Windows 10 LTSC for gaming

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The Ugly One said:
Quite a few of the top multiplayer games don't work on Linux due to the anticheat software. Valorant, Destiny, Call of Duty, Fortnite, and Dead by Daylight are the biggest ones I know off the top of my head.
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Bungie and Ubisoft also refuse to enable Linux support on their versions of Easy Anti-Cheat.
 
So if you're concerned about compatibility for LTSC, build the PC you want, make your games library a secondary drive, and try 'em with LTSC since that option is as free as your time; if it shits the bed with anything you want to do, great! You didn't pay a cent for it!

At that point pick up a copy of consumer 11 or 10, wipe the OS drive, rescan the games on the games drive after reinstalling steam/GOG, and you minimized any of the issues with going from one to the other.

For a point of reference, I've had more issues getting camera RAW working on LTSC than any of the games I play because that requires installing windows store apps sideways (you'll want to read up on LTSC windows app store shit, there's a process that's pretty well documented), but I ignore multiplayer and don't buy anything AAA anymore.
 
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I've been using LTSC as my daily driver for quite some time now. You more than likely will have to manually install drivers for your hardware, but if you built the computer yourself, you simply have to go to the manufacturer's website and get the appropriate drivers. If it's a pre-built PC, the manufacturer will usually have drivers listed on their support page. There will be missing features like the game bar, but I never had a need for that anyway.
 
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I have been using Windows 10 LTSC 21H2 since I built a new desktop system in 2022. So far running games using Steam or other launchers has worked for me just like any regular version of Windows would. The only thing that required some modification was getting Game Pass to work on the system, since LTSC doesn't come with the Microsoft Store packages. I used the scripts from https://github.com/kkkgo/LTSC-Add-MicrosoftStore to sort that out and Game Pass works just fine now.

If you want a LTSC version of Windows 11 to get support for newer features, it should be out later this year. Microsoft has announced that Windows 11 Enterprise LTSC and Windows 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC will be available in the second half of 2024.
 
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King Vidiot said:
Microsoft has announced that Windows 11 Enterprise LTSC and Windows 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC will be available in the second half of 2024.
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But on the other hand, Win10 took years to stop being a lolcow, and anyone who bought 2015 or 2016 LTSC locked in too soon (unless they had a specific dependency on a specific kernel version). It's probably worth waiting and seeing how Win11 develops.
 
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The Ugly One said:
Switch to Linux, it runs every game and is super easy to use
Okay, there's a learning curve
Well, not every game, but only marginal edge cases
Okay, quite a few mainstream games don't work, but that's normie shit you're better off without
===== YOU ARE HERE =====
Writing custom config files to get game launchers to work is part of the fun of owning a computer
Of course system updates break games sometimes
GIMP is just as good as Photoshop
OpenShot is just as good as Premiere
If LibreOffice isn't good enough for you, try being less of a normie
Right, so your NVIDIA GPU, you probably want to get rid of it
They're not workarounds for bugs, they're "manual interventions"
Of course a game platform installer might delete your desktop. This is normal. Why wouldn't it be?
Why were you expecting your hardware to just work?
Of course you would have that problem, you're using a normie distro.
Listen, this wasn't a problem before systemd
Of course it doesn't work, but that's because NVIDIA is evil
You know what your problem is? You want everything spoon-fed to you. You look at a computer as a mere appliance, not as a way of life. People like you have ruined computers.
REEEEEEEE NORMIES GET OUT REEEEEEEEE
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Cope, sneed, and stay on your normie os.
 
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Kosher Dill said:
But on the other hand, Win10 took years to stop being a lolcow, and anyone who bought 2015 or 2016 LTSC locked in too soon (unless they had a specific dependency on a specific kernel version). It's probably worth waiting and seeing how Win11 develops.
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Yeah the only compelling reason I can think of to go to Windows 11 right now is to get the scheduler for 12th generation or newer Intel CPUs. Since I don't have one of those I should be good with LTSC Windows 10 for a while.
 
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King Vidiot said:
Yeah the only compelling reason I can think of to go to Windows 11 right now is to get the scheduler for 12th generation or newer Intel CPUs. Since I don't have one of those I should be good with LTSC Windows 10 for a while.
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Well lucky me. I have a 12 gen Intel core. I already like 11 on my laptop, probably will get it over 10
 
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Mango Cobra said:
Hey everyone, I'm building a new PC and I was thinking about looking into the Win10 LTSC that Null talked about like a year ago on MATI. How good is it for gaming? And more importantly, how do I get access to it, if it is good for gaming?
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I know that is is a two month old thread but if you absolutely need Windows for gaming you can use a normal edition of Windows 10 or 11 (that is either Home or Professional). LTSC works as long as you are wiling to grab the drivers by yourself since it's a version NOT designed for desktop PCs but rather enterprise environments but it's been ages since I've used a LTSC version so take what I've said with a grain of salt.
I can also recommend you Bulk Crap Uninstaller for completely uninstalling applications that you might not use in a clean way and O&O ShutUp10++ for almost disabling telemetry on Windows 10 and 11.
Keep in mind that Windows 11 in it's default configuration requires TPM 2.0, at least 4GB of RAM and Secure Boot which can all be disabled (read: circumvented) if you flash a Windows 11 ISO with Rufus.

