Ladies and * of the simracing Fediverse, my name is BlinkerFluid and I don’t even own a wheel yet… it’s out for delivery. G29, btw. Yes, YouTube.

I, am a nerd and I like operating systems that are light, utilitarian, pretty, quick and easy to use. The last part may be subjective, but I like Linux. It gives me the ownership feeling of actually owning my PC, and I don’t want to give that up to race simulators.

This will all be done on Garuda Linux, KDE variant, for those following along at home.

I will catalogue my journey for historical use, for the Linux driver of the future who came here from his SearX search on his self-hosted AMD 6600 AIO he got on ebay for $200.

So where are we at, Mr. Fluid?

I own a lot of racing games and I happen to know quite a few run on Linux, like BeamNG! I also know some… kinda… work or not so well, work on Linux, like Assetto Corsa, despite spending an hour throwing protontricks commands at it from blog posts to install lots of missing Windows libraries, and the content manager. That works, at least.

Yeah so far, AC has loaded, then failed to load the exact same car and track setup, then hang, then crash. BeamNG has been a saint, and runs well, so it will likely be my first choice for testing my wheel, despite being like, my 5th choice for a racing experience, it’s closer to my 1st-2st choice for a solo driving experience.

Huzzah, PCSX2!

Then there’s Gran Turismo 4 and PCSX2. First off, I know I can run it as I’ve ran about half the game on an Xbox controller and my PC doesn’t suck… that much. This hits all of my marks, personally even if it isn’t that modern as this is my gaming generation, and also my generation of cars.

but a massive grey area is the wheel. I’ve seen general how-to’s for Windows users but I’m not sure if the same information applies for me and I can’t know until I have the wheel.

Dirt… 3?!

Yeah, I’m 35 and I’ve been gaming forever so I own Dirt 3 on steam despite it not actually being on steam anymore. I’m pretty sure I can get the wheel running with this, although I wonder at what level.

I have a few others but I’m not sure what the utility of a racing wheel with arcade racers would be, but I’m at least going to see what chaos unfolds, and I’m also interested in cruising around GTA 5 with a wheel despite it not really being a sim. The experience would be tight.

I will keep you updated! Stay tuned!

  • BlinkerFluidOPEnglish
    1•1 year ago

    Not on Linux, no. I set up a dual boot with Windows 10 last night just so I could enjoy my $300 purchase while I tinker with the Linux side of things.

    So far… I’ve enjoyed controlling some BeamNG but some combination of either Oversteer or my settings kept nerfing the hell out of my force feedback. I don’t believe I have FF on Linux at the moment. I’ve only experienced it on my Windows side.

    Assetto runs!!!..but. big but. A lot of cars don’t load in. They just hang on the loading menu and I have to kill the program to get back to desktop. What’s odd is that it can sometimes not even matter what car. It might load one once then not again, or not at all then load all the sudden. No matter how long I wait, it sits and I don’t even have mods installed. If there was some consistency to the problem, I might be able to troubleshoot but the same car that works one load-in will be the same car that doesn’t load the next. I don’t get it.