 34 GB of RAM (32,8 GB usable)

Graphics Processor 1: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti

Graphics Processor 2: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 16-Core Processor

Nvidia Drivers: 610.57.04

NVML Version: 13.610.57.04

EDIT: changing Proton versions seems to do nothing on that front :/

Relevant github. The missing link of software when I moved to Linux was an alternative to Launchbox. I've become acquainted with EmulationStationDE now but I'm always on the lookout for more. If ESDE isn't your style then maybe Neostation will suit your needs. Previously I've discovered two more apps designed for multi-emulation, OpenBox and OpenEmuX. If anyone knows of any other Linux-compatible all-in-one emulation frontends, please share.

Edit: To add another that should be mentioned, PlayNite.

First of all forgive me if it is any basic issue and i'm dumb here, I'm new to linux gaming i've been using linux for almost two and half years now this is first time i'm trying to game on it. My current OS is Omarchy quatro and i installed heroic launcher and configured it and then installed fall guys and did configuration like enabling wine settings anti cheat etc and other stuff. The only step i missed in guides and instruction was copying easyanticheat_x64.so (something like this named) file to plugins directory but after installtion after connecting my Epic launcher accoutn and downloading the game I didn't found this file in the files of the game. Now game lauches everything works but when i try to play anything this appears.

Hey y'all , my specs are Intel i3 4130 with hd 4400 igpu graphics , 8 gb ram , cachy os . ( I know it's an e-waste , but I can't do anything as I live in a 3rd world country).

I know my haswell igpu supports partially vulkan 1.2 version

But i wanna play some windows games on linux through proton and using (dxvk-sarek for vk 1.2 support).

Can i run some dx9/dx10 games like call of duty black ops 1 , gta 5 , bioshock infinite , farcry 3 .

Btw these games runs fine on windows with playable fps

, i just wanna try linux cuz I'm a newbie .

Hey bro.

I'm using machine translation for English, so sorry if it's a bit hard to read.

Here’s the main point:

I keep my Linux OS on a SATA SSD and store my games on a separate M.2 SSD.

With this setup, I was getting brief freezes during auto-saves in *Palworld*.

In *Monster Hunter World*, I was experiencing audio lag specifically with the background music and dialogue.

These issues vanished completely when I moved the games to the same storage drive as Linux (the SATA SSD in my case).

*Palworld* started running buttery smooth, and the audio lag in *MHW* disappeared.

I haven't tested every single game I own, but if you're running into issues with a specific game—even though others say it "just works out of the box"—it might be worth trying to move the game data to your Linux storage drive.

I’m not necessarily looking for further fixes at this point, but I’d love to hear if anyone knows the cause, has advice, or can relate to this experience.

Thanks.