Best Graphic card for Linux Gaming
Best Graphic card for Linux Gaming
Are they some graphic card benchmark for linux environment ? From my windows experience, drivers are important, and often underestimate. My linux gaming experience is very bad, lots of my game are unstable, and others use a lot more resources than with windows. However, when I ask people, some of them have no issue at all, even with a similar environment (Debian + Steam). I may consider buy specific graphic card to stay on linux, but I couldn't find any clue to know which one are more adapted.
Thx for your leads !
Go AMD. The open-source drivers already provide the best performance compared to the closed-source ones, and are included in the kernel and Mesa, which means the cards will work out of the box. For the best performance and latest drivers and optimizations you should switch to a distro with more up to date packages than Debian if you plan on buying a current gen card tho. For example, Fedora is a very good mix between working OOTB, ease of use and bleeding-edge packages.
nVidia is... difficult. The open-source drivers are getting better but are still way behind closed-source drivers, and each closed-source drivers version only works with a single kernel version. It might work OK as long as the drivers and kernel are kept in sync (I think Pop! or Nobara have nVidia specific versions for this reason), but otherwise each kernel upgrade is a risk. Plus nVidia drivers are basically shit with Wayland and cause a ton of issues.
Intel has a good track record with iGPUs so discrete cards should be as trivial to use as AMD ones, if more at the entry-level performance-wise.
Second for AMD. Team Red is bringing it right now anyway, the only card that doesn't have an AMD equivalent is the 4090, anything else you can get an AMD equivalent for basically half the price. I run the 7900XTX and I can't find anything that stalls this card.
Caveats, if you want to do AI/ML stuff, NVidia is the way to go. Ray tracing is also about a generation behind, but it's not really noticeable to me. Instead of 4000 series ray tracing you get 3000 series ray tracing (roughly). Even with those caveats, it's the best card I've ever owned.
+1 for AMD, but...
For the best performance and latest drivers and optimizations you should switch to a distro with more up to date packages than Debian if you plan on buying a current gen card tho.
This is misleading. OP may have chosen Debian for a reason, as most Debian users do, and they don't have to give it up just because they're gaming.
Even with Debian Stable and a very recent AMD card, they would just have to grab a newer kernel (the easiest would be from Stable Backports) and maybe new amdgpu firmware (from here). Everything else would be covered by the Steam runtime (or Flatpak, if they use that). It's not all that difficult. Performance is comparable to other distros.
Source: I game on Debian Stable with a recent AMD card.
and each closed-source drivers version only works with a single kernel version. It might work OK as long as the drivers and kernel are kept in sync (I think Pop! or Nobara have nVidia specific versions for this reason), but otherwise each kernel upgrade is a risk.
Are you sure this is true? I make no attempt to keep my kennel and driver in sync and have never had any problems at all. I'm pretty sure you're wrong about this
Plus nVidia drivers are basically shit with Wayland and cause a ton of issues.
This is kind of true, but overstating. I use nvidia with Wayland also the time and, apart from some games, it works really well. Many of those issues will be fixed when explicit sync is released.
That all said, is she that AMD is currently best for Linux.
Any relatively modern AMD card should be fine. Also, protondb.com is your friend.
I like the Voodoo 2 but then again I play Quake and MDK
Even on nvidia, it’s been near perfect for me. I’ve heard that some higher-end features are missing, but with a 1080ti and the 550.78 driver, I really can’t complain for my own use
Worry less about benchmarks, and more about stability, compatibility, configurability, and sanity. Amd should be your first choice, then Intel Arc (may see some performance issues, but easier than Nvidia at this point), then Nvidia as an absolute last resort.
AMD and Intel open large parts of their drivers to be included in the mainline kernels releases and tertiary support packages which drive graphics in Linux, so any fully featured kernel will support either right out of the box, with no fiddling needed. You can tweak the drivers and overclock stuff as well if that's your jam.
Nvidia doesn't do any of this, and only allows individual installs of it's proprietary driver on a per-kernel basis. To simplify, you'll have issues getting it running under almost any conditions aside from a very Vanilla LTS install of a distro from a year ago unless you get REALLY good at doing the dance with their terrible package management issues and DKMS compilation craziness.
Have always run AMD, and I have had 0 issues, from arch to fedora to Debian. Gaming, CAD, video editing, not once have I had to use anything other than the open source drivers that are bundled with the distro. I currently have a 6700xt running Debian, and the only games I have issues with are the ones that just came out where they are squashing bugs anyway. Three weeks later, it’s running better on Linux than windows.
i like my AMD ATI Radeon RX 5600. after I figured out it has a tiny tiny TINY hidden physical overclock switch they don't ever mention for some godforsaken reason (which is put "on" by default, also for some godforsaken reason) to turn off, it's the most stable graphics card i've ever used.
