SteamOS Gaming Performs Worse Than Windows, Analysis Shows

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A report at Ars reveals that games are running noticeably better on Windows than SteamOS.

No matter how you slice it, running these two high-end titles on SteamOS comes with a sizable frame rate hit; we got anywhere from 21- to 58-percent fewer frames per second, depending on the graphical settings. On our hardware running Shadow of Mordor at Ultra settings and HD resolution, the OS change alone was the difference between a playable 34.5 fps average on Windows and a stuttering 14.6 fps mess on SteamOS.
 
Driver optimizations are no joke, question is if SteamOS would ever get that kinda attention at some point or not from GPU manufacturers. I have doubts but who knows.
 
I'm thinking crusty_ juggler will feel vindicated by this.;)

So who are the beta testers now? This simply isn't ready. Too many problems, too few games, too little benefit.
 
Driver optimizations are no joke, question is if SteamOS would ever get that kinda attention at some point or not from GPU manufacturers. I have doubts but who knows.

It would if Valve would invest in it so AMD and Nvidia had the resources to optimize the drivers. However, I think Valve may want all the advantages of the console and PC with none of the costs. Consoles and OS design is very expensive, the companies spend a lot of money upfront to make sure everything works right out of the box.
 
Most games on Linux are bad ports and even then most of those ports use eON which doesn't give games a 100% native Linux port. Valve's games do run faster on Linux, because they give a damn. Though those games tend to run fast on everyone's hardware anyway.

Ars Technica is nice website but isn't what I would go to for Linux gaming performance analysis. Penguin Recordings does a very in depth analysis when it comes to Linux gaming. Besides Windows vs Linux, there's Wine vs Windows, and even tests drivers like Open Source Gallium Radeon vs Catalyst. Though his hardware is limited in selection but it does give you a better idea of the current state of Linux gaming.
 
You should check out the article and you will see that Valve, indeed, does not give a damn.

From the article:

Unfortunately, Valve's own Source engine games showed the same performance hit when compared to their Windows versions. Portal, Team Fortress 2, and DOTA 2 all took massive frame rate dips on SteamOS compared to their Windows counterparts; only Left 4 Dead 2 showed comparable performance between the two operating systems (though there's no sign of those SteamOS frame rate improvements Valve cited years ago).

So yeah, the game that I think they've been promoting for sometime as running well on Linux runs well on Linux. Doesn't seem that did much with the others. And as you've pointed out, Valve's not really doing much when new games now anyway. These are great games but well past their peak.
 
Not good results, but I have to believe that valve knows it must at least offer performance parity to stand any chance of making steamos a legitimate contender in gaming.

Most point to vulkan as the magic bullet, I guess time will tell on that front.
 
It's a step towards reducing the influence MS has in game development. A small one, that I hope they spend the time and money on to make better. I don't wan MS to die, but I want them out of the business of pushing every PC game towards the Xbox. Only way to do that is to lessen the industry and end users reliance on MS tools and OS's. It has to start somewhere. That it does not give us the moon today does not bother me.
 
That's ok if you have 50% framerate loss because at least you are running on windows correct? Up to 90% performance hit is worth it to not have anything to do with M$ right? right? :p

It all comes down to using the right tool for the job. And this just shows that Windows is still the correct tool if you want to do gaming. You can blame it on drivers, you can blame it on whatever you want, but in the end if Windows is better then Windows is better.

Not good results, but I have to believe that valve knows it must at least offer performance parity to stand any chance of making steamos a legitimate contender in gaming.

Most point to vulkan as the magic bullet, I guess time will tell on that front.

And those people are crazy. That won't magically give you better drivers. Won't magically change the system. Just changes gives you a different API to use. However if everything between the physical hardware and the API commands doesn't get fixed, then you still have issues. Putting a racing seat into a beat up junker of a car doesn't give you a superfast car. Doesn't matter how much you redo the internal, until you replace the stuff under the hood you aren't doing shit.
 
above post should have said "50% framerate loss because at least you aren't running on windows" :p
 
A report at Ars reveals that games are running noticeably better on Windows than SteamOS.

