Linux friends looking for advice.

[I_Punch_Demons]

I am kind of tired of the headache that is running older games through windows. Especially Doom in some cases. Similar to another user on here. I have been having problems with stuttering, frame drops and other issues. Below are my computer stats and in no way should I be unable to run Doom on it's highest settings with better textures. I was thinking of just jumping ship and switching to Linux, any of you Linux users satisfied with Doom performance? How hard is getting GZdoom to work on it? 

 

I am thinking of taking a whole day out just to kind of work on this so that I can have everything to spec again. I never had any problems on Windows 7 but that is losing support. 

At first, I thought it was the fact I was running off the HDD that doesn't have my OS. While performance improved once I moved my Doom, Quake, HL1 and other retro game directories off the HDD, I was still getting some issues. I even have occasional crashes. So I am thinking of just not so much giving up. But just moving on, besides, Linux from what I hear is a bit more secure. Yes I play more than Doom BTW. I also am looking forward to Doom Eternal. So I like having a beefier machine. 

My only remaining theory is just that Windows is just no longer good for retro gaming because the OS is now an app base rather than executable. But, somehow this doesn't make sense to me. Or maybe I should just wait for the Linux Kernal update that Win 10 is getting. 

CPU: Ryzen 1800x
GPU: Asus Strix 1080TI (Thinking of getting the new AMD 3000 series if it supports Ray Tracing)
Ram: 32GB
OS: Windows 10
Storage: 
NVME: 1 TB
HDD: 4 TB
SSD: 1 TB

Some of the mods that give me trouble:
Vanilla (GZ Doom)
PRBoom series
Ultimate HD Textures
Brutal Doom 
Ultimate Doom Visor
Project Brutality. 

[banjiepixel]

It should be pretty easy get Doom running on Linux. I have not tested the performance much but the game should also run better on Linux. Windows is a pretty bloated operating system so Linux can have some advantage on performance and there is also much more you can do to improve it.

 

There are some disadvantages to using Linux to play Doom. Not all source ports support Linux and some can be pretty hard to install. But atleast on Ubuntu, GZDoom is pretty easy to install from DRDTeam's Debian repository. Also the driver support isn't as good as Windows, so some hardware could have some problems working correctly but this is usually pretty rare, most of the time it seems to be just with some wireless network adapters.

 

On Linux you are free customize your experience better so you can have almost nothing else running while playing Doom and there are no automatically installed updates to take resources or require system reboot while you play.

[I_Punch_Demons]

Well I plan on using GZDoom primarily. Maybe Zdaemon for multiplayer. I have been looking at a lot of gaming videos for Linux as well and just some overall tutorials. I don't know why I haven't thought of this sooner. 

[Graf Zahl]

Windows is not the problem here. It's far more likely that some badly behaving background thread or antivirus is causing you trouble.

With that system, performance of any OpenGL renderer should be smooth as butter.

 

[Maes]

14 hours ago, Odorousbag87 said:

Or maybe I should just wait for the Linux Kernal update that Win 10 is getting.

 

Ha. So linux fanboys' wet dream ever since the Windows Vista/7 days (or possibly even before) is finally becoming a reality. And if it's actually Kernal instead of Kernel...

[I_Punch_Demons]

7 minutes ago, Maes said:

 

Ha. So linux fanboys' wet dream ever since the Windows Vista/7 days (or possibly even before) is finally becoming a reality. And if it's actually Kernal instead of Kernel...

Okay, I am not a Linux fanboy. I'm more Linux curious if that is a thing. Also, yeah I muffed the spelling. Here is the article:
https://www.howtogeek.com/413564/windows-10-is-getting-a-built-in-linux-kernel/

 

17 minutes ago, Graf Zahl said:

Windows is not the problem here. It's far more likely that some badly behaving background thread or antivirus is causing you trouble.

With that system, performance of any OpenGL renderer should be smooth as butter.

 

I friggin know, hell one of the youtubers I follow is having crashing problems. One thing I am sick of is that everything needs to run with admin privledges and I can't turn it off. I pretty much have no security. When I am not gaming I have webroot on. 

[Barry Burton]

What speed/timings is that RAM? Cause that makes a world of difference with Ryzen.

[ReaperAA]

14 hours ago, Odorousbag87 said:

GPU: Asus Strix 1080TI (Thinking of getting the new AMD 3000 series if it supports Ray Tracing)

 

Ok so my advice is not related to Linux but its an advice nonetheless.

