Background
I use Mac as my daily driver for my work and personal machines, but for gaming I use my Playstation 5 for online or supposedly AAA games (think Call of Duty or Helldivers 2) and I use my Steam Deck for more indie titles. I’ve got some Linux experience, primarily via my old Mac Mini running Proxmox with mostly Debian VMs and messing around briefly with NixOS.
I love our Steam Deck, but it does feel a little underpowered, the battery isn’t as strong as it once was and I don’t love the docking experience with the official dock.
My wife is really into Civilization and similar games and I’d love to setup a desktop connected to our TV to use with a keyboard and mouse on our LG CX. Although I’m tech savvy, I’m not great with knowing what hardware/software to get. It’s especially more complicated with the looming tariffs and trying to make sure I don’t overspend on something I don’t need.
Question
Looking for some guidance on hardware and software to setup for this living room gaming desktop. It’s only purpose is to play games, primarily from Steam and it should have hardware which would benefit speed and performance for the type of games I’m going to list. Obviously we want the graphics to be good, but I don’t need a beast RTX 5090.
What are some hardware and software recommendations in today’s financial climate for playing these games on Linux?
What other accessories would you recommend for couch based keyboard and mouse gaming?
Honestly the game I’m most eager to get into is Dwarf Fortress, but for my wife it’s having a smooth experience with Civ6 (she was playing the Switch version for far too long!)
Games
- Civilization games
- My wife loves 6 and I’m a fan of 5, but we do want to eventually try 7, hoping it’ll improve with DLC updates
- Dwarf Fortress
- Rimworld
- Battletech
- Into the Breach
- Brotato
- Vampire Survivors
- Balatro
- FTL
- Caves of Qud
- Persona 5 Royal (although I’m struggling to get into it, pushing through)
- Blue Prince
- ANIMAL WELL
- Factorio
- Return of the Obra Dinn
- Anno 1800
- Project Zomboid
This is a partial list of some of our libraries and wishlists. As you can see, some of them are more graphically, memory and processor intensive, but a lot of them are low performance indies.
An AMD GPU and Bazzite would be great for you. The AMD GPU makes installing any Linux system easier, cause the drivers are already there.
I think https://lemmy.world/c/buildapc would be a good fit to crosspost or ask again
If you feel most familiar with Debian, I recommend looking at Mint. It has great compatibility and is otherwise easy to use, and it handles GPUs well (including Nvidia). In terms of hardware, I’ll agree with the others here–used is the way to go, you’ll get a lot more for your money than buying new.
That being said, you can also look for clearance and/or refurbished PCs. This one would probably be powerful enough.
Anecdotal, but Mint stuttered in games occasionally for me and I had the odd audio blip. I switched to EndeavorOS and its been flawless.
Thanks for the advice! I feel like I will have some flexibility with distros and can switch things out as long as game data is backed up and it works with the hardware.
Unfortunately the Amazon link doesn’t seem to work for me. Can you give me a brief description of what it included?
Many of those games I had been playing on a 2400g with no dedicated gpu, which is far weaker than the Steam Deck.
When you say you’ve noticed it’s underpowered, did you mean for the games on this list?
I feel like Civ6 felt a little sluggish late game, probably more processing and RAM than GPU specific. Also can hear the fans and feel the heat on the handheld, which I feel like a desktop can be configured to handle better. Otherwise the Deck is a great piece of hardware. If I’m looking at Civ 7 or any future games, I feel like the Deck might struggle a little.
Check ProtonDB, e.g. https://www.protondb.com/search?q=Civilization and that, even though initially started for the SteamDeck is a very reliable source to know if a game will work well on Linux. Overall the vast VAST majority of games do work unless there is a kernel level anti-cheat which is mostly for competitive online games only.
Now in terms of performances, get the GPU you can afford but overall its comparable with other OSes (not to name them) and sometimes even better, so on average, you can trust whatever the publisher is recommending.
Source : been gaming on Linux, in VR and on “flat” 3D for years now, pretty much daily.
- https://www.protondb.com/search?q=Civilization+games
- https://www.protondb.com/search?q=Dwarf+Fortress
- https://www.protondb.com/search?q=Rimworld
- https://www.protondb.com/search?q=Battletech
- https://www.protondb.com/search?q=Into+the+Breach
- https://www.protondb.com/search?q=Brotato
- https://www.protondb.com/search?q=Vampire+Survivors
- https://www.protondb.com/search?q=Balatro
- https://www.protondb.com/search?q=FTL
- https://www.protondb.com/search?q=Caves+of+Qud
- https://www.protondb.com/search?q=Persona+5+Royal
- https://www.protondb.com/search?q=Blue+Prince
- https://www.protondb.com/search?q=ANIMAL+WELL
- https://www.protondb.com/search?q=Factorio
- https://www.protondb.com/search?q=Return+of+the+Obra+Dinn
- https://www.protondb.com/search?q=Anno+1800
- https://www.protondb.com/search?q=Project+Zomboid
… so they all look quite promising.
Woah, thanks for doing the searching leg work here.
I’ve been using ProtonDB pretty heavily for Steam Deck research and I think most of the games on the list have good Proton support or even native Linux functionality. I doubt I’ll play many kernel level anti-cheat games on it, I tend to go to the console for those types of games.
Based on the limited research I’ve done in the past, generally AMD is recommended for Linux, so I’d probably go that route. I don’t have a firm budget, happy to save up and attempt to future proof or go with an older/used model for less cost.
