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Games run faster on SteamOS than Windows 11, Ars testing finds
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Linux will never be mainstream while it's controlled by nerds. I mean there is no uniform interface (there's so many guitar options) and when people want to learn it, the support is from people who think "it just works".
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Take aways: * Sample set is of 5 games * Lenovo drivers are much slower than Asus * There are 2 games where windows is neck to neck or better, 3 where SteamOS is far ahead Some doubts: * Did the author run the benchmarks few times to rule out shader compilation. 99%ile would be helpful. * I wonder if it makes sense to test DirectX10, 11 and 12 games separately to better understand where Proton has an edge. * I wonder what all settings can be tweaked in Windows to find potential fixes (core isolation, cpu boost, power profiles). Point is Microsoft and OEMs need to do better, however not every game or subscription services work on Linux, so in the interim time users should know what they can do to close the gap better.> Did the author run the benchmarks few times to rule out shader compilation. Why should the author rule it out? Honest question. If shader compilation leads so worse real world experience for gamers on Windows than SteamOS, it is a valid point to include.
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I think this time actually does have the potential to be different. They're co-launching an Xbox-branded handheld PC designed to go head-to-head with the Steam Deck while downplaying the future of dedicated consoles. Microsoft's gaming division is going all-in on PC, so it matters more than ever.
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I think this time actually does have the potential to be different. They're co-launching an Xbox-branded handheld PC designed to go head-to-head with the Steam Deck while downplaying the future of dedicated consoles. Microsoft's gaming division is going all-in on PC, so it matters more than ever.
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They said all those exact corporate blowhard promises when the introduced the gamebar and the Xbox windows store and a “gaming mode” lol.Yeah, but they were also still making new standalone gaming boxes with a dedicated OS, and they didn't have the Xbox division take the lead on game mode. Linux and Mac gaming also weren't a threat, and the solution to a bloated Windows installation was more horsepower, which was relatively cheap. Now the market is completely changed. The Xbox Series S and X have had their lunch eaten by Playstion and Switch. Linux gaming is exploding because of the Steam Deck, while more-powerful Windows handhelds are performing worse with worse batteries than the Deck because of Windows bloat. Mid-range GPUs cost more than an entire high-end gaming rig from 5 years ago, so high-end gaming PCs are rarer than ever. Microsoft *has* to do something. And what they've chosen, for now, is to partner with Asus to launch a true Xbox-branded competitor to the Deck. To do that, they have to actually be competitive. There's 2 keys to that. One is Gamepass, and the other is moving Windows out of the way of the game experience.
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Vulkan isn't magic, its power comes from the flexibility it gives developers in its API. If developers are using DirectX, especially older versions, then they're not utilizing that flexibility. If DirectX code performs better through a Vulkan translation layer than on Windows, it means the driver implementations or OS bloat are what's causing it. With your theory, you could run a DirectX to Vulkan translation layer on Windows and also get increased performance. Which may be true, but once again points the finger at bad drivers.> With your theory, you could run a DirectX to Vulkan translation layer on Windows and also get increased performance. Which may be true, but once again points the finger at bad drivers. Yes, from what I've been told that actually does improve performance in many games.
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Your other doubts and concerns seem slightly biased, e.g. wondering what settings could be tweaked on only one of the systems being tested and then reminding us all that there do still exist some things that won't run on SteamOS. It's only that one that is outright ridiculous.Biased to what? Point of comparison is to figure out why things are the way they are and use that information to get the best of both worlds? It's not very helpful if the conclusion stops at "x is better than y". Going deeper into "why" Proton is doing better in 3/5 games but not in 2/5 will only help users of both operating systems to make better informed decisions and get everyone closer to root cause other than "bloated windows" or "just use linux", potentially even leading to improvements to both sides.
