Oh my god

[stratvox]

On 4/21/2020 at 3:58 PM, bad94 said:

hey jeff & stratvox I really enjoyed reading your technical discussion and wish I knew a little more about sys admin stuff / computer architecture. Two questions which I have which are maybe off topic but I trust your opinions:

1) i use ubuntu daily for work but usually use windows to game and i have a dual boot on my laptop. I did once install the steam client on ubuntu. do you guys game using linux or windows?

2) Any suggestions for a gaming laptop? my current lap op only has an integrated video card and I would love to see the long dark in better shape haha. I dont play many video games...really only TLD and some other indie stuff with low requirements.

I play under linux. To be honest, 99% of the time the amount of futzing around after you get the system set up properly is quite minimal; I have a nice collection of windows only games in steam that I run using proton with no trouble at all. There are other ones that don't work so great (Crysis, which I'm trying to get going now because reasons) but generally the experience is pretty good. If you do decide to install TLD into linux using steam, tell steam to use the latest proton as a compatibility tool; you'll get much better results that way. As an aside, while I run TLD windows binaries, I run the KSP linux binaries because they're using a non-bugged version of unity for their game.

That said, I do love to tinker so that works a lot for me but it may not work for you.

If you do decide to build a linux gaming system, go AMD. Seriously.

[reginaphalange]

Having recently upgraded from an older laptop to a 4k OLED screen I can def say that, even on a non-gaming laptop, TLD looks really, really nice. And the smoke coming out of chimneys is no longer just jagged grey lines. The shadows/light balance is more realistic, forcing me to use my lanterns more. I wouldn't say the difference is monumental, but just overall better, even on medium-high settings.

[reginaphalange]

14 hours ago, stratvox said:

I play under linux. To be honest, 99% of the time the amount of futzing around after you get the system set up properly is quite minimal; I have a nice collection of windows only games in steam that I run using proton with no trouble at all. There are other ones that don't work so great (Crysis, which I'm trying to get going now because reasons) but generally the experience is pretty good. If you do decide to install TLD into linux using steam, tell steam to use the latest proton as a compatibility tool; you'll get much better results that way. As an aside, while I run TLD windows binaries, I run the KSP linux binaries because they're using a non-bugged version of unity for their game.

That said, I do love to tinker so that works a lot for me but it may not work for you.

If you do decide to build a linux gaming system, go AMD. Seriously.

yes! I use AMD on my linux desktop. steam-to-proton works great, or just needs a simple workaround.

[Guest jeffpeng]

19 hours ago, stratvox said:

If you do decide to build a linux gaming system, go AMD. Seriously.

Since the Linux Nvidia drivers are showing some serious degradation since Apple booted them out of Mac OS (which forced me to sidegrade from my 1050Ti to the hardly faster but 10 times louder 390) I would even go so far to say that if you are planning to run Linux on a daily basis you should go AMD for the GPU, period. Or stick with the intel iGPU if that's enough for you - but that pretty much forbids gaming. But both AMD and intel have remarkably stable and open Linux drivers and widely available firmware.

I really don't wanna "shill" for either side. But when new, "stable" drivers keep crashing on me, and my only route is to either run an older kernel version so older drivers work or switch the GPU vendor ... there really is not much of a choice to be made.

[Hotzn]

Thanks again @jeffpeng and @stratvox for the technical insights. I'll let this sink in a little and then see what kind of system I'l get. 

[acada]

Oh my. I just bought last piece of puzzle. My PC was able to run TLD in full details. In 4K. Just the display was missing. Now I got it. At first it was terrible. Not sure why, but the game was somewhat not smooth. Resolution was great, HDR was great. But looking around and mooving was like... bambillion microstutters or I dont know. The solution was to enable Gsync on the card and freesync on the display. Now it is smooht like butter. Nice to play and watch.

[MarrowStone]

I'm getting great performance with an nvidia 1070 and (I think a 3700k) with 16GB ram and an SSD. I could run most games 2k if I had the monitor for it but at 1080 pretty much all games except AAA 2019 ones are max settings 60 fps. 

The graphics card is not important to play TLD and I think you'd be better off paying for a good SSD, Power supply unit, and motherboard for great futureproofing when raytracing and vr takes center stage in a couple years and you need an upgrade. 

Things like Graphics cards and RAM are easily upgradeable. CPUs are too but more risky to handle. 

You're looking at spending 1800-2400 dollars (in US) for 4k in more than just TLD.  You could maybe drop it down to 1600 if you don't mind used parts. 

Edited May 11, 2020 by MarrowStone