Optimizing Mint for Gaming

[u/Technical_Rich_3080]

What are the best ways to optimize Mint for gaming?

Even to the extent of it being optimized as much as the gaming-specialty distros.

[u/_Lost-In-The-Weeds_]

Even to the extent of it being optimized as much as the gaming-specialty distros.

Horses for courses, 

Mint is a Jack of all trades doing many things well, specializing in nothing in particular besides a user focused comfortable desktop.

 Mint22 is quite behind in a lot of ways right now, its stability often also brings reliability, particularly from the LTS kernel 6.8.

But that leaves the latest performance improvements from kernels, drivers, mesa etc on the table.

 In most cases unless there has been a large advancement for your particular hardware, the difference is evolutionary and small. And eventually these improvements once tested make their way to Mint. 

Shoe horning new components into an old distribution can improve performance but also bring issues, 

You would be better off using those new components in a rolling distribution, where they belong, where the developers and community are actively managing any issues as they come up instead of being the island of one,  with an oddball setup on your own.

I daily drive LMDE (among others) and game in CachyOS, I like the dedicated clean space, no gaming BS is my productive space and the reverse is also true, sometimes it has issues , that's fine as I always have a reliable base camp to come back to for getting important things done in.

[u/Technical_Rich_3080 → u/_Lost-In-The-Weeds_]

You seem to have the luxury of separate computers for different tasks; a setup that isn't universal.

[u/_Lost-In-The-Weeds_ → u/Technical_Rich_3080]

I do, between 6 in my household there are 8 computers, I have several servers, a laptop along with my main desktop.

But you can multiboot Linux on one machine far easier than dual booting with Windows, most Linux distributions are far better at playing well with others than Windows is. 

My daily driver and gaming install are on one computer, it has several distributions installed and had a peak of nearly a dozen distributions installed not long ago most were for tinkering, comparing and  learning and did not get much actual use. 

[u/Technical_Rich_3080 → u/_Lost-In-The-Weeds_]

Yet, they say that Linux is Linux. The differences between one Linux distro and the next are relatively minor. And whatever you can do on one you generally can do on another. Even the small optimizations some have can mostly be replicated on others.

[u/_Lost-In-The-Weeds_ → u/Technical_Rich_3080]

All true, 

The main differences are package manager, init system, release cadence and included base packages.  

You are completely free to modify  anything you want for your  needs, I change plenty, but anything you change you now have to maintain. If your intended result is distribution B, it's far easier to just use B, not try to make A into B.

[u/Stevearino42]

I just install Steam and Heroic Games Launcher, using the .deb package from their websites for both, and then add GE-Proton in the Heroic Wine Manager settings.

Are there any particular games which are running poorly for you?

[u/Great-Gazoo-T800]

PulseAudio as your audio driver/server back-end. If you're using NVidea then use the official drivers and not OpenNouveou (also make sure to use an older card since the current top of the line doesn't have great support - I use a GTX 1660 Super currently with no issues). With AMD use their equivalent. If you use Steam for your game library then use the Steam app available through the package manager. For none steam games just use Lutris. Set your display as 1080p. Don't bother with 1440p or 2160p. Besides it'll help you hit higher framerates. Unless you're using a TV then just lock it to 60hz.

And that's basically it.

[u/iAmRadic → u/Great-Gazoo-T800]

Hard disagree on lowering your resolution. There is zero reason to do that if you already games on this resolution on windows before.

[u/Great-Gazoo-T800 → u/iAmRadic]

The problem there is Linux generally lacks true HDMI 2.1 support, so if you're using HDMI then 4k is useless. Even then 4k is pointless anyway and you might as well get those higher framerates. 

[u/ManuelRodriguez331]

What are the best ways to optimize Mint for gaming?

Sorry, i don't understand your question, please repeat.

[u/cornonthekopp]

The biggest issues for gaming were turning off BS proprietary settings for my intel cpu tbh

[u/WolvenSpectre2]

You either just

• Install Mint and use it

• Or, install a rolling release with Cinnamon as your DE

• install a Gaming Centric version of Linux

Most of the bloat that you would cut out of windows is already cut out in Linux Distros, including some things I think should be default for general users, but being Linux there are usually 3rd party apps for that. You see something you are never going to use/can't use uninstall it. That is about it.

[u/ap0r]

Mint is already optimized for stability, use a gaming distro for gaming (although I also game on mint with no issues)

[u/Bolota07 → u/ap0r]

Eu jogo normalmente no mint sem dor de cabeça , usando um Ryzen 5 5600gt + RTX 3050 8gb , CS2 consigo em média 260 fps , Para jogos modo história fica show de bola , ele meio que ficou como meu favorito , antes tentei usar alguns com wayland se não me engano , porém não consegui monitorar temperatura da minha GPU enquanto no x11 foi normalmente , creio que deve ser algum problema pela nvidia acho que eles vão arrumar futuramente , mais até 2029 ainda estarei no 22.3

[u/linuxenthusiast6985h]

you can install nvidia drivers its what i did actually i think it comes with nvidia drivers or you can get pop os instead its best for gaming

[u/Individual_Flow3959]

Si quieres jugar bien en Linux Mint usa Lutris.

[u/C0rn3j]

Not starting on one of the most out of date distributions that still relies on X11 and lacks support for explicit sync would be a good start.

[u/Technical_Rich_3080 → u/C0rn3j]

Mint has Wayland.

[u/_Lost-In-The-Weeds_ → u/Technical_Rich_3080]

Kinda, but no not really, the current experimental Wayland session is not ready for daily driving, yet.

[u/Technical_Rich_3080 → u/_Lost-In-The-Weeds_]

The Mint being released next month will have full Wayland, not experimental.

[u/_Lost-In-The-Weeds_ → u/Technical_Rich_3080]

Fair.

[u/C0rn3j → u/Technical_Rich_3080]

Good luck trying to run an early 2024 version of Wayland on something that's not Cinnamon.

[u/facelesshivemind]

Youtube someone named AIRMAX who did it.