I’m thinking about making the switch to Linux, and I’m curious about how it affects older DX9 games, particularly Team Fortress 2. Since I primarily play TF2, I want to know if I can expect to lose any performance when running it on Linux compared to Windows.
3 Answers
Linux is surprisingly good for older DX9 games! I’ve tested quite a few on my Steam Deck, and they play flawlessly. Most older games actually seem to perform better on Linux compared to Windows, which sometimes requires a lot of tweaking to run smoothly.
You might even gain performance overall since Linux tends to use fewer resources than Windows. The only real issue I’ve noticed is with some anti-cheat systems, but that’s improving consistently. Just check ProtonDB to see how specific games perform on Linux.
Actually, you don’t need to worry about TF2. It runs natively on Linux, and it’s optimized pretty well. Valve has done a solid job with its games on this platform, so you might even see better performance than on Windows!
Just to clarify, while TF2 does run on OpenGL, you can also get it working with Vulkan by adding ‘-vulkan’ to your Steam launch options. This allows it to use a different translation layer that can enhance performance further.
For sure! Just remember that some older games may require extra steps to run perfectly, but the vast majority will perform really well.