Gaming with CachyOS Guide

Welcome to the guide for Gaming in CachyOS. We’ll guide you through the essentials aspects on how to setup everything and have a great experience.

Prerequisites

Before we dive into the fun stuff, it is essential to ensure that your graphics card drivers are installed and working properly. If your graphics card is not functioning optimally, you won’t be able to play games properly.

Essential Packages

To make things easier for you, CachyOS has grouped all the necessary packages for gaming into one meta package that includes all the known stores and extras for gaming in Linux. This makes the installation and setup process for gaming faster and less convoluted for everyone.

Simply run the following command in your terminal:

sudo pacman -S cachyos-gaming-meta

Note

The cachyos-gaming-meta package installs all the important libraries, packages, plugins, stores such as Steam, Lutris and some tools which are necessary for most games to run and work properly. Check out the package list for more information on what is installing.

If you find that there is missing any package, feel free to let the CachyOS team know.

Steam

For Steam users, playing games on CachyOS is a breeze! Simply open Steam and follow the Proton guide, and you’re ready to enjoy your games.

Note

Laptop users with discrete NVIDIA GPUs should refer to the following guide

How to enable Proton support in Steam

Don’t worry, setting up Steam with Proton is very simple! In just a few clicks, you can have it set up and ready to use. Check out the screenshots below for a step-by-step guide.

Tip

CachyOS provides various Proton versions that we build & maintain for further performance improvements:

• proton-cachyos (included in the cachyos-gaming-meta package) being the one that we develop with added QoL changes + cherry picked patches + compilation optimizations (x86-64-v3 & x86-64-v4)
• proton-ge-custom, proton-tkg-git, proton-experimental and proton stable releases are built against native libs.
• proton-ge-custom-bin pulled from AUR.

Tip

To check if your game is compatible or how does it run with Linux, visit proton-db.

Steam FAQ & Tips

Which Proton version should i use in Steam?

• proton-cachyos Being the one that we build and maintain is highly recommended unless it has an issue with the game you want to play. Should work in most cases.
• Proton Experimental Bleeding edge release from Valve If the game you want to play is relatively new or it doesn’t work well with the current Proton stable release or perhaps you saw people recommending it in ProtonDB.
• Proton 9.0.3 or lower Stable releases from Valve. If the game you want to play only works in a previous Proton release.
• Proton-GE Build made by GloriousEggroll in some cases it comes in handy.

What is proton-cachyos?

Check out this explanation about it.

How to properly combine multiple launch options

• Add the environment variables or commands you want and at the end include a %command%
  • Example: __GL_SHADER_DISK_CACHE_SKIP_CLEANUP=1 prime-run game-performance %command%

Caution

Don’t add multiple %command% by using them as separators for multiple launch options.

Example: __GL_SHADER_DISK_CACHE_SKIP_CLEANUP=1 %command% game-performance %command% prime-run %command%

• On this case, everything after the first %command% is going to be ignored because it’s being threated as game arguments therefore only __GL_SHADER_DISK_CACHE_SKIP_CLEANUP=1 got recognized as a launch option.

Performance tips

Power Profile Switching on Demand

Note

This behavior is slightly different with intel_pstate. On Intel, the governor remains at powersave but the EPP/EPB values are set to performance.

CachyOS provides a wrapper script game-performance which uses power-profiles-daemon to temporarily switch the current power profile to performance. The performance profile increases the system power levels and changes the CPU governor to performance.

When this script is used to run a game, the system will be set to use the performance profile as long as the game is running. The previously used power profile will be restored once the game is closed. Feral’s GameMode has similar behavior but it should not be used as CachyOS ships with ananicy-cpp.

How to add game-performance to Steam, Lutris, Heroic Games Launcher and Bottles

Steam

1. Open your Steam Library
2. Right click the game’s title and select Properties.
3. On the General tab you’ll find Launch Options section.
4. Add the following Launch Option:

   game-performance %command%

Heroic Games Launcher

1. On the left panel open Settings.
2. Go to Game defaults then click on Advanced.
3. In the wrapper command section. Add the following line without any argument:

   game-performance

4. Click on the + sign to save changes.

Lutris

1. On the top right open the hamburger menu
2. Go to Preferences/Global options.
3. Enable Advanced Mode on the top right.
4. Scroll down to Command prefix and add the following line:

   game-performance

5. Save changes.

Bottles (Broken)

1. Open an existing Bottle.
2. Open the cogwheel(Next to Run executable).
3. Add the following line in the Launch Options field:

   game-performance

Proton-CachyOS

Proton-CachyOS is based on the proton-bleeding-edge branch and applies a number of patches and changes on top of it.

