Last Updated on February 24, 2023 by Detective Dev
So yeah gaming on Linux has definitely Come a long way in the last couple years And with Chimera OS it makes it even Easier to turn basically any PC into a Linux based gaming console [Music] Hey what's going on everybody it's ETA Prime back here again today we're going To be taking a look at Chimera OS and I Know a lot of you are thinking this Looks a lot like steamos 3 otherwise Known as theme deck OS but I can assure You this is a totally different distro This is the recently updated Chimera OS And we've got a lot of great new Features like obviously Gamepad UI we've Got game scope system-wide FSR and now With the latest version of chimera OS We've got a full desktop interface and I've messed around with this operating System in the past there were a few Things missing and it didn't use Gamepad UI until now so I've actually put Together a pretty inexpensive PC to kind Of showcase this operating system and Some of you might be very familiar with This HP Pavilion a couple years ago These were going for a really decent Deal at Walmart it's got a six core Ryzen 3500 CPU and they came with the GTX 1650 but I did a little bit of Upgrading with this and you can actually Find these basically Bare Bones with no GPU on eBay for a really good good deal
Most of them still come with an SSD and RAM but uh you know with this one here I Actually upgraded the GPU because I Prefer using AMD or Radeon gpus with Linux given the fact that we've got way Better compatibility with game scope Right now so I've upgraded to an RX 6600 Non-xt variant you can get these for a Really decent deal on eBay used a lot of People didn't like the 6000 series cards Given the price and performance but Personally for Linux gaming I've had a Really great time with this and paired Up with the right CPU it actually offers Some really great 1440p gaming so There's not much else going on with this PC I've got the stock power supply we've Got that stock CPU which is the ryzen 3500 six cores six threads up to 4.1 Gigahertz and 16 gigabytes of RAM you Can actually put something like this Together for pretty cheap right now but Before we get into testing I did want to Head over to the Chimera website and Give you a look at everything Been on the market for a little while Now and in the past you Steam Big Picture Mode and I've messed around with It but you know ever since Gamepad UI Was released with the steam deck and now On PC a lot of people wanted to kind of Stray away from The Big Picture Mode and Now with the latest update to Chimera OS We've got Gamepad UI just like you'll
See on the steam dat they also offer an App that you can actually access from Your phone or another PC while Everything's up and running and you can Adjust a few things from there it does Have the latest AMD and NVIDIA drivers But with the new Gamepad UI steam is Kind of bonked a lot of stuff within Video when it comes to game scope so Your overlay might not work with Nvidia And that's why we have an AMD card in This I really do hope that valve sorts This out because I want to put together A nice little Nvidia setup for an Operating system like this it's super Easy to install you're just going to Download the installer flash it to a USB Drive boot from that USB and it's an Online installer so you will need to Connect to Wi-Fi or ethernet but there's A full interface there so you can just Use your keyboard and get everything set Up installs in a few minutes and you'll Be up and running with something very Similar to a steamos 3 or steam deck OS And another big thing that was missing From Chimera OS in the past that kind of Kept me away from it was a desktop Interface but with this latest update But with this latest update they've got Us covered alright so let's take a Closer look at the operating system as You can see it's using Gamepad UI very Reminiscent of the steam deck I mean
It's using the exact same thing and Since I'm using an AMD card here I do Have access to gamesco from my Controller I can press my home button And a it'll bring up our overlay over Here we can go ahead and turn this off For now but when we get into testing Some games we'll have it back on Heading over to settings System you can see we're running Chimera OS and with this we've got that ryzen 3500 just six cores no extra threads and For that GPU the 6600 now I have tested This with Nvidia everything actually Works except for game scope so you just Can't get that overlay but if you did Want to use let's say a GTX 1650 or Something similar that comes with a PC Like this you could install this and Play your favorite games you're just not Going to have access to that overlay and A few other little features that kind of Work with game scope But with an AMD card we've got access to All of these performance settings like We would have with the steam deck except For TDP GPU clock is going to be out of The question here because we're not Using the same Apu but if you did need To use system-wide FSR we've got it Right here scaling mode and we've got The sharpness so there's a lot of great Stuff here brought over from the steam Deck in Chimera OS and overall I've had
