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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

#51

Post by armada651 »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #48
hypeatei wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as games are running on user hardware/OS, you'll always deal with cheating. Server-side checks and computation can only go so far. For example: in competitive shooters (where cheaters are most prevalent) you can't have things appearing out of thin air. The client needs to know about things ahead of time to play sounds and to give other environmental hints.

I've always thought the line about whats cheating, and what's not is unfair and arbitrary. How is it ok that some players can play 4k 200fps and others 1080p at 30fps. The only way to be really fair is for everybody to Stream the game at the same res, frame rate and latency.

This isn't exclusive to video games. Much of the improvements to world records in sports are due to improvements in gear, yet we don't consider those records to have been unfairly achieved.

Some games do impose limits though, for example Overwatch doesn't allow you to use an aspect ratio larger than 16:9 and selecting a wider aspect ratio actually cuts down on your vertical field-of-view rather than granting you more horizontal field-of-view. This lessens the potential advantage of ultra-wide monitors.

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

#52

Post by dcl »

benley wrote: post #42
dcl wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't support NVIDIA GPU's!? Is this a display or gaming specific thing? All the ML people are using NVIDIA GPU's on Linux.

There are indeed nvidia drivers for Linux and they're reasonably good for gaming, but the feature set sometimes lags far behind windows. There is no DLSS 3 for Linux, for instance. (as of a few months ago anyway - I haven't checked recently)

Ahh rightio. That's a shame.

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

#53

Post by Cloudef »

PaulHoule wrote: post #2

Might be unfair to call Proton a "translation layer" because the Win32 API is not defined in terms of system calls but rather a set of functions exported from a DLL. Proton supplies a DLL that implements the Win32 API using Linux syscalls. Windows supplies a DLL that implements that Win32 API using Windows syscalls that you're not really supposed to use directly.

Proton/wine also implements many of those NT syscalls because windows programs do use them directly as well

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

#54

Post by armada651 »

bloqs wrote: post #50
hypeatei wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as games are running on user hardware/OS, you'll always deal with cheating. Server-side checks and computation can only go so far. For example: in competitive shooters (where cheaters are most prevalent) you can't have things appearing out of thin air. The client needs to know about things ahead of time to play sounds and to give other environmental hints.

so consoles are better

They are often more convenient and secure. If you don't mind a single-purpose device that severely limits your ability to modify your experience. Better is subjective after all.

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

#55

Post by komali2 »

dcl wrote: post #34
umbra07 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyway, just my anecdotal experience. Those with dedicated gaming rigs will be more than fine with Linux, but those of us on underpowered hardware still seem better off with Windows, unfortunately. On the other hand, Linux (or more accurately, the Linux desktop ecosystem) doesn't support a lot of high-end PC gaming features well: HDR, Nvidia GPUs, VR, etc.

Doesn't support NVIDIA GPU's!? Is this a display or gaming specific thing? All the ML people are using NVIDIA GPU's on Linux.

Nvidia support across the desktop ecosystem is poor, for example practically nonfunctional in Sway. And just buggy in other Wayland based desktop environments (kde seems to be the best in my experience).

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

#56

Post by kgwxd »

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.

Yeah, but it's very time consuming/impossible to find similarly skilled players for a fun lobby. The only competitive game I care to play on Linux is Rocket League, which is nearly impossible to cheat at, so it doesn't currently have anti-cheat, but I wouldn't be surprised if Epic decides to put their beloved EAC in it at some point anyway, maybe even just because they hate Linux so much.

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

#57

Post by hedora »

haswell wrote: post #17
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…

> Those with dedicated gaming rigs will be more than fine with Linux, but those of us on underpowered hardware still seem better off with Windows, unfortunately. That’s interesting and good to know. I’m running an 10th gen i9 with an RTX 3090, so I have plenty of headroom performance wise. I’ve been wondering about Linux gaming on lower end hardware for my younger brother’s sake, and hadn’t assumed it would be worse.…

I have a 65 watt ryzen 9 system on chip (8945hs, I think) minipc and make heavy use of it for linux gaming.

My guess is that Nvidia’s linux video drivers are still substandard.

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

#58

Post by SchemaLoad »

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.

This is where I'm at with gaming. Even outside of cheating, it's not fun to me to be dumped in a game with screaming children/manchildren. If I'm playing a game I want it to be with my actual friends. And then I don't have to worry about them running cheats because I trust them.

Once you get to match making, global ranks, etc it's just getting too sweaty and ruined by cheating/low trust/etc.

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

#59

Post by rowanG077 »

armada651 wrote: post #45
hypeatei wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as games are running on user hardware/OS, you'll always deal with cheating. Server-side checks and computation can only go so far. For example: in competitive shooters (where cheaters are most prevalent) you can't have things appearing out of thin air. The client needs to know about things ahead of time to play sounds and to give other environmental hints.

Exactly, nothing short of streaming the entire game fully rendered from the server will stop cheats. And even then you can probably still do aimbotting with modern day computer vision.

How exactly will it stop cheats? Any skill based game can still be cheated. Just analyze the video stream, or go even lower tech, point a camera at your screen. Many games can be effectively cheated like this. For eaxmple Aimbots in counter strike and peak human reflexes in dota/lol.

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

#60

Post by SchemaLoad »

sitkack wrote: post #41
SchemaLoad wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that makes sense since the Windows API is the source of truth for how something works. If you make a game that works on Windows but not in Proton, Valve will push a fix that makes Proton work the same as Windows. But if you make your game work with Proton, but not Windows, you are relying on some quirk of Proton which isn't guaranteed to work in to the future and as soon as something else needs it to wor…

You would need to test on both of course. I am arguing that one should target the fast happy-path on Proton as Proton is a subset of the Windows APIs that runs faster than Windows.

Proton isn't a subset of the Windows APIs though. It's very likely that you could end up depending on behaviors which only exist in Proton.
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