 

First of all, the AMD Navi cards are most likely going to be low-mid end (that would replace the current Polaris cards). Replacing 1080Ti with even a top Navi would probably be a downgrade.

 

Secondly, Ray Tracing is not really worth it at the moment. Only a few games support RT and at crippled resolution and framerate anyway.

 

Thirdly, the OpenGL drivers for AMD cards really really suck. The top AMD cards in many cases perform worst than a even mid-end Nvidia card (like a 1060) in old OpenGL games. For GZdoom, this will not be a problem anymore because of adopting Vulkan, but other ports like GlBoom+ (GL executable of PrBoom+) would still suffer.

[I_Punch_Demons]

Its the recommended speed. I did a SHIT ton of research into ram. Cause yeah, its friggin finicky about the ram. I almost also considered just dumping Ryzen and just going Intel, but I figured linux would be cheaper lmao. 

 

7 minutes ago, R4L said:

What speed/timings is that RAM? Cause that makes a world of difference with Ryzen.

 

[I_Punch_Demons]

 

 

1

3 minutes ago, ReaperAA said:

 

Ok so my advice is not related to Linux but its an advice nonetheless.

 

First of all, the AMD Navi cards are most likely going to be low-mid end (that would replace the current Polaris cards). Replacing 1080Ti with even a top Navi would probably be a downgrade.

Yeah I instantly regreted thinking it lol. 

[Barry Burton]

6 minutes ago, ReaperAA said:

 

Ok so my advice is not related to Linux but its an advice nonetheless.

 

First of all, the AMD Navi cards are most likely going to be low-mid end (that would replace the current Polaris cards). Replacing 1080Ti with even a top Navi would probably be a downgrade.

 

Secondly, Ray Tracing is not really worth it at the moment. Only a few games support RT and at crippled resolution and framerate anyway.

 

Thirdly, the OpenGL drivers for AMD cards really really suck. The top AMD cards in many cases perform worst than a even mid-end Nvidia card (like a 1060) in old OpenGL games. For GZdoom, this will not be a problem anymore because of adopting Vulkan, but other ports like GlBoom+ (GL executable of PrBoom+) would still suffer.

 

I agree here. I have an AMD RX470 card, and it's great, but a 1050ti would put it in its place... Vega cards get close to 1080 performance, but they run so hot you shouldn't even bother.

 

What brand is the RAM? I just want to look up CAS latency.

[I_Punch_Demons]

 

 

 

12 minutes ago, R4L said:

What brand is the RAM? I just want to look up CAS latency.

Kingston HyperX FURY Black 32GB Kit (4x8GB) 2666MHz DDR4 Non-ECC CL15 DIMM 

This was listed on AMD's website at the time of the Ryzen launch. 

[Fonze]

I have a friend who uses Linux and he cannot run some source ports, (either flat out or playably, not sure which) so you're likely just sidestepping the problem you're facing into a worse one.

 

More likely your problem is related to using AMD; get an nvidia card. I'm assuming you as a newer member are using gzdoom, in which case then its well documented that AMD cards and gzdoom don't mix, because AMD is garbage and Doom has to be rendered a particular way which doesn't work well at all with AMD's cards.

[I_Punch_Demons]

 

 

1

1 minute ago, Fonze said:

More likely your problem is related to using AMD; get an nvidia card.

I have a 1080TI running. I don't have a AMD card I almost considered it, but, @ReaperAA brought up some good points.

[Barry Burton]

2 minutes ago, Fonze said:

I have a friend who uses Linux and he cannot run some source ports, (either flat out or playably, not sure which) so you're likely just sidestepping the problem you're facing into a worse one.

 

More likely your problem is related to using AMD; get an nvidia card.

 

He's not using an AMD card. He has an AMD processor, but even then he has an 1800x, which should be more than sufficient to play anything.

 

Problem with Linux is nVidia support is pretty crap from what I've been told. You could always load a live CD and see how well it works.

[I_Punch_Demons]

Just now, R4L said:

 

He's not using an AMD card. He has an AMD processor, but even then he has an 1800x, which should be more than sufficient to play anything.

 

Problem with Linux is nVidia support is pretty crap from what I've been told. You could always load a live CD and see how well it works.

The plan was to do a VM install first and see how that went and then move on to the main event. 

[Barry Burton]

Just now, Odorousbag87 said:

The plan was to do a VM install first and see how that went and then move on to the main event. 

