this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2025

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Games run faster on SteamOS than Windows 11, Ars testing finds (arstechnica.com)

submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago

And the sky is blue.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Windows runs better on Linux than on Windows…

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Linux runs better on Windows than Windows.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 days ago (4 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 days ago (5 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

I recently switched from windows (with a debloat scrpit ran on it) to linux mint and I was shocked at how much faster it booted. When I turn my pc on I usually get up and do something else for a bit (not because windows is THAT slow but because I could spend the minute it takes to turn on to make lunch or something) and linux booted before I was out of my chair.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

While the bloat exists, even debloated windows wouldn't match proton because that's not the only reason. Despite bloat there are two games in this test the actually do similar or better than SteamOS. This means there's a confounding reason for the difference, not the bloat.

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[–] [email protected] -3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Did the author run the benchmarks few times to rule out shader compilation

Really grasping at straws there, eh? I'm no big fan of Ars but I hope we can assume they're not quite that incompetent.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

Methodology is important to a robust result. It's weird that you take issue with their considerations there.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It's not a slight, as I said it's a doubt, not criticism. I'm not saying "did the author EVEN ..."

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Oh dear Microsoft, you had everything and you pissed it away again

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I last checked in December. At that time Linux had an all time high usage rate of 5.6%. For a platform that's existed since the early 90s, 5.6% is the highest they'd ever achieved.

So I wouldn't exactly say microsoft EVER pissed it away. They still have, and always have had, dominant market share of users. And they do so by charging hundreds of dollars as opposed to a free alternative.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

They had internet explorer dominance, they pissed that away

They had PC gaming OS dominance, they're now pissing that away

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago (2 children)

The closest thing they had to internet explorer dominance is saying that it was manditory to be installed in every OS. The OS had market dominance, and you couldn't uninstall internet explorer.

But actual usage? Everybody used Netscape.

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[–] [email protected] 77 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Games run faster on SteamOS with proton than Windows 11, Ars testing finds

FTFY. I hate all these articles that downplay the heavy lifting proton (and all the tools that make it up) are doing. But "Proton makes games run better" doesn't get the same attention.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Would love to see tests like this attempting to use DXVK etc (as part of their testing on Windows) to better isolate more factors

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 days ago

I’m not sure it’s a Wine/Proton thing, it’s quite likely to be suboptimal at some things because it’s reverse engineered (not to diminish technical marvel that it is and decades of effort). Regular desktop Windows has just way too much overhead coming from everywhere.

As a side note, back in the day when Nvidia released drivers for FreeBSD using Linux binary compatibility layer was even faster than Linux for gaming.

[–] [email protected] 68 points 2 days ago (5 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Hogwarts legacy, which is a exe, runs on proton but not on windows 10. I'd say proton runs better than windows.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 days ago

That's hilarious, but not really the same thing.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Proton is amazing, but it’s entirely overhead translating library/system calls to Linux.

That is not at all true.

but that’s a separate statement about games being better optimized on Windows.

Is that though? You can't say X is better than Y when you're changing multiple variables. If windows had a proton equivalent and both games ran through it then yes that would be a direct comparison. But you can't say X + Y is better than Z (by itself)

DXVK is a part of proton that also is available on windows. DXVK alone can get you double digit performance improvements on games. And that's not getting into all the one off tweaks users can do to proton to optimize the game. Enabling pre compiled shaders gave a huge performance boost for Elden Ring.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 days ago (5 children)

How is running an extra compatibility layer not overhead?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago (2 children)

The compatibility layer is overhead, but the key difference for many games is that DXVK swaps directX for Vulkan, and Vulkan often gets better performance.

The performance gains of using steamOS are twofold, there's less OS load (this is particularly noticeable in low performance games, windows will consume much more battery on a game like Dead Cells than SteamOS will), and there's also a vulkan performance increase for some games. My understanding is if you see a big performance increase in a demanding game, that's usually thanks to vulkan.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

entirely

It's not just overhead.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 days ago

Shh just let him wear himself out.

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[–] [email protected] 111 points 2 days ago (9 children)

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 golden

[–] [email protected] 36 points 2 days ago (11 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 days ago (25 children)

I think we're beginning to see a serious shift about how people view Linux. I do think valve being on Linux will significantly legitimizes it, and drivers will become much more accessible for it. In the next decade I think we will see a big migration of gamers to Linux. Being on Linux myself, the experience is even more streamlined and less glitchy than just a year ago, just because of the widespread adoption of OS's like steamOS and bazzite.