The rise of Linux as a very capable alternative for gaming is in no small part thanks to Microsoft’s recent fumbles with Windows 11. Windows 11 is bloated, infested with adware and a general resource hog that makes it hard to recommend for lower-end devices.
The Windows tax is very real, and I was curious as to how big of a difference there would be, when compared to Linux. As such, I picked five gaming-focused Linux operating systems to test out against a stock installation of Windows 11 on the same entry-level gaming PC, in an attempt to crunch up some numbers.
A look at the test bench and set of operating systems
A relatively entry-level PC
For this particular suite of tests, I went with a PC that was cobbled together with parts I had left lying around. None of it is particularly exciting or powerful, but it is performant enough with relatively modern hardware, which should let us come to a conclusion.
As for the exact specifications, they are the following:
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 3400G
- RAM: 16 GB DDR4 (3200 MHz)
- GPU: Nvidia RTX A2000 6 GB
- Storage: 512 GB boot drive + 1 TB games drive (both NVMe)
As is quite evident from the specifications alone, it’s not exactly a very powerful PC, and is heavily constrained. This makes it an ideal candidate for stress testing, and the 1% lows should be indicative of what to expect.
Going back to the game tests, I chose the following titles, opting for a more balanced approach (with the exception of one “modern” game).
- DOOM (2016): Ultra preset
- Doom The Dark Ages: Low preset with DLSS set to Balanced.
- Batman Arkham Knight: Ultra preset with everything maxed out.
- Cyberpunk 2077: Ultra preset with DLSS set to Balanced. No raytracing.
All tests were carried out at 1080p (native, if possible). Settings were kept at a reasonable Medium-High, since we’re going to be limited by the measly 6 gigabytes of VRAM, with the exception of a few titles. All settings were kept consistent across the operating systems.
With that in mind, we start with a stock installation of Windows 11. The A2000 was also pushed to its “maximum performance” profile for a fairer comparison.
Windows 11
The control for the experiment
This was easily the most frustrating part of the benchmarking process. Not because of the benchmark results, but mostly since the whole Windows 11 setup experience is an ordeal. Installing Windows 11 Home took forever, and the forced updates didn’t help either. Not to mention that the driver update process is not something I’m a fan of in Windows.
That being said, since tools like Mangohud and gamemode don’t exist for Windows, I had to rely on alternatives. For the FPS counter, I used Steam’s built-in overlay, and everything was updated to the latest version.
The A2000 also uses the Production Branch/Studio drivers instead of your usual “game ready” drivers for Windows, since this is technically still a Quadro GPU. There is another “new feature” branch, but it was never quite stable enough to use in my experience.
Going back to the test results, I had the following FPS numbers on average, followed by 1% lows:
- DOOM (2016): 164/90
- Doom The Dark Ages: 62/55
- Batman Arkham Knight: 54/21
- Cyberpunk 2077: 29.83/21.20
I wouldn’t say that the performance was terrible. In fact, it was very acceptable. That being said, there is some painfully obvious room for improvement, which is a lot more important if you happen to run short on system resources. As it stands, Windows 11 is good enough for gaming, but you have better options from Linux.
Bazzite
The defacto baseline for Linux gaming
My first Linux distribution of choice was perhaps the most popular pick of them all: Bazzite. Bazzite is an immutable, Fedora-based operating system with a heavy emphasis on gaming. Installing Bazzite was quite easy, with the installer even offering dual-boot options for first-time users.
Bazzite does ship with a separate Nvidia image, so I had to make sure that I picked it instead of the generic, standard installer for the card to work. Going back to the driver situation, there’s not much else to talk about here. And that works largely to its benefit.
Nvidia maintains a series of universal driver packages for its modern GPUs on Linux, which means that there are no separate Workstation or gaming drivers to choose from. In other words, performance should be consistently good across the board.
Going back to the benchmarks, here are the numbers:
- DOOM (2016): 140/94
- Doom The Dark Ages: 57/42
- Batman Arkham Knight: 57/24
- Cyberpunk 2077: 37.02/27.75
Overall, the gains were impressive, and worth the transition. All things considered though, I’m not terribly fond of immutable systems (let me break and understand things!), so I don’t think I’d ever settle on Bazzite. It’s still a great HTPC OS though.
CachyOS
Wicked fast, but prone to breakage
CachyOS is next on the list and is a distribution I’m more familiar with. It’s based on Arch Linux, and incorporates a few custom repositories that tune it more toward performance. Which certainly helps, even if by very little.
