Ive not had a PC or gaming PC in 15 years. I want to get back into it now.

Im fairly against windows. I’d like to try a Linux system and thought this would be a fun way to get into Linux.

Ive been looking at some black friday sales here Newegg sales

Its been so long since ive looked at PC specs I feel like im completely new. Ive read that an AMD GPU can be easier for Linux so I started there.

So Ive got two questions!

What are some must have specs in you opinion to run most modern games, and would you have a #1 recommend for a prebuilt to get started with?

What disto is best for a total newbie who wants to use it for gaming and eventually transition for anything/everything else?

  • BingBong@sh.itjust.works
    2·
    28 days ago

    People have been recommending bazzite for newbies who want to game. I haven’t tries it but have found PopOS to be very easy and stable. Pop does simplify nvidia support as well but I run an AMD GPU for the reasons you mentioned.

    • N.E.P.T.R@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      2·
      28 days ago

      Even after using PopOS I dont understand the hype. It is Ubuntu-based, meaning that its packages are stale and often quite out of date, which isn’t something I would recommend for a gaming distro.

      Better to pick one of the following, which are gaming focused, user friendly, and have up-to-date packages for {Mesa, Vulkan, Wine, Kernel, etc}:

      Edit: My reason for saying that up-to-date packages are paramount is because a newer kernel supports more features, better performance, new hardware support, less bugs, and the same is true for packages that effect gaming. Desktop environments get better quickly through updates and bug fixes that effect gaming may take a year of more to reach pepetually out of date distros like Ubuntu. It is generally quite important, but less important if you use Steam Flatpak because it is slightly sandboxes.

      • HaraVier@discuss.online
        1·
        20 days ago

        Regarding Pop!_OS, (at least historically) it was the easiest distro for Nvidia users. Add to that some neat stuff like a Recovery Partition[1] and I can understand where (at least initially) the hype was (IMO justifiably) coming from. Unfortunately, erupting COSMIC DE from the ground hasn’t done Pop!_OS well for upkeeping its good name and reputation. I suppose they’re lucky that Linux users are seriously delayed when it comes to adjusting their recommendations. (Like how a chunk of peeps continued to proselytize for Manjaro till last year or so.)

        1. Btw, if you happen to know any other distro that offers something similar, then I’d love to hear about it. ↩︎

  • artyom@piefed.socialEnglish
    1·
    28 days ago

    What are some must have specs in you opinion to run most modern games

    There are none. Choose the best ones to fit your budget.

    would you have a #1 recommend for a prebuilt to get started with?

    I don’t really recommend prebuilts. If you look up reviews most of them are just awful. But iBuyPower seems to have a decent reputation. The Steam Machine will be available sometime next year but its a relatively underpowered machine built for the living room. Not sure what your budget looks like or how you plan to play but that could be a good option. However it should be noted that it’s not upgradable. I’ve saved buckets of money by upgrading my PC over the last 20 years.

    As for distros, there is obviously no “best”. The most commonly recommended one for beginners is Linux Mint. I recommend Zorin. If you want the best possible gaming performance, you could go with Cachy. It’s also available with Steam’s “Game Mode”, which will give you that handheld/living room experience.

    • N.E.P.T.R@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      1·
      28 days ago

      I agree with you about avoiding prebuilts. They cost more for than the base parts by a decent margin, which can easily be avoided by watching a YouTube video on “How to build a PC 15 min” and 2 hours of your time.

  • FoundFootFootage78@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    28 days ago

    1. I have a 4-core CPU, 16GB of RAM, and 4GB of VRAM. Nowadays you’ll want at least a 6-core CPU, 32GB of RAM, and 8GB of VRAM. What I have works for me though if you’re on a budget.

    2. I don’t know prebuilts, and I doubt many people here do either.

    3. CachyOS (Arch-based) is good but requires you use the terminal to do a lot of things. Mint (Ubuntu-based) is basically all GUI so it’s good but I haven’t tried gaming on it and it doesn’t yet have Wayland. The most important thing is just to use Steam really, Steam does everything for you.