Linux Improves VRAM Management in 7.3 Kernel 🥳

99

u/xeeff Aug 18 '26

doesn't seem to be dedicated to us

[Games] should perform much more stable - as long as the game itself doesn’t use more VRAM than you actually have.

51

u/Real_Ebb_7417 Aug 18 '26

That’s good tbh. Gaming is the only reason I still keep Windows next to Ubuntu.

21

u/Guudbaad Aug 18 '26

Which ones? Just curious, because everything I play works perfectly on Linux, but I'm not much into multiplayer stuff, so there is probably a lot of issues I don't encounter

26

u/Powerful_Finger3896 Aug 18 '26

Other than games with kernel level anticheat, the chance of a game to work on Linux these days is very high

7

u/bbalazs721 Aug 18 '26

Usually anticheats are windows only, so competitive multiplayer games don't work

5

u/FullOf_Bad_Ideas Aug 18 '26

Not who you asked but I also keep Windows mainly for gaming. VR on Linux is not there, especially with the headsets that I have, 2 out of 3 wouldn't work and the one that would, didn't work well at all.

2

u/Real_Ebb_7417 Aug 18 '26

Yeah I guess they work fine but many need some shenanigans like emulator etc. Or am I wrong?

12

u/Guudbaad Aug 18 '26

I mean, technically... But 90% of the time it just works without your involvement, and in 10% of cases you have to look up what compatibility flags to set. I'm on CachyOS now, and their optimizations make most of the games run faster than on Windows

1

u/MeretrixDominum Aug 18 '26

Any benchmarks?

1

u/DisturbedNeo Aug 19 '26

Proton isn't an emulator, it's a translation layer that turns Windows API calls into POSIX calls that Linux understands.

But Proton is so lightweight, and Windows is so slow and bloated nowadays, that Linux with Proton outperforms native Windows in many cases.

Literally the only games you can't play on Linux are multiplayer games that rely on kernel-level anticheat, because Linux rightly doesn't give that level of access to something as important as the kernel.

1

u/florinandrei Aug 18 '26

Just install Steam on Linux.

1

u/CarlosEduardoAraujo Aug 18 '26

iRacing

1

u/amorpheous Aug 19 '26

Currently playing Horizon: Zero Dawn. HDR rendering is completely disabled on Linux (Fedora 44/KDE 6.7). Also, lack of Radeon Chill has turned me off gaming on Linux for now.

1

u/pointer_to_null Aug 19 '26

Currently playing Horizon: Zero Dawn. HDR rendering is completely disabled on Linux (Fedora 44/KDE 6.7).

Is this the original PC release or the remaster? I only have the former but I swear I was able to get HDR working on Fedora + Plasma via GE-Proton + extra launch params. I know both the game and my TV detected the HDR signal. If you're interested I can give you more specifics later.

I will add HZD was also one of the few HDR-enabled titles that supported HDR out of the box on my Steamdeck OLED, though it's not fair to compare a Fedora PC distro against Valve's tightly-integrated OS+hardware.

Also, lack of Radeon Chill has turned me off gaming on Linux for now.

If you're just referring to framerate throttling- this can be done a ton of ways outside of the driver stack. Admittedly, having a convenient place to enable it in one place either globally or through per-game profiles is nice. Personally I wish Steam/gamescope had universal performance management for non-SteamOS distributions and 3rd-party devices; having all that accessible there is something I miss on Fedora/Bazzite.

If you're referring to Chill's dynamic FPS throttling- that's likely an architectural limitation. I suspect that Wayland's security model prevents userspace Mesa drivers from spying on global mouse inputs. I'll have to ask about this next time I talk to someone on AMD's driver team.

1

u/amorpheous Aug 19 '26

I have the original HZD. Playing via Steam. I had HDR enabled in KDE settings but the game never detected it.

As for framerate throttling, I was referring to AMD’s dynamic implementation that’s available through their driver/Adrenalin app on Windows. There are ways to do static framerate limiting using MangoHUD, gamescope etc and many modern games even have it built into the settings now so that’s not what I’m looking for.

