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ShinyChrome:
One thing I will say is your mileage depends on your GPU; AMD definitely just seems to work in general, Nvidia not so much
Fair call. I have a Radeon RX 6900XT in that machine so it's fine. I have no idea about running NVDIA.
KiwiSurfer:
cddt:
KiwiSurfer:
Interesting, Steam on Linux refuses to download/install this game. Do you sideload it somehow or run it outside of Steam?
Direct from Steam.
Do you mind finding out which edition of AoE2 you have? There's a number of editions and I wonder if only some of them has been ported. I have those ones:
Both Age of Empires II : HD Edition and Age of Empires II Definitive edition work fine for me, just installed them on Cachyos (Arch linux) with the option steam play enabled for all games and they worked fine. AMD machine, they ran happily (if very slowly) on the built in iGPU and nice and fast on the dedicated gpu.
I thought I'd share something interesting sorta related to this, since it wasn't something I knew a whole heap about; I've been trying out local game streaming from my Bazzite PC to my ROG Ally X (still running Windows 11, totally backwards I know...). While this sounds kinda needless on the face of it, it actually is a great way to play a console type game (something better with a controller) with all settings maxed but in a truly portable form factor for a more flexible/relaxed way than being tethered to a desk/TV etc.
While there are some interesting apps out there I'm keen to give a go at some point in the future (namely Apollo/Artemis), without even trying I stumbled upon the native Steam Remote Play feature... I randomly opened Steam on my Ally with my main PC idling and I could see all of the games installed on my PC appearing locally on the ROG as playable, except the usual Play button was replaced with Stream. I actually don't remember if I had to enable it (there is a setting for Enable Remote Play in Steam > Settings), but for zero effort, I thought I'd give it a try.

So with my PC idling in another room, both devices connected to the same network (both by a WiFi 6 connection, neither having a particularly strong signal), I sat on my living room couch and fired up Death Stranding (since I'm currently working my way through my backlog). This started up the game on both machines as shown below, and all I had to do was enter a pin shown on my PC first, then I was in the game like it was installed locally.

Performance was excellent, and barring a few occasional frame drops from network lag, there was no perceptible latency issues (at least ones I could notice haha). And the neat part is because my Ally wasn't really doing anything other than playing a streaming video feed while sending input commands, playing a more demanding game like Death Stranding only dropped my battery ~10% for a whole hour of play.
You also get a neat little overlay for remote controlling the PC, which I haven't messed with, but found out about when, as per the on-screen prompt, I had accidently triggered it while trying one of Death Stranding's many little button-press-minigames...

