Questy

I have an Nvidia GPU, can I game on Linux?

https://lemmy.world/post/34881811

Aug 23, 2025 at 10:36pmWeb
Show threadjust_another_personAug 23, 2025

Nvidia is FINE on Linux. There’s just a couple extra steps.

All of these Nvidia GPUs being bought for all this AI bullshit? Running Linux. Every stupid AI company runs Nvidia right now, and it’s on Linux, so don’t worry.

Pick a mainstream distro, lookup the steps for installing the drivers and blacklisting the Nouveau drivers which sometimes take first dibs, and you’re golden. Few commands at best.

AMD is just simpler because you don’t have to manage the drivers, but it’s really not a big deal. It’s very easily handled.

Show threadfunkajunk 🇨🇦Aug 23, 2025

I had to fiddle with it for a while when I moved my main machine over to Linux a few months ago, but that’s mostly on me because I chose Arch & Hyprland.

If I had gone with a mainstream distro with a “nvidia” variant, it would have likely just worked out of the gate.

Show threadD_Air1Aug 24, 2025
Hell, if you had gone from an arch derived distro like EndeavourOS and just clicked the nvidia option. It would have been solved.
Show threadpathiefAug 24, 2025
Not with Hyprland, I had to set a nice chunk of variables to make it work properly.
Show threadgaylord_fartmasterAug 24, 2025

AMD is just simpler because you don’t have to manage the drivers, but it’s really not a big deal. It’s very easily handled.

Honestly this isn’t as true as I was led to believe it was before I switched to AMD. Just like Nvidia has issues between the proprietary driver and nouveau; AMD has its own mix of issues with Vulkan between RADV (mesa), AMDVLK, and AMD’s proprietary driver on a per-game basis at times.

Show threadThe_DecryptorAug 24, 2025

AMD has its own mix of issues with Vulkan between RADV (mesa), AMDVLK, and AMD’s proprietary driver on a per-game basis at times.

Good news, they’re going away. AMD is focusing entirely on Mesa now.

Show threadBCsvenAug 24, 2025
I have had no issues with nVidia on openSUSE. Just add the nvidias own repo to SUSE, and it pulls their specific driver for OpenSUSE. Everything works, even turning on RTX shading in games.
Show threadIheartcheeseAug 24, 2025
There’s a booby on your screen
Show threadonlookerAug 25, 2025
Some ornithologists seeing this comment will be very disappointed.
Show threadvishalkrkamatAug 24, 2025
@Questy look into CachyOS you might like it
Show threadZen_ShinobiAug 24, 2025

Yup

Nvidia has come a long way the past 10-15 years for Linux, just don’t tell AMD fanboys that.

Show threadNibodhikaAug 24, 2025
No it hasn’t, Nvidia usability in Linux now is the same as it was 10-15 years ago, and that’s sort of the problem. What do you think has improved since then? I remember ~18 years ago getting Nvidia to work with the proprietary drivers on my Mint was just a couple of clicks away and I could play oblivion and many other games that ran on Wine (and the very few natives we had) just fine. The majority of the Nvidia issues are self-inflicted, always have been, the problem is that because you have to use the proprietary drivers it’s very easy to shoot yourself in the foot, and inexperienced people tend to do it very often, so my guess is that 10-15 years ago is when you started using Linux, and broke stuff with the Nvidia driver, nowadays you don’t break that stuff and you think the driver has changed, when what has changed is you.
Show threadAdaAug 24, 2025

In the last 18 monts, they’re enabled explicit sync, which was pretty much the turning point in making NVIDIA drivers/GPUs usable. On top of that, they’ve open sourced the kernel modules.

It’s very very different to what it was even 2 years ago.

Show threadMazonnaCara89Aug 24, 2025
As a 1060 owner I’m gonna tell you this is probably the case only for newer gpus!
Show threadCaptain AggravatedAug 24, 2025
I gamed on Linux with a 1080 for a few years there and it was alright, I have gone AMD though just so I don’t have to bother.
Show threadMazonnaCara89Aug 24, 2025

I have been using linux with a 1060 for 4 years almost 5, and it isn’t that bad now, tho you need to make a lot of compromise!

At the beginning I experiencing a lot of graphical glitches! Like screen flipping when using an app that used a lot of gpu power or app going black after doing soo!

To this day on that pc I still experience black bars on the sides of apps and as even stated by doitsujin (dxvk creator):

Low D3D12 performance on Nvidia Pascal (and older) GPUs is expected and likely won’t improve much. The hardware has a bunch of limitations that make it very hard to extract good performance. Turing fares better, but only AMD actually runs reasonably well right now.

Source: github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/…/465#i…

And all of this on xorg to be clear! On the other hand I have an amd laptop with an igpu where I can safely say my experience was almost flawless!

Show threadCaptain AggravatedAug 24, 2025
I cannot report anything of the sort out of a GTX-1080. Using Linux Mint, X11 and the proprietary drivers handled by Mint’s driver manager, I got reliable service in video editing, CAD and gaming. I will note, my main computer is now a Radeon system running Wayland.
Show threadbackgroundcowAug 24, 2025
Are you using x11 or Wayland? Is anyone running Wayland with NVIDIA drivers? Everything works well in x11, but I’m getting bad flicker in Wayland. When trying to track it down I was led down a rabbit hole suggesting there is some protocol mismatch between what the NVIDIA drivers implement and what Wayland expects.
Show threadAdaAug 24, 2025

Is anyone running Wayland with NVIDIA drivers?

Yep! It’s been largely trouble free for a year or so now.

but I’m getting bad flicker in Wayland.

I had some issues the specific combination of NVIDIA card, Wayland running Plasma and VRR. But I disabled VRR, and it went away.

Show threadYeller_kingAug 24, 2025
I had problems on Ubuntu but no problems with PopOS