Gaming laptop with good Linux support?

A similar question was raised some day’s ago from a other person, but with different background. In this case, I would like to buy a nice gaming laptop. Of course I would use it for office and coding to, but primary I’m searching recommendations for gaming. I would like to play Wine/Proton game’s and also native Linux games. As OS, I like to use Manjaro Gnome.

Should I better buy all of AMD (if yes, which CPI, GPU) or Intel/Nvidia? Or Intel CPU and AMD GPU? Which combination is the right one with best performance for a casual gamer? I prefer FPS games, if that’s important…

elouboub,
elouboub avatar

Don't know where you live, but check https://linuxpreloaded.com/ , https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/?refID=dwsp, and https://starlabs.systems/ for linux laptops.

If those don't suite you, find a laptop then have a look at https://linux-hardware.org/ to check if it's supported.

electricalhub,

Looking for the ultimate gaming laptop that’s also Linux-friendly? Consider this tailored advice for enthusiasts seeking top-notch gaming performance on a Linux platform. When exploring options, keep an eye out for configurations that boast excellent compatibility with Linux distributions like Manjaro Gnome.

For a seamless gaming experience, ponder over an all-AMD setup - a Ryzen CPU (Ryzen 5 or Ryzen 7) coupled with a Radeon RX GPU offers a harmonious blend of performance and compatibility for gaming on Linux. Alternatively, an Intel CPU paired with an AMD GPU could also serve well for gaming enthusiasts.

For those diving into FPS games, prioritize a robust GPU. Models housing Nvidia’s GTX or RTX series or AMD’s Radeon RX series promise smoother gameplay.

When scouting the best gaming laptops, prioritize models with reliable driver support and compatibility with Linux gaming. Brands such as ASUS, Lenovo Legion, and select MSI models often cater well to Linux users.

In summary, a strong GPU-CPU combination alongside Linux compatibility is key for an immersive gaming experience. Cheers to finding the perfect gaming companion that suits your Linux adventure! Here is guide to chose a best gaming laptop under 500$

ILikeBoobies,

I had no problems with Tuxedo but I would recommend a work laptop and a gaming desktop

Laptops age incredibly fast due to heat

AMD has the better graphics cards, CPU wise Intel has caught up so look for the cheaper equivalent

List the games you want and we can tell you compatibility, if you just want FPS games then I get my fix from Plutonium (older COD games)

EponymousBosh,

As someone who uses a fairly cheap gaming laptop with an NVIDIA GPU: I would advise against NVIDIA. I’ve successfully gotten mine to work, but it’s been a hassle. If you can avoid it, do so.

d3Xt3r,

I prefer FPS games, if that’s important…

Which games exactly? Many popular multiplayer FPS games don’t work on Linux, due to the anticheat software employed by them.

See: areweanticheatyet.com/?search=&sortOrder=desc…

HouseWolf,

I keep hearing this from people but as someone who plays a lot of multiplayer FPS the only game I’ve had to give up is Rust.

Even most EAC games seem to work if the developers allow Proton/Wine users.

d3Xt3r,

You probably don’t play garbage games then, like Fortnite, PUBG, Valorant, Destiny 2 etc. These, while garbage, are unfortunately very popular, which is why you keep hearing about why popular FPS games may not work in Linux.

ILikeBoobies,

Fortnite

One of these is not like the others

But it’s crazy that Epic buys EAC then makes it Linux compatible only for them to not use it

laskobar,

Please don’t laugh, this probably doesn’t really fall into that category, but I wanted to keep it simple: Ark - Survival Evolved, Counter Strike but also games like Space Engineers. Ark causes relatively few problems. Space Engineers, on the other hand, does. Unlike Ark, it currently runs with very few FPS and often crashes or doesn’t start at all. In general, I play more when I have time in the evening for 1 or 2 hours, comfortably on the sofa. So the laptop is more suitable.

d3Xt3r,

deleted_by_author

    •
    nitefox,

    Didn’t they make PUBG compatible with Linux?

    d3Xt3r,

    Not according to this: areweanticheatyet.com/game/pubg-battlegrounds

    nitefox,

    Oh, I see Then maybe I confused it with dead by daylight

    woelkchen,
    @woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

    CS: GO

    Valve releases CSGO natively for Linux. My Steam Deck is not my preferred way to play CSGO but it works.

    d3Xt3r,

    I was going by this:

    areweanticheatyet.com/…/faceit-counterstrike-glob…

    woelkchen,
    @woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

    That’s Face It, not regular CSGO.

    trougnouf,

    I am very happy with my ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 GA402RJ. It’s small, powerful, not too expensive, has a recent AMD GPU (RX6800S) / CPU (Ryzen 9 6900), upgradeable RAM, good resolution, and a gorgeous screen (great for photo development too).

    blackbrook,

    I just want to comment on the Nvidia thing, since they are so common on gaming machines. And I have no opinion / data on the performance of nvidia vs other to gpus with linux.

