I'm very new to Linux—I've only been using it for about three days—and I'm mainly interested in gaming. I'm dual-booting Ubuntu 26.04 with KDE Plasma 6.6.6 on a system with an AMD Ryzen 7 8700F, 32 GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA RTX 5060. Steam games launch, but performance and graphics quality have been disappointing, as if the GPU is struggling. I'd eventually like to use Linux exclusively and remove Windows, so I'm looking for beginner-friendly suggestions, driver advice, or other tweaks that could improve gaming performance.
2 Answers
The first thing to check is whether the proprietary NVIDIA driver is installed. The basic driver included with the system may be enough for desktop use but can perform poorly for gaming. In Ubuntu, open the Software & Updates application, find the Additional Drivers tab, select the recommended NVIDIA driver for your RTX 5060, install it, and reboot. After that, test a few games again.
For newer NVIDIA hardware, using the proper proprietary driver is especially important. Once that is installed, Steam and Proton should generally work much better. Keep the system and drivers updated through Ubuntu’s normal Software Updater rather than downloading random packages manually. If you eventually want to experiment, gaming-focused distributions such as CachyOS or Bazzite and alternative Proton builds may offer additional optimizations, but they’re not necessary until you’re comfortable with your current setup.
I installed the NVIDIA driver and tested both an older and a newer game. They’re now running smoothly, so that seems to have been the main issue. I’ll stick with the beginner-friendly setup for now and learn the update process before trying anything more advanced.