Am I right in thinking CPU/RAM are more critical for games like Civ or Dwarf Fortress? More simulation than graphics intensive tasks?
Bazzite is probably the best Linux distribution for this purpose. It’s practically made for it. In terms of hardware, get an AMD GPU. Intel might also be ok, but they are pretty new so might have hidden caveats.
CPU, whatever you can afford I guess.
Do you have a budget?
Thank you for the reply!
Yeah I’ve seen Bazzite come up frequently and it sounds promising, essentially it’s Steam OS. I was also leaning towards AMD GPU due to the compatibility, heard the NVIDIA drivers aren’t the best.
I’m going to be irritating and say “I don’t really know” as far as budget, I’d like to avoid spending $2-3k on something to play Indies. But I’m also ok with under $2k or even less for something that is fairly future proof.
Am I right in thinking CPU/RAM are more critical for games like Civ or Dwarf Fortress? More simulation than graphics intensive tasks?
Just FYI: I’ve never had an AMD Gpu (thanks to Blender’s support seeming poor) and while it j5as been spotty in the past, I’ve used Fedora, PopOS and Bazzite with zero Problems on NVIDIA. Drivers have come a long way in the last years.
That is good to know! I use my Mac Studio for my Blender stuff (works surprisingly well for what I need). Maybe I shouldn’t rule out NVIDIA as quickly as I have!
I have two PCs, one with an RTX 3080TI the other one has an RX 7800 XTX.
The difference is real. For example, Gamescope on Nvidia is a buggy mess, and Nvidia on Linux performs worse than on Windows. AMD works better on Linux.
Do you have any preferences (distro, cpu/gpu manufacturer, etc) and a budget? Most of the games on your list I am familiar with and will run on damn near anything remotely modern.
Lacing direction, with the fairly low requirements (from what i recognize), and assuming you are price conscious id suggest you poke around the used gaming PC market (either gamer friends, or failing that online), which will also completely bypass the tariff issue too.
PopOS is pretty solid for linux gaming and has a distribution specifically for Nvidia too which handles most of the headache with Nvidia if you go that route.
EDIT: Poked around the requirement pages of the ones i wasn’t familiar with, i didn’t see a single game that had a requirement of anything newer than 10 year old hardware, depending on your friend network, you could get a computer that could play those games well for a song. Civ 7, your ‘evenutally’ game, is the only thing listed that has strongish requirements, and would be what i would pay attention to if you are aiming higher.
Thanks for the reply!
No strict preferences on distro, cpu/gpu manufacturer, open to suggestions. Although I’ve heard AMD is best with Linux due to the NVIDIA drivers and I’m hearing good things about Bazzite. I’d like to avoid excessive tinkering and configuration, hence why I’m ruling out NixOS for this build. As for budget and what I said in another reply, I’m going to be irritating and say “I don’t really know”, I’d like to avoid spending $2-3k on something to play Indies. But I’m also ok with under $2k or even less for something that is fairly future proof.
Most of my gamer friends are not PC players (console mostly), but I’m definitely open to looking into the used market.
Am I right in thinking CPU/RAM are more critical for games like Civ or Dwarf Fortress? More simulation than graphics intensive tasks?
Civ 6 is pretty flexible and dwarf fortress will run on a potato, basically anything remotely in the gaming market will play them fine. Civ 7 is more intense, but being turn based cpu tends not to be the bottleneck
One thing that will be the biggest general qol for your new build is likely to get a M.2 NVMe for your games and OS
Just saw your edit!
So if Civ7 is a benchmark for what I want to eventually play, would it be sensible to go with…
- AMD RX 6600
- AMD Ryzen 5 3600X
Those are both solid pieces of hardware. However, I would suggest getting a Ryzen 5600 for a notable per-core CPU buff over the 3600x, which should help quite a bit with games like Civ’s AI turn time. And since that CPU, Motherboard socket isn’t latest-gen either, you can buy used for cheap still.
On a slightly different note: The 7k series Ryzen CPUs get you on the latest slot, AM5. This will get you future upgradability if you want it, but it will also come with higher costs as AM5 is the newest socket, so people aren’t unloading them onto the used market in quantity. Such cost considerations are best determined by you. Both are a solid choice though.
For the GPU, I think the Radeon 6600 is a good choice. Radeon stuff works better in linux and that particular one is plenty strong for what you listed.
I highly, highly recommend PassMark’s benchmarks for comparing hardware. They are the first place I look to get relative numbers. And from there I determine what I need/want.
Few months ago I built a gaming PC and chose to not use Windows for multiple reasons. I would suggest sticking to AMD as it would better supported on Linux. For the OS I’m using Arch Linux which is base for a lot of gaming Linux distributions. 99% I have never felt like I was missing out by not using Windows. Wine/Proton works really well OOTB. I highly recommend it if you want to get into Linux gaming. Like others have mentioned, ProtonDB is also a great resource for finding game specific information.
Thanks for the link to your build, that’s super helpful. The beauty of Linux is that I have some wiggle room as far as distro, as long as the save data is backed up, I can switch it up as long as it supports the hardware.
Yes, you have a lot more options for Linux distributions which in my opinion is a pro and a con. Honestly I would suggest that you stick to one distribution probably the one that works with your hardware the best (most annoying to troubleshoot). All distributions are going to have some issues and you’ll need to prioritize what you need and stick to it. I’m saying this because I feel I wasted a lot of my time switching distributions rather than just working on trying to fix the issue or finding a workaround. Good luck and don’t forget Linux is beautiful <3
