7 ms·

Lenovo Legion Go S: Windows 11 vs. SteamOS Performance, and General Availability

116 points by ekianjo 1y ago

jauntywundrkind 1y ago
Absolutely murderous results. And the open source situation promises only better and better. Work in Mesa 25.2 is improving the next gen geometry, enabling much better culling for example. https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-Better-NGG-Mesa-25.2 https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-Better-NGG-Mesa-25.2 And a recent organizational shift; the Radeon software folks are leaving behind their proprietary stack & will be working purely on the open source stack. https://www.phoronix.com/news/Radeon-Software-Drop-Prop-GL-VK https://www.phoronix.com/news/Radeon-Software-Drop-Prop-GL-V... It'd be neat to have a comparison like this that has some stats or resources consumption graphs. How many of these wins are CPU, GPU, or other would be interesting to get a pulse on. Info on the Legion Go S: specs on the Ryzen Z2 Go APU here are overall very similar to the Steam Deck's custom apu; 4 Zen3+ cores, 12CU RDNA2 iGPU (a 680m). A (Windows based) test shows a perhaps double digit % lead for the Z2 Go. I'm a huge fan of there being a second USB port, enabling simultaneously charging and display. Notably has a 32GB ram model. Base: $650 (on sale for $500 recently). https://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Ryzen-Z2-Go-Processor-Benchmarks-and-Specs.949789.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Ryzen-Z2-Go-Processor-Benc... https://www.pcmag.com/comparisons/lenovo-legion-go-s-vs-valve-steam-deck-oled-which-is-the-best-gaming-handheld https://www.pcmag.com/comparisons/lenovo-legion-go-s-vs-valv...
Night_Thastus 1y ago
Given Microsoft's recent 'This is an Xbox' and 'Windows 11 will be the platform for gaming' messaging, and the demolishing of the Xbox division, this may be good timing. Results like this may light a fire under MS to finally fix some deep problems in Windows' performance. At least, one can hope.
- mlnj 1y ago
  At this point, I've given up having hope for Windows to be actually a good experience for anything at all. Development has been a pain over the last decade. MacOS has it's rough-edges, but it has become a pleasure to code on. Normal everyday experience is just a pain with unintuitive settings pages, slow Files Explorer, and a horrendous start panel experience. Gaming seems to be the last thread my Windows machine is around for anymore. Although I have not tried moving to Linux for this, the gaming community seems to be happy enough for more and more games every week.
  - BunsanSpace 1y ago
    > MacOS has it's rough-edges, but it has become a pleasure to code on Except when Apple deprecates APIs but the replacement doesn't have close to the same functionality (looking at you screen capture kit). Or when the documentation just doesn't explain anything and you have to reverse engineer the API to figure out what it does. or how there's a bunch of hidden APIs only certain vendors are told about so you can't even compete on an even playing field. And don't get me started on the C, C++, ObjectiveC and now Swift monstrosities. Having fun with your legacy project when the new APIs require swift, so you have to use the objectiveC bridge and the weird bugs that comes with it.
    - neuroelectron 1y ago
      Also Apple undercutting your business by turning your app in an OS feature. Or Apple deleting your app and account because of politics but they claim it's a policy violation. They just selectively enforce it. Or apple allowing foreign governments back doors.
      - BoredPositron 1y ago
        Because Microsoft never did any of those things...
        neuroelectron 1y ago
        Certainly not in the way Apple does. Archive/zip integration into the file explorer is a great example. As apposed to F.lux, where Apple completely removed the API and app and made their own version of it.
    - bobbylarrybobby 1y ago
      macOS is great to code on, not to code for
    - pdpi 1y ago
      GP said that macOS is a pleasure to code on, you’re arguing that it is not a pleasure to code for. Both can be true at the same time!
- lupusreal 1y ago
  I hope Microsoft stays complacent and ultimately loses the gamer market. With gamers out and most other casual consumers going mobile, Microsoft will be ever more relegated to office environments, making them even less cool and hopefully starting a snowball effect that really hurts them.
  - whalesalad 1y ago
    Gonna be tough when they own literally all the gaming studios now
    - the_snooze 1y ago
      They own a bunch of AAA gaming studios, which have been producing flop after multimillion-dollar flop. All that while random indie darlings produce high quality cross-platform hits for a fraction of the budget.
      - pjmlp 1y ago
        True, and while quite sad for everyone involved, they had one of the best years in gaming, with all their gaming divisions combined.
    - maxsilver 1y ago
