circuitfarmer

Maybe you have just ended up with a lemon CPU. Though for random crashes like that, I’d almost always look to RAM first.

I did have some stability issues early on when trying to enable Expo. Never quite got that working right so it is currently disabled. I keep my 7600x in Eco mode since it is air cooled and the performance difference is not that great anyway, so I haven’t noticed any major differences with Expo off.

The Expo issues were also with a very early MSI BIOS. I haven’t tried it again after upgrading, but I probably should.

Unfortunately not.

My AM5 has been pretty good, the boot issue notwithstanding. It has been quite stable at least. For me it’s a 7600x.

…yeah, I’m an idiot. I hadn’t thought very carefully about it yet. Won’t help me since the delay is before POST.

I have an MSI motherboard. Memory Context Restore shaves significant time off of boots, but it is still extremely slow. Just a hang before I see POST complete.

Boot times on AM5 are soooo slow due to some memory training feature of DDR-5, even after following many suggestions for settings. It appears to be a general issue with the platform, so hibernation is very much back on the menu for me.

Duh, it won’t matter since the delay is before POST.

Same. It can’t even work correctly when I try and put it into a specific box.

The ultimate issue is a distaste for giving any corporation any control over hardware that I, alone, own.

“Ooh rah”

The amount of corporate control that has slowly and insidiously crept into our lives will never cease to amaze me.

It’s gotten to the point that I buy games without looking them up first.

Same here. That was how I knew things had changed.

Let’s also not forget that while Elden Ring was waiting for a patch on release day to avoid stuttering on Windows, it never stuttered on Linux due to shader precaching in Proton. I try and tell that story to people on the fence about switching. A lot of people have this idea that Linux is “catching up” – in some sense, it is the opposite, in that I can sometimes get better performance on Linux vs Windows even with Windows binaries.

If it were me, I’d first be looking at used Thinkpads (with the caveat to make sure the specific Thinkpad has hardware which is generally supported). I’d also look into Linux-friendly manufacturers, like frame.work or System76.

Excellent point.

Right, but that’s sort of why I asked the question. The people who can’t boot their machine probably have some commonality in the specs of their machines. As I said above, I wouldn’t be surprised if nvidia is a common thread, and arguably, nvidia’s relatively poor Linux support is a business issue for them.

If indeed it is the case, then it is important to label it as an nvidia issue as opposed to a Linux issue.

Edit: another way to put it: was the CloudStrike issue Microsoft’s fault? System design choices aside, CloudStrike’s software was the cause of the failure. To say it’s a Microsoft issue misses the bigger picture. In that sense, poor nvidia support (if it is indeed at play here) is not really a Linux issue, rather than an nvidia issue and/or a brand loyalty issue.

Anti-cheat isn’t a Linux issue per se, in that there would be no way to fix it without compromising a lot of system security. Just because that has been allowed on Windows forever doesn’t mean it’s good practice.

The “solution” would be the gaming companies not using the current approach to anti-cheat.

I’ve been gaming on Linux 100% for about 3 years now. I very rarely have any issues at all. But, I’m on an all AMD system.

Based on your experience, would you mind sharing specs? My observation has been that nvidia is normally involved whenever anyone has serious issues with Linux gaming.

Switched everything over to AMD and have never needed to look back. It is way more It Just Works on AMD.

Love, the Steam Deck

The lack of a really good, customizable player on Linux has been probably my least favorite part of the whole experience. Deadbeef is close, but it seriously needs a good media library plugin.

For that reason, I’m still using foobar2000, which is Windows-only but available as a Snap using wine (and yes, I hate Snap). I check regularly to see if there are better native options, but even with the clunk from Snap and the relatively ugly UI due to wine, foobar remains superior IMHO. I think it checks all your boxes, except it’s a Snap.

This. One thing Linux is about is personal freedom.

corporations – especially the ones run by MBA parasites

Is that not all of them right now?

I’ve actively been trying to have as much as possible in AV1, and before that, h265. A lot of my older material is still in h264.

That said, I generally have the following patterns:

• 720p media at feature length should be about 1 GB, if not less.

• 1080p media at feature length in h265 should be between 1.5-2GB. Ideally more towards 1.5GB. The same 1080p media in AV1 should be about 30% smaller.

I simply don’t see the need to encode at higher bitrates to have larger file sizes than that. I don’t see significant difference at 1080p.