No matter how you slice it, running these two high-end titles on SteamOS comes with a sizable frame rate hit; we got anywhere from 21- to 58-percent fewer frames per second, depending on the graphical settings. On our hardware running Shadow of Mordor at Ultra settings and HD resolution, the OS change alone was the difference between a playable 34.5 fps average on Windows and a stuttering 14.6 fps mess on SteamOS.

Ars already got smashed on this. From g+ when somebody Referenced the Ars tripe:

+Michael Goff+all +Ars Technica's article told us is that developers don't know how to use +The Khronos Group+ #OpenGL +

Not... exactly... the worlds biggest surprise. The full OpenGL spec is a full blown nightmare; hence both the Embedded System(s) version(s) and the completely new Vulkan API.+

OpenGL support also drastically differs per chip based on the X.org backed or proprietary driver in use. Case in point; several games leveraging OpenGL 3.x calls are faster on AMD's OpenGL 3.x capable hardware using the X.org Driver rather than the Catalyst driver that supported those cards. There are no titles, that I am aware of, where the X.org driven Nvidia driver is even remotely close to Nvidia-GLX.

This isn't exactly a big surprise. In order to properly optimize a title the current day Linux developer needs to have at least 5 different GPU's on hand: AMD X.org backed, AMD Catalyst Backed with older kernel; Nvidia X.org Backed, Nvidia-GLX, and Intel.+

Most developers simply don't bother to test across such a range. Big surprise; many developers have never been in the position where they actually have access to the shader code in question that their game is running. Most are used to the proprietary Windows Software ecosystem where they just make the best of whatever hash they get handed.+

So: again, not exactly sure you want from Valve in relation to any kind of "Story" +

Yes; OpenGL 4.x can be faster, far faster, than deprecated API's like DirectX on identical hardware; but that requires an expert use of not just the core OpenGL 4.x API, but also a firm understanding of the OpenGL 4.x EXT calls available for each potential driver.+

Yes, OpenGL 2.x, 3.x, and 4.x can be faster when DirectX calls are in-flight wrapped to OpenGL calls; but that's pretty much only on Nvidia's OpenGL 4.x hardware; and only on a narrow subset where OpenGL 4.x EXT calls offer better IPC or threading compared to the deprecated DirectX call.

So: again; what story are you looking for? That game developers have a LOT +to learn in porting their DirectX titles to OpenGL? Not really a big surprise.+

I think the only real take-away that could be gained from Ars's article is that game developers should be taking an active interest in Vulkan development to make sure their interests are considered and addressed.+
 
Driver optimizations are no joke, question is if SteamOS would ever get that kinda attention at some point or not from GPU manufacturers. I have doubts but who knows.
It's not necessarily a driver optimization problem. OpenGL performance on those ports can lag behind for many reasons.
 
I agree that too much emphasis is being placed on drivers. It seems to be a knee-jerk reaction to blame drivers for everything. When console ports are disasters is it always a driver issue?

Besides, the big takeaway from the Ars article is not the performance issues per se (and I think the benchmark resolutions are flawed). The real takeaway is a more important fact: that Valve is full of shit, they don't care anything about this stuff, and they've been putting everyone on for years now giving the idea that they were hard at work. The only thing they've been hard at work doing is trucking to the bank barrel fulls of cash from virtual hat sales.

Has anyone noticed their hardware partners slowly walked away from this enterprise? Because they know partnering with Valve is like purchasing a ticket for a trainwreck.
 
I do hope that MS pushes a "games store" of sorts to Windows. PC gaming desperately needs some competition in terms of digital distribution services.
 
Cool. Another opportunity for me to rant....I mean discuss the impracticality of Steam Machines.
It's a step towards reducing the influence MS has in game development.
Absolutely. From it's inception, Steam OS has never been about providing choice, or enabling better performance or offering a larger game library. The Valve CEO has been very open about his goals for Steam OS, it is intended to lock MS out of PC gaming.

Sadly for Valve though, game consumers give a rat's ass about OS politics and API wars. They want, well, games. Graphically impressive games that are fun and perform well on their hardware. They're not going to abandon the platforms that have providing those things to them in favor of one that does not simply because someone at corporation A claimed corporation B is hell-bent on destroying their hobby.

