Modern video games are showing better performance on Valve’s free SteamOS compared to Microsoft’s Windows 11, reports Ars Technica. This was tested on the Lenovo Legion Go S handheld, which showed better frame rates on games while running Steam OS version 3.7.
Unlike the Steam Deck, which does not officially support Windows, the Legion Go S is the first gaming handheld that is designed to work seamlessly with both Windows and SteamOS. This made it easy for the Ars team to test the two operating systems head to head.
The team ran 5 high-end games on the handheld, including Doom: The Dark Ages, Returnal, Cyberpunk 2077, and others with SteamOS. They then downloaded Windows 11 on the handheld and ran the same games through the same benchmarks. Here are the results.
Borderlands 3 Was the Only Black Sheep
As the charts show, Borderlands 3 was the only title that showed comparable performance across SteamOS and Windows 11, with Windows even gaining a slight edge with Asus drivers. On the other hand, all 4 other titles showed noticeable improvements in framerates on Steam’s operating system. The stock Lenovo drivers for Windows showed significantly worse performance across the board when compared to Asus drivers and SteamOS.
The Asus Driver Advantage
Installing the latest Asus drivers manually led to a clear boost in Windows gaming performance, with noticeable gains across all tested titles. In fact, in Homeworld 3’s “Low” graphics benchmark, performance under Windows nearly matched that of SteamOS. However, in every other benchmark, even with the updated drivers, Windows still trailed behind, delivering frame rates between 8% and 36% lower compared to the same tests on SteamOS.
How is SteamOS Better?
At first glance, the results may seem surprising. After all, games on SteamOS rely on the Proton compatibility layer to translate Windows instructions, which would typically introduce some performance overhead. But Valve’s long-term investment in optimizing Proton, along with its work on the Mesa graphics drivers for Linux, appears to be paying off. SteamOS also benefits from a leaner system footprint, avoiding much of the background load that comes with a general-purpose OS like Windows.
Microsoft seems to be taking notice. In response to these performance concerns, the company recently unveiled its “Xbox Experience for Handheld”, which promises to reduce background processes and delay non-critical tasks.
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