Linux gaming is BETTER than windows?

  - You're gonna install Windows on that PC, I'm gonna install Linux on this one. - [Linus] So it's a race? - First to a usable desktop wins. Ready? - Okay, come on,Three, - You put obstacles in my way- two. Okay fine, I'll wait. - I'm going. - Three, two, one. - [Linus] Go Windows. - Gave yourself a head start? - I did not. Video evidence we pressedit at the same time. - You pressed Enter, I hit Ctrl + Alt + Delete. I've reset the board. - This is not a useful progress bar. - It's what's called a throbber. 

- It's called a throbber, is it? - Mm-hmm. - I got another throbber to show you. Actually, I'm just flexing my muscles. No I don't wanna seewhat's new from Windows. Come on. Are you supporting remote workers? Smartdeploy can help youdeploy windows, apps, patches. and driver updates toremote PCs over the cloud. Grab your free subscriptionworth over $700 at the link below. (upbeat tech music) All right, though I lost. But in fairness to me, Ididn't get to pick a side. I would've chosen Linuxin an OS install race too. - Yeah, I guess. But I needed a way to introduce one of the biggestimprovements in Linux gaming since our last video a year ago. Thanks to the release of Ubuntu 20.04, and distros based on itlike Pop!_OS and Mint, we finally got a trulypick-up-and-play experience. It's at the point where I'd argue that it's even easierto do than Windows now. I mean, you saw for yourself, this is fully usable, thishas a driver and everything. For real, if you give it a try, you'll be up and runningwith a grandma proof and gaming capable OS ina few minutes like I was. - What about the elephantin the room though? Support for your games and stuff. I mean, it's not likeeverything runs on Linux.

 - Yeah true, but significantlymore stuff runs than doesn't. I've got a pretty big library at home, including popular titles like GTA 5 and lesser known ones likeDCS and East Combat 7. Pretty much all of it works fine. Proton compatibility layer was super cool when we first looked at it, translating DirectX Windows-onlygames to Vulcan on Linux. And between the official oneand tweaked community versions like those from Tk-Glitchand GloriousEggroll, 69% of the top 1,000 games on Steam are actually rated goldor better on Proton DB. And most of the ones that don't work at this point are DRMor anti-cheat related. - Right. I mean, the problem is, there's nothing that Valveor the Proton team can do about deliberately Linux incompatible DRM, like how Denuvo Anti-Cheatmade Doom Eternal unplayable. But the good news is that theyactually came out and said that going forward, DenuvoAnti-Cheat will support Linux. One theory is that this change in stance could have to do with cloudgaming services using Linux as their platform of choice. - Hopefully it won't have tomatter too much why in the end. But for now, Linux users are getting a better experience than ever, despite the occasional sidelining. - There are still some otherways that Linux lags behind. The community is so small that issues tend to be lowerpriorities for game developers, and newer features cantake longer to roll out. Nvidia's RTX ray tracing for example, hasn't been enabled yet. - Yeah, but to be fair to Nvidia,they have been rolling out additional ray-tracingextensions here and there, which is a key step to enablingthe functionality later on, and there's some other big news, too. - For some gamers, check this out, Linux actually meets theirneeds better than Windows does, and not just by a little bit. For 16-bit retro gamers for example, Wine offers bettercompatibility and stability without having to resort to running games in a virtual machine. And get this, we've recordedruns with less old games running faster on Linux than on an identical Windows machine. That's not just some randomgame that no one plays, like whatever this is. Well, this is--- Burn, sick burn. - Go ahead. - This is actually a gamethat Tim Sweeney published. - Is it really? 

- Well, it's an Epic MegaGames game. - Okay, it's older than me. - Yes. Well, 1993. - So not quite, but I was seven. - [Anthony] This was possible thanks to Valve's ACO shader compiler, which is designed toimprove performance on GPUs that use Mesa, like AMD'sVega and Navi based cards, and that's even with Proton overhead. - Don't believe it? Let's take a look. Linux GTA 5, woo! Doesn't make you a betterdriver, that's for sure, dang. Oh lucky, my car tipped over. In all seriousness though,back when this game came out I probably would've said, "Ha ha, AAA gaming onLinux, get real, please." And yet, here we are. - It's worth pointing out that ACO doesn't work with every game yet. So, it's not yet the default. But performance was alreadyvery good for the hardware thanks to AMD's open-source drivers, and doitsujin's ongoing work with DXVK, which now supportsDirectX 9 titles as well thanks to a merger with the D9VK project. All of that's been rolled up into Proton and is supported out-of-the-box in Ubuntu 20.04 and anything based on it. - Hey, got 'em. Did I die? Okay. So, regardless of your graphics card, you just install the OS, install Steam, install games and play games. If you're on AMD, enable ACOin Steam's launch options for titles that supportit and you're laughing. As for Nvidia users,don't stress out too much. - Nvidia drivers aren'tas good as they could be if they were more open like AMD's, but they also aren't as badas people make them out to be. And both AMD and Nvidiasupport their respective adaptive refresh technology on Linux now, with no additional installs required. - If you wanna quantify yourLinux gaming performance, even that is getting easier. Windows tools like Frapsor FrameView won't run, but MangoHud by FlightlessMangoworks absurdly well. It gives you a configurablerivet-tuneresque overlay, and you can upload logs to the website and have it automatically generate graphs for frame rates, frame times, 1% minimums, pretty much everything you need. Honestly, if it logged more information like CPU and GPU temperatures, we'd probably switch over to it instead of what we're using in Windows. - [Anthony] It's really good. 