• Wine-staging patches
• Wine Fullscreen FSR
• Reflex support for Wine
• Support for umu-launcher

In addition, proton-cachyos is compiled against native system libraries and compiler instructions which can further improve performance.

Wine-CachyOS

This is a solution similar to proton-cachyos, but as standalone version, which can be used by Lutris, Heroic, Bottles and others.

Note

Although it can be used as a systemd wide Wine for Desktop Applications, be aware that it might lead to some unexpected behaviors & issues due to being more gaming focused with the patches and changes.

• Based on Valve’s bleeding-edge Wine
• Adds early hotfixes/workarounds for games
• protonfixes
• Support for umu-launcher

QoL Modifications

• WINE_WMCLASS: env variable to set the wm class of all wine windows, allowing the wm to control the window through rules.
• WINEUSERSANDBOX: env variable to disable creating symlinks from Wine folders such as Documents/Pictures etc, to the equivalent folders in the user’s directory
• Disabled Native Window Decorations
• Changes for optimizing Wine's performance similar as we do with proton-cachyos

Bottles

Bottles is an application that allows you to easily manage Windows prefixes on your favorite Linux distributions.

Bottles can also make use of different runners like Lutris and are all manageable within the application. Bottles offers the option of a gaming-oriented prefix. You can also install dependencies, add EXE files, and use their one-click installers for gaming-related apps like EA App or Battle.net.

How to install Bottles

# Open a terminal and run the following command:
sudo pacman -S bottles

If you want to know more about it, check out their documentation.

Lutris Introduction & Tips

Lutris serves as a central hub for all your games on CachyOS. With Lutris, you can efficiently manage your game runners, including Wine, Proton, and emulators. You can even customize their parameters!

• You can launch games through Lutris simply by clicking the Play button.
• Or add any game you want using the + sign in the top left.
• You can also launch a store in the Sources at the left and connecting your account, it will install said store and then you’ll be able to run games from within the store, just like you do on Windows.
• And more!

Games stores supported in Lutris

• EA App
• Epic Games Store
• GOG Galaxy
• Steam
• Ubisoft Connect

Set the proper Wine runner

Many games perform optimally with the wine-cachyos runner, so it’s advisable to configure it before playing a game.

Lutris FAQ

How can i add a parameter when launching a game? For example -dx11

• Right click on the game icon > Configure > Game options > Arguments > Add any argument you need.

Does game-performance work on Lutris?

• Yes. Look here

How can i use wine-cachyos in Lutris?

• In the Runner Options > Wine version it appears named as System 9.0 Staging Default

How can i setup umu-launcher with proton-cachyos in Lutris?

Tip

Make sure you have umu-launcher installed in your system. Install it with the following command: sudo pacman -S umu-launcher

Global (affects all Games)

1. In the main screen of Lutris, click on the cogwheel at the right of Wine
2. Do the following in the Runner Options tab
   • Wine version = Custom (select executable below)
   • Custom Wine executable = /usr/bin/umu-run
   • Use System winetricks = Disabled
   • Graphics
     • Enable DXVK = Disabled
     • Enable VKD3D = Disabled
     • Enable D3D Extras = Disabled
     • Enable DXVK-NVAPI / DLSS = Disabled
3. Go to the System options tab
   • Lutris
     • Disable Lutris Runtime = Enabled
     • Prefer system libraries = Enabled
4. Scroll down to Game execution and look for the Environment variables table
5. Add these two variables:
   • KEY PROTONPATH
     • VALUE /usr/share/steam/compatibilitytools.d/proton-cachyos/
   • KEY UMU_NO_RUNTIME
     • VALUE 1
6. Save changes.

Per game

1. Right Click in the game you want to configure, then click on Configure
2. Do the following in the Runner Options tab
   • Wine version = Custom (select executable below)
   • Custom Wine executable = /usr/bin/umu-run
   • Use System winetricks = Disabled
   • Graphics
     • Enable DXVK = Disabled
     • Enable VKD3D = Disabled
     • Enable D3D Extras = Disabled
     • Enable DXVK-NVAPI / DLSS = Disabled
3. Go to the System options tab
   • Lutris
     • Disable Lutris Runtime = Enabled
     • Prefer system libraries = Enabled
4. Scroll down to Game execution and look for the Environment variables table
5. Add these two variables:
   • KEY PROTONPATH
     • VALUE /usr/share/steam/compatibilitytools.d/proton-cachyos/
   • KEY UMU_NO_RUNTIME
     • VALUE 1
6. Save changes.

Ray tracing Support

The Arch Wiki has already provides comprehensive instructions on how to enable ray tracing for various hardware platforms.

• Ray tracing on NVIDIA
• Ray tracing on AMD
• Ray tracing on Intel

With this guide, you are now ready to start gaming on CachyOS. Enjoy!