SteamOS turns out to run games faster than Windows 11



Technology media Ars Technica has confirmed that gaming consoles with

SteamOS achieve higher frame rates than Windows 11.

Games run faster on SteamOS than Windows 11, Ars testing finds - Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/06/games-run-faster-on-steamos-than-windows-11-ars-testing-finds/

SteamOS is a Linux-based operating system developed by Valve, the company that operates Steam, and is installed on Valve's gaming PC, the Steam Deck .

Ars Technica obtained Lenovo's Legion Go S , the first handheld PC other than Steam Deck to feature SteamOS, and ran benchmarks while switching between SteamOS and Windows.



Ars Technica first tested the Legion Go S with SteamOS by playing five different high-definition 3D games and using the built-in benchmark tool at two different resolution settings.

Next, I installed Windows 11 on the Legion Go S, installed the Windows drivers published by Lenovo, and reran the benchmark using the same game downloaded from Steam for Windows.

Of the games, 'Doom: The Dark Ages' could not be tested due to driver compatibility, but it was cleared by replacing it with the AMD compatible driver released by ASUS for its own handheld PC 'ROG Ally'.

Below is a graph of frame rates for various games at 1280x800 resolution. Orange is SteamOS, green is Windows 11 x Lenovo driver, and red is Windows x ASUS driver. For most games, the frame rate improvement with SteamOS ranged from small to large. The difference was especially noticeable in the shooter game 'Returnal.'



At 1920x1200 resolution, most games were kept at 20fps or less, but 'Returnal' ran at 33fps on SteamOS, as shown below.



Also, perhaps because the ASUS driver was newer, some games had values close to SteamOS with the ASUS x Windows 11 setting. However, Ars Technica points out that 'users will have to go through the trouble of installing unofficial drivers, so it won't be as good as an out-of-the-box experience.'

On the social site Hacker News,

comments such as 'Steam games perform better when run on Linux via the Proton compatibility layer than when run on Windows' were posted.



Windows is not optimized for games, so it can take a lot of extra work to run the OS. Microsoft is aware of this issue, and has announced that the upcoming Xbox Experience for Handheld will minimize background processing and postpone non-essential tasks to achieve 'higher frame rates.'

Ars Technica said, 'The clear advantage in gaming performance is a strong advantage of SteamOS.'

in Software,   Game, Posted by log1p_kr