Games run faster on SteamOS than Windows 11, Ars testing finds • Hacker News Board

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

#281

Post by ryukoposting » Fri, Jun 27, 2025, 11:11 PM UTC

Ferret7446 wrote: post #269

ryukoposting wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget the ancillary applications that gamers want. If you follow Discord's website, you're gonna end up installing a DEB file manually. Then, every couple weeks, Discord won't launch until you go download another DEB file and install that. Oh, and good luck getting Discord screen sharing working on Wayland. I tried for hours, gave up, and switched to X11. So, just in Discord, we've already run into two hideous…

...why? Discord is available via flatpak. It Just Works.

Tell Discord that!

Think about it from the POV of a Windows user, especially one who has never used Linux before, and especially one who doesn't know what HN is. To install a program, the first thing you're going to do is type "discord" into your browser, and go to their website. Discord's website doesn't suggest that there's a better option. It just gives you a DEB file.

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

#282

Post by nulltype » Sat, Jun 28, 2025, 6:05 PM UTC

pixelpoet wrote: post #237

flohofwoe wrote: post #131

Tbf, this mainly seems to compare shitty/outdated 3rd-party Windows drivers against a vertically integrated system where Valve has complete control over both the hardware and software. E.g. the difference between the Lenovo and Asus Win11 drivers is sometimes bigger than the difference of the faster Windows driver to Linux. It's also not all that surprising though, there's a lot of very smart people working on Proton…

They even have the audacity to use quotes for "official" drivers. At least it's an obvious indicator of the author's bias...

Where do they use quotes for the official drivers?

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

#283

Post by weiliddat » Mon, Jun 30, 2025, 12:00 PM UTC

ChocolateGod wrote: post #137

weiliddat wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAICT HDR is supported, like on the Steam Deck

HDR on Nvidia with Linux is still very glitchy, I've had the driver crash a few times trying to use it.

Ah good to know.

I think Windows isn’t that different, just that there's more motivation for NVIDIA or Microsoft to fix those things. I recall not that long ago a combination of Windows 11, my NVIDIA RTX 40xx, my previous Dell Alienware monitor also had some issues with switching between SDR and HDR (and later Dolby Vision brought even more of a mess).

Meanwhile Android and iOS phones have been able to do it flawlessly for a while now…

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

#284

Post by jsolson » Mon, Jun 30, 2025, 2:07 PM UTC

cwillu wrote: post #80

jsolson wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Working on mostly server platforms, I had forgotten that IOMMU enablement (and, where relevant, enforcement) was not the default. Consumer hardware and software is terrifying.

Not sure how that's relevant, unless you find it terrifying that owners of hardware have control over their hardware.

In my world, we won't let a system boot with production credentials unless the IOMMU is enabled.

This is enforced by a greatly enriched TPM (and it's willingness to unwrap credentials). We have trust several layers of firmware and OS software, but the same mechanism allows us to ensure that known-bad versions of those aren't part of the stack that booted.

If I wanted secure games (and the market would tolerate it), I'd push for enforcement of something similar in the consumer space.

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

#285

Post by _aavaa_ » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 2:28 AM UTC

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 matter, because people will then go on to blame the linux developers for the lack of the feature, when they should instead be blaming Nvidia's antagonistic stance and stop supporting them.