      They just fired a lot of the gaming studios they used to own. (Tango, Arkane), and cancelled most of their major upcoming projects (Everwild, Perfect Dark, the new MMO, etc) And - while there are rare examples otherwise (like iD software), many of their studios haven't made a well received game in over a decade. It's not necessarily a great thing for the industry, but Microsoft leaving gaming entirely would not be that terribly tough. If anything, it would probably have the least amount of impact now, then it would have at any other time since 2001.
      - staticman2 1y ago
        Microsoft bought the Call of Duty studios for a lot of money and likes to say they are succeeding at video games by pointing to Call of Duty revenue in a vacuum without counting the cost to aquire Activision. They certainly aren't going to stop releasing Call of Duty games.
- zamalek 1y ago
  The problem is the bullet point features that Microsoft is adding to Windows (AI, ads, Xbox bar, etc.). The fastest line of code possible is the line of code that doesn't exist (look, this technically isn't true when considering data structures, but it's a good baseline). Microsoft would have to exercise discipline with Windows features, which is never going to happen: the very people pushing the garbage are using Macs and don't have to suffer it.
  - Night_Thastus 1y ago
    I'm not convinced those new features are adding any substantial overhead. From my understanding, most of the problems are at the low level - things like threading, kernel space operations, file writing, etc. Very stripped-down versions of Windows perform pretty much identically from what I last saw.
    - const_cast 1y ago
      I believe (speculating) that a big reason Windows underperforms in battery life is because of the "death by a thousand cuts" approach to network-connect background services. Linux desktops have very little background services that make constant network calls. But on Windows, there's hundreds. Every team thinks they need a little bit of telemetry or they need to grab an icon or something stupid, so nobody thinks twice. Same thing goes for logging. But when you add it all up, it ends up being expensive.
magicalhippo 1y ago
Very interesting that the Cyberpunk 2077 results showed 28% performance improvements as well as a 25% increase in battery life. Often better performance is due to more efficient use of hardware, which comes at an energy cost. Other times it allows the hardware to work more efficiently, like avoiding spinning on locks.
- usrusr 1y ago
  When seeing numbers like that I always wonder about the probability of the engines truly running the same feature set: not because I doubt that an alternative implementation can be faster (I don't) and certainly not because I'd want to accuse anyone of trickery, but because those software stacks are just so very, very complex and adaptive and minor (but, perhaps, costly in fps) adaptions of the engine parametrization to the runtime environment can be very difficult to spot by looking at the output. I'd imagine the relationship between the code and what's actually happening must be almost as wild and unpredictable as what we see in epigenetics.
  - Cyph0n 1y ago
    How would the engines be running differently? It’s quite literally the same Windows build of the game running on Wine/Proton. The simpler explanation is that Windows is poorly optimized, and runs a ton of inefficient crap in the background that’s taking cycles away from the CPU and maybe even GPU.
    - jeroenhd 1y ago
      I can imagine the feature set the native Windows driver advertises is different from the feature set DXVK reports. If DXVK doesn't support or implement certain features that the engine then doesn't request of it (or if the API call translates to a noop), you could quite easily end up in a scenario where graphic fidelity is lowered, accidentally boosting battery life and performance. There were bugs where certain games wouldn't render certain shadows, for instance, which might not get noticed but still offers an accidental performance uplift.
trelane 1y ago
> So, guys, I don’t want to kill your enthusiasm, but this sounds very much like We are just pretending to release a SteamOS version but in fact we advertise the Windows model everywhere instead. Since I am familiar with large companies, I guess the story was like that. As a Linux user since the last millennium, this dance is so incredibly familiar. > In his own column, Gassée has written several times about Microsoft's Windows OEM License and the ways in which it limits the freedoms of PC OEMs. In July 2001, I spoke with Gassée to find out why no dual-boot computers with BeOS or Linux installed alongside Windows can be purchased today https://birdhouse.org/beos/byte/30-bootloader/ https://birdhouse.org/beos/byte/30-bootloader/ > It's impossible to know precisely how much, but if you do the math and assume that it's $30 per computer from those various sources, that would yield $200 million or more than 25% of Dell's profitability. It could be more or less than this number, but any way that you look at it, Dell is dependent on Microsoft for a massive chunk of their profits. http://www.michaelrobertson.com/archive.php?minute_id=131 http://www.michaelrobertson.com/archive.php?minute_id=131 So, uh, good luck. Sure is an amazing coincidence how many PC vendors suddenly have a competitor to the Steam Deck, that happen to run Windows, and especially push their Windows versions.
