this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2024
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Gaming vs Regular Distros (lemdro.id)
submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by governorkeagan@lemdro.id to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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TL;DR: Is there really a performance benefit to a gaming distro over a regular distro? Or is it more of a “this is the least work” to get setup?

——

I run EndeavourOS on my desktop and haven’t had any issues with performance. I just like playing with new things and learning from the experience.

I’ve seen loads of people recommending Bazzite as a gaming distro for various reasons. It’s gotten to the point that I installed it on a second SSD to do my own testing but I’d still like to see others perspective.

From my research, there doesn’t seem to be that much performance to be gained (generally speaking). I’ll be testing this on my own hardware but is this generally true?

I think a big draw (especially for new users) would be that these distros would require very minimal work to get up and running into a game.

I think the TL;DR at the top best describes my question. I’ve just been thinking about this and haven’t been sure how to express it in a clear manner for others to understand. Also, this video got me thinking more.

EDIT:

Glad to see that I’m not alone in my thinking. Biggest benefit of a “gaming distro” is the convenience of having everything setup and there is no real performance difference.

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[–] GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Gaming distros sometimes can have slightly worse performance than normal ones due to bloat and aesthetics features (especially blur). They might have optimizations for some hardware but the difference is like 2-5% at most. Other than that they're just more convenient and faster to set up for gaming. If you want good performance, use a rolling release to get latest drivers and try both X11 and Wayland to see what works better in the games you play. A lightweight DE/WM can give you a couple extra FPS in some cases too

[–] boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Lightweight ≠ Optimized

[–] GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yes but sometimes it helps. Look at the real tests

[–] boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

What tests?

Lightweight has many many things that might decrease performance, for example

  • bad multithreading
  • bad available RAM utilization
  • general under-supported and thus not supporting the latest stuff (like vsync)
  • not supported by Valve, which is likely a big thing

But for sure having less bloat helps, but that is constant, while optimization helps relatively to the load.

Light sway might have a smaller constant footprint, kwin a bigger one. But kwin might scale better.

The software you run is often waaay bigger than the Desktop etc.

[–] GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

  • bad multithreading: that means more cores are free for apps

  • Bad available RAM utilization: in my testing distros that used "free RAM is wasted RAM" philosophy were always slower than normal ones

  • less stuff = more performance and vsync is bad

  • BRUH what? What does Valve have to do with DEs? You definitely lost me there

I get that you're a Plasma lover but don't say bad things about others DEs because of it. Also I am saying once again: go take a look at real life tests online if you don't believe me. Word against a word doesn't lead to anything except for a fight. And please stop trusting theories without trustworthy experimental proofs. That leads to trusting Big Tech or other scammy people/companies.

[–] boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

If you could show me some links that would be helpful.

[–] GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

https://piped.video/watch?v=aHt8qIOMiTc

I like this one. It's quite new (so you don't say that the situation has changed) and I think it explains quite well. I can't give you many links because I don't have much free online time anymore. I guess you can try to find more comparisons and real researches by yourself and I do apologize for the inconvenience

[–] boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net 1 points 5 months ago

Interesting channel, he also reacted to TheLinuxExp.

Valve uses KDE, for Gaming. The so called "gaming" highly relies on Windows software translation stuff so I assumed it also has to do with optimized compositors.

Lets see.