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> Did the author run the benchmarks few times to rule out shader compilation. Why should the author rule it out? Honest question. If shader compilation leads so worse real world experience for gamers on Windows than SteamOS, it is a valid point to include.Because I'm more curious about why things are the way they are just like the author, and would like to understand this with more data points, only making the comparison more helpful. I'm not saying author "should" consider impact of shader compilation, but I'm saying had they done, we'd understand the difference better. Saying "RTX 5060 is better than 9060 XT" with 5 games tested is one level of comparison, but if they are grouped into RT and non RT games, games with 8gb and 16gb VRAM requirements, games with and without nVidia partnership, isn't that just more detailed and an even better comparison point?
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Look... Regardless of metrics saying one is faster, Linux is where everyone should be. I say that knowing full well the anger it'll cause. These corporations do not respect the user. They shovel ads, AI, spyware and half baked software down our throats. They restrict what you can do with your own hardware with artificial barriers. They force reliance on "industry standard" bs when they're the industry benefiting. The only power we have is our money and our choices, and choosing to take the abuse because of fucking Fortnite or Photoshop is as pathetic as it comes.Preach. Studios that make games with anti cheats and what not should reconsider how they handle Linux as they'll only get even more players, who'll probably be even more loyal due to their Linux compatibility. I know cheating is a big issue in online games, but adding invasive kernel level code to detect that is just adding system level vulnerabilities just to prevent cheaters from cheating seems like an overkill. It's not like cheating mouse and keyboards don't exist and cheaters have evaporated entirely due to anti cheat.
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I believe it, Windows bloat these days is so bad. I keep telling my friends Tarkov runs better on Linux if they'd just let me play the goddamn multiplayer I'd be goldenTarkov runs on Linux!? I thought they had kernel anticheat that didn't work
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This is really not surprising to anyone who has used modern windows and Linux recently. Windows is so incredibly bloated, whereas Linux is a true real-time OS basically out of the box.
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I'm really curious to see what kind of performance gains the Xbox-mode or whatever they're calling it is going to provide. I don't know if it'll reach SteamOS levels, but it does legitimately look like they're taking the bloat's hit on gaming seriously with the Xbox-branded ROG Ally. The reality is that mostly people aren't going to leave Windows, so if Valve and Linux force Windows to improve it's still a win.> The reality is that mostly people aren't going to leave Windows, so if Valve and Linux force Windows to improve it's still a win. While I mostly agree with this, every time I see this mentioned it reminds me that MS-DOS was not very popular, until a Microsoft employee offered to port Doom to DOS, because he saw that if games ran on a platform people would use it and migrate naturally, that employee was called Gabe Newell. So I do have some hope that there's some bigger migration, and in fact we've seen the numbers steadily rising, and these sort of things tend to be exponential, so I wouldn't be surprised if it picks up speed.
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> The reality is that mostly people aren't going to leave Windows, so if Valve and Linux force Windows to improve it's still a win. While I mostly agree with this, every time I see this mentioned it reminds me that MS-DOS was not very popular, until a Microsoft employee offered to port Doom to DOS, because he saw that if games ran on a platform people would use it and migrate naturally, that employee was called Gabe Newell. So I do have some hope that there's some bigger migration, and in fact we've seen the numbers steadily rising, and these sort of things tend to be exponential, so I wouldn't be surprised if it picks up speed.
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DOS was the most popular OS for gaming at the time and Doom was released first on DOS by id. Gabe Newell and team ported it to Windows 95.
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Are you saying we should run Linux Subsystem inside Windows inside a VM on Linux for maximum performance?
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Proton is amazing, but it's entirely overhead translating library/system calls to Linux. It's accurate to say they run better on SteamOS, not to say Proton is making it run better. Now maybe Proton makes them run better than a janky but native Linux port, but that's a separate statement about games being better optimized on Windows.They're not only being better optimized on Windows which results that running them through Proton is better. In a lot of cases Windows versions actually run, while native Linux don't, because there's no single stable API (ABI? Idk) on Linux and games break when you update your system.
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There is overhead but Vulkan allows you to batch draw calls in a far more efficient manner. It can also generally use multi threading to feed a GPU even if the game isn't coded with that in mind. Basically Vulkan offers so many improvements to efficiency and parallelization that the overhead is a drop in the bucket compared to the overall speedup in draw call optimization alone.