...i just recommend turning off the tiny evil hidden crash switch of doom.amd in general is pretty chill on linux for a large portion of people.
Unless it's the newest of new Nvidia GTX cards, it's generally a wash.
You tradeoff issues from one to the other.
I had a 3070ti that I "upgraded" to a 6900xt and I kind of regretted it. I fell for the AMD is king on Linux hype.
Nvidia is way better than people let on and AMD isn't nearly as great as people let on.
That's my two cents.
Its probably more the things like when you happen to update in one of those times where the package manager has nvidia modules built for a different kernel version than what you just updated to. Sure you can use dkms but its often not the default, and not everyone can figure out what to do when they reboot and it hangs before reaching desktop. I know someone who decided they hated Linux in general after this.
Probably these days a new user wanting mainly Linux gaming with minimal tinkering could just use something like the bazzite nvidia image and never have any issues and if the open source driver ever reaches parity with the proprietary one it will probably just be swapped in and work in an update. Other distros as long as the maintainers aren't dumbfucks it should also be fine. In the early days of nvidia on linux Ubuntu fucked me up the ass a few times before I learned about using dkms for nvidia drivers or dkms at all really.
I had a 1080 Ti, and while my issues weren't as bad as what I see others face, my 6800XT has had absolutely zero issues whatsoever, I don't even have to think about drivers at all, ever.
Built a new rig last Xmas. Got a 7800xt sapphire. It just works. Cyberpunk on ultra 100+ fps (no rt, only turn it on for screenshots basic).
Both AMD and Nvidia GPUs work well. There is mainly a philosophy difference where AMD GPUs work particularly well with open source drivers whereas Nvidia still mostly depends on its proprietary drivers (though they work fine on Linux too).
Phoronix is a reputable website when it comes to benchmarking on Linux. Here is a previous benchmark with Nvidia GPUs, as an example:
https://www.phoronix.com/review/nvidia-rtx4080-rtx4090-linux/2
Of note: when people complain about nvidia on Linux, you need to determine whether they complain about open source or proprietary drivers.
I have been running Nvidia GPUs on Linux for years and have had no issue with the proprietary drivers, both for an old and recent GPU. Of course YMMV.
Edit: my personal recommendation though would be to stick with AMD which offers more memory and bandwidth compared to similarly priced Nvidia GPUs (Nvidia uses 8GB for many of its GPUs which is quire disappointing these days). And with open source drivers it may be easier to get issues fixed and find support.
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Which GPU do you have? Which drivers are you using? are you sure you're using those drivers and they're not just installed but unused? My first guess is that you have an Nvidia and are using open source drivers (nouveau).
Some performance difference is expected, after all most games are being run through a compatibility layer, and many others were ported as a second thought so they're not optimized on the same level. Also note that lots of us don't use Windows, so we're not comparing experiences, if it runs at an acceptable frame rate with an acceptable graphics settings for what I would expect the GPU to be capable of, then I don't bother benchmarking it.
Another consideration is whether they are plugged into the graphics card. Common performance "problems" arise when somebody tries to plug into the video-out on the motherboard, so they could be accidentally forcing the use of the iGPU, if present.
If using a somewhat modern distro, this isn't an issue anymore (unless you run a really old OpenGL game).
I run my PC in this way with little to no performance degradation: monitors go to my motherboard (r5 2400g CPU with vega11 iGPU) and games use my RX 5700XT without having to do anything at all... Pretty smart handling tbh
Had a few issues with high frame times and flickering on nvidia / latest 550.x driver on wayland/hyprland. No issues on x11 though. But it needed some additional configuration which is readily available in the arch forum.
Whats your rig?
I play on debian stable with steam. Its playable but debian is so far behind on packages that it makes no sense if you‘re sensitive to differences in fps or want peak performance.
Especially if you‘re using an nvidia card its definitely less fun on debian. I made good experiences with pop!os.
If you compare framerates I suggest windows though since linux users usually want a functional, privacy friendly OS which allows them to own their hardware and then comes peak game performance. If trash OS and privacy invasion is cool for you, go for it.
Not saying the performance on average isnt on par but the games are just not made for linux and its not „dead easy“ in every game yet.
Buy AMD and consider switching to ubuntu 24.04. Install steam from the website.