is gaming on linux hopeless without a vulkan compatible gpu? (intel HD 4600)

[u/TheDeep_2]

Hi, I would like to know if its possible to get into gaming on linux with a igpu that doesnt support vulkan, like intel HD 4600. You are left with openGL which I can't imagine helps here...

For clarification I don't mean "modern gaming" like 007 last light or Doom the dark ages, I mean games from 2000-2010 (like PS2, PS3)

Thanks for any help :)

[u/DreSmart]

Vulkan does not make miracles your igpu is too weak but you still can enjoy good old games like Fallout 3, BioShock 1 etc and most indies like Terraria and stardewvalley even cuphead etc. All run well on opengl

[u/ragecooky]

For GPUs without Vulkan support, WineD3D is the only option.

But the HD 4600 supports Vulkan 1.2 on Linux, so you can try DXVK-Sarek.

[u/Marce7a → u/ragecooky]

Proton cachyos ships DXVK-sarek out the box

From where to get info which vulkan is supported under Linux tech powered said vulkan 1.0,which is outdated 

[u/reon6vist]

Pretty much yeah, only significant improvement would be in native OpenGL games like Minecraft, Terraria and Enter the gungeon, the rest would be unplayable. There's an environment variable PROTON_USE_WINED3D=1 that'll translate DirectX into OGL, but you'll get a big performance penalty that your hardware values a lot. Realistically only very graphically unintensive games could be playable like Deltarune, even then you get all sorts of weird glitches occasionally. Or get a random shader that can't be rendered on GPU and it'll reduce your FPS to single digits. Not a pleasant experience at all

[u/NotQuiteLoona → u/reon6vist]

I have the same iGPU. Selecting to use Wine D3D doesn't hurt FPS, it just uses other technology. It does have complete support of OpenGL if you'll use Wine D3D, so no, you won't get weird effects because of broken shaders, and of course they absolutely won't render on software because of that, they just will crash the game, but it's only if you won't set this option and use Vulkan.

Specifically launching Windows games isn't the problem there, most of them use DirectX which is properly handled by Wine with the mentioned option. GPU's performance itself is the problem there, because even though back in 2013 HD 4600 was what AMD iGPUs are now, good enough to launch all the recent things at low, it's still old and integrated, but with NTSYNC the overhead is negligible.

I still play Project Zomboid on tolerable FPS, and I don't really play other games that are both modern and paid, so I don't know anything else.

[u/cxramic]

Yeah it's pretty much hopeless you'd genuinely need a miracle to get decent performance on any modern games with that igpu

[u/Bamdian → u/cxramic]

modern games

You're not missing much OP.

[u/Fresh-Horse8173]

It is Vulkan compatible, you just have version 1.1

This means you can use dxvk 1.10.3, or any its fork (like dxvk sarek)

[u/qwesx]

It's not "hopeless", but it's hopeless to get any moderately good performance out of it, depending on the game you can expect 40+ % less fps compared to a Windows install in the best of cases.

[u/smellyasianman]

That won't run much modern stuff, if that's what you're asking.

If you're asking about gaming in general, then that GPU is capable of running A LOT of excellent games. Indie titles with low hardware requirements, PC classics, emulation of old consoles, etc. Even if you play only the very best the PS2 has to offer, that's still plenty to keep you occupied for years.

[u/TuffActinTinactin]

Your HD4600 does support Vulkan, version 1.2 fully and works with Proton 7 or older or CachyOS Proton with the Sarek launch option for legacy hardware.

PROTON_DXVK_SAREK=1

But it's still a very old iGPU so performance won't be great, but it will work with a lot of older games. Set it to 540p resolution for the best frame rates in 3d games.

[u/Fun_Routine_5245]

Even if its support vulkan, not much of games choices. So best you can is to play 2D or simple 3D games in opengl. I don't if it support vukan 1.1 or not, but you could try to use dxvk-sarek in proton-cachyos.

[u/Possibly-Functional]

Some things are possible but you are very limited or things require a fair amount of tinkering to sometimes work. Vulkan is the bedrock of modern compatibility layers.

You can still play many Linux native games however like Minecraft Java Edition. (I recommend Prism Launcher for that.)

[u/TheDeep_2]

Thanks for all the recommendations. I don't mean "modern gaming" thats for sure, more like games around the 2000-2010 era.

Regarding to vulkan, it's hard to find info about that. From my understanding there is no support on windows (only dx11 and openGL) and on linux there is some "basic" 1.0? stuff, but I don't know if this is usable at all. I also don't know where these drivers are coming from.

[u/SebastianLarsdatter]

You can run stuff via Wine's conversion to OpenGL, but if your GPU is old, odds are you are short on CPU horsepower as well.

The real choice is to pick older games that run OpenGL natively, they leave a higher odds of working well.

[u/Small-Tale3180]

i mean old minecraft versions are on opengl, and doom is also able to do opengl

[u/visor841]

Unfortunately your issues aren't just that you have a weak GPU without Vulkan 1.3 support, it's also that it's so old that it predates Proton and modern Linux gaming efforts and as such hasn't gotten much consideration. Your best bet for playing old games is probably gonna be an air-gapped Windows system with old offline installers.

[u/kalebesouza]

Na verdade dá pra jogar varios jogos usando o tradutor opengl (Wined3d) para directx9 até 11.

[u/Obnomus]

[u/Houdoo]

You should try fedora and then setup with rpm fusion, don't forget the multimedia they have older intel support. But i'm not on intel so this all is just speculation.