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

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

#221

Post by hinkley »

WorldMaker wrote: post #214
hinkley wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m hearing that Microsoft has done a shitty job of tuning windows for the Lenovo device. Someone last week cited commentary that Microsoft has been working on it and they think they can reduce the Windows overhead by TWO GIGABYTES. Why is the fucking operating system using 2 gigabytes of memory in the first place, let alone enough more than that to be able to reduce memory usage by 2 GB.

Compatibility is a big answer. Windows 8 tried to divorce more of the compatibility layers (start them up only as needed) of "The Old Desktop" to a lot of flak from the development community (and some user confusion), but if you were paying attention and used almost exclusively Windows 8 "Store" apps at the time you could get some serious memory usage wins. Windows 8.1 walked so much of that back and made the Desktop…

As I recall there were services that were part of the desktop experience that they didn’t shut off. One of them being the desktop wallpaper. Which with high res desktops being the rage these days may actually be a large part of that size win.

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

#223

Post by pxc »

nialv7 wrote: post #16
thewebguyd wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Linux port if there is one is usually done by a third party porting studio, which is not necessarily at the same quality as the original codebase. Also the devs just don't have the manpower/bandwidth to spare for Linux users given how small this community is. It's better value for money for both the gamers and the devs if the devs just choose to engage with valve and get their game running perfectly under proton.

These ports are also not usually source ports, so they're not much "more native" than the Proton ports. They often use the same kind of API translation layer, probably also built on WINE. I think as Proton sees more investment and becomes more advanced, it's probably becoming difficult for competing compatibility layers to keep up.

A source port that is optimized as lovingly as its Windows counterpart will probably be faster than the Windows version running via Proton, but the incentives aren't generally there to justify the costs/difficulties. Maybe some day it will be! That would be wonderful.

But until then, Proton seems like an increasingly compelling option for these compatibility layer-based ports of Windows games.

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

#224

Post by ndriscoll »

thfuran wrote: post #178
onli wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Up to full HD, depending on what Netflix streams out. But this has nothing to do with graphics drivers or GPU performance.

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.

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.

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

#225

Post by literalAardvark »

zrobotics wrote: post #106
bloqs wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so consoles are better

How would consoles be any more immune to computer vision based cheating? Instead of feeding the output to a spoofed keyboard & mouse, you'd just be feeding it to a controller input. I'm not really seeing any difference in technical challenge here, and you wouldn't even need esoteric hardware since console controllers are USB devices anyways.

Since the hardware is better controlled and secured, and hardware attestation is a solved problem these days, it's not particularly difficult to enforce security to the point where you'd need to hardware hack a controller and connect it to a physical camera to bot.

That's still gonna be annoying for players, but it'll greatly decrease incidence, and if reporting a player for botting requires buying and hacking a new controller... It should be quite effective.

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

#226

Post by SirMaster »

Sammi wrote: post #160
armada651 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Direct Memory Access cheats will always perform better as they can reveal the location of an opponent before they're even visible on the screen.

Why are players who aren't on screen even in the client memory? The server shouldn't be sharing sensitive information.

How else would the game render the enemy player's sound around corners and in adjacent rooms without knowing their location for instance?

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

#227

Post by grep_name »

armada651 wrote: post #46
fooqux wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anti-cheat today is a stop-gap measure at best. For various reasons such as improved OS security and security concerns with this software, ring zero anti-cheat won't be around forever. Besides, it's a cat and mouse game where the vendor is the mouse. We already have the technology now to do it better. A combination of only sending what info a client should have, and server-side checks. As soon as something like UT sh…

> Besides, it's a cat and mouse game where the vendor is the mouse. The goal of anti-cheat isn't to stop the world's most advanced cheaters. Those are already unstoppable because they now use Direct Memory Access over the PCI-E bus, so the cheats don't even run on the same computer anymore. However since those cheaters are few and far in-between they can be handled through player reports. The goal is to stop the medi…

> they now use Direct Memory Access over the PCI-E bus

Do you have any good resources with keeping up with this kind of thing? Seems like a fun topic to learn about

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

#228

Post by SirMaster »

Cloudef wrote: post #49
jekwoooooe wrote: post #39

The last missing piece for full Linux gaming is anticheat. Last I looked into it, the major vendors don’t want to support it due to lack of kernel security and the ones that do, game devs refuse to allow it (destiny for example) One we can play AAA games I am literally ditching windows forever. Steamos is the best thing that has happened to gaming

Multiplayer games without dedicated servers is dead end anyways. I dont need a "anti-cheat" daemon hooking into kernel scanning files and other memory while playing a game. Communities in dedicated servers are much more efficient at moderating the player base than centralized match making ever will be.

Ho do you do proper matchmaking and ranking up and progression etc with dedicated servers?

I want good balanced matches with players of my similar skill level via matchmaking.

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

#229

Post by justinrubek »

p_ing wrote: post #197
_aavaa_ wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To the extent that Linux doesn’t support nvidia gpu it is actually Nvidia not supporting Linux and keeping their drivers proprietary.

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.

It does to me. I don't buy their products, simple as that.

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

#230

Post by cassianoleal »

windward wrote: post #147
cassianoleal wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > 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 d…

It works on the Deck.

The Deck runs Gamescope.
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