What's wild to me is that these games were all developed to run on Windows, not SteamOS or any other Linux distro. This is with the games requiring a compatibility layer to run. Imagine what they could do if the games were made to run on SteamOS.
this post was submitted on 28 May 2025
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That's the magic of proton, and all of the tools that make it work.
DXVK alone is incredible.
That's all because Wine is not an emulator
THIS IS THE KINDA NEWS I WANNA HEAR
It will be very funny if Microsoft releases their handheld, and is instantly better with Linux.
It might be, but the point of the Microsoft handheld is to grant access to Game Pass and games with lousy anti-cheat on a UI that doesn't suck like desktop Windows does.
The imagine if their cloud runs the game using proton. The provider with the lowest overhead would have lower costs and thus a cheaper service. If Microsoft doesn't do it, someone else could.
That's how competition works!
I think the issue here is DirectX, so unless there's meaningful changes to how DX works internally, DXVK at this point can always be a step ahead with all the changes it can make without tech debt to worry about. I wouldn't be surprised if that's why Series X despite being stronger than PS5 on paper, struggles to match performance in non zero count of games.
If they make a Linux app for Game Pass & just let Proton do its thing, they could still make money off people that don’t use Windows.
Probably, but I know that at least in the past, their philosophy was to uphold Windows as the one gold standard at all costs, and I doubt that has changed.
It might be one of those non-authentic quotes, but I heard that Steve Ballmer supposedly once said, that they'd rather have people pirate Windows instead of using another OS. No matter if that is an authentic statement - there is a real synergetic effect: If everyone is used to how Windows works at home (even if pirated there), then any potential employer will want to have Windows licenses for their IT and office stuff, which is where the main money lies. That's one of the reasons Microsoft has been so furiously anti-competition, because their main advantage is being the de-facto standard, and being the only proper gaming system became a part of that strategy, with attempts to further lock-in any gamers into their ecosystem if at all possible (some of which thankfully failed).
So I think making an app for Game Pass for Linux won't be in their interest any time soon, unfortunately.
Tempted to get Steam OS on my laptop, gotten really used to it on my Steam Deck
Unless there are major changes from the Deck version, I would STRONGLY advise not running SteamOS on any machine with sensitive data. You want a real login screen and, preferably, FDE for any laptop.
If you like the Desktop Mode? That is just KDE Plasma. Basically every major distro has a build that uses it (and you can install it yourself otherwise). And Steam mode is literally just Steam Big Picture (with some minor tweaks).
For a laptop? I am an old so I use Fedora. But I think everyone loves atomic distros these days so consider Bazzite.
Steam OS is basically Arch Linux with KDE and Steam that autoruns in their special mode. It would even be easier to setup for yourself.
So far it seems to be an issue with the Legion itself. The ROG Ally sees no meaningful improvements with SteamOS.
Bullshit
As an ally owner, this is rather unfortunate
Unfortunate why? It just means Asus sold you a pretty well optimized product.
I suppose there's no reason to take the time and remove windows from it
I reached the same conclusion. But at the end of the day it’s your system, if losing Gamepass doesn’t bother you go ahead and install SteamOS. I did see a few people say that it is somewhat buggy and that Bazzite is still better for the Ally.
That is a bit surprising, because I have used a Legion Go (non S) with both Windows and Bazzite and performance seemed pretty comparable across both. I certainly didn't notice double the battery life at any point. Maybe I just didn't bench the same set of games, this seems very specifically to yield best results on CDPR games. Or maybe it's because these benches are just for the Z2 and not the Z1 Extreme version, and this is very specific to that chip.
It could also be the memory management/config is different on the SteamOS side and some games are getting different amounts of VRAM across OSs? How do these stack up to Bazzite on the same hardware? Is there an advantage to brand name SteamOS?
I want to see more benchmarks from more people with more configs. Everybody in the tech industry is busy fawning over overengineered fans over in Computex and this actually interesting release isn't getting the right amount of coverage.
