Running a windows game using Proton-GE 10.4 and a Wayland desktop is even faster still.
This reminds me of when I got Spore on Optical disc for my (brand new at the time) Intel iMac. The disc was ISO9660 with both Joliet and HFS extensions, so if you put it in Windows, it would show up natively and if you put it in a Mac, it would also be native.
After a few games in MacOSX I was disappointed with the performance so I started to dig and realised it was the Windows Binary with some sort of WINE-like translation layer. I assumed it would run better natively in Windows.
I installed Bootcamp and a stripped-down version of Windows Vista and then installed the native Windows version. It installed a Root kit that broke most of Vistas security and the game ran even worse and crashed constantly.
I don’t think that Microsoft deserves all the blame for games running like shit natively. The users who pirate games and the studios who don’t trust Windows users to not pirate games deserve the blame as well.
Microsoft (and Post-Jobs Apple) definitely do deserve a lot of blame for allowing their platforms to get so bloated with so many features that users don’t want. Copilot should have been laughed out of the boardroom and Apple Intelligence is an underperforming, overly obnoxious know-nothing know-it-all.
But what you gain in performance you lose in data mining. Imagine not being graped for personal information after you paid extra to get it.
I think you’re mixing it up; the study shows that SteamOS has better performance than Windows, not the other way around. Seems to be a lose-lose for Windows.
I think you missed the joke.
I guess things run faster without the spyware, logging, and other general bullshit running in the background. Who could’ve guessed?
Device made with software specifically for purpose performs better than generic machine with generic software designed to do a wide range of things. All of my machines are on Linux distros, but this just seems like a no brainer to me. It’s like years ago when the mustang had a 4.6L V8. It was the same engine used in the Ford explorer. Will the Mustang beat the Explorer to 60, of course. But the Explorer will also transport 5 people to the beach with coolers and beach gear and drive in the sand.
It’s good that SteamOS is doing well, but the variety of tasks people are using Windows for cannot be performed on SteamOS.
What?
SteamOS is just an immutable version of Arch Linux, with some Valve flavor and preinstalled apps.
SteamOS is a full fat Linux distro. I use the desktop mode every day
So does the application menu
Just to be clear, this is testing the same handheld on both Steam and Windows and is in line with previous findings on a small set of AAA games.
Best guess, as someone who runs both Linux and Windows on both handhelds and desktop gaming PCs, the issue here is probably memory and driver optimizations around them. Windows is just heavier than SteamOS and, while the 32 GB in the Legion Go should be enough for at least some of these tested games, they are shared between CPU and GPU. I don’t have a Go S, but I’ve seen significant performance improvements on Windows handhelds by manually assignign more VRAM in heavy games like these.
Shame, I’ve been waiting for more thorough testing (more games, desktop hardware references and a deeper look at memory management in Windows, but this is pretty superficial still.
The Legion Go only has 16GB of RAM natively.
Idk if I’d call pc gaming still a tinkerers game, it’s 2025, console games have pretty glaring issues too.
Maybe wine/proton is just better at Windowsing than Windows is.
It is in some ways. I can tell you I tried to run Prototype 2 on a handheld today and it didn’t run natively on Windows 11 because it’s old but putting it into a Proton session and keeping it contained did wonders for it and the Deck ran it maxed out at 90fps (you forget it can do that if you insist on playing modern games on it, but man, does it look nice on the OLED).
So hey, it certainly Windows 8s better than Windows 11. There is that.
But it’s not magic, so I’d still like to figure out what we’re seeing in these examples.
1: SteamOS don’t run unnecessary services in the background. (especially stuff like print services and other random shit)
1b: Even regular Linux, which does run a bunch of extra services, still generally has less overhead because it’s still being optimized for lighter weight systems, and it idles more efficiently too. Meanwhile Windows doesn’t have a good way to tell your printer driver and its corresponding services to shut up when you’re gaming.
2: Antivirus programs
3: Drivers, graphics system. This is both a plus and minus, but for performance mostly plus. More efficient driver model, less overhead again. Sometimes the performance comes from lacking features which doesn’t get executed fully, though. Sometimes it comes from translating to Vulkan, because DirectX has some more overhead (and in these specific cases you can get the same performance boost on Windows by switching to Vulkan).
