And I want to install CachyOS on it, but I understand that CachyOS doesn’t come pre-configured for gaming and that I need to install some special packages and configure it, which are on the wiki:
But, forgive me, I’m lost. I understand the following: I have to install:
sudo pacman -S cachyos-gaming-meta
sudo pacman -S cachyos-gaming-applications
This is the only part I understand. I don’t understand what I have to do in the rest of the guide, or if I even have to do it at all.
Based on my computer, do I only have to do what… I’ve already told you, or should I do something else?
I already know about installing the Nvidia drivers.
CachyOS is already configured for performance. Installing those groups, cachyos-gaming-meta and cachyos-gaming-applications, installs basically everything you’ll want for gaming. Everything else matters on a case-by-case basis. For example, Steam launch options are important for Steam, but don’t matter if you mainly play GOG games.
Hi. Thanks for replying. I forgot to mention that I only play on Steam, and that’s what I don’t quite understand. There are a lot of messages on the wiki about Steam—isn’t it just a matter of installing Steam and that’s it?
There are also a lot of messages about Nvidia options that I don’t understand either.
Since most games weren’t made to run on Linux, and each game uses different libraries/technologies and does different things, each game needs its own “fixes” and tweaks via launch options. Some options are environment variables which you’re setting for every game, so some people set them globally.
For example, this is what I use for Just Cause 3 (needs to be forcibly frame capped, which requires gamescope+Mangohud, which then needs --force-grab-cursor to fix the cursor, and uses LD_PRELOAD="" as a game-specific fix, and PROTON_ENABLE_NVAPI=1 for better performance): LD_PRELOAD="" PROTON_ENABLE_NVAPI=1 gamescope -w 1920 -h 1080 -r 120 --adaptive-sync --force-grab-cursor -- env MANGOHUD_CONFIG="fps_limit=120,fps_limit_method=early" MANGOHUD=1 %command%
is enough, because it installs what’s necessary, including Steam. But some games might require specific configurations for performance improvements, etc. You can find out about these when you’re playing a game and apply them if needed, right?
Okay, thank you so much! To be honest, the wiki was overwhelming me with so much information, and I thought it was all very complicated, when in reality it’s very simple.
Not really.
There are some things you might want.
Or if you really have absolutely no idea and just want a big meta package then maybe its useful.
But you can just as easily game without almost any of the packages listed on that page.
You dont even need to do those things.
No, there are not more steps “required”.
There may be more steps depending on what you are trying to do though.
Like maybe you have some gamer mouse with special button mappings you need to configure.
As to the page itself;
After the section you first mentioned its just showing you how to do things like add environment variables or launch options to steam games. You are not required to perform any of the examples there. They are examples for the cases in which you would want to do something similar.
Then it goes on to other examples like Heroic or Lutris games launchers if you use those.
Ditto for “Anti Cheat” or “Wine-CachyOS” with introductory headers like
If you are unfamiliar with any of the items discussed there then it might make sense to read up on what “Wine” or “Proton” are, ex;
PS.
For some strict definitions here is what cachyos-gaming-meta installs;
Just so you know most of the time, when playing on steam, you don’t really need to do any configuration outside of setting up proton and adding game-performance %command% to the launcher command of the game. If you want system information during gaming you can add mangohud, if you want fsr4 you have a special env variable for that and for some edge cases you can use gamescope; but it’s not mandatory (or even desired in a lot of cases) for gaming.
Always try to go from simple to complicated. I’m saying this because a lot of time what you see on sites like protondb is either outdated or gibberish people added because particularities in their system or just straight up ignorance. It’s a good site but you need to be able to filter out what you need and what you don’t, and the best way to achieve that is going from minimal config to more convoluted stuff.
Thanks everyone, I’m glad to have found such a engaged community.
Yes, the idea isn’t to overcomplicate things, it’s just that the wiki confused me.
The idea is to dual-boot Windows 11 and Cachy OS.
Right now I’m playing Hogwarts Legacy on Windows and I want to see how it runs on Cachy.
After Hogwarts, I’ll play Cyberpunk, Watch Dogs Legion, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Detroit: Become Human, Risen 3, and Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
As you can see, I’m not playing the latest games, although they are graphically demanding. If I manage to play all these types of games well over time, the idea would be to eventually ditch Windows and stick with Linux, since I’ve been using Linux for a while, although I’m not an expert and I didn’t use it for gaming.
I’ll probably install Cachy tomorrow and I’ll let you know how it goes.
Just be aware that a dual-boot system could be a bit tricky to handle, especially if you are not using two different hard drives. Having Windows and Linux on the same hard drive is not easy to handle (I myself managed to keep that running for ~3 weeks until it finally failed completely and I lost the ability to boot Windows).
You have been warned
PS: I play most of my games through Steam (for example Supraland, Supraworld, Lego Skywalker Series, Satisfactory, GRIP, Wobly Life, Revenge of the Savage Planet, Spirit of the North 2 etc). I never installed the cachyos-gaming-meta or cachyos-gaming-applications, I just installed Steam and everything just works. Really. I was even able to add the GOG-version of Noita to Steam (using innoextract to extract the game-files from the installer and then adding that game as a “foreign” game to Steam), and even that runs smoothly.
Hi. Yes, I’m familiar with dual booting, but if the partitioning is in GPT, there’s no problem at all. If, for some reason, Linux doesn’t boot, GRUB doesn’t appear, etc., you can boot Windows through the BIOS without issue. The problem arises with Legacy partitioning; then you won’t be able to boot either operating system unless you fix GRUB.
It’s not necessary to have them on separate disks.
I have a laptop with Windows 11 and Linux Mint, with only one hard drive, and zero problems.
And I’ve had Windows 10 and various Linux distributions on one PC for years with zero problems.
You just need to know how to do it. First, always install Windows first and then Linux. And now with GPT, if something goes wrong, you can select Windows with F12 (on Lenovo) without any problems.
Yes. On all Linux distributions, you can play games simply by installing Steam and your appropriate graphics drivers, but I think that if cachy os has optimized packages for it and they’re easy to install, then I’ll just install them.
