Leveling Up: Making My Linux PC a Gaming Beast

So, you’ve made the switch to Linux, installed the beautiful Zorin OS 18 (Or another kind of Distro), and you’re ready to game. If you’re like me and you're rocking one of the shiny new AMD cards (I'm rockin' the the Radeon RX 9070 XT) you might notice that while things work "out of the box," they aren't quite optimized for maximum performance yet.

I spent some time tinkering with my setup to get Ray Tracing, FSR, and proper fan control working perfectly. Here is my easy-to-follow guide on how I did it!

Important Note: This guide is specifically for AMD GPUs. If you are using an NVIDIA card, your journey will look a bit different (mostly involving the "Additional Drivers" tab in your settings), so don't follow these specific steps!

1. Getting the Fresh Drivers (The Kisak PPA)

Zorin is built on Ubuntu 24.04, which is super stable. The downside? Sometimes the "stable" graphics drivers are a little behind what a brand-new RDNA 4 card needs.

To fix this, I used the Kisak-Mesa PPA. This is basically a verified "delivery service" that gives you the latest graphics libraries without breaking the rest of your system. It’s low-risk and high-reward.

Pop open your terminal and paste these:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kisak/kisak-mesa
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

2. Setting Up the "Vulkan" Stuff

Vulkan is the secret sauce that makes Windows games run on Linux via Steam. To make sure modern games and heavy-duty apps (like Blender) work right, you need both the 64-bit and the 32-bit versions. Many newcomers miss the 32-bit part, which causes older games to crash.

Run this command to grab the whole stack:

sudo apt install vulkan-tools mesa-vulkan-drivers mesa-vulkan-drivers:i386 libvulkan1 libvulkan1:i386

Quick Check: To make sure your computer actually sees your card now, type: vulkaninfo | grep deviceName

If it spits out your graphics card name, you’re golden!

3. Unlocking the "Power Mask" (The Secret Step)

By default, Linux plays it very safe with AMD cards. It "locks" the ability to customize your fan speeds or overclock. To unlock these features, we have to tell the system it's okay to let us have control during the boot process.

1. Open your boot configuration: sudo nano /etc/default/grub
2. Look for the line that starts with GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT.
3. Change it so it looks exactly like this: GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash amdgpu.ppfeaturemask=0xffffffff"
4. Save and Exit: Press Ctrl+O, then Enter, then Ctrl+X.

5. Tell the system to remember this: This part is vital on Zorin! Run these two commands:

   sudo update-grub
   sudo update-initramfs -u

4. Managing Your Fans with LACT

Now that we’ve unlocked the "mask," we need a way to actually control the card. For the newer RDNA 4 cards, LACT is the best tool out there. It’s a simple app that lets you set power limits and, most importantly, custom fan curves.

How to get it:

1. Go to the LACT GitHub Releases and download the .deb file.
2. Double-click it to install, or use the terminal: sudo apt install ./lact_*.deb
3. Keep it running: Run this so your settings don't reset when you turn off the PC: sudo systemctl enable --now lactd

My "Silent-but-Cool" Fan Curve

In the LACT app, go to the Fan tab, switch it to Manual, and plot these points. I designed this so my PC is dead silent while I'm coding in VS Code but stays ice-cold when I'm playing AAA games.

Just to note: I don't change the Clockspeed or Voltage. The only other option I've done, to help with temps, is reduce the Power Usage Limit by 5-10%, whatever is best for the games you are playing. NEVER go above the default Power Usage Limit.

Best of Both Worlds: Work & Play

One of the coolest things about this setup is that it doesn't interfere with your work. Whether you are compiling code, editing video, or just multitasking across twenty browser tabs, these optimizations only help.

Because the drivers are more modern and the fan curve is "smart," your PC actually runs more efficiently during productivity tasks than it did before. It’s truly the best of both worlds!