  Some single-crystalline materials present an electrical resistivity which
decreases between room temperature and low temperatures at zero magnetic field
as in a good metal and switches to a nearly semiconductinglike behavior at low
temperatures with the application of a magnetic field. Often, this is
accompanied by a huge and nonsaturating linear magnetoresistance which remains
difficult to explain. Here we present a systematic study of the
magnetoresistance in single-crystal $\gamma$-PtBi$_2$. We observe that the
angle between the magnetic field and the crystalline $c$ axis fundamentally
changes the magnetoresistance, going from a saturating to a nonsaturating
magnetic field dependence. In between, there is one specific angle where the
magnetoresistance is perfectly linear with the magnetic field. We show that the
linear dependence of the nonsaturating magnetoresistance is due to the
formation of open orbits in the Fermi surface of $\gamma$-PtBi$_2$.
