Proton is incredibly impressive nowadays, even when dealing with highly invasive anticheat services. I think there are only a small handful of games in my steam library where it doesn't work well. Within 5 years I think most of the remaining friction to gaming on linux will be gone.

It's what I'll probably end up doing when I have the energy but my wife is a bit techphobic and enjoys playing some games since setting up the PC on the TV but will abandon everything if linux starts getting in the way :D

Will she abandon everything if Windows starts getting in the way?

Yes, but like always this is dependent on hardware and drivers. Which is a reason I'm excited about the Steam Deck and potential future devices. Hardware built by Valve has most likely the best compatibility.

I was the steamlink app on Apple TV and I haven't had any issues with garbage popping up and interrupting me, and I haven't made any tweaks to Windows. Just letting you know in case you'll find it useful.

Isn't that a streaming solution?

Yeah, I can't say I've noticed any latency though, as long as I've got an ethernet connection set up. Also a good idea to turn on whatever your "game mode" is on the TV. I use one of those flat ethernet cables and run it under my living room rug to my TV.

I imagine using steam in big picture mode would be equivalent if you're not streaming though. Maybe it's something else, I just can't remember a Windows pop-up ever interrupting my gaming whether I'm playing on my TV or not.

Garbage popping up constantly? No idea what you're talking about.

My rudimentary Win10 setup is such a gaming-only system, only Apps installed are Steam, GoG, Epic and Origin. The Spam that comes from those apps aside (mostly sales popup banners/notifications), I still receive the occasional "Your windows is at risk because you don't use OneDrive", or "Windows Defender has not found anything" or "Hey, this is our new Edge browser we installed and placed a shortcut on your desktop, want to make it your default browser now?" spam.

Some of that can be disabled with "O&O ShutUp10" or with some of the debloating scripts various people have created over time also mentioned in this thread.

Yes you can alaways mod the system, but please re-read the thread. I answered to the question what spam windows generates. Saying there is no spam because you can run a script to minimize, is like saying you don't receive spam mails because you run a spamfilter.

I get what you mean. I fought a similar battle back in 2013 when a document was proposed to the IETF, never ratified but yet network engineers everywhere adopted it and the anti-spam industry exploded. I somethings think these things are under-engineered on purpose so that friends of friends can create new business models.

Driver popups. I made the mistake of buying a razer keyboard and microsoft update itself is pushing to download their companion app each time it does an update. It's a thing, look it up. There are workarounds but they don't survive multiple rounds of updates.

I roughly followed the steps comment "NuttyX" mentioned about disabling autorun years ago and I haven't seen a Razer nag since.

Bonus: disabling autorun is better security!

I’ll try it. I followed the advice of a razer employee who messaged me on Reddit and it worked for a while.

I have a razor mouse and this has never happened to me.

Then I envy you. It’s not some big secret but it definitely happens with my keyboard. Maybe it’s loading it from the keyboard itself? Either way it only happens during windows updates

Probably push notification spam enabled by some laptop makers by default.

> garbage popping up constantly

I don't think there's a need to dramatize and exaggerate. Once you get setup on Windows and uninstall the stuff you want to uninstall that’s pretty much the end of it.

So you play games with Windows security updates turned off? Why don't you just post all of your passwords and bank accounts on the internet and save yourself the trouble of waiting to get hacked.

IDK about other folks, but very few of my passwords and nothing that'd get you direct access to any of my bank accounts touches my Window gaming machine (which is also my only Windows machine)

Important account credentials are on macOS or iOS. Local copies of my important files are on a system running Linux, and the Windows machine doesn't have access to that (doesn't need to, all I do on it is play games, if I didn't PC game I wouldn't have Windows at all).

[EDIT] However, mine does have Windows Update turned on.

They specifically said

>> Some of us have windows just to play games

What bank accounts do you think are on that machine? Perhaps it's risking credentials to ex. Steam and such, but again, if all you run is games where are you getting malware from?

Edit: Actually, to steel man the argument: If you pirate a game and get a keylogger that way, and then type in your credit card to buy a game (ex. on Steam), then you'd have a problem. I maintain that it's perfectly possible to maintain a... "DMZ PC" for games, but there are ways for it to end badly.

I think you severely overestimate how important security updates are.

Hope there's no microphone or webcam connected to your computer, because an attacker can listen or watch. Also, your firewall is worthless because attackers have a foothold inside your network. Also, hope you don't use the same user/password combination on any windows machines or SMB shares on your network, because those are now pwned too. Buy a game, credit card info stolen.

This is just such a preposterous way to operate.

I run a wire to the unit next door and use my neighbor's internet and all the microphones have been covered with blue tapes and the webcams are pointing at my bird cage.

I can't wait to install this.

It's "impossible" to play games on Windows because "you have garbage popping up constantly"? Sorry what are you talking about? I, like millions of people, play games all the time on my Windows PC and don't encounter this problem. It's most certainly not "impossible".

> There’s definitely a demand for windows that can play games and do nothing else.

It's called a "games console". Microsoft makes one called XBox.

I like being able to play without needing a cloud account. Can XBox do that?

I like being able to use emulators. Can XBox do that?

I like being able to use mod's for any given game. Can XBox do that?

I use Linux for my gaming these days because I just don't like Windows, but even Windows is much more powerful for gaming than a console.

There's a place for console's, but they don't replace everything.

I say this as a console guy since the 1980s: There’s also a huge chunk of PC games that have not and will not find their way across to console. Classic games, indie titles, niche tastes, etc. If I want to play Stalker, CDDA, Cogmind, Caves of Qud, DCS World or even the (extremely popular) Escape from Tarkov, I can’t do any of that on Xbox.

PC gaming is a weird and wonderful ocean; console gaming more like a highly curated pond.

> I like being able to play without needing a cloud account. Can XBox do that?

I suspect XBox isn't good for this, but the Nintendo Switch is actually probably better than a PC for this particular usecase.

The general-purpose stuff (emulators, mods) I agree with, though.

Good point on the Switch, I own both and would agree there. PC is defintely better than XBox (Account on PC is frequently required to purchase, but not to play).

XBox I actually called out specifically because when we got an XBox 1, we discovered there is no way to do anything - setup of the console, launching a game, etc - without having an XBox Live account per user of the machine.

I only have ps5 and a switch. I never knew microsoft got into gaming recently. Cool thanks. /s