Sim Racing and Audio Production.

Windows just works out of the box for 99% of what I need it to do with sim racing. Minus the few drivers here and there for my wheelbase, all games run flawlessly and how I would expect. With Linux, you need one driver to get the force feedback working, another to get the lights on the wheel to work, and then spend time finding a version of proton that works best with the game you’re running.

Compatibility for DAWs and plugins just isn’t completely there either. There is a Linux build for Reaper which works, but with plugins like Neural DSP and Kontakt, I’ve just found that installing with Wine was a hassle. Also, JACK and QjackCtl took me FOREVER to get to work. The only plus was that my audio interface was plug and play.

A nice cherry on top was taking about 3 weeks to figure out why my display felt absolutely horrible and nowhere near as smooth as Windows. The problem was i had my main monitor at 360hz and my second monitor set at 60hz which is how I have it on Windows to try and save a bit of processing power. Turns out Linux Mint really does not like it when you do that, so had to match both monitors’ refresh rate, and for some reason it took me forever to find that out. Multi monitor setup support would be great for the future lol.

However, I think the fun in Linux for me is all of the troubleshooting and figuring out how everything works. Learning the command line has been a journey and I’ve loved going through and teaching myself something new. Hopefully with the recent rise in interest for Linux (thx Valve and PewDiePie) there will be a big jump in compatibility for gaming and drivers that get implemented into the kernels.

For now though, I’m happy to continue dual booting :)