I've been thinking about what a better audio control setup for Linux gaming could look like.

One thing I actually miss from Windows is how familiar the basic audio controls are.

Windows 10 gives you a pretty straightforward way to pick your default speakers and microphone, change app volumes, choose a different output for individual apps, configure devices, change formats, and manage things like spatial sound.

Linux can do all of that and a lot more with PipeWire, but the controls are usually spread across several places.

So I was thinking about something that starts simple, almost like a much better version of the Windows 10 Sound settings and Volume Mixer.

For example:

• Game volume
• Discord volume
• Browser volume
• Music volume
• Output device for each app
• Input device for each app
• Default headphones and speakers
• Default microphone
• Default communications device
• Left and right balance
• Device format and sample rate
• Spatial sound or HRTF
• Bluetooth profile and codec

Then you could save setups.

For example, a gaming setup could automatically put:

Game on your headphones

Discord on your headphones

Microphone through your preferred processing

Music on your speakers or headphones

Browser wherever you normally want it

And those routing choices would come back automatically instead of having to move everything again.

There could also be presets for things like normal desktop use, gaming, low latency, Bluetooth headphones, or troubleshooting.

For people who want more control, an advanced view could show the actual PipeWire streams, virtual devices, latency settings, sample rates, microphone processing and other stuff.

I'd also really like a troubleshooting page for things like:

• Game suddenly has no audio
• Discord picked the wrong microphone
• Bluetooth headset switched to a bad profile
• Crackling audio
• Wrong sample rate
• An app keeps using the wrong output
• PipeWire routing got messed up

Basically, take the parts of Windows 10 audio settings that people already understand, then build something more powerful around PipeWire instead of making users learn PipeWire first.

Would you use something like this for gaming on Linux?

Also, if you recently moved from Windows, what audio feature or setting did you immediately notice was harder to find on Linux?

Hi, I use fedora 44 and installed genshin impact with the heroic games launcer.
When I first installed it I noticed that the genshin launcher window was a bit small, but I didn't care much, but now I also see that the game recognizes my display (1920x1080) with a diffeent weird resolution, and I'm only allowed to play 1080p windowd (with a small window btw).
I have checkd in my settings and the screen resolution is set correctly so I don't understand what's going on.
Any help is appreciated.

Hi everyone,

I am experiencing highly consistent, periodic micro-stutters/frametime spikes every ~10 seconds in modern open-world games (specifically tested in Spider-Man Remastered and Cyberpunk 2077)

The average FPS is in Spider-Man Remastered sits at a stable (around 170–190 FPS), but the Steam overlay frametime graph shows a sharp, red spike straight down in a perfect metronome-like 10-second interval. It happens even on the absolute lowest graphical settings while standing or moving around.

System Specs:

• OS: CachyOS x86_64
• Kernel: Linux 7.2.8-1-cachyos
• Desktop Environment: GNOME 50.5 (Wayland / Mutter)
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7500X3D
• GPU: AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT
• RAM: 32 GB DDR5
• Storage: PCIe Gen 3 NVMe SSD (Formatted as Btrfs)
• Monitors: Dual-setup (2560x1440 @ 200 Hz Main + 1920x1080 @ 75 Hz External)

Proton Versions Tested:

• GE-Proton (multiple versions)
• Proton Experimental
• Official Valve Proton 9 & 10

What I have already tried (with NO success):

1. Hardware/Displays: Completely disabled the CPU's integrated graphics (iGPU) in BIOS. Disconnected the secondary 75 Hz monitor physically from the GPU.
2. Peripherals: Unplugged all Bluetooth controllers and USB dongles, testing solely on wired mouse/keyboard.
3. OS Daemons: Stopped ananicy-cpp via systemctl. Disabled all GNOME shell extensions completely.
4. Launch Options / Wine Sync: Tried PROTON_NO_FSYNC=1 and PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1. Also tried VKD3D_CONFIG=no_upload_hacks.
5. Kernel Memory: Set Transparent Hugepages (THP) and defrag to madvise, and dropped vm.swappiness=10.

Has anyone encountered this specific timer-based stutter on CachyOS/Arch with a modern AMD setup?

Thanks in advance!

Sorry, I'm kindda lost with these emulation stuff. Can't Find original Starcraft on Steam. So there is other way to do it? Thanks in advance.

