We cannot deny that the operating system of choice to play on Windows. On macOS, the graphics power of their computers does not allow us to run very demanding titles (and it is not that we have much variety), and on Linux, many developers refuse to port their games due to the low market share it has among gamers. In addition to the fact that the drivers, even the proprietary ones, leave much to be desired. However, little by little the community is contributing grain of sand so that Linux can become a system for gaming. But will we get to see advanced technologies, such as Ray Tracing, in this system?
What is Ray Tracing?
Ray tracing, or ray tracing, is a technology from NVIDIA first introduced in its RTX graphics cards in the 2000 series. This technology makes use of neural networks and Machine Learning to improve the highlights, shadows and reflections of the games that are compatible with it.
In this way, and I play other related technology, DLSS, the graphic quality of the games is notably improved, as well as their effects and shadows, giving them a much more realistic appearance at the same time that their performance is improved. Of course, although it is possible to use RT without DLSS, the impact on performance will be very high.
In order to take advantage of this technology, it is necessary to have 4 things:
- Windows 10 or Windows 11 with DirectX 12.
- A graphics card from the RTX series.
- The latest NVIDIA drivers.
- Running a compatible game.
But what happens if we meet 3 of these 4 requirements, and the one we change is Windows for Linux?
VKD3D-Proton: the gaming solution for Linux
VKD3D-Proton is a free project that seeks to convert Windows DirectX 12 instructions into Vulkan, the Linux games API. We have seen this technology in action before. For example, it is one of the most important parts of Steam for Linux, since thanks to it it is possible to make use of the Steam Play Proton tool, which allows us to run Windows games on Linux as if they were native.
For a long time it has been possible to run Windows games on this operating system, with better or worse performance, thanks to Wine. But many of the NVIDIA APIs (especially) were limited and unusable. But everything progresses, and now it is possible to even take advantage of ray tracing.
The latest versions of VKD3D-Proton have support for DirectX Raytracing. This technology, although not native to NVIDIA, allows us to apply ray tracing to Windows games on Linux using the DirectX APIs. In this way, for example, it is possible to play Control, Cyberpunk 2077 or Metro Exodus taking advantage of these technologies.
In addition, the latest version of VKD3D-Proton enables the possibility of making use of NVIDIA DLSS in D3D12 games, as well as support for NVIDIA Resizable BAR to improve graphics performance on compatible cards and boards.
Good progress, with a lot of work ahead
Of course, having Ray Tracing and DLSS on Linux is a very important advance. But there is still a lot of work ahead. The first thing we find is that we have to make changes in the configuration of the VKD3D libraries in order to enable these two technologies. In addition, the performance is still well below what we can obtain in Windows when playing the same games, even with the proprietary NVIDIA drivers.
Can Linux be an operating system to play games? Yes. In the short term and for everyone? No. The zero support from the industry, and the difficulty of configuring these libraries make it even more minority than before. Only if you have a very powerful PC and advanced knowledge of Linux, you can also use it to play games.