A really pleasant experience with this Now I did mention that I used this in The past when it used Big Picture Mode And at the time there was no desktop Built in but now with this release we Can head to power Switch to desktop As you can see we've got a full-blown Desktop interface here with Chimera now And I have to mention it again this is All based on Arch Linux so if you're Into Arch Linux then you'll love this Operating system if we head over to the Software Center if you need to download An emulator or a certain game or Something like that we can do it Directly from here straight off the bat From the main menu rpcs3 we've got Duckstation pcsx2 lots of great stuff Here and you know if you just wanted to Use it as an everyday desktop you can Also go through download something like for photo editing full Libra office Suite I personally think it does open up This operating system a lot more having A full desktop interface here in the Past it was just kind of a gaming Operating system and still you know if You just want to stay in game mode not a Problem you'll never have to hit up Desktop but for power users or people Who just want to use this as their Everyday PC this comes in really really Handy we're going to move back over to
Game Mode we can do it directly from Here And now I think it's time to test out a Few of these games but uh before we do I Do want to mention that a lot of these Operating systems that are using the GamePad UI are going to kind of be Locked at 720p out of the box but it's Easily fixed for instance God of War We're going to go over here to our Settings Properties And from game resolution we can set this To Native or we can select whatever Resolution we'd like here and we can go All the way up to that so usually I set It at 1440p you know depending on how Powerful the system is and from the game Settings itself then I can go up to that Resolution or below it but out of the Box with this completely turned off You're going to be stuck at 720P All right so first game I want to test Here is God of War we're gonna head over To display I want to show you where You're not using FSR whatsoever we're at 1080P and we're at ultra settings Remember for the CPU we've got that Ryzen 3500 with six cores and for the GPU the RX 6600 non-xt And with these settings here we can get An average of 71 FPS out of this game Not bad at all given that we're using Proton and Linux to run this game
Looking really good everything that I've Tested so far has worked out very well But it would have been nice to have just A little more power on the CPU side of Things or just a CPU with more threads I've personally found that having those Extra threads with Linux gaming really Helps out but if this is all you got It's going to work out just fine as you Can see here God of War is fully Playable with this CPU in Chimera OS Next up we've got Spider-Man Miles Morales 1080p very high settings no FSR Of course with a card like this if you Did want to get some more frames out of It you could always enable FSR and to Tell you the truth setting it to Quality Here at 1080p very high settings really Doesn't make much of a difference at Least to my eye and with the games that Do support it just taking FSR to Quality Can gain you up to 20 FPS something like This would gain us around 18 frames with The same exact setup Now when it comes to cyberpunk 2077 this Is one I do like to enable FSR with so We're at quality with that 1080p High Settings and we can get an average of 74 FPS now I'm not complaining whatsoever When it comes to a game like this being Able to run it over 60 at 1080p on a Linux machine and personally I can't Really tell a difference when I have FSR Set to Quality versus it off especially
With a game like this some people may be A little more sensitive you know to the Quality presets but for me I'm fine Running it just like it is And the final one I wanted to show off Here was Horizon Dawn very high settings No fsrs 1080p with the non-xt variant of The RX 6600 1080p is great for Ultra but If you want to go up to 1440 high with Some FSR depending on the game is where It's at and you can run basically any AAA game on a machine like this Don't worry We'll catch up with them further so when It comes to the newest updates to Chimera OS I think the developer has Done an amazing job and I highly Recommend checking this out if you're Into Linux gaming I usually use hollow ISO because basically that was the only One that had Gamepad UI and access to Game scope right now without a ton of Work you know on my end but seeing how Well Chimera is working now with Gamepad UI game scope and the fact that we've Got a full-blown desktop interface now This might be my go-to Linux setup so Yeah I highly recommend trying this out Link for the website is in the Description just flash it to a USB and Install it to an internal or external Drive it's really up to you and if You're interested in putting together a Similarly spec PC I'll leave some links
Down below there'll be Amazon and eBay Kind of mixed up a lot of the stuff can Be gotten used and I would recommend you Know picking up used parts to keep the Price way down but that's going to wrap It up for this one really appreciate you Watching if you've tried the newest Version of chimera out or you're still Using an older version let us know how You like it in the comments below but That's except for this one and like Always thanks for watching
