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

(arstechnica.com)
402 points _JamesA_ | 33 comments | 25 Jun 25 19:40 UTC | HN request time: 0.063s | source | bottom
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haswell ◴[25 Jun 25 21:31 UTC] No.44382004[source]▶
In my purely anecdotal experience over the last few years, performance ranking is as follows:

1. Steam on Linux via Proton + Wayland (Niri)

2. Steam on Linux via Proton + X11 (Xfce)

3. Steam on Windows

4. Games on Linux launched via other means (it's possible I was missing out on certain flags/optimizations, but this is just about the average experience)

The biggest thing I noticed when switching to Linux was an improvement in framerate consistency, i.e. I'd have fewer situations where the framerate would drop momentarily. Games felt more solid and predictable.

The biggest thing I noticed when switching from X11/Xfce to Wayland/Niri was just an overall increase in framerate. I'd failed this jump many times over the years, so it was notable when I jumped and stayed there earlier this year.

It does feel like games take longer to launch on average, but this makes sense given the fact that it's launching via Proton/Wine.

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thewebguyd ◴[25 Jun 25 21:44 UTC] No.44382091[source]▶
Interestingly enough, I've had games that had both a native Linux port and Windows version, and the Windows version through Proton ran better than the native Linux version. This ended up being true for Civ5, Civ6 and Cities Skylines (1).

With those admittedly limited examples though, I don't experience the same ranking in performance, but I attribute that to my non-gaming hardware vs. any problem with Linux or Proton/Wine. I play on a laptop with an Nvidia 3050 laptop GPU, and I get much better performance in Windows still. In Cities Skylines, for example, I'll get ~20 fps on Linux via Proton (but I do experience what you said, it's consistent no major spikes or drops) while on Windows I get between 45-60fps up until about 15k population or so.

Other games, despite working, remain unplayable to me due to performance. I can play Diablo 4 on windows no problem on medium settings, but even on low it's just too unresponsive on Linux.

Anyway, just my anecdotal experience. Those with dedicated gaming rigs will be more than fine with Linux, but those of us on underpowered hardware still seem better off with Windows, unfortunately.

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1. umbra07 ◴[25 Jun 25 23:05 UTC] No.44382625[source]▶
> Anyway, just my anecdotal experience. Those with dedicated gaming rigs will be more than fine with Linux, but those of us on underpowered hardware still seem better off with Windows, unfortunately.

On the other hand, Linux (or more accurately, the Linux desktop ecosystem) doesn't support a lot of high-end PC gaming features well: HDR, Nvidia GPUs, VR, etc.

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2. weiliddat ◴[25 Jun 25 23:20 UTC] No.44382716[source]▶
AFAICT HDR is supported, like on the Steam Deck
replies(1): >>44385122 #
3. thfuran ◴[25 Jun 25 23:36 UTC] No.44382810[source]▶
Can you even watch decent Netflix on Linux yet?
replies(1): >>44384300 #
4. dcl ◴[25 Jun 25 23:44 UTC] No.44382851[source]▶
Doesn't support NVIDIA GPU's!? Is this a display or gaming specific thing?

All the ML people are using NVIDIA GPU's on Linux.

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5. _aavaa_ ◴[25 Jun 25 23:48 UTC] No.44382867[source]▶
To the extent that Linux doesn’t support nvidia gpu it is actually Nvidia not supporting Linux and keeping their drivers proprietary.
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6. benley ◴[26 Jun 25 00:09 UTC] No.44383014[source]▶
There are indeed nvidia drivers for Linux and they're reasonably good for gaming, but the feature set sometimes lags far behind windows. There is no DLSS 3 for Linux, for instance. (as of a few months ago anyway - I haven't checked recently)
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7. dcl ◴[26 Jun 25 00:50 UTC] No.44383214{3}[source]▶
Ahh rightio. That's a shame.
8. komali2 ◴[26 Jun 25 00:55 UTC] No.44383235[source]▶
Nvidia support across the desktop ecosystem is poor, for example practically nonfunctional in Sway. And just buggy in other Wayland based desktop environments (kde seems to be the best in my experience).
replies(2): >>44384327 #>>44385120 #
9. onli ◴[26 Jun 25 04:58 UTC] No.44384300[source]▶
Up to full HD, depending on what Netflix streams out. But this has nothing to do with graphics drivers or GPU performance.
replies(1): >>44387054 #
10. maxhille ◴[26 Jun 25 05:04 UTC] No.44384327{3}[source]▶
WRT Nvidia+Sway this was certainly true not so long ago. But since the latest Ubuntu release and with a recent driver I am running this combo and it works flawlessly.
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11. preisschild ◴[26 Jun 25 06:30 UTC] No.44384721[source]▶
> On the other hand, Linux (or more accurately, the Linux desktop ecosystem) doesn't support a lot of high-end PC gaming features well: HDR, Nvidia GPUs, VR, etc.

> HDR

Already supported

> Nvidia GPUs

You have it the wrong way around. NVIDIA had issues supporting Linux, not Linux supporting NVIDIA. AMD drivers work fine, so its not a linux specific issue.

> VR

SteamVR works though?

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12. komali2 ◴[26 Jun 25 06:48 UTC] No.44384832{4}[source]▶
Really! I'm happy to hear it, I'll give it a try on my desktop this weekend. I would love to get all my machines on the same desktop environment once and for all.
13. cassianoleal ◴[26 Jun 25 07:25 UTC] No.44385038[source]▶
> > HDR > Already supported

Is it though? I confess I haven’t tried in a few weeks but until last time I did, to get HDR in games you had to start a session with `gamescope` rather than a DE, and still had to set a bunch of flags - and in some ways have a very subpar experience with problems with mouse movements and other issues I can’t recall.