 

Not sure if a VM install would be the best option considering the hardware.

 

A better option if available, would be to install a linux distro next to Windows, or at least run a live CD and make sure GZDoom works the way you want. I believe you should be able to run it on a live CD.

[I_Punch_Demons]

Just now, R4L said:

 

Not sure if a VM install would be the best option considering the hardware.

 

A better option if available, would be to install a linux distro next to Windows, or at least run a live CD and make sure GZDoom works the way you want. I believe you should be able to run it on a live CD.

Actually, I have a one TB SSD I can partition out for it. Just need to get a flash drive when I wake up later. I am going to have a dual boot pc. So windows is not going away completely.

[Maes]

Yikes. How hard can it be running Doom, in one flavor or the other, especially since it's mainly a (single threaded) CPU-bound game? I'm still running ZDaemon on a friggin' Core2 laptop from 2009 and a haphazardly put together LGA775 Pentium 4 @ 3.80 MHz with an old GeForce 5600FX card, ffs. GZDoom, if I want to be fancy. Both on Windows 7, FWIW (yeah, not XP).

[I_Punch_Demons]

11 minutes ago, Maes said:

Yikes. How hard can it be running Doom, in one flavor or the other, especially since it's mainly a (single threaded) CPU-bound game? I'm still running ZDaemon on a friggin' Core2 laptop from 2009 and a haphazardly put together LGA775 Pentium 4 @ 3.80 MHz with an old GeForce 5600FX card, ffs. GZDoom, if I want to be fancy. Both on Windows 7, FWIW (yeah, not XP).

This is what lead to my theory of Windows 10 being the culprit. Windows 10 is app based while Windows 7 is not. However, Win 7 is going to be unsupported in a year or so. So thats why I thought linux would be a good idea. 

[Maes]

Well....the "unsupported" part doesn't really matter much for a box dedicated to playing such a niche game. It's not the same as keeping up with e.g. the latest YouTube layout, latest browser, latest security updates. You could keep a Windows 7 box in your basement for the next 20 years and play Doom to your heart's content, without anyone being able to do anything about it. And most source port authors are well aware of that, so I doubt anyone will jump on the "Windows 10+, app only" bandwagon anytime soon.

 

As for Windows 10, I'd go with the bloatware/trojan theory myself. Overly aggressive antivirus software, "background optimizers", bitcoin mining etc. are all possible culprits. I'd start with seeing what your CPU consumption is at idle, for starters. That means, all apps closed and just what you can see on the desktop. No open browser windows, no nothing. You might need to turn on "see processes from all users" or somesuch to see who/what is really using your CPU, check for disk activity etc.

 

Going Linux might give you a "clean slate" system on which to make a fresh start and so of course everything will appear fast and spiffy for a while, but the same you could probably achieve with a fresh Windows 10 re-installation, so there's that.

[banjiepixel]

13 minutes ago, Maes said:

Going Linux might give you a "clean slate" system on which to make a fresh start and so of course everything will appear fast and spiffy for a while, but the same you could probably achieve with a fresh Windows 10 re-installation, so there's that.

 

Linux has started to become more useful, especially with Steam Play allowing things like playing Doom 2016 on it. It does also many things in much cleaner way than Windows 10.  In long term, Linux will most likely work better. And with KDE desktop, it is alot nicer to use for someone who liked using Windows 7 desktop. Windows 10 also has many issues with older hardware and Microsoft has had some serious problems with stability of their updates. Linux seems like the operating system of the future more than ever, so much than even Microsoft has started add Linux stuff into Windows 10.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

Your machine is overkill for old games and should have no problem at all. Way weaker PCs run doom without problems. Something is wrong with your OS or PC and it could be anything Maes mentioned. 

[Maes]

Unix-like systems always dealt with the long-term "software aging" (or installation bloat) problem more gracefully than Windows or Mac OS Classic, that's a given. But for Microsoft to give up on its biggest trump card (backwards compatibility) would be a risky move, and in fact they never completely abandoned it, at least not by design.

 

Others, like Apple, were bolder and completely split off their legacy OS (Classic to OSX) at some point in time (changing CPU architecture twice, while they were at it), while Microsoft pretty much kept a more or less direct compatibility continuum from DOS to Win9x, to WinNT (which is still the base for Windows 10 today). Wintel FTW, baby!

