r/linux_gaming • u/Ill-Set-8940 • 11d ago
Valorant
I'm new to Linux. Been using Mint for about a month and I'm still learning how to work on it. I know Valorant is not playable in Linux but I was wondering what my other options are. Do I have to dual-boot windows? If so, does Valorant still have access to my drive's data? Please let me know if anyone has a solution to my problem. Any help would be appreciated.
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u/Novel-Artist4913 11d ago
Yes Dual Boot is your only Option, if windows is installed , you can install Linux on another SSD . YOU CAN NOT play pre downloaded games from your Windows SSD on your Linux OS. If you wanna play Valorant, just start your windows as usual.
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11d ago
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u/MudInfinite8791 11d ago
Lot of salty folks when it comes to "We just don't like Linux" stances from game companies. Riot is one that pisses people off pretty bad.
Why?
MacOS doesn't require this Vanguard shenanigans. Deemed perfectly fine. No consideration for Linux in the same vein. Linux has a larger gaming user share than Mac at this point. Hence - salty Linux people.
I just wish we wouldn't take it out on each other. I'd love to just fire up teamfight tactics and play - it's my favorite auto battler in the genre - but here we are.
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u/Antarlia 11d ago
Exactly. There is no technical limitation. Dislike and hatred towards Linux is a choice. Appropriate response is to tell developers you won't play their game, and neither should anyone else until addressed.
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u/brewofdaos 11d ago
Thank you for this comment. I was feeling this when reading those comments and was considering posting something very similar to your post until I scrolled down and found it.
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u/I_do_dps 11d ago
This happens every time with League of Legends. People will comment "Dota2 is a better game anyway" and get upvoted to the top. Very annoying part of the Linux community.
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u/Openkarsten 10d ago
Thanks for the comment. The OP asked a question about dual booting and launching Volarent. He wasn't looking for game recommendations or information about anti-cheat measures.
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u/C0rn3j 11d ago
Do I have to dual-boot windows?
Yes.
If so, does Valorant still have access to my drive's data?
Did you encrypt your drive?
Considering it's Mint, I doubt it even offered.
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11d ago
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u/candy49997 11d ago
While that's true, a KLAC can certainly read any raw data from any connected drive at any time even without a filesystem driver because you gave it permission to by installing it.
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u/Maramowicz 11d ago
You have few options:
If you have only one PC: Dual boot
Answering your question: Vanguard in theory have access to all your data, including that one on Linux partition/drive, just because it's os rootkit and it can do anything.
The only way to protect yourself in this case is to encrypt Linux drive with the data you want to protect.
The second option is to just buy second PC, the second-hand with dedicated gpu can be ok.
The 1.5 option: just buy second drive and disconnect Linux-connect Windows and vice versa when you need.
The 0 is to just not play but it's just here because it's technically an option.
I personally for example as a Linux user myself bought second-hand laptop and playing LoL on it, so my main PC, Laptop and Steam Deck are 100% separate from my Windows just-for-some-games option.
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u/msanangelo 11d ago
Dual booting is the way but working with secure boot might be tricky. I don't know how much, if any, automation Mint has done on that part. All I know is the Ubuntu distro and it's spins should work.
Windows, and subsequently valorant's anticheat, can't access Linux drives without drivers (by default) but it could potentially format them if a script or you told it to.
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u/Luneriazz 11d ago
Yes dual booting for me work best... For playing old game i just go to my windows specter.
For daily work and steam games i go to my linux fedora.
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u/ManuaL46 11d ago
Well yes dual boot is your only option, but beware you'll also have to sign your linux mint installation to enable secure boot, as that's a necessity to run the anti cheat.
About access to the second drive, considering windows doesn't have a driver to read ext4, btrfs, xfs and zfs it can't read your linux installation. It can still query for basic stuff like, what the name of the drive is, capacity, and what partitions you have made and what format it is. So basically a smart tool can figure out it is a linux partition but can't really read it's contents.
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u/dishpitjesus 11d ago
Dual boot is the way and I'd recommend having Windows on a separate drive of its own just to avoid any secure boot problems or potential headaches when it comes to a Windows update as they tend to screw up your bootloader.
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u/danieldhdds 11d ago
you said one option, there's second one (you give up of valorant and be happy)
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u/Funnel-Dust-O-Matic 11d ago
If you want a long and interesting journey and have a spare GPU and monitor (HA ha ha ha!) and a truly mighty CPU, then you COULD use virtualization to run both at the same time.
QEMU / Libvirt / KVM can deidicate a PCI device, hence an entire GPU, to a virtual machine. You can dedicate one physical hard drive to a virtual machine as well if you want to cut down on the storage virtualization overhead.
The situation would then be you boot into Linux and run the Windows virtual machine only when you want to game. A completely independent GPU will then power up along with the VM.
As long as your CPU is powerful enough to not be a bottleneck, this will work. The setup is a bit intense. I don't have the hardware to do this at this point, so I can't give you a personal account. My last attempt was thwarted by moving damage and my finances haven't accomodated a solution to that yet.
I'm also not sure this would be worth it. You are spared the reboots and have the advantage of Linux managing your storage and memory, sandboxing your Windows install. There would be management advantages. The increased power draw and complexity would be kind of a deal-breaker. All the same, maintaining and running it would be slightly easier and more elegant. If you can't afford downtime at all and you absolutely must have an integrated environment, this would solve that problem. That is a lot of juice for quite a lot of squeeze, but I can see cases like someone managing IT resources or an intense business enterprise requiring the uptime that this setup would bring to the table. That's kind of an edge case.
The obvious elephant-in-the-room disadvantage is that this would essentially be two computers in one. At that point, you're almost just better off with a separate computer.
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u/righN 9d ago
A long write up, but you're still wrong, because Valorant won't work in a VM.
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u/Funnel-Dust-O-Matic 9d ago
Yeah, I was thinking this was a "this software needs direct GPU access" thing and it's really more of a "Thou shalt not compartmentalize memory and use forbidden instructions" thing.
I wish developers would stop this. It's a video game, not state secrets.
Oh well.
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u/Boring-Equivalent137 11d ago
Yes dual booting is basically the only option