Hi, I am considering switching to NixOS and I was wondering what level of hassle I should expect for gaming.

I have been using linux for about 10 months so I don’t know a lot yet. I am wondering if it is worth it to try gaming on Nix or if it is going to be way too much of a headache considering my limited knowledge.

I’ve had wildly different experiences trying gaming on different distros, and very differently from what I expected. It went from fine for a weird niche distro (antiX), to really awful for a distro supposedly “easy” and “good for gaming” (Manjaro 😑), to absolutely amazing gaming distro (Nobara), and finally to surprisingly good for a “don’t try unless you are a Level 99 Tech Wizard dual-classed Zen Master you idiot” distro (Arch). So I really have no clue what to expect from Nix.

I really like Arch but my main issue is that I keep forgetting what I have already configured and how and with which settings, or I leave stuff partially configured because adhd then I forget it wasn’t finished and where I was at, so using config files instead sound insanely more convenient and I’ve been wanting to try Nix for a while.

I’d be really glad for anyone willing to share their experience of gaming on Nix 🙂

  • guttermonkEnglish
    1•2 months ago

    Some games don’t work, despite what ProtonDB says, such as Stardew Valley.

    • @[email protected]English
      2•2 months ago

      I’ve played Stardew with no configuration on my NixOS install a few times before, I think you might have something else going on there?

        • @[email protected]English
          2•2 months ago

          Interesting… I’ve just been pressing the “play” button on Steam 🤔 Let me do some digging and see if there’s anything weird I might be doing.

          Edit: Nope, confirmed, just pressing “play” in Steam using GE-Proton-9-9 works fine. Is there any reason you’re running it through nix-shell and steam-run instead of the Steam interface?

          • guttermonkEnglish
            2•2 months ago

            Just tried GE-Proton-9-9 and the play button goes to “stop” and then right back to “play”. I tried launching from terminal using nix-shell and steam-run so I could see the error messages when it crashes. Thanks for looking at your setup to see what was going on.

              • guttermonkEnglish
                1•2 months ago

                It’s a 2013 macbook air, which is weird because when I had OSX installed it played Stardew fine.

                • @[email protected]English
                  2•2 months ago

                  Huh, yeah that’s really weird. Intel device, no Nvidia, capable enough hardware. Unless there’s a hardware module for your device that that you haven’t enabled in your configuration.nix (I had to do one on my Framework for a few things to work properly), I don’t know why that wouldn’t be working for you. Out of interest, how did you install steam? Is it in your environment.systemPackages, or did you enable it with packages.steam.enable = true; (or whatever it is)

                  • guttermonkEnglish
                    2•2 months ago

                    I did both - I have steam and steam-run in environment.systemPackages and I have packages.steam.enable = true;

                    Here’s my hardware config:

                      hardware = {
    bluetooth.enable = true; # enables support for Bluetooth
    bluetooth.powerOnBoot = true; # powers up the default Bluetooth controller on boot
    opengl = {
      enable = true;
      extraPackages = with pkgs; [
        intel-media-driver # LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=iHD
        intel-media-sdk
        intel-vaapi-driver # For older processors. LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=i965
        vaapiIntel
        vaapiVdpau
        libvdpau-va-gl
      ];
    };
    pulseaudio = {
      enable = true;
      support32Bit = true;
      extraConfig = "load-module module-combine-sink";
    };
    xpadneo.enable = true;
  };
    • @[email protected]English
      1•1 month ago

      In my case I had zero problems with Stardew Valley. Moded or otherwise. Dunno what could be causing it.