    With nvidia on linux you will be fine if you just do a couple of things: hang back a little on applying updates (specifically kernel and Nvidia driver updates) and watch the relevant forums / lists for problems from nvidia users. Only update after a few days have gone by without such reports or, if reports have surfaced, after they get fixed.

    openSUSE Tumbleweed user here, and I’ve actually had very few problems, and they were specifically caused by prime. I may have dodged a problem or two with the above strategy though.

    melroy,
    @melroy@kbin.melroy.org avatar

    The word 'gaming' together with laptop in the same sentence will never work.

    conciselyverbose,

    The steam deck has sold a couple million units as a dedicated gaming device with significantly less power than most gaming laptops, and plenty of us use it as their primary gaming device perfectly happily.

    mat,
    @mat@linux.community avatar

    I’m seeing others recommend the G14 2022 all-AMD one. I have owned this model since it released and use it nearly every day. Despite the performance being pretty okay, it does have its share of deal-breakers which, if I knew them at the time, I would not have bought it:

    • random freezing, this affects some units most zen3 amd laptops and it seems I got unlucky. ASUS has been ignoring the issue for a year despite the crashes being reproducible on Windows (Windows recovers from it while Linux just freezes)
    • short stutters due to fTPM. Hopefully once Arch updates the kernel to include the recent patch that blacklists all AMD fTPMs fixes this, for now you have to email ASUS to get a secret BIOS that allows disabling it
    • nonfunctional vfio (code 43) without patching BIOS variables with a sketchy script (have to disable rebar), rebinding after shutting down the vm still does not work at all for me
    • overheating while gaming, even with fans forced to max
    • wifi constantly disconnects. I mostly fixed it by buying a AX210 card from Intel
    • bottom shell is super brittle and cracked when unscrewing it

    The laptop itself would be the best Linux experience I’ve had if not for these issues. The trackpad is excellent and great for Wayland 1:1 gestures, the display and speakers are great, and the battery lasts a good 2-3h with light web browsing.

    shapis,
    @shapis@lemmy.ml avatar

    Indeed. The laptop is great exception for QA issues. I have some of those issues but not some others.

    An extremely annoying thing that happens to me you didn’t mention is when I’m using the integrated GPU sometimes the screen flickers.

    And if it matters my unit at least doesn’t overheat at all. It’s actually quite impressive.

    where_am_i,

    yeah. Own an Asus with Nvidia. Can confirm having the same experience.

    BCsven,

    For software there is this, preinstalled for best OOTB gaming compatibility universal-blue.org/images/bazzite/

    iopq,

    I’m buying a Framework 16 without the GPU because I’m more in the market for a 7800M when that comes out

    But I’ll be doing integrated meanwhile, it’s quite powerful

    yoz,

    What does a GPU do ? Is graphics card same as GPU?

    iopq,

    It’s the same thing

    conciselyverbose,

    Basically. Graphics card theoretically is referring to the entire removable part on a desktop that has the GPU, power delivery, memory, cooling, etc, but in practice they're used interchangeably and mean the same thing.

    captain_aggravated,
    @captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

    In casual conversation, GPU and graphics card are interchangeable.

    When being technical, the GPU is the chip itself, the only part that is made by Nvidia or AMD or Intel, while the graphics card is the entire circuit board/chip/components/heat sink/fan assembly. It’s a bit like the CPU in the motherboard, they’re just not sold separately.

    That’s in desktop computers. Laptops usually don’t have a “graphics card.” Laptops that have a dedicated GPU it’s usually permanently attached to the motherboard. The Framework 16 mentioned above is a modular laptop, and will have removable GPU modules.

    Jumuta,

    they do very parallelized workloads like 3d rendering

    j4k3,
    @j4k3@lemmy.world avatar

    The big issue is the distro you run and how it deals with secure boot. I can’t tell you anything about gaming. I can tell you a lot about the kernel side because I play with AI, got a machine recently, and did a bunch of research.

    The unfortunate side of AMD in laptops is that we are on a major point of deprecation and change. AMD is trying to spar with Nvidia by developing HIPS. HIPS is the API bridge between ROCm and CUDA. The target generation for HIPS is the 7k series. Behind the scenes the 7k series API is now managed by the same team as the AMD enterprise stuff. This means that 7k is a totally different product lineage. It doesn’t have a massive impact for gamers because most of what is happening in gaming is done in user space with software that interfaces with the kernel module. The average gamer doesn’t really interact much with this stuff. The only things they experience are issues with the kernel module as it relates to secure boot and UEFI.

    However, when it comes to long term support (mostly proprietary related/but that is most gaming), anything prior to the 7k series is likely to get dropped sooner rather than later simply because HIPS is a bridge layer that makes API calls work the same for AMD and Nvidia; it is a path of least resistance thing.

