I run Debian 13 (Trixie) and recently thought I’d finally give Windows games a try under Linux using Lutris. Thought I’d be lucky to get one of my games running but all of them ran so far. Audio issues here and there but they ran really good. I was much surprised.
So I didn’t try running one game on Linux yet, Wow. A list of questions…
- Can Wow run under Linux?
- How well does it run. What’s the FPS hit?
- Can it do DirectX 12 or will I have to emulate DirectX 11?
- If you run Wow under Linux have you had periods where it wasn’t available due to a patch or expansion not working?
- If you run Wow under Linux do you regret it and want to move it back to Windows?
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There’s a few hundred posts about this subject, but to help you out:
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Yes
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Quiet well in fact. Most users actually see increases to FPS, but that is subject to hardware and Linux distribution.
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Either work from my experiences. I use an emulation of Directx12 and see no issues. Basically runs like Windows minus Windows.
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Rarely do I have an issue where I cannot play due to a patch. However, I have a guildy that does have to do reinstalls every few months but that is kind of his thing. I can just update like normal and go.
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Never have regretted using Linux over Windows. Though I run multiple operating systems over multiple machines. Only OS I don’t use is Mac / Apple because I have no need.
Each has their own pros and cons. Don’t simply go to Linus because it’s becoming a fad. Go because you need to for work or school and want to game on the side. Gaming on a Windows machine is going to a bit easier for most people who do not have Linux knowlege. Can thry learn? Sure. Can it bet better? Sure. Is it going to be? Really depends on the person.
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I started with running Linux in the late 90’s. Back then dependencies were a pita. “Oh, I get to recompile a driver again! Weeeeee….”. I’ve ran Fedora, Ubuntu, etc. and decided on Debian because all of the server software I was running always seemed to have Debian as the dependable OS mainstay. Proxmox, Netxms, Docker, etc.
I’ve worked as a Windows network admin most of my life. I came to hate MS and Bill Gates with a passion. I’m a privacy kind of guy. Another reason to like Debian although I may go back to Ubuntu on my desktop. Debian will be my server OS for the foreseeable future. I’m not doing it because of a fad.
Why ask here? Why not search older content? Well many things I find online are old. AI for instance is great on many things but can quite often lead you down the wrong path. If I wanted to know how people feel I’d post a fresh question about it here. Shrug.
I upgraded my windows partition to Windows 11 a while because I always upgrade myself before I upgrade my wife’s computer. Glad I didn’t upgrade hers. But what will I do about gaming in the future if I ditch Windows entirely? Something I had to ask myself. I still would run Windows in a VM because I have a lot of diagnostics tools there.
Linux has seen a notable increase recently on the desktop. It has become very dominant in the server space based on some of the industry I’ve worked in. The government and military contractors use it a LOT. I was surprised by how much Linux was there and was happy to admin those servers.
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Sometimes I’ve had troubles getting it to work through Lutris in the past, but adding Battle.net to Steam as a non-Steam game and running it on Proton that way has worked flawlessly.
Linux has been my daily driver for over a decade. Gaming has been amazing for the past several years. There are some games with anti-cheat that are a problem but outside of those, basically everything just works through Steam.
Lol, I just added a new steam to my Linux install. I don’t like steam but I’ll use it in offline mode if it will work. Why don’t I like steam?
I had probably 10 games in an old steam account. The Witcher, Skyrim, etc. I had just been playing Wow solely for years though. I went to long in with my “correct” credentials because I’m methodical about keeping all of my credentials in keypass and couldn’t log in.
Evidently even though my credentials were correct it was forcing me to use an email that died years ago. My email had changed. No problem I thought, I’ll just contact them and get this straightened up. I won’t go into details but what “bad word”.
So I’m okay with playing many older games I have in Linux. And cool, because they work great after some tweaking. After my experience with Steam/Valve I’m not too keen on having some low level “bad word“ hat tech be the gatekeeper of my money spent. I feel like Valve stole from me and I don’t like that one bit.
I had already disabled my new steam account whilst I ponder things in the Linux gaming realm. On the desktop Windows is starting to lose market share. Linux is gaining but still it’s only in the 5% realm. I suspect it will grow noticeably however. Me, I don’t like needing an online account to use my OS or my games. I don’t like notepad taking 30 seconds to be usable on my Ryzen CPU with 32 Gigs of ram. It means microsux is parsing through my text files. Grrrrrr…
So maybe in five to ten years we’ll start seeing native Linux gaming more commonplace. Well, if we don’t nuke ourselves soon.