The only real bugbear apart from the very occasional lag hits was a more general issue to Bazzite/Linux; when you are playing with a controller input, I had to disable Automatic Sleep otherwise it would literally go to sleep in the middle of a game! Apparently controllers aren't treated in the same way as mouse/keyboard, so you need to either move the mouse/keyboard occasionally, or do as I did.
TL;DR: for no real configuration effort, and what I consider to be very average network conditions, Remote Play worked great! I'm quite getting used to being able to play like this, even if it is more of a faff to have my PC running at the same time.
One neat little trick I forgot to mention is using Steam's ability to manage non-Steam applications, which is why Death Stranding above has none of the usual library graphics... its actually from the Epic store!
I got it during one of Epic's free game giveaways so didn't particularly want to buy it again... I downloaded it from Epic using the Heroic Launcher, which is an excellent app for managing GoG/Epic games on linux btw.
Why you would do such a thing is to take advantage of Steam's QoL features like mangohud, controller management... and as I discovered above, also allows you to stream non-Steam games too!
While this is not explictly OS related, I thought it might be helpful for anyone wanting feature parity on linux to know that all this is possible (and easy!) using one of the many distros.
Yes you can steam remote play most things, even over the internet which works very well if both ends are on fibre. I have used it to do remote control of desktop a few times. They made it a bit harder now, you have to verify with pin on the client even if you have logged in fully with you account which is a bit awkward when you’re some km away. Once it’s verified it stays that way till you remove it.
If you see some online posts to use moonlight/sunlight whatever it’s called now, instead of steam play it’s usually because they’ve never got it to work properly locally. It’s already 90% of the quality and it works out of the box over the net thru steams negotiation servers.
I’ve played fps games at 1080p 120fps at reasonable latency 11ms or so and it’s quite good. Just remember to not touch anything running at admin level, you will lose control as steam doesn’t run remote at same level. RDP works though.
I’ve not seen the sleep bug on deck or pc usually the game or video playback stops it.
ShinyChrome:
After dual-booting Win10 and Fedora for awhile, I realised I almost never used Win10 and really liked Bazzite when I dual booted it on my ROG Ally for a laff.
Since I installed Bazzite on my livingroom PC I haven't booted into the Windows dual boot since I installed Windows. I'm ditching Game Pass so Windows has become increasingly redundant.
I might reuse that drive for retrogames, it seems like a better use for it, I've started playing my way through the Ratchet and Clank games, upscaled to 4k Up Your Arsenal looks really great.
Handle9:
Since I installed Bazzite on my livingroom PC I haven't booted into the Windows dual boot since I installed Windows. I'm ditching Game Pass so Windows has become increasingly redundant.
I might reuse that drive for retrogames, it seems like a better use for it, I've started playing my way through the Ratchet and Clank games, upscaled to 4k Up Your Arsenal looks really great.
I'm getting to the same point with my ROOOOOGGGG Ally, where I had kept it Windows because I figured that would give me one Windows gaming platform for games that can't run on Linux (and mostly couldn't be bothered going through the migration process), but I really miss the console experience of a handheld focused distro like Bazzite. And TBH there aren't many games that the Ally can cope with that don't run on Linux
I have also envisioned doing a similar sort of thing to you; docking my Ally to my TV with some bluetooth controllers and using it for low-graphics/retro console games or streaming from my desktop PC for the big screen experience. Are you using a front-end for retro games?
I'm using RetroDECK. I prefer Emulation Station TBH but I had a problems getting it to install so just took the path of least resistance to get something working to play around with it.
Unfortunately games like Battlefield 6, which run quite well on older hardware, are restricted by anti-cheat systems from playing on linux. If you like online games it’s still a bit aways from being properly available on anything except windows until companies figure out how to do server side anti-cheat.
SpartanVXL:
Unfortunately games like Battlefield 6, which run quite well on older hardware, are restricted by anti-cheat systems from playing on linux. If you like online games it’s still a bit aways from being properly available on anything except windows until companies figure out how to do server side anti-cheat.
Yeah, absolutely fair if that is your bag.
Maybe I am just becoming grumpy and set in my ways, but I am now just refusing to play anything that requires kernel level anti-cheat out of principle... plus my backlog of shame extends well pre-pandemic haha
Miss 13 is going to get a hand me down PC for her room once she gets her braces off so I'm planning a new build to replace my livingroom PC. I'm definitely going Bazzite as I have been really pleased with it. I'd sort of like a PS5 but I think a PC makes the most sense for us. I am increasingly resistant to paying ongoing fees while being happy to invest more up front and buying games.
I'm currently running an 11600K and a 6900XT which is works well for me on my 77inch LG B4.
I've already got a Silverstone GD09 case which looks nice in my livingroom so my major limitation is the GPU length. I've already bought a 7800X3D which is massive overkill but also really well priced at the moment. I'll probably go for a 9070 as most 9070XT models are too long and/or too expensive for the extra 10ish% performance. I should have it done by Christmas which is rather exciting.
ShinyChrome:
SpartanVXL:
Unfortunately games like Battlefield 6, which run quite well on older hardware, are restricted by anti-cheat systems from playing on linux. If you like online games it’s still a bit aways from being properly available on anything except windows until companies figure out how to do server side anti-cheat.
Yeah, absolutely fair if that is your bag.
Maybe I am just becoming grumpy and set in my ways, but I am now just refusing to play anything that requires kernel level anti-cheat out of principle... plus my backlog of shame extends well pre-pandemic haha
I just don't play multiplayer games that use anti cheat so I don't care. I play single player or local co-op which is perfect for bazzite.
Handle9:
Miss 13 is going to get a hand me down PC for her room once she gets her braces off so I'm planning a new build to replace my livingroom PC. I'm definitely going Bazzite as I have been really pleased with it. I'd sort of like a PS5 but I think a PC makes the most sense for us. I am increasingly resistant to paying ongoing fees while being happy to invest more up front and buying games.
I'm currently running an 11600K and a 6900XT which is works well for me on my 77inch LG B4.
I've already got a Silverstone GD09 case which looks nice in my livingroom so my major limitation is the GPU length. I've already bought a 7800X3D which is massive overkill but also really well priced at the moment. I'll probably go for a 9070 as most 9070XT models are too long and/or too expensive for the extra 10ish% performance. I should have it done by Christmas which is rather exciting.
Kids forced you to upgrade, poor you...

I feel like the 7800x3d / 9070 is a good 4K gaming combo, its where I would be landing if building today since the 9800x3d is still sky-high, XT/7900 XTX doesn't really net you much more for the extra $$$, and the combo isn't too power hungry/hot. Hope you already picked up your RAM though... prices are bonkers! I see the HTPC Bazzite build also includes Gamescope too, nice!
On that note, I tried the Xbox Full Screen Experience on my Ally... and then decided that was disappointing enough to finally ditch whundows and move that to Bazzite as well. XFCE just doesn't compare to Gamescope; its just such a polished and console like experience that I was looking for out of a handheld
Yeah I bought my ram last week, I ended up going 6000Mhz CL36. I did order 6000Mhz CL30 but the order was cancelled, likely due to the cost spike.
I was able to buy a 7800x3D for basically the same price as 9700X so the choice was that or a 7600X/9600X. This won’t be upgraded for at least 3 years so it was buy once cry once.
If I could fit a 9700XT at a reasonable price I’d pay the extra but there are only 1-2 models that will fit.
With the announcement of Steam Machine, Steam Frame, there will be a lot more talk around linux gaming.
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