Now, for the Linux gamer community, all 0.9% of them? Sure. They'll bite of their nose just to spite Microsoft's face. Linux folks are more than willing to see their framerates tank and their game libraries shrink if it comes with an inflated sense of OS righteousness. But Valve can not rely on the small fraction of people who spell MS with a dollar sign to make it's platform a success. They need the general public to get on board. Unfortunately, a mainstream consumer would have to be smoking rocks to drop twice as much money on a console that does half the framerate and offers a quarter of the game library.

The real takeaway is a more important fact: that Valve is full of shit.
Valve promised the framerate moon and instead gave us a Debian distro that boots into Big Picture Mode. And it took them years.
 
[H] should create a subforum that contains only Steam OS and Surface Pro topics so me and heatlesssun can just circle jerk all day long.
 
Has anyone noticed their hardware partners slowly walked away from this enterprise? Because they know partnering with Valve is like purchasing a ticket for a trainwreck.
I think they walked away because it's pointless. Linux as a gaming OS will be inferior due to limited selection and performance issues (and fragility of basically the whole graphics stack... games *will* break for seemingly no reason), and the full experience according to Valve requires another PC running Windows. Someone wanting to play Windows games can play it on Windows. Valve should just accept that.

Gabe just threw a fit based on the idea that the Microsoft Store would become a viable competitor to Steam, and hobbled together this mess. Steam OS/Machines are not a viable competitor to consoles, and anyone who wants to play Windows games from the couch won't have a terribly hard time doing it.

The huge draw of consoles is the (usually) ridiculous convenience of it. Software is made for the system and few things get in the way of enjoying it on the big screen. Steam OS does nothing to fix all the problems the Windows ecosystem has, and instead introduces many more.
 
Not good results, but I have to believe that valve knows it must at least offer performance parity to stand any chance of making steamos a legitimate contender in gaming.
Most point to vulkan as the magic bullet, I guess time will tell on that front.
Performance parity with what though? Windows or consoles? Getting the efficiency of a console with the hardware of a gaming PC should be Valve's goal.

Magic bullets are still magic. A common API doesn't address platform specific drivers.
Except that the API in question is designed around a very thin driver. It also addresses the constant need for "game ready drivers". The only reason you would need those is if the drivers sucked and a bug needed fixed.

Has anyone noticed their hardware partners slowly walked away from this enterprise? Because they know partnering with Valve is like purchasing a ticket for a trainwreck.
I can see several potential reasons this is happening. And it might be more to do with delaying things than walking away.

Steam machines really are just PCs in pretty boxes. Selling one is no different than selling a PC without a OS installed. Just get a bunch of blank boxes and install whichever OS the buyer selects and smack some stickers/decals on it.

If I were designing a SBox, I think I'd want something with HBM for the small profile. Maybe one IHV over the other if someone dropped the ball and drivers/hardware support suck with the new API. Then I'd want the new low level API, which isn't out yet for whatever reason. An API that should be similar in design to what consoles use, making ports more reliable.

I'd be willing to speculate that next year we could start seeing much more SoCs. Stick your CPU and system memory on an interposer like HBM and just how large of a case do you need? Memory slots are probably 25% of typical mobo real estate. I wouldn't be surprised if GPUs got replaced by socketed chips either. The new AMD chips sort of look like CPUs and it would leave all your fans pointing up/same direction to facilitate cooling. Remove most/all of the PCI-E slots and you could have highly compact gaming systems.
 
I do hope that MS pushes a "games store" of sorts to Windows. PC gaming desperately needs some competition in terms of digital distribution services.

They already tried that with GFWL, it had an online games store. They then proceeded to dump GFWL and screw people out of their games because GFWL was also DRM masquerading as a service. :rolleyes:
 
Getting the efficiency of a console with the hardware of a gaming PC should be Valve's goal.
Valve's stated goal is the creation of a gaming platform that staves off the eventual takeover of x86 apps by Microsoft. Valve believes that MS is going to restrict allowable Windows programs to only those purchased from the Windows Store. This is a theory that is beyond ridiculous.