Edit: You can also use an online activator to change the Windows edition to an enterprise version (which lets you almost completely disable telemetry via the group policy settings).
 
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Kosher Dill said:
EDIT: and if you're building a new PC, be careful that your CPU is fully supported by whatever Windows kernel you choose. In particular, Intel chips with the "big.LITTLE" architecture (12th generation and onward) won't work at full efficiency on anything but Win10 22H2 or Win11. That would rule out any LTSC build that currently exists.
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So the CPU I want to do is Intel Core i7-14700K Desktop Processor...that doesn't sound like the one you're describing.
 
Xarpho's Return said:
So the CPU I want to do is Intel Core i7-14700K Desktop Processor...that doesn't sound like the one you're describing.
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That's a 14th-generation Intel, which wouldn't work well on LTSC.
See the part about "Performance Cores" and "Efficient Cores" (p-cores/e-cores). Any CPU with that architecture, Windows' scheduler won't work efficiently on if the kernel is older than 22H2. LTSC will still run, but I'm assuming if you're building a new computer you do care about getting full performance out of it.
 
I just came here to demistify the idea that you're locked into either the consumer Windows or the LTS Windows. This is incorrect. If you feed it the ISO of what you want to jump to and give it the correct key, it will accept it, and you can do an in-place upgrade, keeping all your stuff.

A while back, on bare metal, I jumped from Win10 20H2 to Win10 21H2 LTSC. And if for some reason I regretted this and absolutely needed Win10 22H2 I could just feed it that ISO and again give it the key.
I just tested these scenarios in virtual machines to confirm it's still the case. There is complete fluidity from one to the other.

This is true for Windows 10, and I'm going to assume 11 won't/didn't change this.

This will likely mean letting go of your genuine activation (if you had one to begin with), but...do you actually care about? :)
 
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Jang Joo said:
This will likely mean letting go of your genuine activation (if you had one to begin with)
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If you were actually legit in the first place you should be fine. To run LTSC "by-the-book", you need to have an existing license for Win10 Pro (or I think even 8.1 or 7 Pro), plus the upgrade to LTSC as a separate license. So if you wanted to downgrade back to Pro, you'd really just be stopping use of your LTSC license and going back to your still-legitimately-licensed Pro.
As for switching between LTSC versions, when you buy one it typically comes with downgrade rights where you can install any single one of a few different versions. Microsoft doesn't care as long as it all adds up in the end and the number of installations you have at any given time doesn't exceed the number of licenses you have at that time. They don't even really check this in the same aggressive way as places like Adobe - there's no deactivation procedure for licenses if you trash an old machine, and the cap on reinstallations under the same license is something quite high like 50.
I'm sure if you bought one license and installed it 50 times in a day it'd probably raise some eyebrows, but the system is pretty easygoing.

Jang Joo said:
but...do you actually care about?
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Alright so there is two games I wanna play that I just can't get to work on LTSC (Diablo 4 and The First Descendant). Looks like I'm going to have to upgrade.

Can I upgrade from LTSC or do I need to do a complete reinstall? If I need a complete reinstall what version would you guys recommend? Just go straight to Windows 11 with O&O Shut Up and the Titus stuff?
 
BatterHomes&Gardens said:
Alright so there is two games I wanna play that I just can't get to work on LTSC (Diablo 4 and The First Descendant). Looks like I'm going to have to upgrade.

Can I upgrade from LTSC or do I need to do a complete reinstall? If I need a complete reinstall what version would you guys recommend? Just go straight to Windows 11 with O&O Shut Up and the Titus stuff?
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Which build of Windows 10 LTSC are you using?
 
The state of modern gaming. They are coded to only work on a specific version of Windows 10, meanwhile older games could run from Windows 98 to XP, 7 and with some patches even on 10/11.
 
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seri0us said:
That build came out in 2018, the 2021 Windows LTSC build might work with your games: https://pastebin.com/ywkasnhM
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Thank you so much for this! Exactly what I was looking for.

EDIT: This worked perfectly for Diablo 4 and The First Descendant.

EDIT II: Diablo 4 does not work. It requires version 1909. The 2021 LTSC is 1904

Looks light I might be upgrading to 11.
 
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