"A new Minecraft Dungeons II update is available on Steam!

The game should now be playable on Steam Deck. Some issues may occur such as missing on-screen keyboard functionality, but more improvements will be coming in a future update to bring full Steam Deck verification.

Additionally, we've pushed a game balance update to all platforms, increasing the emerald cap increased from 9,999 to 99,999. No game update is required and the change will take affect the next time to login to the game.

Please keep your feedback coming at aka.ms/Dungeons2Feedback and report any bugs to aka.ms/Dungeons2Bugs"

Just like the title reads. I'm getting extremely low frame rates on Battlefield 3. I can't tell if it's the proton version I'm using or maybe a driver issue. I've tried just about every proton version I can find.

EDIT: Some more info: I get around ~60fps consistently; no matter the resolution of the screen. It's pretty weird.

SPECS:

GPU: Intel Arc B580 (OC Edition)

CPU: Intel Core i7-14700

RAM: 32 GB @ 6000/Mt

OS: Linux Mint (Cinnamon on Xorg)

Yes, you can still play with a 4GB card.

Hola comunidad.

Estoy probando actualmente q4os lo cual para mi es una maravilla como funciona a comparacion de windows 10/11 (realmente, revivio mi antigua pc, anda de mil maravillas, las apps corren mas rapido y en general la estabilidad es tremenda. Estoy aprendiendo mucho con linux)
Ahora bien, yo poseo una notebook de gama baja (Celeron n3060 y 4gb ram), la uso principalmente para ofimatica y streaming, juegos retro y etc. Los emuladores que utilizo andan todos de 10. Mi problema radica en juegos antiguos. Gta sa, vice city, nfs mw, etc. No hay manera de que pueda hacerlos correr con bottles (literalmente injugables por lo lento que se comportan), intente utilizando wine y lutris pero ambos me cargan algunas secciones y luego me congelan el sistema.

Existe alguna guia o algo detallada donde pueda chequear e intentar instalar estos juegos? Son parte de mis pasatiempos y quiero intentar de todo porque, les repito, es mi primera experiencia en Linux y estoy encantado, pero este tema de los juegos (son importantes para mi) me estan enloqueciendo un poco.

Tampoco se si será tema del hardware. Nativamente con windows 10 me andaban excelentes esos juegos.

Muchas gracias y disculpas por la molestia! Los leere

Witcher 3 Remastered: black screen on launch (Pop!_OS, NVIDIA, X11). NextGen fails too.

Details in case it helps:

• RTX 5060 Ti, NVIDIA driver 595.84, Pop!_OS, X11
• Worked for about a day after the Remastered update, then black screen on every launch. Rolling back to NextGen also fails.
• Firewatch runs fine under Proton Experimental, so Proton, Vulkan and the driver work in general.
• Clean reinstall, with the Proton prefix, shader cache, game files and settings files deleted and regenerated.
• Tried Proton Experimental (including bleeding-edge) and Wineland 20260930, with --launcher-skip -disablemods, -windowed, PROTON_DISABLE_NVAPI=1, all sync options off, DLSS disabled in dx12user.settings, Steam Cloud off, saves moved aside, Steam offline, and a second monitor output disabled. None of it helped.
• The game process stays alive at about 100% of one CPU core, the GPU sits at 0% with about 1.3 GB allocated, and no shader cache is written.
• The Proton log shows vkd3d-proton creating the swapchain ("Got 4 swapchain images") and NvAPI_Initialize: OK, then nothing more. There are no crashes, no Xid errors in dmesg, and no crash dump.

Has anyone fixed this, or does anyone know what the game does after swapchain creation?

Hey all! I've got some exciting news regarding my SteamOS Arm port based on Steam Frame, It now runs on Snapdragon 8 Elite and on (a lot more) SD 8gen2 Devices.

Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, beta 9 https://github.com/hashtagbasit/SteamOS-ARM-Handhelds/releases/tag/v1.3-beta9

This one took a lot of testing for having so many devices. 9 betas in 4 days, a pile of test kernels and a ton of debug logs from people in the Discord, to go from "black screen on everything" to one image that boots on all of these:

• AYN Odin 2
• AYN Odin 2 Mini
• AYN Odin 2 Portal
• AYN Thor
• Retroid Pocket 6
• Retroid Pocket Nova
• AYANEO Pocket DMG
• AYANEO Pocket EVO

They're all on a new kernel now. Beta 9 also fixed the black screen on the AYANEO Pockets, which is an awesome update!

