A linux gaming guide

This is some kind of guide/compilation of things, that I got to do/learn about while on my journey of gaming on linux. I am putting it here so it can be useful to others! If you want to see something added here, or to correct something where I am wrong, you are welcome to open an issue or a PR !

Table of Content

• A linux gaming guide
  • Table of Content
  • Gaming kickstart
  • Extras
    • Performance overlays
    • SteamTinkerLaunch
    • Game mode
    • streaming: OBS
      • obs-vkcapture: low-overhead game capture method
      • GPU Encoders
      • Software encoding on AMD Ryzen CPUs
    • Saving replays
      • OBS: replay Buffer
      • gpu-screen-recorder
    • Linux distribution recommendation
      • CachyOS
      • Archlinux
    • Headset Control
    • CoolerControl
    • RGB Control
  • Advanced topics for those interested
    • Self-compiling
      • Flags to try
    • DirectX to Vulkan mapping
      • DXVK self-building
      • Custom compile flags
    • GPU
      • Drivers
      • Nvidia
      • AMD
        • RADV: Self-compile
    • Kernel
      • CPU mitigations
      • Threading synchronization
      • Custom kernels
        • Compiling your own: linux-tkg
    • AMD Ryzen CPU cache topology
      • Core pinning: cpuset
        • Checking that it works
      • Benchmark
    • Wine
      • Environment variables
      • Threading synchronisation
        • Esync-Fsync
      • Fastsync
      • Wine-tkg
        • compiler optimizations
    • Game / "Wine prefix" manager
      • Lutris
      • Bottles
      • Heroic Games Launcher
      • Steam
        • Troubleshooting: first thing to try
        • Troubleshooting: getting logs
        • Shared NTFS partition with Windows
    • Overclocking
      • RAM
    • Input lag / latency: benchmark at home
    • Display server
      • Wayland
      • X11
      • KDE
    • Sound tweaks with Pipewire/Pulseaudio
      • Stream only the game sounds
      • Improve the sound of your headset
        • The Graphical way
      • Mic noise suppression
        • The Graphical way
        • The command line way
    • Benchmarks
      • Games
      • Mice
    • Misc

Gaming kickstart

Gaming on Linux has never been easier

1. Chose your Linux distribution
2. Install your GPU drivers
   • AMD
     • Needs mesa, which ships the RADV vulkan driver. Probably already part of the base distro
   • Nvidia
     • RTX 2000 and newer: install Nvidia's "open" driver
     • Older GPUs: use Nvidia's "closed" driver
3. Install the Steam client (prefer a distro that ships it so dependencies get properly pulled)
   • If the games you want to run isn't in Steam, see Prefix managers
4. Game on!

Extras

Performance overlays

Performance overlays are small "widgets" that stack on top of your game view and show performance statistics (framerate, temperatures, frame times, CPU/RAM usages... etc). Two possibilities:

• Recommended: MangoHud
  • Available in the repositories of most linux distros
  • To activate it, add the environment variable MANGOHUD=1
  • Configuration
    • Config files/env vars: HUD Configuration.
    • GUI: GOverlay
  • Ideal for benchmarking.
• Fallback: DXVK
  • Has its own HUD and can be enabled by setting the variable DXVK_HUD
    • The possible values are explained in its repository

SteamTinkerLaunch

Steam Tinker Launch opens a window after starting a game from Steam that offers adding in various tweaks before actually starting the game.

Steam Tinker Launch is a versatile Linux wrapper tool for use with the Steam client which allows for easy graphical configuration of game tools, such as GameScope, MangoHud, modding tools and a bunch more. It supports both games using Proton and native Linux games, and works on both X11 and Wayland.

Make sure to follow these instructions.

Game mode

GameMode is wrapper script that puts your computer in performance mode:

• Changes the CPU frequency scaling to performance
• Can change the game's processes priority
• Can change the GPU's power profile
• (see config) to see what it can offer

How to use:

• Archwiki entry on GameMode
• SteamTinkerLaunch can be set to use it
• Lutris uses it automatically if it's detected

Is it running ?

• Run the command gamemoded -s.
• Waybar can be setup to show the state of GameMode.

streaming: OBS

OBS is the famous open source streaming software: it helps streaming and recording your games, desktop, audio input/output, webcams, IP cameras... etc.

obs-vkcapture: low-overhead game capture method

obs-vkcapture implements the "dma-buf" sharing protocol for capturing games with low/no overhead.

To use it:

• Use game capture as "source" in OBS

  • You may need to run obs-studio with the environment variable, OBS_USE_EGL=1

    OBS_USE_EGL=1 obs
    

• Run your game with either

  • OBS_VKCAPTURE=1 environment variable
  • or: prepend your game launch with obs-vkcapture %command%
  • Note: SteamTinkerLaunch can help with that

GPU Encoders

• AMD GPUs, prefer using ffmpeg-vaapi to leverage the GPU for encoding.
• NVidia GPUs, prefer using nvenc to leverage the GPU for encoding.

Software encoding on AMD Ryzen CPUs

If you want to use a software encoder, it's a very good idea to manually assign separate CCX/CCDs for the game and OBS on AMD CPUs that have more than two. I benchmarked it and it makes a difference.

Saving replays

OBS: replay Buffer

OBS offers saving the last X seconds of your gaming session in RAM, and it saves it to a file once you press a pre-defined keyboard shortcut.

To enable it:

1. Settings > Output > Replay Buffer > Enable Replay Buffer
   • You can also set there how long is the saved window
2. This adds a new button the the main window: "Start replay buffer"
   • It will keep in RAM the last X seconds all the time
3. While "replay buffer" is started and running, you can either
   • press the "save" button that is right next to "stop replay buffer"
   • trigger the keyboard shortcut for "save replay"

gpu-screen-recorder

gpu-screen-recorder is a cli, GUI and overlay tool for recording, replay and streaming efficiently with the GPU.

You can run this command with GameMode to be able to save replays with a hotkey. Needs more prep on wayland.

gpu-screen-recorder -w DP-1 -f 60 -q medium -r 20 -k av1 -bm vbr -c webm -ac opus -a "$(pactl get-default-sink).monitor" -o /tmp -v no -sc scripts/clip_upload.sh  > /tmp/gamemode.log 2>&1

Useful examples are here.

Linux distribution recommendation

If you are hesitating on what Linux distribution to use. Here's this guide's recommendation:

1. CachyOS
2. Archlinux

The reasons for the recommendation:

• To get the best performance, one simply needs the latest updates, as soon as possible.
• Cutting-edge new gaming tools are shipped on those distributions first

CachyOS

• Based on Archlinux
• Rolling-release distro: packages continuously get updated.
• Ships package updates just few days after they get released. While remaining perfectly stable.
• Has a specific Gaming guide
• Many kernels to chose from

CachyOS does compile packages with the x86-64-v3, x86-64-v4 and Zen4 instruction set and LTO to provide a higher performance. Core packages als