- pjmlp 1y ago
  I keep telling remember OS/2 and netbooks, but apparently the dream of Desktop Linux built on top of Win32 and DirectX is too good to give up, and accept the issues building castles on foreign kingdoms.
notepad0x90 1y ago
I don't get the comparison here. Imagine comparing a Toyota corolla out of the dealer's lot with a highly customized Honda civic optimized for street racing. Guess which will be faster? lol Windows is a general purpose operating system. Can SteamOS run random accounting software from 2002? makes no sense right? apples and oranges. Why pick the obvious terrible choice for the category? A good comparison would have been consoles like playstation or xbox (Microsoft's gaming optimized OS/platform akin to SteamOS). Then if they used similarly specced PC, it would be reasonable benchmark.
- ekianjo 1y ago
  > obvious terrible choice for the category? the same hardware for gaming is being advertised and sold with Windows 11. That's why.
- reef_sh 1y ago
  Steam OS is very much just a general purpose OS. It easily allows you to switch to desktop mode and just use it as a regular linux PC. It just boots into steam by default.
  - notepad0x90 1y ago
    So I can deploy steam at any random company? or if I'm a graphic designer can I use it to replace my macos? is it a good distro if I'm working on embedded sofware development? Should I use it as a web server? it can after all run nginx or apache on it. If I have a VPS with 1GB ram, is this a good OS for it? or a laptop from 2011? all I'm saying is it can do lots of things, but it isn't built to support all those things. it's built for gaming. if it really is a general purpose OS, the litmus test (in my opinion) is that someone starts shipping it with general purpose computing hardware and people actually start using that.
    - bsimpson 1y ago
      Say you want to play Outer Wilds on an airplane. Your options are Windows or SteamOS. Which do you prefer? No one in that scenario cares if it's easier to run Office on Windows.
staticman2 1y ago
I've had a lot of weird issues with my early model Steam Deck from 2022. I'd be interested in knowing how these later devices do in basic usability issues like will the device freeze for 30 minutes if booted when your internet is down but your network is up and it can't confirm your Steam credentials on startup. Will switching inputs on an HDTV result in the dock needing to be disconnected and reconnected before you get a video signal? Etc.
- bsimpson 1y ago
  Considering a major selling point of handhelds is portability, it's bizarre that Steam insists on trying to log in when you power it on. Even if there are no known wifi hotspots nearby, it will still spend a minute looking for one.
- garciansmith 1y ago
  I have an early model Steam Deck, my network is up but my home internet connection has been down for hours (because Comcast). Just tested this and it boots up immediately like normal, no issues, so I can't reproduce that freezing issue.
  - staticman2 1y ago
    I can't guarantee it hasn't been patched- it's not like I frequently boot the Deck when the Internet is down but my network is running- but this reddit thread describes the problem though it seems the existence of a network but no Internet may not have been the trigger, any lack of Internet may have killed it: https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/ynxson/possible_issue_with_system_start_up_wo_internet/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/ynxson/possible_... As I recall I also hadn't used my Deck for a while.
Daishiman 1y ago
Really amazing how Win32 is now another API that's been essentially virtualized out of Windows with performance improvements on top.
- baq 1y ago
  It’s the stable ABI that Linux doesn’t want to have so it got shoved down its throat in userspace, with surprisingly good results and a typical 20 years in the making overnight success.
  - zanecodes 1y ago
    I'm convinced that the lack of a stable ABI and the lack of a hardware abstraction layer (requiring drivers to be in the kernel source tree) is what's preventing The Year of the Linux Desktop from ever arriving. I understand the principles behind both decisions, but at some point I think pragmatism should win out. I guess I'm just a bit surprised that no distro has taken up the mantle of providing these things; it seems to me it should be possible to build a stable ABI and HAL on top of the existing Linux kernel.
    - Daishiman 1y ago