Seeing this with Bazzite, Garuda, "vanilla" distros like Mint, Arch, Manjaro, etc. would be really interesting, I agree.
My amateur guess from the outside would be, that SteamOS is perhaps stripped down in a way, that "normal" Linux background stuff only gets booted up when switching into Desktop mode, which would explain the massive improvements for battery life. But that is a guess, cannot be sure about that at all.
On the Deck itself there are APU customizations at play, but not here. I don't know that the underlying OSs are fundamentally different. I know one is arch and the other is Fedora, but they're both immutable distros and should mostly be running the same things when launching in game mode.
For battery life it could just be a configuration difference in how the benchmarks were run on both OSs, or even down to the manufacturer software. Benchmarking hardware is hard, what can I say. I can say Dave2D isn't great at it, which I suppose is not the point of his channel, but I certainly wish some of the more technical channels weren't distracted right now, because there's an interesting three-way comp to be had here and some digging into interesting things.
I'd like to see someone else reproduce the original test results. Seen the same set of data posted multiple times and honestly the numbers look like major outlier and either different settings or something wrong on wibdows.
That may be legitimate if the Windows settings are the factory settings. That's why I was pointing at memory management, because if you have a 32 GB device and you're assigning 3GB to VRam while the SteamOS version does something different things may get funky results in some games, especially running at higher resolutions and so on.
So it's entirely possible that the out-of-the-box setup of these machines on Windows and SteamOS are legitimately that different but that a better Windows config would mitigate it, which is still bad for something sold with a preinstalled Windows image, for the record. Or maybe the overhead of Win11 is just that big, I don't know. Would certainly love to see someone look into it.
I can tell you that bumping the default VRAM allocation on Windows handhelds has taken some AAA games from unplayable to quite solid in my experimentation, but I'm not gonna sit here swapping OSs and games back and forth for benchmarks. At least not for free.
I hope Windows does try to challenge Steam. Competition is good, it should strongly drive PC game optimization.
when Windows "challenges" others, they don't compete on merit... it's easier to blackmail game developers by threatening to kick them out of Windows / Xbox platforms if they develop for Linux... this is how we ended up with "windows is the only os for gaming" back in the 90s
Yes but that's it right, they are not developing for Linux, Steam is doing it for the developer. There is nothing stopping Windows of saying sell exclusively through my Store, though I believe they have tried.
But I do understand were you are coming from Windows is definitely not the most ethical company and definitely they are not up for fair fight, what I'm trying to say is that I hope the game developers focus more in the mobile market and optimize the games more.
No, you see. Corporations have no rights. People have rights. Corporations can have legal protections, but not rights.
Do you have a source for that? As far as I know, Microsoft never gave much of a damn about making Linux versions of games. They did have an Xbox parity clause for games that came to other consoles, but that's pretty different than what you're saying.
I learnt most of the story from this book Renegades of the Empire
The story is summarized here: https://gist.github.com/kirkegaard/1055336
It's all about how DirectX/Direct3D was launching and competing with OpenGL (the open standard).
In a nutshell, MS literally ported games for free to Windows (Doom95 being the flagship example) and/or subsidized the development of games for Direct3D so there would be no appetite for OpenGL.
This is equivalent to Amazon or Walmart selling their stuff at a loss until all competitors go bankrupt
Well, the truth of that is quite a bit different than how you put it, and it's also more carrot than stick. There were efforts to make Linux versions of games after this adoption of DirectX, and they didn't take; I have a Linux disc for Unreal Tournament 2004 that came in the same box as the Windows one. What Microsoft did surely sucked for everyone, but fortunately, we live in a world where their recent efforts to do similar things aren't working. They didn't manage to siphon PC gaming over the Windows Store, and Windows handhelds are demonstrably worse and sell worse than the Linux ones. Consoles' walled gardens are slowly crumbling from natural market forces to the openness of PC, and that includes a PC where almost all of those games work on Linux.
Microsoft does not have a position of strength here right now, and they know it, so they instead pivoted to just being an enormous publisher with a subscription service that's lucrative but has already plateaued.
