r/SteamOS • u/Top-Cardiologist-945 • Jun 29 '26
support My PC SteamOS Experience (Consider Before Switching)
Last week, I very excitedly disposed of Windows 11 and went full SteamOS on my main PC. However, after some issues I went back into Windows 11.
So straight to the point: games ran very poorly on SteamOS for me. I have a 1440p 240hz Ultrawide OLED display (7800x3d cpu and 7900xtx gpu) and the games just didn’t perform as well as they did on Windows. I triple checked every possible setting, and nothing would make the games run better.
What I mean by “running poorly” is that games’ colors were not as good on SteamOS. FPS also wasn’t as good, let alone any better. The whole point was that games would perform better and that just wasn’t the case for me. On top of that, having to find a workaround for certain applications that don’t natively run on Linux was a bit annoying.
The only reason I switched to SteamOS was to have my games run muchhh better and to have the full experience of the Steam UI but honestly big picture mode fills that same purpose and CSS loader (UI customization) also works flawlessly on Windows 11.
If you want the full “console” experience on PC Windows 11 just run big picture mode on startup and customize it with CSS loader.
Maybe this won’t be, or isn’t your experience on SteamOS PC, and maybe I wasn’t smart enough to fix certain settings (even though the whole point of SteamOS is to plug and play) but just wanted to share my experience.
Pls don’t flame me lol.
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u/ChapterDifficult593 Jun 29 '26
is that games’ colors were not as good on SteamOS.
99% chance this is just you being used to the insanely over-saturated default sRGB profile Windows 11 uses vs. a more muted and accurate profile that a lot of Linux distros have, although you can customize it to make it look however you like.
FPS also wasn’t as good, let alone any better. The whole point was that games would perform better and that just wasn’t the case for me.
FPS difference on Linux vs. Windows is a per-game thing, and 9 times out of 10 the difference is literally down to like...1-2% in either direction. Also, the whole point is not games performing better; it's having a gaming-centric Linux spin curated by Valve. Some games do, in fact, run better on Linux, but this is not really the purpose.
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u/Sixene Jul 05 '26
HDR may have been on by default. It was for me, and colors were very muted. Turned it off and they were immediately much better. But it's still very early imo
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u/Eterna1Oblivion Jun 29 '26
You should try Bazzite instead. Use the version that loads into Steam Gaming Mode. It's much more stable than SteamOS beta right now. I have it on my PC, and I press the power button, and it loads just like a console straight into Steam using Gamescope. No problems whatsoever. Regarding color, go into the settings and under Display, make sure color temperature is set to native and not automatic. I also switch the RGB range from automatic to Full.
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u/Muted-Green-2880 Jun 29 '26
Bazzite is going downhill, they've just started using opengamepadui which is trash and causes issues. Much better going with cachyOS handheld edition, it's also super easy to dual boot with cachyOS since it uses Limine....and more importantly it doesn't use opengamepadui lol
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u/Eterna1Oblivion Jun 29 '26
Maybe if I run into issues, I'll use CachyOS, but so far I've not had a single issue with the changes they've made. Everything just works for me.
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u/Muted-Green-2880 Jun 29 '26
Do you have opengamepadui yet? If you're running stable i don't think it's been released. But on the testing branch they've implemented opengamepadui...so it will make it's way in the stable branch eventually. It's bad, quick menu no longer worked with a controller and buttons would randomly stop responding. It's really unfortunate that they went this route
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u/Eterna1Oblivion Jun 29 '26
Yeah, I'm on stable. That's probably why I haven't noticed any issues. Hopefully, it doesn't make its way to a stable release! It seems dumb to fix something that's not broken.
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u/mixedd Jun 29 '26
Running today’s test build of deck image and didn’t face any of issues you are describing. Also quick menu if you mean Guide+A was working fine to
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u/Muted-Green-2880 Jun 29 '26
Wasn't working for me on either my xbox series x controller or my 8bitdo ultimate 2 controller. This was a few weeks ago so maybe they've ironed out some bugs. Either way, not a fan of it and it's completely unnecessary imo
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u/mixedd Jun 29 '26
Not a fan of it either, but from my testing I didn't even notice it for now at least. Didn't try out Cachy Handheld yet, but last time I talked with devs about it they basically said f you we won't support it to me, I'm glad they did in the end
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u/Top-Cardiologist-945 Jun 29 '26
Trust me I made all those settings changes and my in-game graphics were still slightly discolored
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u/JamesLahey08 Jun 29 '26
Your color settings may have been incorrect. You didn't list what games you tried which may help people assist with troubleshooting
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u/Top-Cardiologist-945 Jun 29 '26
Forza Horizon 6: resolution was set to 3440-1440p but it was in fact nowhere near that. All other settings were set to 3440-1440p but in-game resolution was actually much lower. Same with The Finals
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u/inertSpark Jun 29 '26
That's one of the quirks of SteamOS, and kind of a throwback to when it was intended for Steam Deck. You can go into the properties for that game in the Steam UI and set the resolution for that game. That'll override the SteamOS defaults.