I exclusively game on Linux and I find the experience far superior than doing anything on the other OS, but last I checked HDR was not actually supported.

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14. baobun ◴[26 Jun 25 07:39 UTC] No.44385120{3}[source]▶
I'm doing PCI passthrough of a 1080 to an archaic tiling X11 window manager and so far it Just Works with noeveau. XFCE also worked fine before I decided I don't want a full DE. Rock stable. I will move dists before I move to Wayland by the looks of it.

i3 should be pretty easy switch from sway if you haven't tried.

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15. ChocolateGod ◴[26 Jun 25 07:39 UTC] No.44385122[source]▶
HDR on Nvidia with Linux is still very glitchy, I've had the driver crash a few times trying to use it.
16. graynk ◴[26 Jun 25 07:58 UTC] No.44385204[source]▶
It's getting there though. I own a high-end PC with nvidia GPU and I play VR on my Linux setup via ALVR (I own Quest 3) It's not straightforward and full of workarounds I have to do, but once you're in the game it works great
replies(1): >>44385491 #
17. graynk ◴[26 Jun 25 08:03 UTC] No.44385235{3}[source]▶
There is though. I'm playing Hitman 3 with all RTX options enabled, DLSS and frame generation
18. windward ◴[26 Jun 25 08:29 UTC] No.44385379{3}[source]▶
It works on the Deck.
replies(1): >>44389270 #
19. mslansn ◴[26 Jun 25 08:51 UTC] No.44385491[source]▶
By the time it gets there there will be tons of other new features that Linux won't support.
replies(1): >>44385532 #
20. graynk ◴[26 Jun 25 09:01 UTC] No.44385532{3}[source]▶
Doubtful but ok.

It's not lacking features for me, it's lacking polish

Feature-wise the main missing feature is kernel level anticheat which I personally don't care about

21. thfuran ◴[26 Jun 25 13:07 UTC] No.44387054{3}[source]▶
Yeah, but it does have to do with graphics in the linux desktop ecosystem and is particularly relevant to those without a dedicated gaming machine.
replies(1): >>44389114 #
22. Zardoz84 ◴[26 Jun 25 13:32 UTC] No.44387248[source]▶
I have Debian with KDE Plasma 6 and I have enabled HDR
23. preisschild ◴[26 Jun 25 14:21 UTC] No.44387712{3}[source]▶
GNOME and KDE support HDR now too, so if you use those DEs you dont need gamescope anymore.
24. p_ing ◴[26 Jun 25 14:37 UTC] No.44387869[source]▶
But that doesn't matter. If the feature isn't there, Linux is non-viable if you want/rely on said feature. It doesn't matter whose 'fault' it is.
replies(1): >>44389235 #
25. lotharcable ◴[26 Jun 25 15:26 UTC] No.44388332[source]▶
For gaming and general desktop on Linux AMD is best if you want a dedicated GPU.

If you want a laptop with good battery life Intel is generally the way to go.

A lot of this is due to the enormous amount of effort Valve put into improving the open source AMD drivers, which is what is used on their Steam platform.

Of course if you want CUDA you need Nvidia, but if you use Nvidia to drive your Linux desktop expect some suffering to go along with it.

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26. ndriscoll ◴[26 Jun 25 16:52 UTC] No.44389114{4}[source]▶
It doesn't have anything to do with graphics in the Linux ecosystem. Netflix specifically blocks Linux from having decent quality so it's kind of pointless to discuss. If you want high quality, you can pirate it or rip from disc. Dirt cheap n100 minipcs are capable of playing UHD bluray rips in Linux just fine for example, so Netflix's relatively low bitrate media aren't an issue.
replies(1): >>44389991 #
27. justinrubek ◴[26 Jun 25 17:07 UTC] No.44389235{3}[source]▶
It does to me. I don't buy their products, simple as that.
28. cassianoleal ◴[26 Jun 25 17:11 UTC] No.44389270{4}[source]▶
The Deck runs Gamescope.
29. haswell ◴[26 Jun 25 18:11 UTC] No.44389820{3}[source]▶
For what it’s worth I’ve been using an RTX 3090 and it’s been mostly smooth sailing for a couple years now.

Running NixOS with a pretty vanilla configuration and it has been hassle free.

I did have to disable power management at the system level because framerate suffers severely if the system sleeps and wakes back up, but I shut the system down when I’m not using it, so this was a non factor for me.

30. thfuran ◴[26 Jun 25 18:29 UTC] No.44389991{5}[source]▶
Not an issue except for any of the couple hundred million people who subscribe to Netflix at any rate.
replies(1): >>44390160 #
31. ndriscoll ◴[26 Jun 25 18:47 UTC] No.44390160{6}[source]▶
Not an ecosystem issue at all. There's no "yet". Linux computers even on the very low end are already perfectly capable of playing 4k Netflix videos. You can easily prove this to yourself by downloading one via torrent (you can generally get exact stream rips with DRM removed if you want). Netflix just won't send UHD streams to Linux users. That's a political choice, not a technology problem, and it's easy enough to get the media elsewhere DRM-free if it's that important to you since Netflix evidently specifically does not want Linux users as customers.
replies(1): >>44390759 #
32. ◴[26 Jun 25 20:03 UTC] No.44390759{7}[source]▶
33. happymellon ◴[26 Jun 25 20:23 UTC] No.44390919{4}[source]▶
> noeveau

Hasn't Nvidia locked most functionality away from the open source drivers?

You either have the choice of using drivers that work well with Linux, or drivers that are fully featured.