 

There's simply too much momentum behind it to pull the plug, so they're trying kind of a reverse Apple approach: rather than pull the plug and then put the old OS in a compatibility layer/emulator, they are adding in the "future candidate" as a separate layer (or parassite?) inside the main product. Interesting approach, we'll see where it will lead and who/how it will be used.

[Rathori]

Dude, I play all modern source ports with a 10-year old LGA775 CPU, 8 gigs of DDR2 RAM, and a GTX770, and I get no performance issues whatsoever.

Check your system for overheating, malware, and unwanted antivirus activity. It should should handle any DOOM thing like it's nothing.

 

But on a side note, running PrBoom+ or GZDoom is pretty easy on linux (I've done that), but in general linux is not as good a choice for gaming, even retro, as Windows. Sure, there's Wine and Proton, but it's still nowhere near Windows levels of compatibility. If you really want to try linux I'd recommend dualbooting for a while to see if it suits your needs. Be prepared to do some tinkering even with the most user-friendly distros, however, unless you really like all the defaults.

 

Also, as others said, don't get an AMD GPU if you want Linux.

[I_Punch_Demons]

So here is more of why I was turned off from windows. I have restarted an installation of windows to fix the issues. Nothing. I have turned off everything in the background except essentials, nothing. turned off all of my background processes like webroot, nothing. its very concerning to me.

[Rathori]

Make sure you've got the latest drivers for all your hardware.

 

If that doesn't help, then this most likely a hardware issue, potentially cooling. Your CPU will throttle (i.e. decrease speed) if it overheats to prevent damage. You should check the temperatures while idle and while running the games.

 

It's very unlikely at this point that it's the software that's at fault if a fresh Windows installation doesn't fix performance issues on your machine. Switching to linux won't help much if that's the case.

[Graf Zahl]

Does it give any information when you open the task manager? If there's some hiccups it should occasionally spike the CPU load indicator, and hopefully show which process is at fault. This is definitely not normal, I have run GZDoom on much weaker Windows 10 systems and unless loading some demanding maps it never showed any such problems. If this was normal, the forum would be full of it.

 

16 hours ago, Maes said:

...they are adding in the "future candidate" as a separate layer (or parassite?) inside the main product. Interesting approach, we'll see where it will lead and who/how it will be used.

 

The problem being, that the "future candidate" is entirely useless for productivity software thanks to its crippled API. It's very likely that this never catches on beyond toy software and eventually gets phased out again. Win32 is just too "mission critical" for significant parts of the economy so they simply cannot afford to break it or there'd be Hell to pay.

 

[banjiepixel]

1 hour ago, Graf Zahl said:

The problem being, that the "future candidate" is entirely useless for productivity software thanks to its crippled API. It's very likely that this never catches on beyond toy software and eventually gets phased out again. Win32 is just too "mission critical" for significant parts of the economy so they simply cannot afford to break it or there'd be Hell to pay.

 

 

Then again, look what Valve is doing with Steam Play. I am sure that Microsoft won't break Win32 anytime soon but I can see them very slowly starting to make it more secondary, more deprecated feature. They already have their Microsoft Store so they clearly have wanted move away from Win32 but it didn't work very well so I feel that they are now starting to build support for other, more open alternatives. I mean, they just very recently made even the Microsoft Edge to be based on Chromium. They are also a member of the Linux Foundation and they own Github now.

 

Microsoft has been changing Windows very slowly since Win10, making changes too fast would upset people and it does seem that plan is to slowly expand open source code use and Linux support on Windows 10.

[Graf Zahl]

17 minutes ago, banjiepixel said:

They already have their Microsoft Store so they clearly have wanted move away from Win32

 

Remember, that was under Steve Ballmer who clearly had no clue how to move Windows forward.

Since he's been gone we could witness a significant shift in Microsoft's direction - and that new direction is not towards dumbed down user interfaces. Maybe they eventually manage to unify both APIs so that both sides can profit, but WinRT itself is a dead end because it'd lose Microsoft all their well-paying enterprise customers.

 

Where I work such a move would instantly kill all our future prospects because there's simply too much very special Windows software in use that could not be transitioned to a toy platform like WinRT. Even transitioning to another real OS would set us back for several months, if not more. So if it happened, all that market share would go to Linux instead, cost a lot of money and probably piss off a lot of people sufficiently to cancel all other use of Microsoft products and services as well.

 

So from a purely economical standpoint, phasing out Win32 would be financial suicide for Microsoft, that should never be forgotten when FUDing around here.