Again, Gabe Newell has said over and over that his company wants to move gamers to Linux in order to prevent Steam from being blacklisted on Windows. We can talk about what Valve's goal should be, or what we want it to be, but Valve's goal is in black and white - straight from the CEO's mouth.

Steam Universe has nothing to do with performance. Valve is selling tinfoil hats that ward off the evil Microsoft and their plans to destroy PC gaming. Tinfoil hats in the form of expensive, low performing, content starved gaming consoles.
 
It's a step towards reducing the influence MS has in game development. A small one, that I hope they spend the time and money on to make better. I don't wan MS to die, but I want them out of the business of pushing every PC game towards the Xbox. Only way to do that is to lessen the industry and end users reliance on MS tools and OS's. It has to start somewhere. That it does not give us the moon today does not bother me.

two thumbs up
 
Valve's stated goal is the creation of a gaming platform that staves off the eventual takeover of x86 apps by Microsoft. Valve believes that MS is going to restrict allowable Windows programs to only those purchased from the Windows Store. This is a theory that is beyond ridiculous.

Again, Gabe Newell has said over and over that his company wants to move gamers to Linux in order to prevent Steam from being blacklisted on Windows. We can talk about what Valve's goal should be, or what we want it to be, but Valve's goal is in black and white - straight from the CEO's mouth.

Steam Universe has nothing to do with performance. Valve is selling tinfoil hats that ward off the evil Microsoft and their plans to destroy PC gaming. Tinfoil hats in the form of expensive, low performing, content starved gaming consoles.

That's actually not completely what he said. He said his primary concern was that Apple was going to take over the living room and he wanted to get an open ecosystem established in there first. This was just after the rumored Apple / Valve talks had fallen apart (never confirmed, just rumors).

Three years later we see things are much different on both the MS and Apple fronts, which could explain why Valve completely doesn't care anymore. But I don't think Gabe's concerns were unfounded back then. Ballmer saw those dollar signs that the App Store was hauling in and he wanted a part of that. And I'm sure Gabe had ears in the industry a lot deeper than we do. But, again, Gabe was focused on the living room. Never has Valve proposed this thing as an alternative to traditional PC gaming (like on a desk w/ a KB+M).
 
Again, Gabe Newell has said over and over that his company wants to move gamers to Linux in order to prevent Steam from being blacklisted on Windows. We can talk about what Valve's goal should be, or what we want it to be, but Valve's goal is in black and white - straight from the CEO's mouth.

I've not seen anything that direct but it certainly has to be on Valve's mind considering 95% of its business is on Windows. Getting away from Windows is a big part of this. Great for Valve and Microsoft haters. Irrelevant to the vast bulk of PC gamers.

Steam Universe has nothing to do with performance. Valve is selling tinfoil hats that ward off the evil Microsoft and their plans to destroy PC gaming. Tinfoil hats in the form of expensive, low performing, content starved gaming consoles.

This is a big reason why Windows survives. So many anti-Microsoft are either stuck in time or bashing Windows for this reason or that and meanwhile the alternatives they push are no where as good as they claim. I've said many times. If desktop Linux were anywhere near as good as many of its proponents claim the world would have stopped using Windows long ago.

But no, it's stupidly, laziness and marketing. If someone wants to play Fallout 4 they should just wait 3 to 5 years or make it work in Wine.
 
I've not seen anything that direct.
Gabe Newell said:
There's a strong temptation to close the platform because they look at what they can accomplish when they limit the competitors' access to the platform, and they say, 'That's really exciting"

By "competitors" he means competitors to the Windows Store. Valve's CEO flat-out thinks MS is going to blacklist digital storefronts that compete with the Windows Store. Hence, the effort to move his customers to Linux.

I can't help but think, having over three years to reflect, perhaps Gabe realizes he overreacted upon seeing digital store for mom to buy a weather app from in Win8.
 
Microsoft has indicated they want DX12 and in turn Windows 10 running on XBox. XBox's are effectively locked in to XBox Live for gaming. I haven't seen very many XBox's running a Steam app, and MS will take a cut from their app store. On Win8 you need to set up a XBox Live account to do a lot of stuff on the desktop. No different than registering with Google to access their store.