    The best deal IMO is still Nvidia when it comes to laptop hardware. I really wish this was not the case, but this is what a few weeks of research seemed to indicate. The main issue with secure boot is if the UEFI bios supports user generated custom keys, and if you are capable of the task of generating your own keys. If you do this, you can secure your own Nvidia kernel driver. This can be their binary blob driver or the one built from the open source code they provide for the kernel side module only.

    If you do not want to make your own keys or if you buy a machine that does not support user generated custom keys (likely), you need to run Fedora. Fedora has a system that uses a special key signed by Microsoft that keeps secure boot enabled. Fedora now has an automated system that rebuilds the Nvidia driver from source code every time there is a kernel update. This system is practically invisible to the user and it makes Nvidia easy even for someone that doesn’t know what is going on under the hood. Do not buy anything, or follow any guide that tells you to just disable secure boot. Linux does not manage the UEFI firmware layers. This is a vulnerability for every computer that runs UEFI and it is one of the largest targets now.

    The biggest laptop GPU from AMD is rather obscure and didn’t seem very popular. It is the 6850XT which has 12GBV. The best GPU that is readily accessible from Nvidia is the 3080Ti at 16GBV. Be aware that the “Ti” is very important here, the “3080” is just an 8GBV GPU.

    The UEFI standard for secure boot specifies a way to generate custom keys, but there is no requirement for manufacturers to enable this functionality. There is still a way to boot into UEFI and use KeyTool to make keys, but this gets even more complicated.

    If I were buying something again right now, I would look really hard for any possible option that has unofficial but proven AVX512 support, with a 3080Ti, and support for at least 96GB of DDR5 at the maximum frequency. AI actually uses all of this (and more) if you have it and want to play with the best offline models. The Asus Rog stuff looked like it had the highest specs for 2022.

    woelkchen,
    @woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

    The unfortunate side of AMD in laptops is that we are on a major point of deprecation and change. […] it doesn’t have a massive impact for gamers […] The average gamer doesn’t really interact much with this stuff.

    Quite a long bit of anti-AMD FUD and NVidia promo for what is completely unrelated to OP’s question, as you outright say with two sentences. OP asked about gaming notebooks and not CUDA.

    you need to run Fedora.

    OP said to wish to use Manjaro Gnome. Basically you’re like “I’m throwing a bunch of mud against AMD for a use case you’re not interested in and then go ahead and tell you that your choice of OS is wrong.”

    j4k3,
    @j4k3@lemmy.world avatar

    Quite a bit of under the hood and real issues at a deeper level, along with a proven path of least resistance.

    I don’t care how it makes you, me, or anyone else feel. The hardware support at the kernel level is the most important factor in overall experience. I do not like Nvidia at all. I wanted to buy AMD and tried really hard to make that happen, but it simply isn’t competitive in the laptop space. The first decent options will be announced in the next few months as 7k hardware makes it into laptops. The 6k stuff is generations behind Nvidia.

    I have two computers running libre boot. One is fully compiled from the bootloader up and running Gentoo. I would only run this if it could handle the workload. I am not a fanboi fool. I will call out shit for what it is. Maybe you can get by with deprecated stuff. Maybe you don’t mind if it is not supported in a couple of years. I’m just telling you why the writing is on the wall and what to look for. If that motivates your emotional nonsense response, whatever.

    throwawayish,

    As others have already (somewhat) alluded to; it’s best to buy a laptop from a company that offers devices on which Linux users are first-class citizens. Therefore, any device that specifically fits your needs (hardware-wise) from either NovaCustom, Star Labs, System76, Tuxedo etc should fit the bill. Furthermore, it’s worth noting that Nvidia GPUs have a known bad track record on Linux. The possibility exists that you won’t even notice it on any of the devices sold by any of the aforementioned vendors. However, I’d argue it’s still mindful to be cautious.

    Should I better buy all of AMD (if yes, which CPI, GPU) or Intel/Nvidia? Or Intel CPU and AMD GPU? Which combination is the right one with best performance for a casual gamer? I prefer FPS games, if that’s important…

    AMD has been doing very good for some time and the fact that the Steam Deck is powered by AMD is very telling of what the current status quo is. However, I don’t think it’s a hard requirement. Sure, going full-AMD has it’s merits, but you should be fine regardless.

    MonkderZweite,

    That doesn’t suddenly die after 2 years.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • linux@lemmy.ml
  • rosin
  • magazineikmin
  • GTA5RPClips
  • khanakhh
  • InstantRegret
  • Youngstown
  • mdbf
  • slotface
  • thenastyranch
  • everett
  • osvaldo12
  • kavyap
  • cubers
  • DreamBathrooms
  • megavids
  • Durango
  • modclub
  • ngwrru68w68
  • vwfavf
  • ethstaker
  • tester
  • cisconetworking
  • tacticalgear
  • Leos
  • provamag3
  • normalnudes
  • anitta
  • JUstTest
  • All magazines
    •