I've wanted to move away from Windows 11 for a while. I mainly use my PC for web browsing, gaming, studying, writing Python, and data science work. Gaming is the only thing that has kept me from switching, so I decided to test Linux.
I first installed Ubuntu, got my RTX 5070 drivers working, and set up Steam. General use was fine, but AAA gaming was disappointing. In The Witcher 3, Windows gives me around 144 FPS on ultra settings and roughly 85 FPS with ray tracing enabled. On Linux, I got about 70 FPS at best on ultra, and ray tracing did not work at all. I tried DirectX 11, checked compatibility reports, and experimented with the available settings, but nothing made a significant difference.
After that, I tried CachyOS because it includes several gaming-focused optimizations, but the performance was nearly identical. After roughly three days of troubleshooting, I returned to Windows because I wasn't getting close to the performance I'm used to.
Did I give up too quickly? Is it reasonable to expect Linux gaming performance to be close to Windows, or is a large performance gap common with NVIDIA GPUs? I bought the RTX 5070 partly because I also want to use the system for deep learning and smaller language-model projects. Would trying different Proton versions, kernels, or a distribution such as Bazzite likely help, or should I accept that Windows is currently the better option for this use case?
2 Answers
Don’t assume every game from the same publisher will behave the same way. Some demanding titles run extremely well on Linux, while others have poor translation-layer performance or incomplete ray-tracing support. Before switching distributions again, compare Vulkan and DirectX 11 where available, try a few Proton versions, and test another demanding game. Changing kernels may help in specific cases, but it usually won’t magically recover half the missing FPS.
A 50% loss is not what you should normally expect, so I’d first investigate the driver and game configuration rather than concluding that Linux itself is the problem. Make sure the proprietary NVIDIA driver is installed correctly and that the game is actually using the discrete GPU. It’s also worth testing several Proton versions, including Proton Experimental or a community build, and checking whether ray tracing is supported properly for that title and driver combination.
The exact gap can depend heavily on the GPU vendor and the game’s rendering path. NVIDIA performance losses of 20–30% can happen in some DirectX 12 games, even though other titles may perform almost identically or occasionally better than on Windows.
A gaming-focused distribution can make setup easier, but it cannot fix a game-specific compatibility or NVIDIA driver issue by itself. Bazzite may be worth trying for convenience, but I’d troubleshoot the current installation first.