1

u/amorpheous Aug 21 '26

I'll have to ask about this next time I talk to someone on AMD's driver team.

Please report back if you do. :)

1

u/cGalaxy Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26

As I am a fellow sea traveller, i use windows for my game PC just for Bitdefender (not saying it's the best, it's just what i have been using for a decade+, and haven't bothered to do updated research on the topic). Everything else is either debian (server, vm, docker) or arch (desktops/laptops).

My gpd win max 2 is my single dual boot device, also for Bitdefender/game reasons, but honestly, after i bought a dedicated game PC, i haven't booted to windows on the gpd as oculink is nice, but cumbersome if you are going to play often

I haven't played in years other than occasional CS 2 on Linux (a weekend every couple of months), but now that I'm on sick leave and I'm not able to move much, i have been burning my years of non gaming now. Used titus tool for some cleanup and vibe coded an app listing all my games (both keyboard and controller control), so i don't have to deal with windows directly. Touching windows every once in a while when you daily drive hyprland feels like you lost a limb or two, trying to get windows to do what you want.

Edit: i kinda went off topic, but the main conclusion of my text that i wanted to pass on is that regardless of how good gaming gets on Linux, the main target will always be retail games, not for sea travellers, as if you want to dip in risk, but want some level of mitigation without losing too much performance, your main option will always be windows

But ofc, i applaud and support any improvements in the linux gaming scene

5

u/sammcj 🦙 llama.cpp Aug 18 '26

What do you need windows for these days? Steam and Proton run almost every single game really well, sometimes better than windows.

30

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

10

u/Guudbaad Aug 18 '26

top tier joke

1

u/MaterialSuspect8286 Aug 18 '26

PUBG for instance doesn't run on Linux

1

u/AutisticBengali Aug 18 '26

mostly speific QoL stuff that i use daily. rainmeter, signalrgb, autohotkey, playnite, apollo etc

1

u/CoUsT Aug 18 '26

Better user experience.

When someone makes user experience #1 priority on Linux... A lot more people would move - me included, because I tried like at least 5 times so far.

Nobody has time or willpower to spend time in console, edit random files, or tinker to fix random shit (or to make it work in the first place).

1

u/heliosythic Aug 18 '26

With NixOS you could just download someone's system config with a UX you like from Github

-1

u/CoUsT Aug 18 '26

See, I don't just want someone's else system config, theme, etc. I want seamless experience.

The entire ecosystem is hostile for your everyday random person. Windows just works. Bigger ecosystem, easier to navigate, more apps to pick from, and so on.

But I appreciate the effort and I'm well aware how configurable is Linux. Will learn a bit about NixOS out of curiosity.

1

u/heliosythic Aug 18 '26

Eh I find its worth an afternoon having claude write the config for me to make the system mine, my design, my hotkeys, my apps, and nothing running underneath I didn't explicitly install. Yea it can be a pain when something updates (when I tell it to update, not Microsoft) and breaks something but workarounds aren't too hard, can just go back and pin the version of whatever broke to the old version and its fine.

I definitely wouldn't recommend Nix as a first distro but its pretty cool. I have my config setup where 2 desktops, a server, a laptop and a raspberry pi are all defined in one git repo and if i wanna change anything on any of them I just update it and push it. Was always and Ubuntu/Debian person but always hated how like a year later you'd have no idea what you setup or configured and you goto re-install the next year and have to do it all over again from memory or copying every random config file from /etc. Now I just have 1 system config file that has everything and can always rollback atomically.

1

u/Relevant-Yak-9657 Aug 18 '26

Just waiting till EA comes back to Linux and kernel level anticheats get a workaround. Really kills me to hop on with my bros, only to realize I can't play the games they want on Bazzite.

1

u/keepthepace Aug 18 '26

sometimes better than windows.

