Red Dead Redemption 2 Runs Faster On Linux Than Windows 10

Most of us don’t need much convincing when it comes to running games on Windows. It’s still the best operating system for gaming PCs because of the number of games available and developer support.

However, some surprising information has made us look at Linux in a new light. A recent demonstration has shown that Red Dead Redemption 2 actually runs faster on Linux than Windows.

We already know that some games run faster on Linux so this isn’t a massive surprise but it’s still interesting.

How Was Red Dead Redemption Tested On Linux?

This Red Dead Redemption 2 test shows that Linux beats Windows by a wide margin. You can see the video results below.

The system tested had an Intel Core i7-8700K processor, 16 GB of RAM, and an AMD Radeon Vega 56 graphics card. This was all plugged into an Asus ROG Strix 7370E Gaming motherboard.

The tests, conducted by Youtube channel FlightlessMango used Proton to enable playing Red Dead Redemption in Linux. Proton is a compatibility layer-based fork of Wine. It’s developed by Valve to let people play Windows-exclusive titles on Steam within Linux.

This benchmark showed three different GPU driver packages within Linux and compared them with running the game in Windows using DirectX 12 and Vulkan.

What Does the Test Show?

In FlightlessMango’s full benchmark report, it shows that Red Dead Redemption using Vulkan API runs faster in Linux than both DirectX 12 and Vulkan versions in Windows. This difference is up to 10 frames per second and overall, Linux has a 14% advantage over Windows.

That’s a huge difference which is hard to ignore. Could Linux gaming be something we look into more in the future? It will be interesting to see if these results inspire any other tests.

What do you think? Would you give Linux a shot over Windows if it meant 10 FPS improvements? Let us know in the comments below.