It's not really surprising Valve would want to keep the marketplace open and push an open platform for distribution where games can be purchased and then played on whatever platform is present. This is as much about being able to buy a game and play it on any platform you are using now or in the future. If I buy a game this year, then next year totally convert to a different platform, it would be nice to take that game with me.

In my view this is on par with being able to buy PS4 games and play them on XBox. An alternative to being forced to own every single console just to play any games I might want.
 
Didn't expect the SteamOS to hit it out of the park at launch. So, I'm not super shocked by it. Curious how it fairs when Vive launches.
 
steamos is a fad. lets be honest here, i know there are some folks who will be all about SteamOS, but in the end, it will not even be a conversation in a couple years. It'll be dead and gone.
 
lol now Linux people are going to complain about the bad windows ports. Wait till they get a bad windows port of a bad console port.
 
I can't help but think, having over three years to reflect, perhaps Gabe realizes he overreacted upon seeing digital store for mom to buy a weather app from in Win8.

Microsoft definitely desired to create a strong app store, which, it is true, didn't work out. But the entirety of Windows 8 was pushing to that concept. Since it hasn't worked out for MS it could explain why Valve lost interest.
 
Microsoft definitely desired to create a strong app store, which, it is true, didn't work out. But the entirety of Windows 8 was pushing to that concept. Since it hasn't worked out for MS it could explain why Valve lost interest.

One thing to consider is that originally the Windows Store was just about metro apps. It now supports Win32 apps and AAA gaming titles are coming to it like the next Tomb Raider that just launched on Xbox.
 
Cool. Another opportunity for me to rant....I mean discuss the impracticality of Steam Machines.
Absolutely. From it's inception, Steam OS has never been about providing choice, or enabling better performance or offering a larger game library. The Valve CEO has been very open about his goals for Steam OS, it is intended to lock MS out of PC gaming.

Sadly for Valve though, game consumers give a rat's ass about OS politics and API wars. They want, well, games. Graphically impressive games that are fun and perform well on their hardware. They're not going to abandon the platforms that have providing those things to them in favor of one that does not simply because someone at corporation A claimed corporation B is hell-bent on destroying their hobby.

Now, for the Linux gamer community, all 0.9% of them? Sure. They'll bite of their nose just to spite Microsoft's face. Linux folks are more than willing to see their framerates tank and their game libraries shrink if it comes with an inflated sense of OS righteousness. But Valve can not rely on the small fraction of people who spell MS with a dollar sign to make it's platform a success. They need the general public to get on board. Unfortunately, a mainstream consumer would have to be smoking rocks to drop twice as much money on a console that does half the framerate and offers a quarter of the game library.

Valve promised the framerate moon and instead gave us a Debian distro that boots into Big Picture Mode. And it took them years.
I give a rats ass about API's and OS's. Out of the 20 years of DirectX life. 10 of those years were on 9, 10, & 11. 9 went of for freaking ever and so did 10. primiarly because those corresponded to Xbox & Xbox 360. Microsoft wanted to slow PC to match their xbox's. Two small reasons, save a few bucks and stifle the PC's from pulling ahead and embarrassing their consoles. One big reason, they wanted you to buy both windows and an xbox. If anyone was trying to destroy PC gaming, it was Microsoft.

PC gaming has only gotten love lately for 4 reasons. Xbox One flop of an introduction, Windows 8's flop and the need to use every asset to keep people interested in Windows, Mantle, and SteamOS.
 
Absolutely. From it's inception, Steam OS has never been about providing choice, or enabling better performance or offering a larger game library. The Valve CEO has been very open about his goals for Steam OS, it is intended to lock MS out of PC gaming.

Lock them out of gaming? I don't see that, I see fear that MS would lock them out. The only way to prevent that would be to reduce the influence, or stranglehold MS has on game devs with DX and their OS being the only game in town as far as the PC goes. Nix had made some headway, but it was still barely a niche after all this time. It did not have any big money with the fear of being shut out of their livelihood to push it forward.
 