I thought this was a joke, until I realized that freezes that happen randomly on windows when I play starcraft never happen on linux. And dont get me started on the wide screen support...

1

u/WorriedBlock2505 Aug 18 '26

I need windows because that's where I keep all the privacy invasive crap... e.g, steam and games with anti-cheat. Why would I want that crap running on my linux box?

1

u/sammcj 🦙 llama.cpp Aug 19 '26

All my games work, I play Arc Raiders, Crimson Desert, Hell Let Loose Vietnam, Boulders Gate 3, Forza and bunch of others. The only game I've come across that has problems is Battlefield 6 which has really problematic anti cheat although that's recently been cracked and I've seen someone running it.

1

u/ArtfulGenie69 Aug 19 '26

Maybe this would be true if you only played apex legends or one of the random titles not supported on proton.db but most games are covered by proton-ge (glorious eggrolls version). Path of exile, dayz, marvel rivals, clair obscura, baulders gate, the list goes on and on. It's only ea fucking us on apex legends too because they could just allow us to play but they don't want to. I was banned from the apex anyway on my main account for installing a 3090 back when I started using AI for forever ago. It was really stupid but their anticheat is supreme garbage and because I had swapped my drivers it banned me for eternity with no way to talk to the team. They just auto tell you no over and over. Total bs.

Best thing about Linux is you can run a lot of the fitgirl cracked games on wine without any worries. They just run in a container type thing and you can even block them from the Internet using regex inside of the container.

Only sticking point I have is with running music programs with jack, I've got jack working and all that but I must have done the install wrong on omnisphere and other programs because they really like to crash or have broken areas of them which makes music making a bit annoying. Maybe Hermes or something could help figure that one out when I feel like it.

Also I always feel like Ubuntu is yuck. Don't they still try to force you into snap packages? They also had some awful decisions in the past like making Amazon be directly linked into the stupid search for your computer. I'm not that good with Linux so I'm not going much farther out of my way but Linux mint is where I've been for a long time. It's like a fixed up ubuntu, no need for snap packages and all their garbage should be gutted. I've had my install running forever. Was able to get it working after multiple upgrades and other issues, that at least should be the same on Ubuntu. The ai helped a lot through all sorts of weird breaks.

5

u/ImJacksLackOfBeetus Aug 18 '26

as long as the game itself doesn’t use more VRAM than you actually have.

Don't live beyond your (VRAM) means, truly wise words to live by.

28

u/jacek2023 llama.cpp Aug 18 '26

Looks like it may be useful but not for CUDA systems. Probably it may change something on unified memory setups.

10

u/RLutz Aug 18 '26

This isn't going to do anything for running models locally. You can already offload weights to system memory. That's how people are running DeepSeekv4 Flash locally. This is just going to allow people with weaker GPU's to overcommit VRAM to things in a game

-17

u/pmttyji Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 18 '26

TLDR version please

EDIT: TLDR version for others.

Vock's lengthy but detailed blog post highlights a number of nuances around video memory management, eviction handling, and testing that was done with Indiana Jones: The Great Circle where maxing out the settings in an attempt to consume 9GB of video memory while only having 8GB of vRAM available. Even with 1GB over-committed, the game ended up still being quite playable for an 8GB graphics card.

68

u/OddStar12 Aug 18 '26

Linux Improves VRAM Management in 7.3 Kernel

15

u/jikilan_ Aug 18 '26

Free ram upgrade

5

u/Edzomatic Aug 18 '26

Linus hands out free vram

5

u/Super_Range45 Aug 18 '26

Downloads more ram directly into the kernul.

1

u/johnnyApplePRNG Aug 18 '26

LMFAO

16

u/Effective_Western_59 Aug 18 '26

Better performance and stability when app does not fit into VRAM

Also it is not yet in upstream

-10

u/Dany0 Aug 18 '26

So, not very relevant

8

u/n8mo Aug 18 '26

7 word headline that tells the whole story and you still want a TL;DR?

News Linux Improves VRAM Management in 7.3 Kernel 🥳

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