this post was submitted on 25 May 2025

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Steam Deck

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With the Legion Go S, we can now directly compare performance between official builds of SteamOS and Windows (infosec.pub)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz to c/steamdeck@sopuli.xyz

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Source is this video:

Windows Was The Problem All Along - Dave2D

We could obviously compare performance between windows and steamOS before on the steam deck, or between windows and Bazzite on other handhelds. But this is the first time we have had official windows and SteamOS builds for the same hardware.

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[–] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 135 points 1 month ago (7 children)

the gains come from the reduced overhead that linux has compared to windows

literally the next line

..the games here are being run through proton

I really hate the dismissal of the heavy lifting proton does. Proton is what makes gaming on Linux so great. So many native linux games perform worse on Linux vs their windows counterparts. Then again, I'd expect nothing less from Dave2D

[–] BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world 20 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Yeah its wine/proton and linux together. Wine/Proton efficiently handles translating the Windows programmes API calls into POSIX calls while Linux seems to offer a lower OS overhead so there is more system resource available for the games.

I do think Proton gets a little too much credit. Its wine plus faudio, dxvk and other open source projects combined. Proton is great but it is standing on the shoulders of giants.

[–] entropicdrift@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 1 month ago

Agreed. Proton is important as a bit of an "iPhone moment" where all this tech comes together in a way where non-techies "get it" in the sense where they understand why it's useful, even if they'll never bother to learn the details of why or how.

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[–] underline960@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (13 children)

What does proton do?

I only vaguely understand it as "thing that makes game playable on other thing."

(And also I have six versions installed on my steam deck whydoIneedsixofthese?)

[–] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 28 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Proton is the compatibility layer that valve makes that lets you run games on Linux. Proton uses DXVK a program that converts Direct X API calls (windows only) to Vulkan API calls (runs on anything). DXVK alone gives you huge performance benefits (especially on older DirectX 11 and older games) and you can run it on windows.

Proton gives you a ton of other tools that can make huge performance differences.

[–] underline960@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Hopefully not a dumb question: If Vulkan runs on anything, assuming their game isn't a Windows (Xbox?) exclusive, why don't more people program their games to use Vulkan instead?

[–] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 month ago

That my friend, is entering operating system politics.

But the TLDR is: resistance to change, lack of support, bribery, a combination of all 3, features, and much much more!

[–] zib@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago

Vulkan is designed to be closer to the metal than something like DirectX 11 or OpenGL, which makes the API more explicit and difficult to use. This means it requires a great deal more care to use properly. And to complicate matters more, subtle bugs that are very difficult to debug are very easy to introduce.

But, this applies mostly to devs who build their own tech. Most of them these days are just using 3rd party engines like Unity or Unreal, so it comes down to whether or not the person making the game decides to check the box to use Vulkan and just how good those render backends are. Engine developers of 3rd party tech have to build their stuff to be as generic as possible. That's likely gonna add a lot of bloat that might not be fully optimized for every game developer's use case.

TLDR: It's tough and time consuming for someone writing it themselves. And for the ones who aren't, they're having to place a lot of trust in a renderer that is probably a black box and might be buggy/slow.

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[–] chronicledmonocle@lemmy.world 97 points 1 month ago (1 children)

A performance uplift plus double or tripled battery life compared to running on Windows.....hot damn that's impressive.

Get rekt Windows.

[–] DarkDarkHouse@lemmy.sdf.org 19 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (10 children)

What's nice is that Microsoft today doesn't have capability to improve in the short or even medium term. They could drop a billion dollars into it and it would still take them years to improve their offering, if they can at all.

[–] Laser@feddit.org 13 points 1 month ago (3 children)

And why would they? They're printing so much money, this niche probably doesn't make a dent.

It doesn't matter if Windows is the best system for gaming. It just matters if people believe it is.

You can always justify using Windows. "How do I get Game Pass to work on my handheld?" is probably something people care about.

Granted this is an expensive way to lock customers into your platform, but they're already doing it anyways, so no need to pour money into the OS experience when you can just sell services building on customer data.

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[–] kittenzrulz123@lemmy.blahaj.zone 57 points 1 month ago (23 children)

Windows Gamers (who will never switch to Linux): Linux still isn't ready for mass adoption

[–] groet@feddit.org 19 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Windows Gamers (who will never switch to Linux)

So you accept that Linux is not the problem. We are litterally at the point where it will get mass Adoption in the next few years. That is what this post is about. That you can litterally go out and buy a fully complete gaming system preinstalled with Linux that performs better than the same system with Windows.