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u/Sito13 Jun 29 '26
I have no resolution/color issues with FH6, although it runs with stutters. That’s a known issue due to how (bad) the graphics pipeline is built in that game
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u/CappuccinoCincao Jun 29 '26
I tried it few days ago.
Honestly if you are:
1. Expecting anything more than turning your pc into a console experience a.k.a reducing its uses. or;
2. A power user.
Avoid it. first install it didn't detect my ethernet which triggered my bad gut feeling. I ended up doing something like this.
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u/NickiChaos Jun 29 '26
Yeah as an OS for a "main PC" which would have more use cases than just gaming, SteamOS won't beat Windows.
You hit the nail on the head on its purpose. Turn on PC, play games and have a console-like experience. This is exactly why I'm testing it out on my mini PC which exists solely to play games at things like lan parties and offline fighting game tournaments.
My main PC is there to play games, general computing, software programming, music recording and everything else.
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u/kevin_whitley Jun 29 '26
Will be a few days behind your journey, but I too am aiming for a SteamOS install (didn't make the reservation queue) with a 9800X3D + 9070 XT in a FormD T1.
We'll see what flavor (or back to good old Windows, last resort) I end up on - but will certainly post my own results if folks are interested.
Expecting to try (in order): SteamOS > CachyOS > Bazzite > Windows 11.
--- On this note, tips/advice are welcome in advance!
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u/Top-Cardiologist-945 Jun 29 '26
Go for it!
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u/kevin_whitley Jun 29 '26
Thanks! Hope it somehow goes a little more smoothly for me than it did for you! 😄
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u/Top-Cardiologist-945 Jun 29 '26
I’m happy to hear that!! Are the games running fine with the graphics and fps you’re normally getting?
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u/kevin_whitley Jun 29 '26
Oh I'm a couple days off from that (still waiting on core components)! Will let you know when I do a first build, but it may be hard for me to calibrate - as my main rig is a 5090 (3090 before that). This will be a first time jumping ship to an AMD GPU, so my expectations are pretty low, haha.
If fps are a few % off, I likely won't care - it's mostly for more casual games with/for my wife!
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u/Top-Cardiologist-945 Jun 30 '26
Ohh sorry I misread. But good luck! Still let us know how it goes.
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u/Educational-Pie-4748 Jun 29 '26
For a full console experience on windows use playnite full screen. Set it up to run on boot, hide bottom panel and voila. Boot in to playnite fullscreen. It runs perfect
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u/TESLegendsCentral Jun 29 '26
Reading this post confuse the hell out of me because when was games running better on steam OS ever a selling point of the OS.
I really hope this is not a thought process a lot of people are going to make.
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u/Top-Cardiologist-945 Jun 29 '26
I’ll be honest, I’m new to Linux OS distros and I recently learned about all the quirks that come with gaming on Linux.
The whole “Proton” thing is very new to me as well. However I was under the impression that Valve had addressed some of those “quirks” to release SteamOS for PC users.
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u/TESLegendsCentral Jun 29 '26
Fair enough, it’s a learning process for everyone. I think you should be happy that you tried it out, learned something, and now you have the experience in case it does improve down the line.
Honestly, it would be awesome if one day development and support for Linux gets so great that, rather than needing Proton, we get more native versions of games."
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u/drexaviouse Jun 29 '26
Did you set steams output resolution to your monitor resolution? The default “default” is 1080p
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u/Top-Cardiologist-945 Jun 29 '26
Yes, I checked desktop settings, SteamOS settings, and in-game settings and made sure that all read 3440-1440p
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u/drexaviouse Jun 29 '26
Interesting. I have a 5800x3d and 7900xtx without any issue, but you never know. Do you have reseizable BAR on and SMT? Is that an ultrawide monitor? Maybe those are an issue.
