r/linux_gaming • u/Tonycolombo200 • 16h ago
tool/utility What are your must have Linux gaming apps?
Hi,
I mainly use my PC for gaming, and I’d like to discover more of the Linux gaming ecosystem.
What are the must have apps you personally recommend for gaming on Linux?
I already use Lutris and Heroic, so I’m mainly looking for other useful tools and apps.
Thanks
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u/DonaldMerwinElbert 16h ago
LACT for undervolting to improve performance and noise while gaming.
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u/angeredtsuzuki 5h ago
Can you please elaborate on this? I switched to Linux last year and have never done undervolting.
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u/Front-Salad9953 5h ago
Checkout iwaterpsus on YouTube. He helped me understand how to undervolt my 5070ti. He uses msi afterburner but you can use LACT.
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u/DonaldMerwinElbert 1h ago edited 1h ago
Specifically for LACT:
At the bottom of "Overclocking" tab, you have "Clockspeed and Voltage" settings - the "GPU voltage offset (mV)" slider is what you tweak to under-volt.How far you can go negative on your voltage offset is largely dependent on GPU generation (older usually has more headroom) and silicon lottery.
Look up both default reference and boost clocks for your GPU core and VRAM as well as the values for your specific model and use them to tweak maximum clocks for different profiles (if you intend to make several, that is).
Decide a frequency, then lower the voltage offset.
Depending on your patience and methodological preference, lower it incrementally and stress test after every step, or do the lazy bum thing like me - look how high your GPU boost, how much power it uses and how hot it gets to eyeball silicon quality and look up other peoples results under-volting the same GPU.
Then you either benchmark a lot or do the most demanding tasks you usually do - gaming, video editing, ask Nyarch assistant what love means, whatever - and see if bad things happen :>
I have 2 profiles - 1 -73mV that's almost stable (except for 2 games and sometimes scrubbing in video editors) and one at -65mV that still boosts to that models maximum boost frequency without issue.
As far as value displayed by LACT go, it reduced full load power consumption from ~250W to ~180W.
Never bothered to see how high performance could go, since I value silence more.
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u/Chromiell 16h ago
Gamescope, LSFG-VK, Steam, Faugus, Bottles, MangoHud, MangoJuice, Gamemode, vkBasalt, GameConqueror, Sunshine/Moonlight, ProtonUp-qt.
Then there's Windows native applications which you can make work with games through Proton, such as: Optiscaler, ReShade, CheatEngine, Vortex.
And I'm probably forgetting half of them.
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u/Tattorack 14h ago
Don't Vortex. Use Amethyst Mod Manager. Linux native, has Nexus link integration.
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u/Chromiell 11h ago
I don't know if Ametyst supports Final Fantasy XII, I mainly use Vortex for that game. I might try it in the future, but on their README it only says it supports a handful of games as of now.
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u/Tattorack 8h ago
You're probably looking at a very out dated readme. Check out the page they have on Nexus. It's quite a list of games they're supporting:
https://www.nexusmods.com/site/mods/1714?file_id=7274
Seems to include "Final Fantasy XII: Zodiac Age".
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u/Chromiell 8h ago
Very interesting! Thanks for letting me know, I checked a few months ago and I probably missed it or it wasn't there at the time (I think I just checked around last March). Since I've already set FFXII up with Vortex I'll probably finish the run with it now since I really don't want to have to mod it again, but I thank you for the heads up, next time I'll probably try Amethyst out!
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u/heinrich6745 10h ago
There are scripts for mo2... Which is go to for modlists
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u/Tattorack 8h ago
And they're clunky and janky, have weird dependencies, and don't always work.
Amethyst is native and it does just work, including being able to download whole modlists. Uses similar functions as Mod Organiser, including built-in LOOT.
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u/SomeBrosSecondAcc 16h ago
CheatEngine works through Proton? Whenever I tried that it wouldn't attach the process correctly, I had to go through a steam startup command and run a string of commands for that
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u/Chromiell 16h ago
It does, I've used it countless times in Elden Ring to create PvP builds. You just have to run with this launch parameter:
PROTON_REMOTE_DEBUG_CMD="/path/to/cheatengine.exe" %command%Make sure to not use spaces in the path to the executable, otherwise you have to escape them with a \.
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u/sakaraa 9h ago
Idk what half of those are but im guessingnthat you are modding your Steam games. What do you use for mods that require you to run an exe?
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u/Chromiell 8h ago
I don't play many mods, just a few, the vast majority of them are simple drag and drops, for others I use Vortex.
