4 ms·

Would love a Microsoft Gaming OS where I could run a browser, steam, and nothing else.

by unboxingelf 4y ago

jabroni_salad 4y ago
you mean the xbox?
- unboxingelf 4y ago
  can xbox run on my own hardware?
  - chaosmachine 4y ago
    https://xemu.app/ https://xemu.app/
    - whiteboardr 4y ago
      I checked unboxingelf’s question for the word “vintage” - negative ; )
nicce 4y ago
Just wait a little longer and Arch Linux can do that for you because of the Steam Deck. Game support is already good.
- naikrovek 4y ago
  > Game support is already good. And, unfortunately, very far from complete. It is a good direction, however, and I am encouraged by it.
greggsy 4y ago
I mean, you could just log into your pc and just run a browser, steam, and nothing else.
- unboxingelf 4y ago
  Sure, on top of the 30000 services Windows automatically runs.
- BitwiseFool 4y ago
  Easier said than done, I tried paring down a bunch of seemingly unnecessary services on my Windows machine and it wound up breaking things in unexpected places. Did you know that turning off handwriting recognition for tablets makes it so keyboard presses do not cause the lock screen to open to the password textbox, or that it breaks the ability to start typing in the start menu for search results? There's probably a good reason for this, but now I'm way more cautious about turning services off.
  - greggsy 4y ago
    I understand the eternal desire for optimisation, but it’s a game of diminishing returns. Most of the items people agonise over in taskman.exe aren’t using negligible memory and cycles. The software for your RGB keyboard is probably less efficient. Kill Teams, browsers and anything edge that actually handles content, and you’re probably at 95% capacity.
    - olyjohn 4y ago
      svchost.exe begs to differ.
    - naikrovek 4y ago
      it's not so much the running processes, as it is the unpredictable nature of scheduled tasks which do things that just suck performance away from games. those things often run with very odd priorities and very odd schedules or triggers. Also, when games are run and windows doesn't really get to see the mouse move normally because the game has captured it and controls it, windows sees this as "idle" time in some ways, and will handle background activities via the task scheduler. in any use pattern that is not gaming, this is the correct behavior. a windows OS mode that is single user, networked, and meant for limited use (so background housekeeping windows tasks run after you exit or reboot out of this mode) would be pretty ideal, not just for raw performance (which would be measurable, but not the main goal) but to avoid apparently random decreases in performance due to Windows deciding to do something, or suddenly needing to deal with an authentication request dealing with mapped drives, or something. Basically, Windows needs a "Game Console Mode".
tombert 4y ago
Others have already suggested this, but I'm going to re-mention that Proton on Linux has gotten very very good, so you might be able to get away with just installing a hyper-minimalist distro (e.g. Arch, Gentoo, Linux From Scratch, in order of necessary masochism), and just install Steam and Firefox. You could even use a hyper-minimal GUI, e.g. OpenBox or i3 or XMonad.
kevingadd 4y ago
"browser and steam" already is going to pull in a huge, huge subset of the functionality included in full Windows. Google has slowly piled huge amounts of stuff into Chrome like support for MIDI, and Steam embeds a bunch of stuff too and has weird features you might not know about (for example, a media player with custom playlist support) Another thing is that many games rely on older APIs and libraries that are bundled into Windows for compatibility reasons, so if you strip those out to make a slim gaming windows, your games won't work.
chem83 4y ago
Maybe try Windows LTSB/LTSC. Not sure what will break, but there's a community around those.
- jampa 4y ago
  As someone that uses Windows exclusively for games and with no SSD, this was the only solution that made using Windows tolerable. Nothing worse than your friends inviting you to play a quick match and be held by windows update screen for 15-30mins before you are even able to open Steam, and since I rarely boot the PC, all the time that I reserved for gaming was wasted by Windows. There is significant drawbacks of LTSC, no Microsoft Store means no access to Game Pass, which has some good games, and some of the MP games only works among game pass users. Ended up buying an SSD and using the Enterprise version and stopping updates.
  - yellowapple 4y ago
    You can install the Microsoft Store on LTSC. I even had the Xbox Game Bar more-or-less working. The bigger issue is that Win10 LTSC is increasingly far behind a "normal" Win10 (let alone Win11), which makes things increasingly screwy when it comes to both up-to-date drivers and anticheat. Fortnite, for example, would cause my machine to BSOD within 30 seconds of loading (if not sooner) due to (I suspect) its combination of EasyAntiCheat and BattleEye getting derailed; upgrading to Win11 (and putting up with its bullshit) seems to have fixed it.