Well, you don’t actually need Steam. The primary contribution Valve has made to Linux gaming is Proton, which is a fork/superset of Wine. Some of Proton makes it upstream to Wine eventually, but it includes gaming specific components which are outside of Wine’s scope.
If you really want to, you can run Proton without ever installing Steam. Like usual on Linux, you can have pretty much whatever you want, some things just require more tinkering than others.
I run wow on Debian 13 using Bottles, works like a champ.
_,met$$$$$gg. ------------
,g$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$P. ------------
,g$$P"" """Y$$.". OS: Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie) x86_64
,$$P' `$$$. Host: MS-7D32 (1.0)
',$$P ,ggs. `$$b: Kernel: Linux 6.19.6+deb13-amd64
`d$$' ,$P"' . $$$ Uptime: 21 hours, 42 mins
$$P d$' , $$P Packages: 3173 (dpkg), 22 (flatpak)
$$: $$. - ,d$$' Shell: bash 5.2.37
$$; Y$b._ _,d$P' Display (Odyssey Ark): 3840x2160 @ 120 Hz in 55" [External] *
Y$$. `.`"Y$$$$P"' Display (U28E590): 1920x1080 @ 60 Hz in 27" [External]
`$$b "-.__ Display (SAMSUNG): 3840x2160 @ 60 Hz in 55" [External]
`Y$$b DE: KDE Plasma 6.3.6
`Y$$. WM: KWin (Wayland)
`$$b. WM Theme: Breeze
`Y$$b. Theme: Breeze (Dark) [Qt], Breeze-Dark [GTK2], Breeze [GTK3]
`"Y$b._ Icons: breeze-dark [Qt], breeze-dark [GTK2/3/4]
`"""" Font: Noto Sans (10pt) [Qt], Noto Sans (10pt) [GTK2/3/4]
Cursor: breeze (24px)
Terminal: konsole 25.4.2
CPU: 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-12700K (20) @ 5.00 GHz
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX [Discrete]
Memory: 6.16 GiB / 62.50 GiB (10%)
Swap: 0 B / 63.70 GiB (0%)
Disk (/): 57.27 GiB / 91.11 GiB (63%) - ext4
Disk (/home): 699.05 GiB / 1.64 TiB (42%) - ext4
Local IP (enp6s0): -------------------
Locale: en_US.UTF-8
An important thing to do is to use the backported kernel (currently 6.19.6) in order to get the NTSYNC functionality which significantly improves performance for windoz emulation.
Runs as a DirectX 12 GPU btw.
Edit: To directly answer OP’s questions:
- Yes
- It run’s flawlessly for me - hitting 90-120fps isn’t unusual
- I run it with DirectX 12 but you can DirectX 11 if you wish
- Awhile back I ran into an issue when BattleNet updated, but this was maybe 2 years ago and hasn’t happened since
- Do I regret running on Linux? Um… NO! And I would NEVER move back to Windoz. I went full on linux the day the specs for Windows 11 were announced and never looked back.
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I’ve ran WoW in Linux a few times and it runs fairly well.
Acts no different than if it were on Windows in terms of updates.
Can use Crossover, Lutrix, or even via Steam to run it. With Crossover and Steam’s push to get games working on Linux seamlessly things have been getting better.
Think the most recent Nvidia drivers are the best they have been in terms of Linux performance but AMD holds the crown in terms of driver support so your mileage may vary in terms of performance based on which card you have.
Do recommend CachyOS as it has a more performance based kernel. Its arch based however.
I never recommend this sort of thing to new folks. I think OP has the right idea with Debian - it’s a sold, stable, reliable distro that’s well supported across the board.
I do agree with having the latest kernel though, which can be had by simply using Debians backported version.
Its a long “quest” and it can be completed but for me it was unsatisfying (at best).
Yes, I finally got WoW functional on Mint using Bottles - a tool designed for managing Wine and Proton prefixes with a simple GUI. It’s much more user-friendly for handling compatibility layers for running Windows applications like Battle.net. Bottles can be installed via a Flatpak.
But it wasn’t frictionless. During the Legion Remix Event (when i was casually multiboxing to level grouped alts) I was repeatedly experiencing some instability that was finally traced to NVIDIA drivers. I did load up Pop!_OS - which provides a separate NVIDIA install image with the proprietary driver included (while Mint typically has you install the driver after setup through Driver Manager). That is said to make Pop!_OS less likely to trip over the usual first-boot or post-install graphics issues on NVIDIA systems.
Anyway… I did take a swat at it but after a couple hours decided none of this fiddling was as much fun as actually playing Legion Remix - so threw in the towel and quickly reverted to a Win 11 box dedicated to (all) gaming only.
