Windows has long been hailed as the best operating system for gaming, easily beating Linux and macOS when it comes to running the latest graphically-intensive games. But it's not quite as cut and dry these days. Linux gaming has come a long way since the early 2010s when most Windows-based 3D games used to run at drastically reduced framerates on the open-source operating system. In fact, Linux is now a viable platform for gaming, so maybe it's time to give it a shot.

1 Linux supports more games than ever

Let’s get one thing out of the way first. Yes, the majority of games are still released exclusively on Windows, but more popular titles have actual Linux ports that can run natively on most distros. That’s before we include the multiple compatibility layers that can run Windows-based games on Linux. One example is Wine, which was released in 1993 and allowed users to install and run Windows games on Linux. However, complex 3D games were riddled with graphical bugs, performance issues, or both.

Fast-forward to 2018, and the Linux gaming landscape was forever changed when Valve released the Proton compatibility layer. At the time of its launch, Proton supported a very small number of games, but its compatibility list grew as Valve continued to release newer versions of the software over the years. Proton has since become a literal game changer for Linux users thanks to its use on the Steam Deck, and it's what helps most games run on the platform without forcing developers to make a version specifically for Linux.

2 Plug-and-play support for many controllers

One of my favorite Linux features is that it works with almost all modern controllers, regardless of the console they were made for. From Xbox 360 controllers to Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons and even DualSense controllers, your favorite Linux distro will work without installing a third-party application.

Heck, Linux is even compatible with DualShock 3 controllers, and you can start using your PS3 controller on a Linux machine by simply plugging it into a free USB port. As somebody who has spent a lot of time getting a DualShock 3 controller to work properly on a Windows 11 system, Linux’s support for almost all modern controllers makes it better than Windows.

3 Pre-installed Nvidia drivers on select distributions

When I first attempted to set up dual boot for Windows and Linux, one of my biggest fears was the amount of time I’d need to get Nvidia drivers working on a Linux-based distro. Unlike AMD’s open-source drivers, Nvidia provides proprietary drivers for its GPUs, which are great for gaming but notorious for being buggy on Linux.

Luckily, some Linux distributions like Pop!_OS and EndeavourOS allow you to create a bootable drive with Nvidia drivers pre-installed, which drastically reduces the headache of installing the drivers for your Nvidia GPU. What’s more, Nvidia made the Linux GPU kernel modules open-source last year. Although Team Green hasn’t exactly made any efforts to release proper open-source drivers, it’s still a step in the right direction as community developers gain more access. It brings Nvidia users one step closer to the open-source nature of AMD drivers. And speaking of AMD…

4 Recent drivers have improved shader compilation on AMD GPUs

Even though AMD graphics cards are typically more stable on Linux than their Nvidia counterparts, stutters caused during shader cache compilation used to be a huge issue. Steam's shader pre-caching facility provided a decent workaround for the stuttering issues, but you had to wait for quite some time for Steam to finish downloading the shader caches in advance.

Luckily, developers began working on support for the VK EXT Graphics Pipeline Library (GPL) extension earlier this year. With its release in May, the Mesa 23.1 update enabled this feature on most AMD GPUs, causing a drastic reduction in shader stutter for most games that run on DirectX09-11.

5 Tons of utility tools

Windows may have the highest number of apps and tools geared toward improving your gaming experience, but Linux isn’t far behind either. If you’re accustomed to the utility apps available on Windows, you can just as easily find comparable (and sometimes better) alternatives on Linux.

For example, the hardware monitoring and frame-rate limiting facilities of RTSS can be replicated using MangoHUD on Linux distros. Likewise, the post-processing effects provided by ReShade work well on Proton, and you can even use vkBasalt to enhance the visuals of Vulkan-based games. The same goes for overclocking tools. AMD GPUs work well with CoreCtrl, while the clock speeds of Nvidia graphics cards can be tweaked using GreenWithEnvy.

Is Linux better than Windows for gaming?

With the recent updates to Proton, better support for Nvidia and AMD drivers, and decent utility tools, Linux is better than ever for gaming. Unfortunately, it's still not good enough to beat Windows as far as gaming is concerned. Games that use unsupported anti-cheat software won’t work on Linux, and that alone excludes a significant chunk of the multiplayer games for Linux users. You may also encounter issues if you run DirectX12 games on lower-end rigs, and compared to Windows, even the games that do run via compatibility layers like Proton and Wine will usually take framerate hits.

All that said, the future of Linux gaming looks very promising. Valve has taken several steps to kick Linux gaming into high gear, and the success of the Steam Deck is a testament to the latent potential of Linux. With more developers and users starting to realize the merits of switching to Linux, I wouldn't be surprised if it dethroned Windows as the king of operating systems over the next decade.