      The problem is that as soon as you do that you're stuck with whatever architecture you already have, which incurs precisely the performance and maintenance burdens that Windows already suffers. Which is a reasonable design choice for many things. But Linux can move fast in part because it can decide to discard bad ABI and HAL conventions.
      - zanecodes 1y ago
        I understand that, but I think for an operating system it's more valuable to provide stability for applications than to be able to move fast. Secondarily, do the same issues not apply to the Linux API as to a hypothetical ABI? If the API changes, don't userspace applications still need to be updated and/or recompiled accordingly, or suffer breakage? At some level, whether it's an ABI, a statically linked API, or a dynamically linked API, there always has to be some interface between applications and the operating system, and breaking changes to that interface must be managed with care. It comes down to where you decide to draw that interface, and I think the ABI is just a better place to draw it from a user's perspective. This way, applications don't need to be recompiled to work on newer operating system versions, and given how challenging and painful it can be to compile applications reproducibly, and how many applications are only provided in binary form to begin with, this seems like a worthy goal.
inversetelecine 1y ago
I guess the OEMs (Lenovo in this case) still don't want support calls about why their game (anti-cheat enabled, fortnite, etc) won't run on their new Legion Go S.
- lvass 1y ago
  Although you may very well be correct, Epic and Lenovo aren't owned by the same entities in paper, and putting it this way is uncalled for.
tines 1y ago
This year I switched over to Linux and Mac completely away from my high end Lenovo Windows gaming laptop, using the latter only when absolutely necessary, and I couldn’t be happier. I’m not putting up with ads in my goddamn start menu, opt-out or no.
acd 1y ago
When gamers get better FPS on Linux they will switch os.
- zamalek 1y ago
  Unfortunately draconian anticheat is still rife and prohibits many gamers from switching. Those of us who no longer care about competitive games are fortunate to be able to choose the superior platform.
- dralley 1y ago
  It's already possible with a lot of titles.
POM37 1y ago
I personally own the older but almost identical version of the Legion Go and while i really think Steam OS is the defacto better operating system for Handleld gaming i still don't switch because what the article missed is the big buzzword Named Frame Generation. Yes windows has worse performance if you count Frame Gen out. Steam OS saddly had no Framegen on launch and now a relatively Old version of it. I think for handheld gaming this really is the killer feature. You get double or even triple the frames in those More demanding 3d titles, added smoothness for the 2d indi games, and the normally occurring downsides like graphic artefacts are a lot less of a problem because of the smaller screen size. Even on windows Lenovo is slow to update their official Drivers but you can either go directly to AMD or get the asus Handheld drivers instead, if you are willing to jump through the hoops that its. This feature which currently has a lot of bad press(rightly so) really is perfect for Handheld gaming and Valve should be staying on top with the updates more.
- jauntywundrkind 1y ago
  FSR 3.1 has been supported for over a year. https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/1dq8ztk/fsr_31_frame_gen_works_on_steam_deck_now https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/1dq8ztk/fsr_31_f... GE-Proton is easy to add and added FSR4 support in the recent 10.9 release, https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/07/ge-proton-10-9-released-with-ntsync-and-fsr4-upgrade-support/ https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/07/ge-proton-10-9-release... There are mods for if you have a game that alas uses an icky, proprietary framegen, to use FSR instead. https://www.resetera.com/threads/framegen-mod-available-for-steam-deck.1093731/ https://www.resetera.com/threads/framegen-mod-available-for-... Steam's performance hub shows what frame gen is running and how many frames it's generating. Now on the rest of Linux clients too (mangohud is also very popular). https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/06/steam-gets-a-new-steam-deck-like-performance-monitor-now-in-beta-replacing-the-fps-counter/ https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/06/steam-gets-a-new-steam... > This feature which currently has a lot of bad press(rightly so) really is perfect for Handheld gaming and Valve should be staying on top with the updates more. There's no company in the history of Linux that has done 1/20th as much to "stay on top with the updates" to Linux. Definitely deeply considering flipping the bozo bit here! Lot of dad tramboning over things that work, well.