- By the way, guys, youmight take for granted the controller that Anthonyis using over there, but look closelier. Controller support isnothing special in Linux. Dualshock 3, DualShock 4,Xbox 360, Xbox One, 8BitDo, none of those require anyconfiguration or special drivers, even over Bluetooth. But now, look at this. Even the Xbox One wirelessadapter has a driver for Linux, allowing low-latency wireless operation for four controllers off a single dongle, just like it does on Windows. and the DualShock 4's touchpadeven works as a mouse. - Speaking of DualShock 4, we've actually got a video in the pipeline where we play around withgyro aiming for games. Get subscribed so you don't miss it. - Hey, what is this? - Nothing, get away. - No.- Nope. - Ha ha, you have to social distance. So if I come over here, you have to move. OpenRGB. Is that RGB control on Linux? - Yep, OpenRGB is availableon both Windows and Linux, and it supports RGB RAM,motherboard lighting, GPUs, and even stuff likeCorsair lighting nodes. Despite all the work that'salready gone into it though, it's a little bit basic right now, and it's a pain to get runningon Ubuntu at the moment. But for simple lightingeffects, it's quite enough. - All right, hot shot, how about VR? If I wanna get in some BeatSaber action, Penguin Edition? - That's tricky. HTC Vive and Valve index haveboth worked for a while now, because valve officiallysupports them in Steam. But the Open HMD driverfor Oculus and PSVR is currently missing somerather major features, and the virtual desktopexperience and reprojection are cited as major issuesby all Linux VR users. 

- That's a real bummer, 'causeI use virtual desktop a ton, even if it's just to likefix something about my stream while I'm playing, orwhatever the case may be. And if aside from gamingyou're a content creator, you might have a hard timeswitching to Linux full time, even if all your games work. The Adobe suite which, as wemade a video about recently, we're pretty much stuck withfor better or for worse, doesn't run in Wine and there's no native version from Adobe. Same deal with Microsoft Office. - But for the second one, there's at least a webversion if you really need it, and people like Tech Tangents make good work with Linuxalternatives to Adobe. It's potentially a majorchange to your workflow, depending on what you're doing though. Some tools are great on their own, like Krita, Blender and GIMP, while others, well, are promising but need a little bit more work. Sufficed to say, there are alot of alternatives out there, but for some people itjust won't be viable to run Linux full time,and that's okay really. - Yeah. I mean, it's frustrating, but Linux on desktop has always been this chicken and egg scenario where, because it's not popular on the desktop, developers don't care because there's not enoughpeople to buy the software. Yet, because developers don'tcare and build that software, it's not popular on the desktop. 

 - [Linus] I'm good, I'm fine. - Some developers are kinda dicks about it. And I get the die-hardLinux veteran's concerns. They think that leaningon Proton as a crutch might disincentivize game developers from creating native Linux games. But for me, I see Protonand Wine in general as more of a platformdevelopers can support that requires little additional effort and allows for the user base to grow. - And the more the user base grows, the more accessible everything becomes. So, at this point, the call to action foryou guys is really simple. Where'd it go? Ah, there it is. Pick up a USB stick and give it a try. You can run it right off the USB without installing it on your main drive, like I did in this recent video where Windows juststraight-up wouldn't run my weird Chinese motherboard that had a baked on graphicscard, but Linux would. Go check out that video, and try it, and check outour sponsor, Micro Center. Micro Center is open to supply all your work from home or learnfrom home technology needs, whether you're a Windowsor a Linux kinda character. They want you to checkout the Lian Li Lancool 205 mid-tower tempered glass case. It supports ATX, MATX,and Mini-ITX motherboards. It's got extra spacebehind the motherboard tray for cable management. It's got side ventilationfor improved airflow. Easy access to the power supply and hard drive bay from the side.