TLDR,

Do not let your son try your first linux gaming pc.

OIITMM,

Hello,

I do not have a lot of time or disposable income, so for the longest time I was playing on PlayStation hardware.

I used Linux in my studies and I use it at work, so I always tried to support Linux gaming (i.e. buying tribe 2, aloha centauri and the occasional native game that I knew I had not time to play) but never really gamed on a Linux machine. Since I got my first child, I could count on my hand and toes the times I had played on the PlayStation.

Things changed with Proton: I got curious and I tried Trails in the Sky on my work laptop that I administer, running fedora.

I love RPGs, so playing a little the evening after kids are in the bed, maybe after answering a few work emails, without the need of turning on TV and charge the joypad was a great experience.

I looked then at gaming laptops, new and second hand, but nothing that was acceptable to run on Linux at a reasonable price.

So I was not very smart since I did not take the discounts at black Friday or cyber Monday since I really wanted to play a little these holidays and I ordered the components to assemble reusing a screen, HDD and peripherals I had around.

Using fedora 31 all seems to work out of the box, AMD 3600x, msi x570 a-pro,msi Rx 5700 xt mech, at least on my 60hz 1920*1200 screen I run the benchmark for grid autosport of feral and with all mostly to ultra (excluding some stuff like ambient occlusion and rear view) I get FPS 60 min/avg/max with vsync on.

The problem is that I let from time to time my 6 years old son play super tux kart on an old laptop when he behaves particularly well.

The old laptop was a dell l502x with an Optimus nvidia, so 1366*768, 15", around 15/20/30 fps.

I made the mistake of letting him try stk on the new pc: so 24" 1920*1200, all settings maxed out, FPS 60/60/60..

Let's say that all day he behaves exceptionally well that towards the evening when we are at home (since we try to be out during daylight and do stuff together) when he asks the "race of the penguin" I cannot refuse.

So now I can test my new gaming pc late in the evening (because of course you cannot play when he is awake: daddy you told me to stop playing why are YOU playing?) maybe a few minutes a day and during these times I mostly check temps and try to understand if the performances are ok..

For the rest I am very excited. I have a lot of games that I bought on sales during the years from steam to support their Linux efforts and never even played.

I never ever played Half Life, I think maybe I will finish trails on my laptop (since, really it is a waste of electricity to play it on the desktop) and then play black Mesa on my desktop.

But before I will try to install a joypad on the desktop to play stk split screen with my son..

Any suggestions for some nice games to play with a 6 years old that should not be addictive?

I heard horror stories about kids and Minecraft, and any way I would prefer some open source game ;)

Cheers