116 points by ekianjo 1y ago

Absolutely murderous results. And the open source situation promises only better and better. Work in Mesa 25.2 is improving the next gen geometry, enabling much better culling for example. https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-Better-NGG-Mesa-25.2 https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-Better-NGG-Mesa-25.2 And a recent organizational shift; the Radeon software folks are leaving behind their proprietary stack & will be working purely on the open source stack. https://www.phoronix.com/news/Radeon-Software-Drop-Prop-GL-VK https://www.phoronix.com/news/Radeon-Software-Drop-Prop-GL-V... It'd be neat to have a comparison like this that has some stats or resources consumption graphs. How many of these wins are CPU, GPU, or other would be interesting to get a pulse on. Info on the Legion Go S: specs on the Ryzen Z2 Go APU here are overall very similar to the Steam Deck's custom apu; 4 Zen3+ cores, 12CU RDNA2 iGPU (a 680m). A (Windows based) test shows a perhaps double digit % lead for the Z2 Go. I'm a huge fan of there being a second USB port, enabling simultaneously charging and display. Notably has a 32GB ram model. Base: $650 (on sale for $500 recently). https://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Ryzen-Z2-Go-Processor-Benchmarks-and-Specs.949789.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Ryzen-Z2-Go-Processor-Benc... https://www.pcmag.com/comparisons/lenovo-legion-go-s-vs-valve-steam-deck-oled-which-is-the-best-gaming-handheld https://www.pcmag.com/comparisons/lenovo-legion-go-s-vs-valv...

Night_Thastus 1y ago

Given Microsoft's recent 'This is an Xbox' and 'Windows 11 will be the platform for gaming' messaging, and the demolishing of the Xbox division, this may be good timing. Results like this may light a fire under MS to finally fix some deep problems in Windows' performance. At least, one can hope.

mlnj 1y ago
At this point, I've given up having hope for Windows to be actually a good experience for anything at all. Development has been a pain over the last decade. MacOS has it's rough-edges, but it has become a pleasure to code on. Normal everyday experience is just a pain with unintuitive settings pages, slow Files Explorer, and a horrendous start panel experience. Gaming seems to be the last thread my Windows machine is around for anymore. Although I have not tried moving to Linux for this, the gaming community seems to be happy enough for more and more games every week.
- BunsanSpace 1y ago
  > MacOS has it's rough-edges, but it has become a pleasure to code on Except when Apple deprecates APIs but the replacement doesn't have close to the same functionality (looking at you screen capture kit). Or when the documentation just doesn't explain anything and you have to reverse engineer the API to figure out what it does. or how there's a bunch of hidden APIs only certain vendors are told about so you can't even compete on an even playing field. And don't get me started on the C, C++, ObjectiveC and now Swift monstrosities. Having fun with your legacy project when the new APIs require swift, so you have to use the objectiveC bridge and the weird bugs that comes with it.
  - neuroelectron 1y ago
    Also Apple undercutting your business by turning your app in an OS feature. Or Apple deleting your app and account because of politics but they claim it's a policy violation. They just selectively enforce it. Or apple allowing foreign governments back doors.
    - BoredPositron 1y ago
      Because Microsoft never did any of those things...
      - neuroelectron 1y ago
        Certainly not in the way Apple does. Archive/zip integration into the file explorer is a great example. As apposed to F.lux, where Apple completely removed the API and app and made their own version of it.
  - bobbylarrybobby 1y ago
    macOS is great to code on, not to code for
  - pdpi 1y ago
    GP said that macOS is a pleasure to code on, you’re arguing that it is not a pleasure to code for. Both can be true at the same time!
lupusreal 1y ago
I hope Microsoft stays complacent and ultimately loses the gamer market. With gamers out and most other casual consumers going mobile, Microsoft will be ever more relegated to office environments, making them even less cool and hopefully starting a snowball effect that really hurts them.
- whalesalad 1y ago
  Gonna be tough when they own literally all the gaming studios now
  - the_snooze 1y ago
    They own a bunch of AAA gaming studios, which have been producing flop after multimillion-dollar flop. All that while random indie darlings produce high quality cross-platform hits for a fraction of the budget.
    - pjmlp 1y ago
      True, and while quite sad for everyone involved, they had one of the best years in gaming, with all their gaming divisions combined.
  - maxsilver 1y ago
    They just fired a lot of the gaming studios they used to own. (Tango, Arkane), and cancelled most of their major upcoming projects (Everwild, Perfect Dark, the new MMO, etc) And - while there are rare examples otherwise (like iD software), many of their studios haven't made a well received game in over a decade. It's not necessarily a great thing for the industry, but Microsoft leaving gaming entirely would not be that terribly tough. If anything, it would probably have the least amount of impact now, then it would have at any other time since 2001.
    - staticman2 1y ago
      Microsoft bought the Call of Duty studios for a lot of money and likes to say they are succeeding at video games by pointing to Call of Duty revenue in a vacuum without counting the cost to aquire Activision. They certainly aren't going to stop releasing Call of Duty games.
zamalek 1y ago
The problem is the bullet point features that Microsoft is adding to Windows (AI, ads, Xbox bar, etc.). The fastest line of code possible is the line of code that doesn't exist (look, this technically isn't true when considering data structures, but it's a good baseline). Microsoft would have to exercise discipline with Windows features, which is never going to happen: the very people pushing the garbage are using Macs and don't have to suffer it.
- Night_Thastus 1y ago
  I'm not convinced those new features are adding any substantial overhead. From my understanding, most of the problems are at the low level - things like threading, kernel space operations, file writing, etc. Very stripped-down versions of Windows perform pretty much identically from what I last saw.
  - const_cast 1y ago
    I believe (speculating) that a big reason Windows underperforms in battery life is because of the "death by a thousand cuts" approach to network-connect background services. Linux desktops have very little background services that make constant network calls. But on Windows, there's hundreds. Every team thinks they need a little bit of telemetry or they need to grab an icon or something stupid, so nobody thinks twice. Same thing goes for logging. But when you add it all up, it ends up being expensive.

