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

(arstechnica.com)
403 points _JamesA_ | 1 comments | 25 Jun 25 19:40 UTC | HN request time: 0.196s | source
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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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chillfox ◴[26 Jun 25 03:01 UTC] No.44383847[source]▶
Been a Linux gamer for years now and I think you are correct on your frame rate observations in general.

If you use ZFS (single nvme) then you can beat windows load times by a fairly large margin. My husband and I have identical hardware for our gaming computers (he uses Windows and I run Linux), it's not uncommon for my computer to load games 10 seconds faster than his.

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jcgl ◴[26 Jun 25 09:38 UTC] No.44385710[source]▶
Why do you think ZFS helps? I’m guessing you have compression turned on? IME, ZFS is rarely better in terms of raw performance, compared to e.g. XFS.
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chillfox ◴[27 Jun 25 00:53 UTC] No.44392912[source]▶
Yep, compression is on and I think that's what does it considering how large games are these days.

I stay away from XFS, every time I have used it in the past my entire drive have ended up scrambled within a few months. It's by far the worst file system I have ever used, not even FAT32 was that unstable for me.

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1. p_ing ◴[27 Jun 25 01:42 UTC] No.44393097[source]▶
Most large games are already compressed in cabinet files or similar so OS/file system level compression wouldn't gain you anything. While there are games that ship with loose files, like the Elder Scrolls series, other games like Diablo IV or CoD use archives.