I love Linux. I love developing on it and the powerful command line that Linux has is really great. When I heard that Dota 2 had been released for Linux I was excited. I didn’t have to be on Windows just so I could play games.
I installed 2 days ago and installed Steam and Dota 2 on it. The screen that comes up when you start Dota 2 (where you hit the “Play” button to look for a match) ported over really nicely. I didn’t see any problems in it except that when you changed your video settings, it gets so messed up that you have to restart the game. I would have been okay if that was the only problem Dota 2 had.
The game was almost unplayable. My unit would move a second after I click his destination. A lag that long is unacceptable when playing a competitive game against other people. The movements were most of the times choppy – not just mine but other players as well. I thought maybe it’s my refresh rate but it wasn’t.
I can play Dota 2 on the same hardware on Windows 8 and it runs very smoothly without any issues. When I switch over to Linux, it’s a nightmare to play. Even with the lowest video settings I could not get it to run smoothly. I was very saddened by this experience because I was looking forward to switching over to Linux for most of my computing needs (if not all).
I updated my drivers, made sure hardware rendering was on and tried to do anything else I could do to improve performance but no dice :(. I have a dual boot setup so it’s not that bad. I can switch over to Windows when I am not programming. So, if you are also thinking of doing what I did , I advise against it. I don’t think Dota 2’s Linux client is there yet. Hopefully they will make it better in the near future.
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