magicalhippo 1y ago

Very interesting that the Cyberpunk 2077 results showed 28% performance improvements as well as a 25% increase in battery life. Often better performance is due to more efficient use of hardware, which comes at an energy cost. Other times it allows the hardware to work more efficiently, like avoiding spinning on locks.

usrusr 1y ago
When seeing numbers like that I always wonder about the probability of the engines truly running the same feature set: not because I doubt that an alternative implementation can be faster (I don't) and certainly not because I'd want to accuse anyone of trickery, but because those software stacks are just so very, very complex and adaptive and minor (but, perhaps, costly in fps) adaptions of the engine parametrization to the runtime environment can be very difficult to spot by looking at the output. I'd imagine the relationship between the code and what's actually happening must be almost as wild and unpredictable as what we see in epigenetics.
- Cyph0n 1y ago
  How would the engines be running differently? It’s quite literally the same Windows build of the game running on Wine/Proton. The simpler explanation is that Windows is poorly optimized, and runs a ton of inefficient crap in the background that’s taking cycles away from the CPU and maybe even GPU.
  - jeroenhd 1y ago
    I can imagine the feature set the native Windows driver advertises is different from the feature set DXVK reports. If DXVK doesn't support or implement certain features that the engine then doesn't request of it (or if the API call translates to a noop), you could quite easily end up in a scenario where graphic fidelity is lowered, accidentally boosting battery life and performance. There were bugs where certain games wouldn't render certain shadows, for instance, which might not get noticed but still offers an accidental performance uplift.

trelane 1y ago

> So, guys, I don’t want to kill your enthusiasm, but this sounds very much like We are just pretending to release a SteamOS version but in fact we advertise the Windows model everywhere instead. Since I am familiar with large companies, I guess the story was like that. As a Linux user since the last millennium, this dance is so incredibly familiar. > In his own column, Gassée has written several times about Microsoft's Windows OEM License and the ways in which it limits the freedoms of PC OEMs. In July 2001, I spoke with Gassée to find out why no dual-boot computers with BeOS or Linux installed alongside Windows can be purchased today https://birdhouse.org/beos/byte/30-bootloader/ https://birdhouse.org/beos/byte/30-bootloader/ > It's impossible to know precisely how much, but if you do the math and assume that it's $30 per computer from those various sources, that would yield $200 million or more than 25% of Dell's profitability. It could be more or less than this number, but any way that you look at it, Dell is dependent on Microsoft for a massive chunk of their profits. http://www.michaelrobertson.com/archive.php?minute_id=131 http://www.michaelrobertson.com/archive.php?minute_id=131 So, uh, good luck. Sure is an amazing coincidence how many PC vendors suddenly have a competitor to the Steam Deck, that happen to run Windows, and especially push their Windows versions.

