Some Brief Linux Gaming Notes

I recently built a new gaming computer, and though it runs Windows 11 I have been giving some serious time to setting up and testing a Linux gaming setup as well. I have Fedora 41 installed on a 2 TB NVME drive in the PC, secondary to the 4 TB main drive that is running Windows. I set the machine up to boot first from the 2 TB drive so I can launch Fedora at boot easily, or launch Windows from GRUB. Which is kind of ugly but seems to work fine.

AMD drivers just work, no effort needed. No AMD userspace stuff though. Similarly I have good monitoring and fan control for the NZXT AIO, but don’t seem to have visibility into the system fans, which are running based on BIOS settings.

Here are a few notes on what I’ve found to get some additional utility.

Cooling

Specifically running the NZXT AIO. I haven’t found a way to change the image or data on the LCD like I can using NZXT CAM on windows, but I do have good control over fan and pump curves which I set up to basically be the same as I have in Windows for the “silent” profile I use most of the time. Which means it runs at good temps until you peg the CPU and then you probably want a higher pump speed.

I’m using CoolerControl for this using their DNF setup as listed in the README on that page. It set up the daemon and the GUI app as well and has good charting and reporting and easy enough to use speed profiles.

Video Hardware Acceleration Mods

This is Fedora specific, they disable some non-free stuff by default. Following the instructions on the Fedora site to enable this along with the non-free codecs guide on RPM Fusion. First enable RPM Fusion repositories, then update the Mesa driver package configuration. Took just a couple minutes.

sudo dnf swap mesa-va-drivers mesa-va-drivers-freeworld
sudo dnf swap mesa-vdpau-drivers mesa-vdpau-drivers-freeworld

Game Video Recording/Screen Recording

In Windows the AMD software package includes this out of the box with a system wide hotkey. In Linux we don’t really have the AMD userspace tools, but we do have a good tool for screen recording (as far as I can tell).

It’s called GPU Screen Recorder and can be downloaded from Flathub. Pretty easy to set up, once it’s up and running it has working hotkeys, and did 4k60 gameplay video with a system running about 90% GPU use (for the game) with no hitches or impact to gameplay that I could tell. Not bad. I think this does require making the mesa driver changes above.

FPS/Performance HUD

Install Mangohud for the performance data and Goverlay to configure it. Once it’s set up the way you like you can enable it in almost any Steam game. Just change the Steam launch options to say “mangohud %command%”. It works with most games but I did run into a crash with Pacific Drive.

Right Shift + F12 to show/hide the data. Useful.

Controllers

They pretty much just work through SDL. This includes an 8bitdo wireless 2.4Ghz controller and its receiver, which shows up as basically an Xbox pad, and a PS5 Dualsense controller.

The Dualsense controller support includes motion controls, and Pacific Drive on Steam does support the advanced Dualsense capabilities including adaptive triggers wirelessly in Linux.

Games

Steam

For Steam games, run Steam, but change the settings to enable Steam Play for everything. You can find this under Compatibility in Settings.

I also had an issue with the default Fedora installation of Steam where it was trying to “run on the dedicated GPU” when it launched and would just crash repeatedly. It would launch fine from the terminal though. A little searching found the solution:

Find Steam in the KDE launcher, right click, and hit Edit:

Steam Application Entry in KDE

Hit Advanced Options and uncheck “Run using dedicated graphics card”.

Advanced Options

Since most of my searches turned up laptop users with integrated and discrete GPUs and I’m guessing I’m running into it because I haven’t disabled the iGPU in the AMD 9800x3d CPU. Once I unchecked that it’s running fine (and appears to be running on the Radeon 7900XT anyways, which is perfect).

GOG

There isn’t really a first party GOG launcher, but Heroic Games Launcher can log into your GOG account and do most of the work except maybe the save game syncing. Not much setup needed here. Install and log in to your GOG account, then you can install games from there without much fuss.

Heroic can also launch other things and manage gaming focused WINE configurations. I use it to run WoW as well.

Emulation

All the same tools and emulators you’re used to. Support here is excellent. I prefer AppImages for these for the most part, though I have some Flatpaks as well.

I’m using the newer hard fork of Ryujinx for Switch which has really seamless update/DLC support and seems to run most games very well.

Minecraft

Install the Prism Launcher Flatpak and set it up there. Super easy, and I use the exact same setup on Windows.

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Hi, I’m Steve Block. I like to hike, cycle, and take pictures. Most of my writing is in a journal, though the best ideas find their way here. My photography is a long ongoing hobby. My main photo site is at ev-15.

— Steve