One thing to consider is that originally the Windows Store was just about metro apps. It now supports Win32 apps and AAA gaming titles are coming to it like the next Tomb Raider that just launched on Xbox.

And we all know how well Games For Windows Live worked out right? Valve had legitimate concerns given the directions win8 was going. I have "MS Games for Windows Marketplace" installed on my win7 box just because RE5 Steam version had to install it apparently. Its not needed to run the game thankfully.

As for Tomb Raider exclusives... meh. I'll pick it up on Steam in a year or two for dirt cheap. I got the first one for $4.
 
I give a rats ass about API's and OS's. Out of the 20 years of DirectX life. 10 of those years were on 9, 10, & 11. 9 went of for freaking ever and so did 10. primiarly because those corresponded to Xbox & Xbox 360. Microsoft wanted to slow PC to match their xbox's. Two small reasons, save a few bucks and stifle the PC's from pulling ahead and embarrassing their consoles. One big reason, they wanted you to buy both windows and an xbox. If anyone was trying to destroy PC gaming, it was Microsoft.

PC gaming has only gotten love lately for 4 reasons. Xbox One flop of an introduction, Windows 8's flop and the need to use every asset to keep people interested in Windows, Mantle, and SteamOS.



I agree with your statement.

It really sucks that fanbois become so blind to obvious things, just because they love a stupid company.

Hell, when they released the fist Xbox, that was the first thing that came to me "They are going to make sure this crap gets preference over PC gaming".

I'm personally tired of their BS, for example, the new xbone controller release for the PC has being a big fuck you to all of us PC gamers.
To the point that now, they finally released the wireless adapter and yet, they locked it to only W10.

That's the type of crap that I want to be free off and Linux and SteamOS can help with that.

And dont forget, almost all consoles always lack backward compatibility.

Talking about that, if you think that microsoft released BC on the xbone out of their love for you, you are all mistaken, it was because Sony is handling their asses on the rest of world.

Get your head out of MS ass already.
 
One thing to consider is that originally the Windows Store was just about metro apps. It now supports Win32 apps and AAA gaming titles are coming to it like the next Tomb Raider that just launched on Xbox.

Right, Tomb Raider. A title MS actually bribed a developer to keep it off of Windows.

Phil Spencer has said repeatedly how much MS "got Windows gaming wrong" and "really cares about PC gaming" now, yet their actions don't line up. Why did it not launch simultaneously on Windows, at a time they just launched a new version and supposedly want more people buying things from the windows store?

Christ man, of all titles to bring up, avoid Tomb Raider when you're trying to argue in favor of the shit MS has been pulling.
 
I agree with your statement.

It really sucks that fanbois become so blind to obvious things, just because they love a stupid company.

Hell, when they released the fist Xbox, that was the first thing that came to me "They are going to make sure this crap gets preference over PC gaming".

I'm personally tired of their BS, for example, the new xbone controller release for the PC has being a big fuck you to all of us PC gamers.
To the point that now, they finally released the wireless adapter and yet, they locked it to only W10.

That's the type of crap that I want to be free off and Linux and SteamOS can help with that.

And dont forget, almost all consoles always lack backward compatibility.

Talking about that, if you think that microsoft released BC on the xbone out of their love for you, you are all mistaken, it was because Sony is handling their asses on the rest of world.

Get your head out of MS ass already.

MS hate, MS hate, MS hate, all the worlds problems are because of Microsoft. Or, perhaps, you could actually stop insulting someone based upon their purchases and show us why we should care about what you think?
 
When it launched steam was steaming pile of brown substance now it defines pc gaming. So we will see if Valve has any real plan for it over the next few years.
 
When it launched steam was steaming pile of brown substance now it defines pc gaming. So we will see if Valve has any real plan for it over the next few years.
It did suck from about 2003 - 2005, then it was OK, and has gotten generally better year after year since. Not sure Steam OS will be given that much of a chance unless Valve really pushes it hard. Valve will have to throw dev and marketing money, (hopefully mostly dev money), at it for the next few years, to make any real inroads imho.
 
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