Ever found a way around Lutris asking for a CD for games? I was using Lutris and one of the games I tried installing from a mounted ISO installed, yet I can’t find any way to get Lutris to recognize the mounted drive as the CD. Tried adding it to Steam as a non-steam game as well and get the same result. Tried various versions of proton and wine, but I assume I need to direct it to the ISO somewhere… But couldn’t find anyone who had an answer online.
I haven’t tried, sorry. I use Heroic rather than Lutris for my non-Steam digital libraries and I haven’t messed around with older physical releases too much, so I don’t know what Lutris is expecting. Maybe someone else here can help?
Maybe I’ll look into Heroic tomorrow, thanks for the info though, never used it before
Heroic is very straightforward, as long as what you want is access to your GoG, Epic, Amazon and Battle.Net libraries. Lutris is meant as a more general purpose launcher, so they’re aiming at slightly different use cases that overlap.
Heroic won’t solve your Lutris ISO problem, but if you want to play some non-Steam ways it works great, is easy to use and is very Steam-like.
Duh
I bet the ps5 os runs games batter too lol
“Game focused os runs games better” isn’t that amazing. It should be obvious.
Never mind. You people are children.
There’s nothing else in your comment anymore. Why say anything in the first place if you’re just going to change your mind about it and give up? There’s something to be said for making up your mind before you talk. All your comment really says is “I have no convictions”.
Cry more :)
That’s just a stupid claim, SteamOS is Linux based, and every Linux distro generally have the same optimizations SteamOS has.
Windows is simply not as efficient as Linux is.
For instance multi threading has traditionally worked better in Linux, but there has also been made massive improvements in the kernel to improve graphics card performance, with entirely new technologies introduced a few years ago to achieve that.These things also benefit CAD and other 3D-software, so it’s not just a “gaming” thing. Linux is simply generally more efficient than Windows.
Valve has done a lot to help improve performance on Linux, and these improvements are merged into the respective main projects, like kernel and drivers of graphics libraries. The same is simply not possible in Windows.
Windows used to have a clear advantage in that all optimizations by GPU vendors were made primarily for Windows and Linux was just an afterthought. Also games were made for DirectX which is native for Windows, and a compatibility layer for Linux.
So for decades games made for both generally ran better on Windows.So it is absolutely impressive that Linux can now run games faster than Windows. Despite having only a fraction the marketshare.
Tell me what Steam OS is designed specifically for.
Ill wait.
You can install Steam on a perfectly standard distro, and achieve the exact same performance.
Show me the test that demonstrate games run faster on SteamOS than Arch which SteamOS derives from.Running a translation layer that allows windows games to run
What OS are all games optimized for?
The amazing thing is that there is often a translation layer involved and it still runs faster. And as it was pointed out, this can also be achieved with a “normal” Linux system.
The fact that a 3rd party offers better performance than the platform’s creators is a pretty big indictment of Microsoft’s stewardship of Windows.
Steam OS isn’t on Windows.
Duh. Reread what I wrote.
Linux fan boys are the worst
You do realize you’re in a Linux gaming community?
You can quickly and easily filter this community out from being shown to you.
So? Does than mean common sense doesn’t matter here?
No.
From your replies it appears so.
Apparently it does to you.
Linux runs games faster even outside of Steam OS.
Ok. That doesn’t change the fact Steam OS is specifically game focused.
Except that it’s not. It’s just arch Linux with some modifications for the steam deck/handheld mode. It’s not like they built a new kernel specifically for the steam deck. Which is why the other persons correct.
It’s not like they built a new kernel specifically for the steam deck.
I agree that the majority of the impact being seen is from various components that aren’t SteamOS specific, however Valve does actually have a custom kernel for the Steam Deck “linux-neptune” (there are quite a few mirrors for browsing, but this is the official source).
I believe most of their changes are just to drive the deck’s hardware. Every now and then there are some changes that Valve contributes that lands there first before it gets upstreamed, for example the Arch Wiki calls out the Steam Deck’s kernel as a way to fix issues between HDR & VRR (shouldn’t be needed anymore on modern mainline kernels).
