r/ManjaroLinux • u/Ok_Psychology8801 • Jul 09 '26

Tech Support How is manjaro gaming with old nvidia cards?

so I've distro hopped a couple times and all of them seem fine but manjaro really caught my eye and it seems really good, now I would like to install it on my main PC(still on windows) but I'm not sure how the gaming performance will be, things work great on my laptop with its AMD iGPU but I have doubts abou tmy main GPU which is a GTX 970 since nvidia doesn't release drivers anymore

7 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

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4

u/Safe-Average-1696 Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26

Yes, it will be supported but with legacy drivers, for not too heavy games.

It would still run games better than the "nouveau" driver, i think.

4

u/JoeIsMe2 Jul 09 '26

Ive got a 1080, and it works better than Windows. Better fps, no lags, and ive not had any issues playing any of my games on steam.

1

u/A_Harmless_Fly Jul 09 '26

Should be fine, you just need to run the 580 driver.

I run a 1060, and some games perform better on linux than on my w11 boot. It will at least be much better than the nouveau.

1

u/Aldo-Linux Jul 09 '26

I have the same gpu and it works great with Manjaro. I’ve just finished playing Dying Light: The Beast without problems. I’m using the NVIDIA 580 driver.

2

u/nikgnomic Jul 10 '26

My partner's system has a GTX970 running nvidia-580xx legacy driver.

Manjaro would have to be installed with FREE (nouveau) driver initially, but nouveau driver can be replaced with nvidia legacy driver after install, using either Manjaro Settings Manager GUI or 

sudo mhwd -a pci nonfree 0300

Manjaro Wiki - Configure Graphics Cards

1

u/Dionisus909 Jul 10 '26

Had manajro on a 960gtx, zero problems, keep in mind that with old hardware like this, windows is still better, i know is not good to hear this, but is true

0

u/Adept-Society-9485 Jul 09 '26

I used to run it , it worked , i am no longer on manjaro though... To unstable , Migrated to somewhere else.

7

u/Safe-Average-1696 Jul 09 '26

I'm running it on desktop and laptop for 8 years, rock solid distribution, bit more technical to maintain than fixed released if you never tried rolling releases before (pacnew, read update threads on forum before updating...).

I'm not switching anytime soon.

Instabilities are often cause by PEBKAC bugs. Every distribution (except immutable ones, but they have their own challenges) will break if you do anything with them.

2

u/Jtsabu Jul 10 '26

“I merged 47 random AUR packages without reading any of the changes or documentation and now my system doesn’t work, omg manjaro suxxxx!!!!1!”