Performance gains aside, the system felt a lot more responsive, which likely has to do with some of the tweaks CachyOS ships with (like a custom kernel and scx schedulers). The fact that CachyOS follows a rolling release model also helps, thanks to an updated driver set.
Going back to the benchmarks, here are the results:
- DOOM (2016): 149/101
- Doom The Dark Ages: 61/52
- Batman Arkham Knight: 56/19
- Cyberpunk 2077: 46.73/35.28
Overall, a worthy operating system, provided you can maintain it. CachyOS has the most impressive gains here, with Cyberpunk 2077 and Doom: The Dark Ages gaining a respectable FPS boost.
Nobara
CachyOS but Fedora-based
Nobara Linux is also another performance-focused gaming distro, but it is built on top of Fedora Linux instead. Nobara is also not immutable, which means you can treat it as a standard desktop Linux installation, without all the restrictions you’d expect from Bazzite.
It also ships with a ton of gaming applications out of the box, which makes it easier for a newcomer to slide into. Installation was quite easy, and one update later, I managed to get into the machine. Or so I thought.
For some reason, the Nvidia drivers that shipped with Nobara absolutely refused to work properly. I couldn’t get games running using the dGPU (Nvidia in this case), with rendering defaulting to the integrated Vega 11 graphics instead.
The Nvidia drivers also seemed to be a bit out of date, with Doom: The Dark Ages complaining about the same. There aren’t any benchmarks to speak of here for this reason.
That being said, the integrated AMD GPU worked just fine, and I would expect AMD GPUs to fare a lot better on Nobara.
Garuda
An alternative to CachyOS
Garuda is yet another performance-focused Linux distribution that uses Arch Linux as its base, and is surprisingly enough, older than CachyOS. That being said, Garuda is still a mighty fine gaming distro, which also adds in a bunch of other niceties like the Chaotic-AUR repository, which contains pre-compiled versions of less common AUR packages, and more.
Like CachyOS, Garuda uses the Calamares installer, and setting it up was a breeze. I opted for the “Dr460nized” (Dragonized) variant for the custom theming, even if it is slightly heavier on resources. One Pacman -Syu later, I was ready to test the games out:
- DOOM (2016): 145/100
- Doom The Dark Ages: 60/51
- Batman Arkham Knight: 58/25
- Cyberpunk 2077: 45/33
Garuda performed largely the same as CachyOS, and this shouldn’t come as a surprise — both are Arch-based distributions, after all. Performance shouldn’t be your concern when trying to switch over here.
PikaOS
A Debian-based Linux gaming distribution
PikaOS is a bit of an oddity in this list. It is built using a Debian Linux base instead of the more popular Arch and Fedora variants. This does sound like a recipe for disaster, especially with what would seem like outdated packages at first.
However, PikaOS cleverly uses cherry-picked packages that help it bridge the gap, along with a custom kernel. This makes it very up-to-date and ultimately a very worthy contender to consider.
Setting it up was a bit of an involved process though, and did take a while to finalize, which might be due to the large number of packages that make PikaOS. With everything updated and ready to go, I was finally able to record the benchmarks:
- DOOM (2016): 170/79
- Doom The Dark Ages: 30/25
- Batman Arkham Knight: 97/63
- Cyberpunk 2077: 32.84/23.89
Despite being based on Debian Linux, PikaOS performs remarkably well, for the most part. Doom: The Dark Ages suffers the most here, with FPS numbers dipping way below Windows 11. Then again, The Dark Ages is a bit of an oddity here as the game performs strangely across all Linux distros for some reason. Batman Arkham Knight was a pleasant surprise, with PikaOS pulling ahead by a huge margin.
Linux is more than just performance gains
As you might have noticed from the benchmarks earlier, Linux performs surprisingly well, even managing to outpace Windows 11 in certain cases. Linux gaming has come a long way, but that’s not really the point of Linux.
Linux offers users a much more private, customized operating system that does not come with telemetry, adverts or nagware baked in by default. It’s a refreshing OS that makes using a computer not feel like a chore. Even if you do manage to inevitably break it, fixing it is a fun kind of experience that is, more often than not, educational.
That being said, it’s still a bit of a mixed bag, at least in regard to Nvidia GPU support. Some titles work fine, others don’t. Linux does consistently get updates though, so these issues are sure to melt away over time.