pjmlp 1y ago
I keep telling remember OS/2 and netbooks, but apparently the dream of Desktop Linux built on top of Win32 and DirectX is too good to give up, and accept the issues building castles on foreign kingdoms.

notepad0x90 1y ago

I don't get the comparison here. Imagine comparing a Toyota corolla out of the dealer's lot with a highly customized Honda civic optimized for street racing. Guess which will be faster? lol Windows is a general purpose operating system. Can SteamOS run random accounting software from 2002? makes no sense right? apples and oranges. Why pick the obvious terrible choice for the category? A good comparison would have been consoles like playstation or xbox (Microsoft's gaming optimized OS/platform akin to SteamOS). Then if they used similarly specced PC, it would be reasonable benchmark.

ekianjo 1y ago
> obvious terrible choice for the category? the same hardware for gaming is being advertised and sold with Windows 11. That's why.
reef_sh 1y ago
Steam OS is very much just a general purpose OS. It easily allows you to switch to desktop mode and just use it as a regular linux PC. It just boots into steam by default.
- notepad0x90 1y ago
  So I can deploy steam at any random company? or if I'm a graphic designer can I use it to replace my macos? is it a good distro if I'm working on embedded sofware development? Should I use it as a web server? it can after all run nginx or apache on it. If I have a VPS with 1GB ram, is this a good OS for it? or a laptop from 2011? all I'm saying is it can do lots of things, but it isn't built to support all those things. it's built for gaming. if it really is a general purpose OS, the litmus test (in my opinion) is that someone starts shipping it with general purpose computing hardware and people actually start using that.
  - bsimpson 1y ago
    Say you want to play Outer Wilds on an airplane. Your options are Windows or SteamOS. Which do you prefer? No one in that scenario cares if it's easier to run Office on Windows.

staticman2 1y ago

I've had a lot of weird issues with my early model Steam Deck from 2022. I'd be interested in knowing how these later devices do in basic usability issues like will the device freeze for 30 minutes if booted when your internet is down but your network is up and it can't confirm your Steam credentials on startup. Will switching inputs on an HDTV result in the dock needing to be disconnected and reconnected before you get a video signal? Etc.

bsimpson 1y ago
Considering a major selling point of handhelds is portability, it's bizarre that Steam insists on trying to log in when you power it on. Even if there are no known wifi hotspots nearby, it will still spend a minute looking for one.
garciansmith 1y ago
I have an early model Steam Deck, my network is up but my home internet connection has been down for hours (because Comcast). Just tested this and it boots up immediately like normal, no issues, so I can't reproduce that freezing issue.
- staticman2 1y ago
  I can't guarantee it hasn't been patched- it's not like I frequently boot the Deck when the Internet is down but my network is running- but this reddit thread describes the problem though it seems the existence of a network but no Internet may not have been the trigger, any lack of Internet may have killed it: https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/ynxson/possible_issue_with_system_start_up_wo_internet/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/ynxson/possible_... As I recall I also hadn't used my Deck for a while.

Daishiman 1y ago

Really amazing how Win32 is now another API that's been essentially virtualized out of Windows with performance improvements on top.