Well, the truth of that is quite a bit different than how you put it, and it’s also more carrot than stick.
True, I misremembered... however, this is anti-competitive practice 101 anyway
What Microsoft did surely sucked for everyone, but fortunately, we live in a world where their recent efforts to do similar things aren’t working.
But the fact they keep trying these anti-competitive strategies and have no consequences for them is a problem. We cannot rely on "it didn't work for them this time" as if that is a solution because next time it would work for them and then we are all fucked for another few decades
I hate to say it, but if MS released a competitor, it will probably outsell the Deck 5:1 regardless of quality, if only because of the advertising reach. Your average non-gamer has never heard of Steam. Everyone and their grandmother know MS and would therefore be more willing to get one for their kid.
Edit: I suppose I should explain a bit. People here are comparing Steam DAUs to console DAUs. That’s not the same as sales.
All of those users are already playing on a computer. Also, many of the most popular games on Steam I are free and low-spec. A lot of Steam users are not spenders.
Compare the 3.7 million Deck sales to the 2.2 million Switch 2 preorders (and the 150 million Switch 1 sales) before it even hit shelves. You can’t even buy a Deck in a store and you won’t see an ad for one. If MS makes a handheld, they’ll have billions at their disposal in advertising.
Did you know that Steam's monthly active user base dwarfs any single console out there? At this point, it's almost as large as PlayStation and Xbox combined; definitely bigger than the combined install base for each of their current gen consoles. Steam is more mainstream than PlayStation at this point. (However, the caveat is that the Steam Deck can't be purchased at Walmart.)
150 million Switch 2 sales
Nope, that's Switch 1 sales, over its entire lifetime.
I fixed it. It was 15 million projected in the first year, 2.2 million preorders. But I think that point still stands. The Deck has been out for a few years now.
The Steam Deck was the way of bringing SteamOS to the masses, now the HW developers will sell their devices in Walmart just by the Switch and the other consoles, it will be cheaper due to the 0 license cost (or, you know, pocketing the difference) with a big, ever expanding, catalog.
About the Switch 2, the hype is there definitely and it is a known brand, mainly sold to families and casual gamers. But even PlayStation and Xbox are not competing with Nintendo.
I agree with everything you said, but I still don’t think that will change the decision of someone on the fence. The Deck is the odd one out.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the Deck and SteamOS and want it to succeed, and expect them to to a certain degree, but I just know the average consumer and they’ll just look at the SteamOS handhelds as a weird knockoff gaming computer.
We all know how special it is because we were the target market. But when all is said and done, it comes down to what people know.
If Valve was advertising like the big guys do, maybe, but with no ad support, not a chance.
I would rather bet that most people have no clue what an operating system is and that the one they (unknowingly) use is made by Microsoft. On the other hand if they play games (on that PC), they will know Steam, because they actively had to install it and click its icon frequently.
Meanwhile in reality, Xbox as a console ain't doing so great.
Your average non-gamer
Isn't a target market. Gamers range into their 60s and onward now. If someone 'isn't a gamer' chances are they're aren't even going to be.
I wonder if this same concept would apply to desktops. If you could install both SteamOS and keep windows for when you wanted to run something other than a game. This could be huge.
Dual booting has existed for a long time. Microsoft keeps making it more annoying to do. For my next PC, I'm not even keeping a dual boot around as a safety net; I'm just doing Linux.
Funny how much ms bitches that secure boot is REQUIRED for win 11. Then you can just turn it off after installing
Dual booting has existed for a long time but this same boost in performance when using SteamOS might not appear on desktops.
I haven't tracked the performance in Proton for a long time, because I already used that information to make my purchasing decisions, but single digit percentage improvements in performance when running games via Proton has also been the case on desktops for a long time. If there's any further improvement to be seen from SteamOS's game mode rather than regular desktop, you should see it in Bazzite as well.
The performance gains are from all the tweaks people have done to proton to fix the games. Running regular programs through wine will only be slower.