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Hardware Compatibility for Gaming

Minimum System Requirements¶

Architecture: x86_64
Firmware: UEFI (CSM Support should be disabled if available)
Processor (CPU) : 2GHz quad core processor or better
System Memory (RAM): 4GB
Graphics: A graphics card that can utilize Vulkan 1.3+
Storage: 50GB free on an internal solid-state drive
Network: Stable internet connection with no bandwidth caps
Additional Notes: Certain drivers are not compatible with Bazzite.

Steam Gaming Mode Requirements¶

Note: The requirements only applies to Handheld/HTPC (-deck) Bazzite images

AMD GPU
- Modern AMD GPUs
  - RX 5000 and up
  - 600M/700M integrated GPUs
- May work with major caveats:
  - Polaris (RX 500 series)
Intel Arc GPUs may work with major caveats
Nvidia GPUs are not supported
Steam account

Compatible Handhelds¶

The Handheld Wiki lists tested handhelds with proper support like the Steam Deck, ASUS ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion Go, and a handful of other handhelds.

Vulkan Compatible GPU¶

Linux gaming is heavily dependent on having compatible hardware with Vulkan.

If you're using a device with an older or weaker GPU that does not support Vulkan 1.3 or later, then you need to use older Proton and Wine builds like Proton/WINE 6 or earlier.

Check which Vulkan version your GPU uses, enter this in the terminal:

vulkaninfo | grep 'Instance Version'

If it outputs less than 1.3 in the Vulkan Instance Version: or does not work at all, then you will run into issues including unplayable games and worse performance.
Really old devices may need to resort to OpenGL translation which performs worse, has graphical issues, etc.

Vulkan Command

Using insufficient hardware requires utilizing older Proton versions and use this launch option for most Steam games:

PROTON_USE_WINED3D=1 %command%

Unsupported Filesystems for Secondary Drives¶

Warning: You will lose all of your data reformatting secondary internal/external drives.

NTFS¶

If you are coming from Windows and plan to game on a secondary drive with games already installed on it, then we regret to inform you that the NTFS filesystem is unsupported for gaming.

Any secondary drives that you plan to play video games on should be backed up and reformatted to either Ext4 or BTRFS. You will lose all of the data on this device.

You can use KDE Partition Manager (KDE images) or GNOME Disks (GNOME images) to format the drives appropriately at your own risk.

There is a guide for using Proton with NTFS drive, but issues may occur with this setup.

exFAT and FAT32¶

exFAT and FAT32 are unsupported entirely. Both filesystems do not support symbolic links which is what Proton prefixes use.

However, scenarios where a microSD card is formatted to exFAT may work in some cases, but it is entirely unsupported by Universal Blue if something goes horribly wrong using it.

Install the unofficial WinBtrfs driver on your Windows installation at your own risk. Please note that Gamepass games and games installed and launched through the Epic Games Launcher do not work with BTRFS under Windows.

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