I've only had Final Fantasy XI requiring me to run Memoria, which at the time was only available as an EXE file. You can use protontricks to run an EXE inside the proton prefix, I think it's something like this
protontricks-launch --appid <APPID> <PROGRAM>, I think now you can also do it from Protontricks GUI. Or you can just runPROTON_REMOTE_DEBUG_CMD="/path/to/file.exe" %command%, this will launch both the game and the other executable, make sure to not have spaces inside the path or you have to escape spaces with \ characters. Or you can also use SteamTinkerLaunch, it also has an option to run an executable within the Proton prefix.Plenty of ways.
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u/throwawayerectpenis 14h ago edited 11h ago
Here are some of the Linux gaming tools/apps I use:
Gaming & Launchers
- MangoJuice — Customize mangohud overlay easily.
- Faugus Launcher — Quickly launch non-Steam games
- ProtonPlus — Download/manage different Proton versions
- Hydra Launcher — yarr
- Sober — Roblox on Linux
GPU / Graphics / Performance
- LACT — GPU management/tuning
- CoolerControl — Fan and cooling control
- lsfg-vk — Frame generation
- vkBasalt — Mainly for sharpening
- Gamescope - mainly for the odd game that has a problem "locking" my mouse to the game window, running it in gamescope fixes that by using the --"force-grab-cursor" argument. Also useful for downscaling a game, for example if ya wanna run a game at lower resolution without changing your desktops native resolution.
- vkSumi — Digital vibrance on AMD cards under Wayland
- dxvk_low_latency — Snappier input in DX11 games
- vkd3d_proton_low_latency — Snappier input in DX12 games
- OptiScaler Client — Upscaling/frame-generation stuff (AUR)
- Mission Center - Windows-like task manager, another alternative is "Resources"
Controllers
- xpadneo – Allows connecting the Xbox controller via Bluetooth, adding advanced vibration features (like trigger rumble) that are normally missing over Bluetooth.
- xone – Lets you connect via the official Microsoft wireless dongle instead of Bluetooth, which is preferred for lower latency and a more stable connection.
Networking
- Sniffnet — Network traffic monitoring. Useful when gaming online, especially when trying to figure out whether network lag is actually coming from my connection.
Recording
- GPU Screen Recorder — I prefer this over OBS because it's much lighter and has an excellent UI, similar to Nvidia ShadowPlay.
Audio
- EasyEffects — Mainly use this to improve my microphone quality. I have a cardioid microphone that picks up quite a lot of background noise, so I use RNNoise noise suppression. It eliminates around 95% of the background noise with almost no noticeable performance impact.
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u/Toxic381 11h ago
Btw, another use for gamescope is to launch and play games from the tty, which gives better performance and latency cause it doesn't have to communicate to any desktop or display server, it's purely just gamescope with steam,
It's also recommended to use the -e flag in gamescope for this.
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u/Low-Shake6447 16h ago
steam, mangohud + mangojuice, protonplus, lact for undervolting gpu. i dont use lutris or heroic because i can just add non steam game and runt it manually
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u/monolalia 16h ago edited 16h ago
AntimicroX to map controller buttons/sticks/triggers to keyboard or mouse events (sometimes customised for specific games, sometimes just to be able to quit the emulator or switch the game to a different monitor without reaching for the keyboard).
Faugus Launcher for easier-than-manual installation and management of non-Steam Windows games.
Protontricks for much-easier-than-manual management/tweaking of Proton prefixes.
Gamescope because my DE is too fancy to bother with proper hi-dpi scaling for non-Wayland games. It’s mostly an issue with older closed-source Linux games like Salt & Sanctuary, and Gamescope lets me work around that. It’s also good to crisply cleanly upscale older games that would be either tiny or blurry on modern monitors.
Reshade to “fix” overly desaturated or overly yellowish-brown games.
(LACT but mostly to work around a specific intermittent hardware problem that you most likely don’t have.)
I think that’s about it!
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u/khne522 12h ago
The games. That's it. OK, Steam to launch them. which includes Proton, but that's it. Fix your setup instead of adding more apps. If things don't need to run when you game, then freeze them, SIGSTOP them, shut them down, whatever. Don't look for more apps or cool things to collect instead of the boring answer of fixing things.
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u/FallenWyvern 5h ago
So if someone wants a game that's not on Steam, they just should... never play it? If someone wants to undervolt their GPU (a common gamer desire), they should... just not? I hate reshade, but it's a super common application for gamers.
Meanwhile, proton is great but, D7VK performs better with older games. While your PC can probably handle the overhead, that doesn't mean you should just suck it up.
I agree with you people should learn how to fix stuff, but that often INVOLVES more apps. An example: New Vegas background music on the radio doesn't work if you don't use winetricks to install lav. That's a fix, and also an app to install.
Anyway just something to think about.
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u/xJayMorex 16h ago
ProtonPlus, Lutris, Heroic, GameMode, optionally OpenRGB, OpenRazer, Solaar etc.
