There are plenty of gaming-focused Linux distros out there, and most of them are great if you want a smooth starting point for gaming on Linux. But if you are already comfortable with another distro, switching just for better game performance can be a hassle.
But that’s the beauty of Linux. It’s meant to be modular, so nothing is really stopping you from bringing the best parts of something like CachyOS or Nobara to your current Linux install using a few simple tweaks.
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Switch to a more performant kernel
Change the Linux in GNU/Linux
Raghav Sethi/MakeUseOfCredit: Raghav Sethi/MakeUseOf
If you don’t know what the kernel does, it’s basically the core of your OS. It controls all low-level operations, such as CPU scheduling, memory management, device drivers, and more. Most mainstream distros ship with a largely vanilla Linux kernel. Ubuntu and Fedora use a patched kernel, but they still tend to be a bit closer to stock. These kernels are tuned for stability and broad compatibility, and not specifically for gaming workloads or just squeezing out every single frame.
I recently switched to CachyOS, and one of the main reasons it performs so well is its custom kernel. Along with the BORE scheduler, it has tons of other tweaks too, and it comfortably beat pretty much every other major Linux gaming distro in my testing.
The best part is that you do not need to switch to CachyOS to use its kernel. You can install it on most distros without much effort. Everything you need is available through the AUR on Arch-based systems, or via COPR on Fedora-based distros. I have seen people get it working on Debian-based distros as well, but I ran into a few issues there, so results can vary depending on your setup.
The CachyOS team also offers multiple kernel variants, so it is worth checking the kernel support page. There are specific builds tailored for handhelds and other use cases, which might be a better fit depending on your hardware and how you use your system.
Don’t limit yourself to vanilla Proton
Get Proton fixes, quick and easy
Screenshot by Raghav – NAR
If you’re gaming on Linux, you’re obviously using Proton. It’s the compatibility layer that lets Windows games run on Linux, mainly through Steam. By default, Steam ships with its own Proton builds, which are generally stable and well-tested. For a lot of games, it’s fine, but you can always do better.
Proton-GE is a community-maintained build of Proton that includes newer patches that Valve has not merged yet. This usually means that brand-new games are up-and-running on Proton-GE much earlier than the official builds.
It even tends to have game-specific fixes ready to go, so it just makes your life easier overall. It even comes bundled with a lot of codecs that are missing in standard Proton, which can sometimes break cutscenes.
That said, I have not noticed a meaningful performance difference after running games with Proton-GE. I tested it head-to-head across several games, such as Red Dead Redemption 2 and The Last of Us, and the FPS stayed within a margin of error. I have seen others get drastically better performance in some games, so your mileage is definitely going to vary.
The creator of Proton-GE, GloriousEgroll, has even built his own Linux distro called Nobara, which I recently tested out, and it’s up there with CachyOS for me.
Increase your shader cache size
The stuttering is not a hardware issue
You might notice stuttering in a lot of games, especially newer titles. It’s usually the worst during the first few minutes of gameplay, because a lot of games compile shaders on the fly as new assets or effects appear for the first time.
A shader cache exists to reduce how often that work needs to be repeated. Once a shader is compiled, it is stored on disk so the game can reuse it later instead of recompiling it again and again. Making your shader cache larger would mean fewer compilation hitches on subsequent launches, especially if you switch between a lot of games. This will, in turn, probably, fix any stuttering issues you’re facing.
You can change the size of the shader cache on a per-game basis on Steam. For example, to increase the size to 10 GB, you just need to add the following command to your game’s launch options.
For AMD or Intel GPUs:
MESA_SHADER_CACHE_MAX_SIZE=10G %command%
For Nvidia GPUs:
__GL_SHADER_DISK_CACHE_SIZE=10737418240 %command%
The G in the AMD command stands for gigabytes, so 10G means 10 gigabytes of cache. On Nvidia, the same value must be written in bytes instead.
Stay on the bleeding-edge Mesa drivers
Who doesn’t want new drivers?
Raghav Sethi/MakeUseOfCredit: Raghav Sethi/MakeUseOf
This only applies if you have an AMD or Intel GPU, but staying on the latest Mesa drivers can help a lot in some cases, especially for games that are Linux-native. A few months back, Counter-Strike 2 was completely broken on Linux and opened with missing textures everywhere. I was on SteamOS at the time, and the only fix was updating to the latest Mesa version.
The problem was that Valve hadn’t pushed the update with their own Mesa stack yet. Since SteamOS is an immutable operating system, manually installing those newer drivers turned into an absolute disaster. In that situation, the distro was not the issue at all. The driver version was.
This issue also comes up with newer hardware. It can take weeks before support lands in the stable Mesa branch. So if you’re a gamer, sticking closer to bleeding-edge Mesa releases is sometimes a good idea. You get small performance boosts more quickly, but obviously at the cost of stability.
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Ditch Windows, embrace Linux
We are far removed from the days of the original Steam Machines. Linux has come a long way since then, and today it is a genuinely good platform for gaming. The open-source community deserves a lot of credit for that, and Valve especially has played a huge role in making Linux gaming what it is now.
I am happy with my current setup on CachyOS, but the bigger win is that these performance gains are not locked to one distro. If the same advantages can be brought to any Linux install, that is a win over Windows in my book.