We are very close to the point where the only thing holding Linux gaming back is marketing.

[–] kittenzrulz123@lemmy.blahaj.zone 19 points 1 month ago (6 children)

Marketing and market availability are the biggest problems. People need to be able to go into any store, buy a handheld/laptop/desktop and have it include Linux without them asking.

[–] xavier666@lemm.ee 26 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Don't forget educational institutes. Linux should be the defacto OS at such places. The younger generation's first interaction with a PC is at school. If they are used to Linux from a young age, this is greatly help them ease into the Linux mindset (package manager, terminal).

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Which is exactly why Google and Apple give free computers to public schools. Good luck getting them to turn that down.

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[–] MrSoup@lemmy.zip 54 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Battery Life:

[–] cron@feddit.org 53 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Battery life doubled in some games? Now that is even more impressive than 10-20% performance gain.

[–] jqubed@lemmy.world 27 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I also find it interesting that the Steam Deck OLED has a smaller battery but gets longer life on the same OS

[–] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 30 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Valve did a lot of work to tune the APU in the steam deck for efficiency. It's custom silicon at the end of the day.

AMD just kinda took one of their existing laptop APUs and threw it into handhelds instead of laptops.

[–] OscarRobin@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The Deck also has a weaker but lower wattage chip and worse display, that makes a big difference.

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[–] peoplebeproblems@midwest.social 40 points 1 month ago (2 children)

So I'm not insane. Monster Hunter Wilds and Helldiver's II both run better on my Ubuntu image with the same hardware than my Windows 10 image.

Does that mean that Proton and Vulkan are far more efficient than Direct3D?

[–] MrSoup@lemmy.zip 33 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I think there's in play also background activity from Windows' bloat.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 11 points 1 month ago

Probably this. Especially on low end hardware that doesn't really have a lot of background resources to give.

Just open task manager and see all the shit windows thinks is essential to run all the time. Scanning the drive for viruses, downloading updates for shit you've never even looked at...

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[–] Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz 19 points 1 month ago

My understanding is that vulkan is generally more efficient than directX.

[–] Chill_Dan@lemmy.world 40 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Goes to show how much bloat is in Windows that it kills hardware like this.

[–] VitoRobles@lemmy.today 16 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Maybe I need Cortana, Microsoft Excel, and OneDrive while I play Doom Eternal. You don't know me.

[–] embed_me@programming.dev 9 points 1 month ago

Me looking up from my speed-running Excel sheets: "what"

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[–] OmegaLemmy@discuss.online 37 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Holy shit triple the hours

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[–] lectricleopard@lemmy.world 31 points 1 month ago (2 children)

They said make electric cars fast, and you'll get car guys to buy in. It was true.

Now they're making linux make video games faster and prettier...

I dont know if there will ever be a year of the linux desktop, but this is the kind of stuff you gotta do to get there.

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[–] barnaclebutt@lemmy.world 30 points 1 month ago

Hmm, it's like having spyware constantly run in the background slows down the computer?

[–] _LordMcNuggets_@feddit.org 21 points 1 month ago

makes a lot of sense honestly. I never knew the numbers behind it (tks for sharing). when I was ripping witcher 3 on nobara and then changed my OS back to Windows due to work related issues, I felt a SIGNIFICANT performance drop. the game became laggy, when it used to run top on Linux with the same settings. good share - the time for Linux gaming is now.

[–] ianhclark510@lemmy.blahaj.zone 19 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Linux Dev's anti Sony bias shows front and center

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[–] gamer@lemm.ee 15 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Valve won. Maybe it's lucky timing, or maybe Gabe is actually a genius, but it's only going to get worse for Windows as there is no way in hell Microsoft shifts resources from AI projects to make Windows better for PC gaming. Recently, Capcom announced that their PC gaming sales surpassed their console sales, and I don't think it's likely we'll see that trend changing, and it's also likely other publishers will make similar announcements soon (although idk if they count SteamOS as a console). The Switch 2 is coming out soon, but people already say it's too expensive, and there are controversies surrounding some of their product decisions.

Will this bring about the era of the Linux desktop? Idk, but the era of the Linux gaming PC is inevitable now.

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[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 13 points 1 month ago (6 children)

I am a little curious how something like Ubuntu would do on one of these gaming handhelds. Steam OS is a nicer user experience but I always wonder if it also adds any significant optimization.

[–] rotopenguin 11 points 1 month ago

I think you're a bit better off with SteamOS's gamescope rather than going through gnome-shell.

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[–] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Spoderman no

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