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Three gaming-focused Linux operating systems beat Windows 11 in gaming benchmarks
(www.tomshardware.com)
Soooo when did Arch become a gaming focused OS?
this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2023
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Since Valve decided that.
I upvoted but it sounds hostile. Since valve started using and contributing to arch appears to be more reasonable.
No arch btw.
it sounds hostile.
I like my Steam Deck. Why would I be hostile? You're reading too much into a concise statement.
Many readers are overly sensitive these days. If you use things like a period on the end of your sentences, and don't include emojis, then anything you say will be called out as "hostile" by some people.
Also, I've noticed many people ignore qualifiers in speech. If you use qualifiers thoughtfully, having them ignored by the reader can lead to miscommunication. I think the fact that so many people have used them without thought has led to a blindness for qualifiers. OTH, not including qualifiers can make us sound authoritative and even arrogant to some people.
For instance, in my first sentence, above, I said "Many readers...", and "...things like...", and "...by some people." If you ignore those qualifiers, what I said takes on a very different tone.
Can't win for losing.
Pretty much this.
Doesn't matter. Easy of use + compatibility trumps all.
More like, "doesn't matter -- not being tracked > all." :^)
Even so, Linux is easier to use than Windows (yes, I went there.) because of a single and only fact:
Configuration files.
Does the average Windows user can configure EVERYTHING through a SINGLE configuration/text file, that explicitly says "what does what"? Video, sound, window size, hotkeys....?
No? So there you have it.
Windows has a configuration file, it's called a registry. Always has been.
I've been using arch and manjaro for the past 3 years with awesomewm and gnome (can't get awesomewm to behave with second monitor while gaming so I switch to gnome when using the second monitor, using laptop) and this has pretty much been my experience. Windows is bloated and it never"just works".
Windows never works so much that you have to switch between distros to do different stuff, ahahaha! Oh my, the delusion...
Windows almost always just works.
This seems crazy to say when talking about Linux. Especially when saying you have to switch to use dual monitors.
Linux allows you to change anything. Like using a WM that's specifically made for enthusiasts, and developed by random people in their spare time.
Windows doesn't allow you to move the taskbar.
Who'd guess some Linux setups are not going to be plug and play...
Windows allows you to do anything. If you don't know how - that's the problem of your skills.
Ok, but what about Nvidia GPUs? Those are what the the vast majority of gamers use.
Does it really matter? The majority buy Nvidia due to mindshare, the same probably goes for why they use Windows.
The majority buys NVIDIA, because NVIDIA cards are just better.
At least in terms of the latest features, like RTX. If you're only interested in raster performance, AMD works quite well and provides excellent value.
Not just the latest features. NVENC is better for both streaming and untethered VR, CUDA is usually better supported by photo/video/3D/CAD software, etc. AMD is only good if you're only playing games and can't afford an NVIDIA card.
Or you're like me and use Linux and value better drivers (e.g. Wayland support, no update bugs on rolling release distros, etc) over those other features.
And on Windows as well, if you're buying mid-range, you're probably not going to have a good experience with those other features, so you should go with AMD. The premium for buying Nvidia at the mid-range often isn't worth it.
Well, I don't buy midrange, personally. As I tend to use my GPU for hobbies and work, I tend to buy the best thing available on the market.
And even when I play games, I play in 4K exclusively, for the past seven years :)
Is arch really gaming focused though?
SteamOS is based on Arch, likely why they picked it.
That's like saying PlayStation 5 and Switch are based on FreeBSD, so you should game on FreeBSD (well, not quite, but hopefully the point is clear). FreeBSD isn't good for gaming, it's just liberally licensed and easy to build on top of, hence why it's used.
Valve has reasons to use an Arch base, and none of them have anything to do with any specific benefit regarding gaming. It's easy to fork and maintain customized build files for since it makes so few assumptions (packages are as vanilla as possible in Arch, so it's easier to maintain a patch set).
Valve likely has patches in SteamOS that haven't made it to upstream Arch, and there's likely a number of packages that are quite outdated vs upstream Arch, so installing upstream Arch will give you quite a different experience vs SteamOS.
Arch is focused on being cutting-edge and lightweight which happens to be perfect for gaming performance in most cases but that's all.
Arch is focused on however you put it together
Arch is focused like the same way a beach is a camera lens.
Exactly. The only thing Arch focuses on is not focusing on anything. They ship packages as vanilla as possible, have pretty much no default configuration, etc. In short, they try to make as few assumptions as possible.
It ends up being pretty good for gaming because Linux is pretty good for gaming. They're explicitly not doing anything special here.
I recently switched to ubuntu in a gaming laptop, right now I've been using it just for jellyfin and some other coding tasks, but it definitely runs smoother, more stable, quicker, and cooler than windows did for the same workload.
I was surprised at the difference of even just having the machine idle, on windows it was noticeable warm, now on ubuntu it's almost as if it has been turned off.
Honestly, at this point -- If Valve made a more generalized Linux OS... or even at the very least started making honest proposals at unifying how the OS ran, so that their efforts in getting gaming to work on it could be more widely productive; we could see a radical shift in adoption.
Now now, I'm not saying YEAR OF LINUX ON THE DESKTOP!! - but Valve would be a great mother for fostering an ecosystem that would potentially make Microsoft compete by not making their OS shittier year-by-year.
If Valve made a Linux OS... or even at the very least started making honest proposals at unifying how the OS ran, so that their efforts in getting gaming to work on it could be more widely productive; we could see a radical shift in adoption.
Sorry, does SteamOS 3 not count? Is Valve's massive investment in Mesa, Wine, Wayland (HDR, Gamescope, etc) not exactly what you're talking about? I feel like we're living in parallel dimensions or something lol
Yh it does count although it only supports a certain set of hardware. Not entirely sure if that's true though.
Yes but the improvements and contributing Valve made to various packages in the Linux ecosystem and the kernel were all pushed upstream meaning any Linux distribution can benefit from them.