baq 1y ago
It’s the stable ABI that Linux doesn’t want to have so it got shoved down its throat in userspace, with surprisingly good results and a typical 20 years in the making overnight success.
- zanecodes 1y ago
  I'm convinced that the lack of a stable ABI and the lack of a hardware abstraction layer (requiring drivers to be in the kernel source tree) is what's preventing The Year of the Linux Desktop from ever arriving. I understand the principles behind both decisions, but at some point I think pragmatism should win out. I guess I'm just a bit surprised that no distro has taken up the mantle of providing these things; it seems to me it should be possible to build a stable ABI and HAL on top of the existing Linux kernel.
  - Daishiman 1y ago
    The problem is that as soon as you do that you're stuck with whatever architecture you already have, which incurs precisely the performance and maintenance burdens that Windows already suffers. Which is a reasonable design choice for many things. But Linux can move fast in part because it can decide to discard bad ABI and HAL conventions.
    - zanecodes 1y ago
      I understand that, but I think for an operating system it's more valuable to provide stability for applications than to be able to move fast. Secondarily, do the same issues not apply to the Linux API as to a hypothetical ABI? If the API changes, don't userspace applications still need to be updated and/or recompiled accordingly, or suffer breakage? At some level, whether it's an ABI, a statically linked API, or a dynamically linked API, there always has to be some interface between applications and the operating system, and breaking changes to that interface must be managed with care. It comes down to where you decide to draw that interface, and I think the ABI is just a better place to draw it from a user's perspective. This way, applications don't need to be recompiled to work on newer operating system versions, and given how challenging and painful it can be to compile applications reproducibly, and how many applications are only provided in binary form to begin with, this seems like a worthy goal.

inversetelecine 1y ago

I guess the OEMs (Lenovo in this case) still don't want support calls about why their game (anti-cheat enabled, fortnite, etc) won't run on their new Legion Go S.

lvass 1y ago
Although you may very well be correct, Epic and Lenovo aren't owned by the same entities in paper, and putting it this way is uncalled for.

tines 1y ago

This year I switched over to Linux and Mac completely away from my high end Lenovo Windows gaming laptop, using the latter only when absolutely necessary, and I couldn’t be happier. I’m not putting up with ads in my goddamn start menu, opt-out or no.

acd 1y ago

When gamers get better FPS on Linux they will switch os.

zamalek 1y ago
Unfortunately draconian anticheat is still rife and prohibits many gamers from switching. Those of us who no longer care about competitive games are fortunate to be able to choose the superior platform.
dralley 1y ago
It's already possible with a lot of titles.

POM37 1y ago

I personally own the older but almost identical version of the Legion Go and while i really think Steam OS is the defacto better operating system for Handleld gaming i still don't switch because what the article missed is the big buzzword Named Frame Generation. Yes windows has worse performance if you count Frame Gen out. Steam OS saddly had no Framegen on launch and now a relatively Old version of it. I think for handheld gaming this really is the killer feature. You get double or even triple the frames in those More demanding 3d titles, added smoothness for the 2d indi games, and the normally occurring downsides like graphic artefacts are a lot less of a problem because of the smaller screen size. Even on windows Lenovo is slow to update their official Drivers but you can either go directly to AMD or get the asus Handheld drivers instead, if you are willing to jump through the hoops that its. This feature which currently has a lot of bad press(rightly so) really is perfect for Handheld gaming and Valve should be staying on top with the updates more.

jauntywundrkind 1y ago
FSR 3.1 has been supported for over a year. https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/1dq8ztk/fsr_31_frame_gen_works_on_steam_deck_now https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/1dq8ztk/fsr_31_f... GE-Proton is easy to add and added FSR4 support in the recent 10.9 release, https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/07/ge-proton-10-9-released-with-ntsync-and-fsr4-upgrade-support/ https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/07/ge-proton-10-9-release... There are mods for if you have a game that alas uses an icky, proprietary framegen, to use FSR instead. https://www.resetera.com/threads/framegen-mod-available-for-steam-deck.1093731/ https://www.resetera.com/threads/framegen-mod-available-for-... Steam's performance hub shows what frame gen is running and how many frames it's generating. Now on the rest of Linux clients too (mangohud is also very popular). https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/06/steam-gets-a-new-steam-deck-like-performance-monitor-now-in-beta-replacing-the-fps-counter/ https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/06/steam-gets-a-new-steam... > This feature which currently has a lot of bad press(rightly so) really is perfect for Handheld gaming and Valve should be staying on top with the updates more. There's no company in the history of Linux that has done 1/20th as much to "stay on top with the updates" to Linux. Definitely deeply considering flipping the bozo bit here! Lot of dad tramboning over things that work, well.