Everything else in my life? I continue to use Mint. Mint stays relatively low-drama, and unlike Windows does not collect telemetry inside the OS. Its update workflow is straightforward, and Mint’s own guidance emphasizes using Update Manager and Timeshift snapshots before upgrades, which fits a “I want control and reversibility” mindset.
Will Microsoft collect telemetry and try to force Copilot down my throat on the gaming machine? Almost 100% chance of that. But /shrug - its just a gaming console now.
Will I try games on Linux again at some point? Yep… if I get to a point I need a break from playing the game and want to play with the OS instead. That’s not a today thing.
What should you expect? If your graphics card is AMD based you may fly through this with no issues. Many people do. If NVIDIA? There will be some hurdles - and you need to be more patient with that than I was.
Good luck to you! Hope it works smoothly first try.
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Its a lot easier to run on amd… Nvidia can work but its extra hoops
But you should. Software development is a world of majority rules. The more folks on Linux, the more our game developers care about it.
Steam’s spearheading that drive. Blizzard likely never will, not at least while they’re under Microsoft. In the meantime, more Linux players = more Linux support regardless of Blizzard’s intent.
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Agree that Debian is a solid distro which is the base of a lot of other solid ones but CachyOS is just as easy to use as Debian.
Also do not see any harm at recommending a distro that someone might not have known of.
I thought many years ago that the only thing which would beat Windows out was something better and free. In IT the hardest thing to pick is the right direction beforehand. Back in Novell days they tried to force me to get Novell certified but I went the MS MCSE route instead. Why? It was easy to fudge the licensing on a Microsoft NT server and I knew TCP/IP was going to win out. Novell, nobody even knows Novell used to exist now and it used to be everywhere.
Linux is already here on the server unless your talking about smaller businesses. Linux will “eventually” be here on the workstation. I was a little slow on picking up Docker but I love visualizing my apps and having bind mounts that all get backed up to a tar file. My perfect Wow server would be in a Docker container.
Linux is coming whether people want it to or not. The biggest reason people use Windows is that companies sold desktops with Windows on them. Increasingly companies that manufacture desktops are looking in the Linux direction. It saves them a LOT of money and I’ve read it saves on support costs. The biggest barrier to Linux on the desktop is gaming I think. I used to say MS Office but that isn’t such a problem anymore. Old people fixed in their way of using office apps dies out with the generation but gaming addiction is forever. 
I spend looooong hours trying to aggregate information gleaning real direction instead of momentary trends. Linux is coming. The only thing I don’t know is the timing but I see the inevitability of it. It kinda makes me sad in a way though. Governments will backdoor it. All the same spying will start to take place. But for now we are relatively safe and I think the most safe is Debian.
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I run Fedora and run Bnet/WoW through Lutris, runs great no issues at all with FPS or otherwise
I did have this issue once with Overwatch and I just found a workaround by opening Bnet through Steam instead
No I will never go back to using Windows
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I use an Nvidia card but I have been thinking hard about the switch to AMD cards with good gaming support. I have multiple computers with each having a backup workstation. The machines with AMD video cards are flawless. I’m just patient with which cards I might get. I prefer a slightly older card with a good reputation which was sold in huge numbers vs something new and shiny which might start exhibiting problems via hardware or software.
Pretty much. The pivotal moment in history was OpenGL losing to DirectX. Microsoft has had the gaming win since then.
Game devs are root kitting your Windows device and complaining Linux won’t let them. Gee I wonder why.
Forreal, more of us need to go Linux. I use it on all of my devices but my primary gaming device. I’m just as afraid as everyone else to make the switch with the games I play. Thankfully I just purchased a Streamdeck and it’s slowly peeling back the blinders.
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Gonna throw this out there for anybody which doesn’t use Linux currently. You can install a program called “Ventoy” onto a USB drive and put the disk ISO (CD/DVD images usually) on it and install any OS on the fly including Windows.
Many here probably know of Ventoy but I’m betting most don’t. You could even put a Live CD ISO image on it and boot that to try out Linux without installing anything.
Ventoy is simple and easy to use. I have other more complex tools for this but Ventoy is so simple. I used Ventoy to upgrade the firmware on some slightly older Lenovo slim desktops I got recently for $50 each. They had Ryzen processors and M.2 drive slots.
One day I’ll have feelings of nostalgia and decide to load up a copy of Windows, which nobody remembers anymore just like Novell.
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Yes, you can. Curseforge has a client native to Linux too.
Runs well under lutris. Very well.
No issues at all.
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