Why Gaming with openSUSE Is A Good Move

Imagine this: You built a gaming rig in 2016. It still crushes 1080p titles, runs cool, and looks great on your desk. But now Windows 10 is nearing its end-of-life, and upgrade paths point toward new hardware, stricter requirements and higher costs. Perhaps a new motherboard, a new CPU, and possibly hundreds of 💰 just to keep playing the same games.

Instead of giving in to forced obsolescence, you install a flavor of openSUSE.

And you’re still gaming. Still winning. Just on Linux.

Gamers know the name Linux and its adoption among users is beginning to shift. According to Google Trends, searches for Windows gaming are trending similar today to what it was roughly five years ago, which is when COVID saw more people engaging digitally during spare time. Searches for Linux gaming on the other hand have tripled during that time frame.

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Gaming on Linux no longer means giving up your Steam library or tinkering very long just to launch a title. Thanks to Proton, more than 70 percent of the top 100 Steam games now work out of the box on Linux. This includes Cyberpunk 2077, Red Dead Redemption 2, Elden Ring and more.

Linux distributions like openSUSE aren’t just along for the ride. The distributions are driving Linux gaming forward with reliant performance and improvements.

Why Gamers Choose openSUSE

1. Rolling or Stable? You Choose. Want the latest Mesa drivers and the Linux Kernels shortly from when they’re released? Use Tumbleweed; this is openSUSE’s rolling release version. Prefer something more static? Leap is built for reliability and long sessions without surprises.

2. Excellent Hardware Support AMD and Intel work out of the box. NVIDIA drivers are a one-command install. The distribution keeps pace with upstream Linux graphics and development essentials for gaming.

3. Built for Power Users You don’t need to be one, but if you are, Btrfs snapshots, and zypper package manager give you serious control. This isn’t watered-down Linux. It’s a full engine, tuned for performance and customizability.

Setup in Minutes

Gamers don’t want to spend hours configuring their OS. That’s why the openSUSE wiki and one-line installs make it simple:

sudo zypper install steam lutris mangohud gamemode

Enable Proton in Steam, link your Epic account in Lutris, and you’re set.

Here are some popular titles that just work

Native on Linux:

Counter-Strike 2

Dota 2

No Man’s Sky

Valheim

Terraria

Through Proton:

Cyberpunk 2077

Baldur’s Gate 3

The Witcher 3

Hogwarts Legacy

Starfield

Upgrading to Windows 11 may cost people more than they can afford or even lead to unnecessary e-waste with functional hardware, which the initiative End of 10 is rasing awareness for across the globe.

Linux, and openSUSE in particular, offers a way out. Gaming shouldn’t end because support does.

Whether you’re a casual gamer or a full-blown enthusiast, your hardware still has years of life in it. openSUSE and other Linux distributions can help you keep that gear in play.

Join others making the switch. Visit endof10.org for an event to help you switch to Linux or visit get.opensuse.org to download a flavor of openSUSE. People can also look at Aeon and Kalpa as options.

This is part of a series on End of 10 where we advocate for Free & Open Source Software as a solution for Windows 10 users who wish to keep their devices rather than contributing to e-waste of functioning devices.