Would love a Microsoft Gaming OS where I could run a browser, steam, and nothing else.

jabroni_salad 4y ago

you mean the xbox?

unboxingelf 4y ago
can xbox run on my own hardware?
- chaosmachine 4y ago
  https://xemu.app/ https://xemu.app/
  - whiteboardr 4y ago
    I checked unboxingelf’s question for the word “vintage” - negative ; )

nicce 4y ago

Just wait a little longer and Arch Linux can do that for you because of the Steam Deck. Game support is already good.

naikrovek 4y ago
> Game support is already good. And, unfortunately, very far from complete. It is a good direction, however, and I am encouraged by it.

greggsy 4y ago

I mean, you could just log into your pc and just run a browser, steam, and nothing else.

unboxingelf 4y ago
Sure, on top of the 30000 services Windows automatically runs.
BitwiseFool 4y ago
Easier said than done, I tried paring down a bunch of seemingly unnecessary services on my Windows machine and it wound up breaking things in unexpected places. Did you know that turning off handwriting recognition for tablets makes it so keyboard presses do not cause the lock screen to open to the password textbox, or that it breaks the ability to start typing in the start menu for search results? There's probably a good reason for this, but now I'm way more cautious about turning services off.
- greggsy 4y ago
  I understand the eternal desire for optimisation, but it’s a game of diminishing returns. Most of the items people agonise over in taskman.exe aren’t using negligible memory and cycles. The software for your RGB keyboard is probably less efficient. Kill Teams, browsers and anything edge that actually handles content, and you’re probably at 95% capacity.
  - olyjohn 4y ago
    svchost.exe begs to differ.
  - naikrovek 4y ago
    it's not so much the running processes, as it is the unpredictable nature of scheduled tasks which do things that just suck performance away from games. those things often run with very odd priorities and very odd schedules or triggers. Also, when games are run and windows doesn't really get to see the mouse move normally because the game has captured it and controls it, windows sees this as "idle" time in some ways, and will handle background activities via the task scheduler. in any use pattern that is not gaming, this is the correct behavior. a windows OS mode that is single user, networked, and meant for limited use (so background housekeeping windows tasks run after you exit or reboot out of this mode) would be pretty ideal, not just for raw performance (which would be measurable, but not the main goal) but to avoid apparently random decreases in performance due to Windows deciding to do something, or suddenly needing to deal with an authentication request dealing with mapped drives, or something. Basically, Windows needs a "Game Console Mode".

tombert 4y ago

Others have already suggested this, but I'm going to re-mention that Proton on Linux has gotten very very good, so you might be able to get away with just installing a hyper-minimalist distro (e.g. Arch, Gentoo, Linux From Scratch, in order of necessary masochism), and just install Steam and Firefox. You could even use a hyper-minimal GUI, e.g. OpenBox or i3 or XMonad.

kevingadd 4y ago

"browser and steam" already is going to pull in a huge, huge subset of the functionality included in full Windows. Google has slowly piled huge amounts of stuff into Chrome like support for MIDI, and Steam embeds a bunch of stuff too and has weird features you might not know about (for example, a media player with custom playlist support) Another thing is that many games rely on older APIs and libraries that are bundled into Windows for compatibility reasons, so if you strip those out to make a slim gaming windows, your games won't work.

chem83 4y ago

Maybe try Windows LTSB/LTSC. Not sure what will break, but there's a community around those.

jampa 4y ago
As someone that uses Windows exclusively for games and with no SSD, this was the only solution that made using Windows tolerable. Nothing worse than your friends inviting you to play a quick match and be held by windows update screen for 15-30mins before you are even able to open Steam, and since I rarely boot the PC, all the time that I reserved for gaming was wasted by Windows. There is significant drawbacks of LTSC, no Microsoft Store means no access to Game Pass, which has some good games, and some of the MP games only works among game pass users. Ended up buying an SSD and using the Enterprise version and stopping updates.
- yellowapple 4y ago
  You can install the Microsoft Store on LTSC. I even had the Xbox Game Bar more-or-less working. The bigger issue is that Win10 LTSC is increasingly far behind a "normal" Win10 (let alone Win11), which makes things increasingly screwy when it comes to both up-to-date drivers and anticheat. Fortnite, for example, would cause my machine to BSOD within 30 seconds of loading (if not sooner) due to (I suspect) its combination of EasyAntiCheat and BattleEye getting derailed; upgrading to Win11 (and putting up with its bullshit) seems to have fixed it.