Help me change my windows gaming pc to Linux
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Check out Bazzite!
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Yep sounds like OP's dual boot issues are due to installing windows last. It only overwrites boot each startup if it doesn't have its own partition.
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Seconding Heroic. Lutris confused me too but I was able to connect Epic and GOG to Heroic.
Also, when you’re not using steam remote play Sunshine/Moonlight works wonders for remote streaming.
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Usually deb or flatpak if you use the popshop
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Linux mint cinnamon. I tested sims4 a few months ago. Ran fine. And surprisingly I didnt need to repurchase from steam, somehow I linked my ea account.
Sometimes games crash but not often for me.
That's when I tweak the Proton version. -
I second this, have been using this as a daily driver on my laptop and PC, and I'm really enjoying it. Seems very very stable.
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I have installed all of those Sims games at one point. It works fine. Mods work without any problems as well.
Lutris will help you for the most part.
I think for Sims 3, I specifically had to use Lutris 7.2 as the runner (IIRC, I have to check again). It didn't work with other versions. I will verify this when I'm home.
I did the most setup for Sims 3 (there is a whole guide for performance). I don't remember details too well, but it's still set up I think, so you can go ahaed and ask questions
Minecraft runs native, for Steam games you can see protondb.com
I'd be worried a bit about the Nvidia GPU. But since I have no experience with them, someone else should give you advice on this.
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I've been using Bazzite for a good while. It just turns your PC into a fancy console. Boots right into Steam. Everything can be done with a controller. If you can use a console, you can use Bazzite.
Of course Chimera and Nobara are very similar in that way. Bazzite is just the new hotness.
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Windows 10 EOL doesn't mean it will stop working. If sims has trouble just use win.
"This, just continue win 10 (or win11 even though they said not run blah blah). I have my whole house with about 4 PC/server all running Debian but I still keep one gaming PC run windows.
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Happy to hear a succes story and Sims 3 is the least interesting of the bunch. Sims 2 and 4 are most important for her.
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I hate how good bazzite is at just being a game console. But then there’s lots of little Fedora ublue things in there that are useful. Like the fact that it has podman by default makes running silly things like ollama so easy.
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As someone that aggressively takes advantage of the prime gaming giveaways, heroic launcher has been nearly perfect for all the random games that I’ve received on epic/amazon/gog.
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Protondb will be your best friend here. If I were you I'd look up the games you want to play on there and check peoples comments on how they got them running. Almost everything out of box using steams proton tools but often it needs tweaking. Depending on how much you want to play a game it might not be worth the trouble to setup. For instance I stay away from every live service game now. You should also check out the os people are using on protondb to make sure it works for you I use arch (btw) so I won't take instructions from a Debian setup if I can find one with a similar os.
Worth pursuing and you sound experienced enough to get it set up. Idk about modding though that can be painful to get setup BC of how wine/proton work.
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You should just test run it from a bootable usb.
Install steam.
Mount your NTFS drive which contains your windows games.
If you have sims on steam use steam.
If not take a look at lutris before doing any of the above.Your experiment ends when you've tested all games you want to play.
Now: You cannot use NTFS (windows) drive for games, although you did it in the experiment long extended usage is discouraged.
So you will need to find a way to transfer your games to a different formatted drive. (ext4, btrfs for example)
If you don't need that advice you will eventually run into frustrating issues.
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Mentioned elsewhere in the thread I think but not in a direct reply so making sure you see it, Lutris has the game specific scripts but also ones to set up environments for Origin/EA App. I've used those before with Sims 4 with both several expansion packs and some custom content.
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Awesome. I'll give it a go with lutris
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+1 for Bazzite. Atomic distro + NVDI drivers included
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Not helpful, but oops, I had accidentally disliked this post
I removed the dislike:)
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I agree. If you're a noob, and want the smoothest path, then Bazzite is the way.
I however, started on Ubuntu originally and you will have to learn the apt repos and install all this on your own. I'm now on Arch which makes you learn more the inner workings of Linux.
So if you want to progress, be sure to consider all the other distros out there too.
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I actually don't like this advice for this particular use case. The live session is gonna be sluggish because of the USB bottleneck which will make it look like the games run a lot worse than they would with a proper install.
Especially since this person also is already Linux proficient, I would say just jump into a dual boot setup or wipe the windows partition momentarily. Sure, it's gonna take a little longer and it's a bit tedious to have to reinstall windows if you change your mind but I'd prefer a bit tedium over a poor benchmark
