Arch Linux Gaming Setup

Important

Run These When Booting Into Desktop Environment (i.e. KDE)

(I Don't Include Feral Gamemode Because Of Performance Related Issues. i.e. Stutters & FPS Loss In Some Games)

Main Step

Enabling use of AUR:

sudo pacman -Syu
sudo pacman -S --needed base-devel git
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay.git
cd yay
makepkg -si

Second Step (Backup Kernels)

sudo pacman -S linux-lts linux-lts-headers

Third Step

Install These (Enables CachyOS Kernel and Mesa Layers):

yay -S linux-cachyos linux-cachyos-headers
sudo pacman -S vulkan-mesa-layers lib32-vulkan-mesa-layers

CachyOS Kernel Setup Guide:

Go to /boot/loader/entries/ and find the default linux.conf, not the fallback one.
Copy that file and paste it on your desktop
Now edit the name to arch-cachyos.conf
Edit it to look like this (KEEP EVERYTHING THE SAME AFTER "initrd" SECTION!):

title   Arch Linux (CachyOS)
linux   /vmlinuz-linux-cachyos
initrd  /initramfs-linux-cachyos.img

Now copy arch-cachy.conf to /boot/loader/entries/

Fourth Step

Set CachyOS Kernel As Default:

Go to /boot/loader/ and open loader.conf then edit timeout 3 to this (waits 5 seconds before booting kernel):

timeout 5

Add this before the timeout 5 line:

default arch-cachyos.conf

Fourth Step (No Password Automount HDD's/SSD's)

For when you have multiple game drives or other drives

Run this in your terminal: lsblk -f
In the console take note of the UUID of your drive in "UUID" section, and where your drives are mounted in the "MOUNTPOINTS" section, and the Format type in "FSTYPE"
open fstab file located in etc folder
Create a folder under /mnt that is the same name as the drive under the "LABEL" section:

Example:
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/GMEONE
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/GMEBCKUP

Type these commands in so you don't have to have sudo when mounted. Your username goes before and after the ":"

Example:
sudo chown joetech:joetech /mnt/GMEONE
sudo chown joetech:joetech /mnt/GMEBCKUP

As for # add it and you can name it to whatever you want to indentify the drive

Example:
# GMEONE - Gaming NVMe SSD
UUID=fd053d39-33b0-444f-9515-a33d6e34790b  /mnt/GMEONE   ext4  defaults,nofail  0  0

# GMEBCKUP - Backup Drive
UUID=adbdb4dc-b287-47e2-adfe-4c4f0ecd3e2a  /mnt/GMEBCKUP ext4  defaults,nofail  0  0

After saving the file, test before rebooting:

sudo mount -a

Final Step

Edit pacman.conf in /etc/
Find the [multilib] section and remove the # from the two lines:

[multilib]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

(Optional Section)

[Enables Color and Pacman Video Game Loading/Downloading Bar In Terminal]

In Misc options section remove # before color
Add ILoveCandy after CheckSpace

Gaming Packages

Official Arch Repo (Pacman)

sudo pacman -S zlib-ng zlib-ng-compat amd-ucode steam wine-staging winetricks wine-mono wine-gecko wine-nine goverlay gamescope mangohud lib32-mangohud inputplumber tk libdecor lib32-libdecor scx-scheds python-pip python-pipx
sudo pacman -S jre-openjdk gstreamer lib32-gstreamer gst-plugin-va gst-plugins-base lib32-gst-plugins-base ffmpeg
sudo pacman -S gst-plugins-good lib32-gst-plugins-good gst-plugin-pipewire fontconfig lib32-fontconfig mpg123 lib32-mpg123 ttf-liberation vulkan-tools libva lib32-libva
sudo pacman -S libxslt lib32-libxslt lib32-gtk3 ocl-icd lib32-ocl-icd openal lib32-openal libjpeg-turbo lib32-libjpeg-turbo alsa-plugins lib32-alsa-plugins giflib lib32-giflib glfw lib32-pipewire
sudo pacman -S gst-plugins-base-libs lib32-gst-plugins-base-libs python-setuptools python-virtualenv lib32-mesa dosfstools dolphin-plugins unrar 7zip gst-plugins-bad adobe-source-han-sans-jp-fonts adobe-source-han-sans-cn-fonts adobe-source-han-sans-hk-fonts
sudo pacman -S adobe-source-han-sans-kr-fonts adobe-source-han-sans-otc-fonts adobe-source-han-sans-tw-fonts adobe-source-sans-fonts ttf-nerd-fonts-symbols ttf-nerd-fonts-symbols-common ttf-nerd-fonts-symbols-mono ffmpegthumbs kdegraphics-thumbnailers sddm-kcm

Install and Enable Bluetooth:

sudo pacman -S bluedevil bluez bluez-utils qt6-connectivity
sudo systemctl enable bluetooth.service
sudo systemctl start bluetooth.service

AUR (Yay)

yay -S heroic-games-launcher-bin protonplus xpadneo-dkms vkpost lib32-vkpost faudio python-glfw ttf-ms-fonts

Fixes Section

Dualsense Controller Acting as a mouse (In KDE, but might work with other Desktop Enivronments):

Go to “Input & Output” in settings then clicked the tab “Mouse & Touchpad”. Select “Touchpad” and uncheck the box beside “Device enabled” at the top.

Optional Section (Mostly Packages I Use)

Pacman

sudo pacman -S android-tools mpv vlc phonon-qt6-vlc lact mission-center fastfetch kio-admin prismlauncher gwenview partitionmanager qbittorrent
sudo pacman -S --needed sof-firmware alsa-firmware alsa-utils pipewire pipewire-alsa pipewire-pulse pipewire-jack wireplumber plasma-pa pavucontrol linux-firmware

3 (Laptops Only). sudo pacman cups cups-pdf system-config-printer avahi nss-mdns hplip gutenprint foomatic-db foomatic-db-ppds foomatic-db-nonfree foomatic-db-nonfree-ppds foomatic-db-engine foomatic-db-gutenprint-ppds splix cups-filters ghostscript gsfonts ipp-usb power-profiles-daemon

Enabling Arch Update addon:

sudo pacman -S --needed pacman-contrib archlinux-contrib curl fakeroot htmlq diffutils hicolor-icon-theme python python-pyqt6 qt6-svg glib2
yay -S arch-update
arch-update --tray --enable

Yay

yay -S mullvad-vpn-bin jdownloader2 rustdesk-bin floorp-bin harmony2

2 (Laptops Only). yay -S alsa-ucm-conf-git epson-inkjet-printer-escpr epson-inkjet-printer-escpr2 cnijfilter2 brother-dcp7065dn brother-hll2340dw brother-mfc7360n brother-dcp1610w brother-hl1210w