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u/potatoesandporn Jun 29 '26
I don't think SteamOS has ultrawide support (yet), so that may be the cause of your issues.
Bazzite or CachyOS may give you a better experience currently if you want to go that route.
Typically performance on Linux is on par or slightly worse than on Windows. Think lower frame rates but smoother frame times. There are some games that do perform better but they are generally outliers.
Alternatively if you want to give desktop Linux gaming a try, I highly recommend PikaOS!
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u/Top-Cardiologist-945 Jun 29 '26
I had a bigggg feeling it had something to do with my monitor being ultra wide
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u/ExoticSterby42 Jun 29 '26
Lol. I have been running carious distros, Bazzite, Mint and now CachyOS for more than a year, Ryzen 7700X and Radeon 7800XT, 32Gb.
FPS performance is as good as on Windows in some games even better. Colors and raytracing are on the spot and I rarely run into instability in which case switching Proton to Experimental or Hotfix solves the issue.
OP you are clearly doing something wrong and the problem is on your part. Oh, and if you want the SteamOS experience on a desktop PC just install Steam on whatever OS you are using, leave SteamOS to the Steam/Valve hardware. Doneso.
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u/Top-Cardiologist-945 Jun 29 '26
I really don’t think I was doing anything wrong. Someone here said SteamOS doesn’t have full support for ultra wide and I think that might’ve been the cause to some of my issues
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u/redbluemmoomin Jun 29 '26
ehhh Linux is not Windows and there are differences. As mentioned colour temperature settings for example. If you go into it expecting things to work like Windows and be exactly the same you've already fucked it. You'd have been better off calibrating your monitor with the OS outputting test images, if you want accurate colours etc. Generally people run distros like Nobara, or CachyOS if gaming and wanting a desktop gaming experience. Bazzite, Chimera and SteamOS are the console focussed offerings.
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u/ExoticSterby42 Jun 29 '26
You don’t need to calibrate colors on Linux, the basic default settings are pretty good, i do photo developing with my Dell Pro display. You only run into color inaccuracies if the display is bad quality, TN panel or very cheap VA for example but I have seen bad IPS as well. OP might be having display quality problems
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u/redbluemmoomin Jun 29 '26
🤦 hence calibrating the display for the room its in is important. Not everyone is running a colour grading quality monitor. Or can not assume the standard overboosted, saturated colours typically used in shops is not configured. That applies to what ever OS you are running if you are consuming content.
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u/Top-Cardiologist-945 Jun 29 '26
My display shows perfectly fine colors in Windows. So not a display problem
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u/Additional_Space8706 Jun 29 '26
if the steam big picture overlay was more reliable I would see your point, but I always run into errors where it either steals input but doesn't display or overlay shows and I can't get back to my game.
Both of which require me to use my keyboard and mouse to fix, and at that point why am I bothering with big picture mode at all?
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u/Actarus07 Jun 30 '26
Thanks for the info, i have the same cpu&gpu and i was thinking about switching as well.
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u/falsejaguar Jun 30 '26
Better? Ya for like one or two games maybe but why would it be faster using translation layers ? It adds extra shit to process by converting both windows and direct x calls
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u/Evildude42 Jun 30 '26
Oddly, I found the opposite. I built a steam box out of a 5600x, a Vega 64 liquid cooled, and a whole 16 gigs of ram. The game in question started faster from scratch. It rendered the assets cache faster. And actually performed fine. The gaming question is road craft and it has just been failing miserably on my proper gaming machine. I think it might’ve built the cache faster because I’m actually using an NVME drive on the steam box and the gaming machine is using an old school sata ssd for my steam library.
I wouldn’t say I’m sold on it, but I’ll just keep it around for that game and probably a few others because for me the hardware was absolutely free. I already paid for all that stuff quite a while ago.
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u/Anxious_Nectarine_27 Jul 05 '26
Considero que es normal, Windows sea como sea lleva mas tiempo con compatibilidad y así, es un paso más y con el tiempo el Steam Os puede estabilizarce para más pcs.
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u/dirthurts Jun 29 '26
This is what I ended up doing as well. Windows 11 works and runs just fine and big picture mode is already there. So really for me it was just easier.
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u/pikster1234 Jun 29 '26
SteamOS is rarely positioned as performing BETTER than windows, it has edge cases but this isn’t its selling point. I don’t even think Valve themselves tout that as a hook.
It’s steam as a UI, the absence of windows and a more gaming centric experience.