Linux Distros for Gaming: CachyOS is Taking over (ProtonDB data)

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.abnormalbeings.space/post/6562285

Companion article here: https://boilingsteam.com/distro-for-gaming-cachy-os-takes-over/

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I don't get it, CachyOS is probably improving performance in the low single digit percentages. Why are people so crazy about it?

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I don't think it does much for gaming, as the video and article also point out, but even if it turns out to just be placebo - my old and creaking PC here feels more responsive than it did with Manjaro, Vanilla Arch and Garuda respectively.

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Yeah, it always reminds me that I did a kernel benchmark for gaming a couple of years ago and the differences were within the margin of error.
https://web.archive.org/web/20220602144244/https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comments/utfazn/results_for_the_kernel_benchmarks_in_gaming/

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CachyOS is a really good time to use.

Very sane defaults, no bloat, extremely easy snapper/btrfs/limine setup, a 1-click gaming setup button that gets everything you need ready to go.

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CachyOS claims performance improvement by compiling its packages with CPU-family-specific optimizations. Okay, but most games are not CPU bound, and even those that are mostly spend their CPU time in game code, not distro package-provided code.

CachyOS claims interactivity improvement by using the BORE scheduler. Okay, but that's unlikely to help games unless you're running other tasks that compete for CPU time while you play.

So for most gamers, I wouldn't expect CachyOS to offer much improvement in either area.

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I tried a few Linux distros and Cachy has been the most painless so far.

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Funny that I see an article about CachyOS, i just installed it this morning because of some trouble with an RX 9060 XT that I couldn't get it to work with kubuntu. It just worked out of the box with CachyOS. I know it would probably have worked with other distro but still...

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I keep hearing this, but I don't really want an Arch-based distro because I don't want fixing my computer to become a hobby. I have a 10-year-old PC running Debian 12 that can still play (some) games that came out this year, so it doesn't feel like I should switch.

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The data ️

I'm always surprised by how low the Flatpak share is.

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Fwiw I was avoidant of arch for a long time and took the deep dive a few years back. I've really not had to do any more debugging work than I have to with Debian (which I'm also a fan of and use).

EndeavourOS helps a lot with smoothing over the possible gotchas and my machines with it tend to run steam games (proton or native) out of the box the majority of the time.

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I have found that with Arch I don't run out of troubleshooting before the problem is solved like I did with Debian. That said, the learning curve is a little steep so not switching makes sense, but I find it better personally. Just like in Windows things are out of your control I felt that Debian had strong defaults and I had trouble changing them too far. I am sure ignorance played a role but I have found the documentation on the Arch wiki was more useful in actually solving my problems.

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I didn't know Pop_OS was no longer being updated. I know I've had recent updates though. Perhaps I should switch distros.

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I finally switched from Windows to Linux and chose CachyOS. This was months ago. I never had to fix anything (so far). There was a fuck up by me once, but that wasn't the distros and could've happened on any distro. Honestly couldn't be happier with it being arch based, as it's really nice to basically get anything that is released instantly as a package update.

I haven't had to hunt for packages that aren't years old for anything as I was used to on Debian (used on most of my servers). And while the AUR is there, I think I got a total of two things installed from there, anything else was just there in the repos.

But if you've got a setup that already works, and you're happy with, why change anything? Having something that works for you is what makes the large amounts of choices in the Linux world so great.

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seems to be specific games, kingdom come deliverance (the original) stuttered & hitched badly on other distros, but cachy was

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The work on cosmic is proceeding and as far as I know when cosmic is done, 24.04 will be released. In the mean time 22.04 still gets updates.

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flapak when i was using it on arch always had issues getting gamescope to run as the flapak version doesn't match the version in steam. with wine adopting support for native Wayland and improvements to Vulcan layers i think flapak version may start to get more popular. but for now the main limiter is, "do i need gamescope to play?"

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If I'm not mistaken the Gamescope issue in Flatpak is not caused by Arch but the Flatpak itself and how it isolates files, making games escape the Gamescope session

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yeah the flatpak version of gamescope is the latest version which is meant more to be used in something like lutris or directly with wine. my understanding is a bit hazy on the issue but i think flatpak steam or the Vulcan layers required a specific version or you get something about compatibility and the game would still launch but disable gamescope.

i think the workaround was to install gamescope through pacman and then configure steam to be able to access it.

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Same. I tried arch many moons ago and heard all the stories and that was enough.

Maybe it's better by now but fedora has been stable and things like bazzite with immutability exist. Not sure why I'd pick cachy then. Especially if the gains are that minimal.

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Linux Distros for Gaming: CachyOS is Taking over (ProtonDB data)