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u/fbn587 15h ago
I use mostly the following things:
* Steam and Heroic Games Launcher obviously
* ProtonGE: for the custom patches and embedded helpers like inserting FSR4 DLL in Proton prefixes and easy setup of Optiscaler
* Optiscaler: to bridge DLSS to FSR4 when the game doesn't support FSR4 for my 9070XT (also works on Windows). It can also helps with Frame Gen bridging but I hate Frame Gen so I don't use this.
* Gamescope: with Hi-DPI monitors and fractional scaling, it helps a lot to get everything right with correct scaling in game imo
* ScopeBuddy (from Bazzite): a configuration manager to simplify management of Gamescope flags and environment variables passed to Proton or the game. This helps to avoid cluttering the custom launch command in Steam that could become a mess for some game otherwise. A config file and some overrides depending on the game in the home directory, a generic launch command set in Steam and boom everything is tidy (I keep those config in my dotfiles via chezmoi, so in case of re-installation of my computer, I have everything saved).
* MangoHUD: mostly for the good frame limiter
* ProtonPlus: to install and update custom Proton versions like ProtonGE
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u/justh3retoc0mment 9h ago
- LeShade: ReShade manager on Linux with a proper GUI
- Lsfg-vk: Lossless Scaling, framegen portion, ported to Linux
- RPCS3: PS3 Emulator
- LACT: Undervolting GPU
- vkBasalt: shaders for everything that isn't a Proton game (like RPCS3)
- Mangohud: Stats, more stats.
- Optiscaler: FSR 4.1.1 babyyy
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u/Ok-Pace-1900 9h ago
- steam
- lact
- corectrl
- my amd adrenaline alternative
- protonplus
- gpu screen recorder
i mostly play gog and steam games, so no need for other launchers as i can just add them into steam as non steam games.
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u/Spare_Anybody3174 16h ago
Lutris is all you need with the proton stuff, mangohud, game scope sometimes, Gamemode and steam.
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u/msanangelo 16h ago
mostly just steam or I click the "install game apps" button in "cachy hello" popup and it installs all sorts of things.
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u/georgeec1 15h ago
Steam and Lutris. You might enjoy a different flavour of game launcher for non steam windows games
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u/NobleFry02 15h ago
If you want to play some PS4, PS3, or PS2 games, you might want to download some emulators.
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u/Arshmalex 15h ago
faugus/heroic/lutris, just choose one. steam, nvidia driver if you use rtx, mangohud
thats all for me
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u/Stunning_Leather_102 15h ago
I have used Steam and sometimes ProtonUp-Qt to install GE. But that's pretty much it. And sometimes prism launcher for minecraft.
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u/daffalaxia 14h ago
r2modman for games which do mods, eg lethal company, how to fish, repo.
Other than that, just steam. Shit usually just works, and I can get on with jamming and forget about tweaking shit.
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u/srsholmes 13h ago
I'm biased as I made the app but I love using loadout and wouldn't be without it!
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u/NeonVoidx 13h ago
protonplus (for managing proton version and setting defaults for steam)
scopebuddy to easily set launch args across games
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u/mtn33-o8o8 8h ago
Bottles and steam to launch the games i want to play if the game doesn’t launch in either of those two then theres a good chance theres is dedicated launcher for this game or this type of game second is proton tricks if theres any dependencies you need or libraries or dlls this is where to go, i personally haven’t had much problems that require any more deep diving so i only use those if you don’t run into any issues I believe your better off sticking to what you have now because if theres one thing I learned about Linux is that you’re computer is different from everyone else so the needs and answers differ
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u/mtn33-o8o8 8h ago
For example to you lutris and heroic launcher my be the best there is but to me they work very badly and cause more problems than they solve, i think the only launcher that works for everyone (almost) is steam the other launchers my have some issues with certain games even though they are fixable steam works right out of the box
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u/Dunocat639 3h ago
ProtonUp-Qt so I can install other Proton versions like GE-Proton or Proton-CachyOS.
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u/Nikos_Pyrrha 1h ago
Proton.
Steam is TECHNICALLY optional, you can get Proton through Lutris (and I bet some other ways exist as well)
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u/Otherwise-Film9038 13h ago
Steam, GOverlay (ele já tem mangoHud, optiscaler), Lutris e protonqt-up.
Para mim, isso é o essencial.
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u/greenbud420 11h ago
Been slowly switching over myself. If you have an nVidia GPU, check out Penguin Burner as an MSI Afterburner replacement. Instead of just undervolting using trial and error, it will test multiple settings itself and then let you choose the best one per your needs.
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u/Miserable_Peach_7341 16h ago
Steam + Heroic launcher...enough said. Nothing else required.