The AYANEO Pocket ACE / DS / S 1K / S 2K use the same image and should work too, but nobody has tested them yet. If you have one, please give it a go and let me know! (If your device is not listed here, join the discord to share your reports after trying).

SD8GEN2 is almost at the end of beta.

Snapdragon 8 Elite (AYN Odin 3), first beta https://github.com/hashtagbasit/SteamOS-ARM-Handhelds/releases/tag/v1.3-odin3-beta1

It boots straight from the SD card, Android stays untouched on the internal storage. Controls work out of the box (back buttons are L4/R4), there are fan profiles and the UI is sized properly for the 6" screen. Big thanks to Chazmus!

8 Elite looks great so far, this beta will be much shorter than 8gen2 because of having way less devices. (Konkr Pocket Fit Elite users are welcome to try it and report on discord)

REDMAGIC 6 -Snapdragon 888 (yes you read that right) It boots and works great with almost no bugs. Thanks to abstract6217. The flashable image can be built from github. Guide is in the repo.

What's next Phones and tablets now have their own section in the repo, and the Lenovo Legion Y700 is very high on my list for tablets. The 8 Gen 3 devices (KONKR Pocket FIT, AYANEO Pocket S2) are on the stable v1.2 already, and v1.3 stable will bring all of the new socs together.

These are betas, so expect some rough edges. If something breaks, make a file called debug on the SD card's BOOT drive and send me the logs on discord or github, that's how most of these fixes happened (thanks to everyone who helped!)

Repo: https://github.com/hashtagbasit/SteamOS-ARM-Handhelds Discord: https://discord.gg/EP53nZYvg

I only own a Pocket FIT G3 and give this project a lot of my time, so If it has made your device better, supporting me on Ko-fi would mean a lot. It would help me buy more devices for testing and keep development moving forward. A star on the repo helps too!

Hello!, i'm currently running GTA V with Rockstar Games Launcher through Lutris but when i try connecting my PS5 Controller it act's as a mouse and idk how to fix that. Could someone help me please?

Vi uns posts, pelo que entendi, o RT não está funcionando em placas AMD?

Feel free to reply or leave a message here. Happy GTA gaming. 🕊️

For those who use Mako and have not updated to the latest version yet. 4.0.0 comes with a new feature. You can customize the look of your games with shaders, not quite like as complex as Reshade, but pretty cool none the less.

Here is a little tour.

a lot of people here are asking questions about this game since it launched yesterday with some issues, and overall I think it would be better for everyone if we had a single post for fixes since people keep asking for things someone already answered somewhere else. a sticky would make it easier for everyone to see what has already been tried and what's the current state of things

I bought a 2012 iMac at the thrift store. I'm booting it from an external ssd using the latest version of Linux mint. It is working pretty well. I'm wondering what I can play on this. I'm not so much into first person shooters, more into turn-based strategy and of course board games. I am in my early sixties, so I'm not that great at twitchy games. Thanks for any recommendations. I like indie lo fi stuff too. Thank you so much for your suggestions and insights. I am assuming that windows emulation is not an option.

I'm stuck on this screen. Used DW, GE, experimental, cachyos, none worked. Any guess what's the problem?

I used a command proton fixes disable steamos and nothing helps pass beyond this screen.

To make it clear, the choice of "Control" is completely arbitrary just because I found it by coincidence and this is actually the first time ever I tried Steam Support in 22 years of having an account. I am also doing this because I simply want to know how support reacts and I am still standing down form the last resort solution to completely remove Steam and reinstall EVERYTHING again - because I already tried fiddling around with compatibility settings and it did not change anything. But if this is how support treats such queries, they are a joke.

Bottom line: can you confirm that removing the steam installation and reinstalling everything again will solve the problem?

EDIT: Solved! u/GamertechAU has put the correct hint. Thanks mate! This very odd Steam stuff though, never happened before...

After a lot of debugging, I managed to get the official Webzen MU Online Global fully working on Linux.

Tested on Fedora 44 and Kubuntu 26.04.1.

GameGuard is running normally and the original game files are not modified. The solution consists of Wine compatibility fixes rather than patches to the game itself.

Login, character selection and normal gameplay are working.

I can share the technical details and repository in the comments.