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Games run faster on SteamOS than Windows 11, Ars testing finds (arstechnica.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/games@sh.itjust.works
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[–] 35 points 1 year ago (36 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.

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  • [–] 22 points 1 year 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.

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  • [+] -22 points 1 year ago (24 children)

    Linux will never be mainstream while it's controlled by nerds. I mean there is no uniform interface (there's so many guitar options) and when people want to learn it, the support is from people who think "it just works".

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  • [–] 20 points 1 year ago (11 children)

    Yeah, three is the limit on control panel flavors within an OS

    https://pureinfotech.com/windows-11-ui-inconsistencies/

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  • [–] -4 points 1 year ago (10 children)

    Still more consistent out of the box than the dozens of GUIs of Linux.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (9 children)

    This could be smart if the largest mobile OS, Android, didn't have dozens of GUIs/Styles depending on the manufacturer's whim

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (8 children)

    Android is still more consistent than PC Linux. Most Android interfaces are nearly identical. Give me and Android phone that I've never used before and I know how to perform the most common tasks without help. Not the same.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

    Ah so because you're familiar with it it's easier? Interesting

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (6 children)

    That is my point. With Linux as a PC OS people cannot become familiar with it because there are too many user interfaces. The Linux supporters as a whole need to pick one and push it and only it to be viable for the average Joe.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (5 children)

    Why does it need to be dumbed down for the average joe?

    Why does guis need to be designed for the person not using it? Why not design them for the people using it now and improve them for the actual users of the software instead of the persons NOT using the software?

    Thats a stupid idea and that very line of thought is the brainrot that has led to the enshittification of so much the last couple of decades.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (4 children)

    You don't understand marketing and that people need a uniform experience. You need simplicity to get the average person. You're thinking as a advanced computer user, not a basic or novice user.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    Why do average users need to use linux. Let them stay in windows if that's where they are happy. Making linux into a system just as shitty as windows will just replace shit with different shit.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    But that's the whole issue. Microsoft will continue to dictate how the internet and computers in general function if the regular users don't adopt something else. The regular users won't adopt Linux because the current users of Linux want to gatekeep Linux. You bitch and complain "why do people user shitty Windows?" Then when given an answer say "we don't want them using Linux anyway." You are showing exactly how fucking stupid you are.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    It's almost as if linux users are a group of many individuals with different reasonings behind their vastly different goals and priorities and not one homogenous group. Who would have thought?

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago

    You are completely missing my point. Linux will not be adopted by the masses which it needs to do to kill Microsoft's stranglehold on the industry while there is no uniformity to it. The idea of hating Microsoft but not wanting to make it easier for current Microsoft users to switch to Linux isn't coming from 2 sides of the Linux group. It coming from the same individuals. It's the worst type of gatekeeping.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    Windows was for nerds in its early days

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  • [–] -3 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    Windows 95 launched like a rock concert and since computers came with Windows, everyone's experience was the same so you did have KDE installed then go look for help and have people say "no no no. Install Gnome" like you get with Linux. You want linux to be mainstream, you need to appeal to the average dumb person which means ditch all but 1 interface.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    The steamdeck a handheld gaming PC comes with Linux, and several handheld gaming PC's are beginning to follow suit, some PC manufacturers already offer Linux as an option. Even so, most gamers, which is who I was talking about, build their own PC's and pick their own OS's to begin with.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (5 children)

    The Steam Deck is an exception as it has a highly specialized OS with functionality and optimization limited to one thing: playing games.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (4 children)

    Only there's a desktop mode that is easily accessible and opens up the device for all manner of uses.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    Many many features and functions missing. It's made for games.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

    It may be made for games but it's a more tolerable desktop experience than a fully fledged Windows PC.

    Which features/functions are "missing"?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

    I mean, DOS was a base OS that had several frontend GUIs.

    Most Linux versions come with the frontend preconfigured unless you get specifically the server version of the OS.

    What's going to happen is one of the Linux front ends is going to see widespread adoption/support, and it's looking like it's going to be KDE Plasma. Hopefully the others aren't just abandoned and left to rot.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    They’ve promised that exact same thing for like at least three major windows versions.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I think this time actually does have the potential to be different. They're co-launching an Xbox-branded handheld PC designed to go head-to-head with the Steam Deck while downplaying the future of dedicated consoles.

    Microsoft's gaming division is going all-in on PC, so it matters more than ever.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    They said all those exact corporate blowhard promises when the introduced the gamebar and the Xbox windows store and a “gaming mode” lol.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago

    Yeah, but they were also still making new standalone gaming boxes with a dedicated OS, and they didn't have the Xbox division take the lead on game mode.

    Linux and Mac gaming also weren't a threat, and the solution to a bloated Windows installation was more horsepower, which was relatively cheap.

    Now the market is completely changed. The Xbox Series S and X have had their lunch eaten by Playstion and Switch. Linux gaming is exploding because of the Steam Deck, while more-powerful Windows handhelds are performing worse with worse batteries than the Deck because of Windows bloat.

    Mid-range GPUs cost more than an entire high-end gaming rig from 5 years ago, so high-end gaming PCs are rarer than ever.

    Microsoft has to do something. And what they've chosen, for now, is to partner with Asus to launch a true Xbox-branded competitor to the Deck. To do that, they have to actually be competitive. There's 2 keys to that. One is Gamepass, and the other is moving Windows out of the way of the game experience.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

    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.

    While I mostly agree with this, every time I see this mentioned it reminds me that MS-DOS Windows was not very popular, until a Microsoft employee offered to port Doom to DOS Windows, because he saw that if games ran on a platform people would use it and migrate naturally, that employee was called Gabe Newell. So I do have some hope that there's some bigger migration, and in fact we've seen the numbers steadily rising, and these sort of things tend to be exponential, so I wouldn't be surprised if it picks up speed.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    DOS was the most popular OS for gaming at the time and Doom was released first on DOS by id.

    Gabe Newell and team ported it to Windows 95.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    Windows was wildly popular prior to Doom. Doom for Windows 95 was a showcase for DirectX, not Windows.

    Doom was on more systems than Windows 95, yes, but that's a little misleading. First off, it was released several years before Window's 95. Secondly, people upgraded computers less often back then, and Windows 95 wasn't packaged with most systems and wasn't distributed online. You had to actively decide to go to a store and buy it.

    Third, the vast majority of Doom copies were the shareware version of the first campaign. It was tiny and free. People would bring their floppy to a friend's house, or they'd post it on a bbs for download.

    The port to Windows 95 was a technical showcase of the advantages of using DirectX. It showed that Windows had integrated features that could be used to enhance games with minimal development cost, and that games could be run without having to exit Windows to DOS, which was a huge hassle required for most games at the time.

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