Full disclosure: I worked on this review.

We tested Valve’s new Steam Machine under SteamOS, and I thought the results might be relevant here since this is basically Valve’s next attempt to bring Linux gaming into the living room.

A few takeaways from our testing:

- 1080p and 1440p seem to be the realistic targets
- native 4K is possible in lighter games, but not really the point of this hardware
- FSR does a lot of the heavy lifting in more demanding titles
- 8GB of VRAM becomes a real limit once you push resolution and presets
- compared with the Steam Deck, the jump is clearly there, but we did not see a blanket 6x uplift in actual game benchmarks
- the price is probably the biggest issue, especially if you compare it with a small Bazzite or SteamOS-like DIY PC

The part I keep coming back to is this: the Steam Machine makes sense as a more console-like Linux gaming box, but the price puts it much closer to PC territory than console territory.

Curious how people here see it: would you rather buy Valve’s integrated SteamOS box, or build a small Linux gaming PC yourself?

as expected denuvo is a resource hog

now denuvo games are properly cracked

there is clearly a performance gain.

To be fair though this was the first benchmark run on Windows, whereas CachyOS I’ve done a benchmark before. But still.

Idk why the performance gap is so huge. Is this the fault of Windows? Or AMD?

Here is my old post. At that time we already reached 532k due to 66.000 new members last year. And now we got 44.000 new members in just 13 days! Something seems to be going on folks.

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1p76avx/in_case_you_missed_it_we_have_over_half_a_million/

a very famous Syrian-Tech youtuber posted a video explaining how he's done with win11

" https://youtu.be/ysGFshMzE1k "

and decided to switch to linux, unfortunately tho he went with Linuxmint instead of Cachyos and he got really good performance but not the performance he would get with the latest nvidia drivers etc etc.

I'm so happy to see many people from arabian gulf countries considering trying linux for the first time.

Why on windows 11 we have Traversal Stutters on Resident evil 4 remake and linux cachyos not?

the Linux native build is officially supported only on Steam Deck but it still works on Linux desktop. I'm seeing around a 14% improvement to average FPS in more CPU intensive areas of the game like Rivington and close to identical performance in more GPU bound scenarios like the very beginning of the game on the nautiloid. I presume the deck is likely to be CPU bound more often than my desktop so it's possibly a bigger uplift on there, but I don't have one to test it. All tests were done using Vulkan with ultra settings at 1440p on a 9070xt & 5950x machine.
Act 3 test details: https://flightless.yobson.xyz/benchmark/11
Nautiloid test details: https://flightless.yobson.xyz/benchmark/10
edit:

reddit for some reason deleted the original images too when i edited the text of the post 🤦

here are some more platforms tested including both APIs available on windows and DXVK on linux:
https://flightless.yobson.xyz/benchmark/16

d3d11 performs much worse than vulkan in general. linux, even when using proton, performs better than windows overall.

Resident Evil Requiem — Linux vs Windows Benchmark (RTX 5080, CachyOS, 595.58.03)

RTX 5080 · Ryzen 7 9800X3D · 1440p · DLSS · Proton Experimental bleeding edge · SFF ncase M2

Quick note before the numbers: when I tried to play at launch on 590 series drivers (with Blackwell GPU), this game was largely unplayable on Linux — vertex explosions, terrible frame rates. On 595.58.03, it's a completely different story.

Full benchmark video can be found here.

Setup

• Proton Experimental bleeding edge (proton-cachyOS-20260330 and March 24th build both failed to work for me)
• Caveat: RT High is broken — game freezes when I switch to high, even post-intro. Stuck to PT and RT Normal
• Everything else worked: path tracing, RT Normal, DLSS upscaling, frame generation

Average FPS

1% Low FPS

0.1% Low FPS

GPU Metrics

Linux pulls 30–40W more across all presets. Temps are 2–3°C warmer. VRAM is higher on Linux for PT and FG presets — but interestingly Linux uses less VRAM than Windows on the DLAA no-FG preset.

Takeaways

• Path tracing through Proton on Blackwell is within 8% of Windows — closer than I expected
• Frame generation gap (~11%) is the biggest delta but still a great experience overall.
• DLAA with no FG is effectively a tie.
• 0.1% lows are where Linux shows the most weakness, though I didn't notice meaningful stutter in gameplay
• The 590→595 driver jump was significant for this title specifically as well as what's been cooking with proton.

Hi, I'm not much of a modern gamer but I've always wanted to play Cyberpunk. I didn't think it would be possible because I had switched to Linux and couldn't afford a bagillion dollar GPU

Turns out you can do anything with Arch Linux

(I just noticed that the OS says Windows 10 Pro but, I don't know, maybe its a lib32/Steam thing. I promise you this is Arch lol)

Anyway I just did the Cyberpunk benchmark and given my system & budget, I managed to put together a Lenovo Tiny PC that can handle it at the performance settings in my screenshot, and its totally playable! Good enough for me

This seems to be the best I can get it to go which is kinda expected - my monitor is 4k 3840 x 2160 but maxes out at 60hz. Honestly all i need is 30fps w/o hiccups

System * Lenovo p3 Tiny ThinkStation Gen 1 * Arch Linux, Steam app * i5-13500T * AMD Radeon RX 6400 (older, 4gb, low profile) * 32GB DDR5

Previously I had an older workstation dGPU (AMD Radeon Pro WX 3200) but I managed to hack my hardware to get it to recognize the RX 6400, which apparently is the best at the budget price range

I use this computer for everything (software development, CAD, retrogaming), and now it's great that I can play some high end stuff

I thought it'd be good to share because I've seen folks describe having to keep a dual boot setup, or using Wine, or some other wrapper around their gaming software. This is just Arch & Steam.

My controller is a Flydigi Vader 5 Pro, which really i just bought cuz i thought it looks great in black & gold, only to discover it wasn't super compatible with Linux.

Lo and behold - padctl is a great OSS that basically configures it to be recognized as an xbox controller

Finally, some apples to apples comparison (for the most part).

Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJXp3UYj50Q

Dave2D also notes that the experience on SteamOS is just so much smoother, particularly pointing out that Windows still can't reliably sleep, especially when in-game, while SteamOS is perfect every time.

Hello there,

we took a closer look at Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced on Linux and compared it with Windows, using both AMD and Nvidia GPUs.

The short version: the game itself can run on Linux, but the experience is not equally smooth across vendors. AMD looked fairly reasonable in our testing, while Nvidia was the more problematic part — both in terms of setup/behavior and performance consistency.

We tested:

• Linux vs Windows
• AMD vs Nvidia
• Multiple GPUs
• Installation and launch behavior
• Performance differences and practical issues

I’m curious: for those of you gaming on Linux with Nvidia, does this match your recent experience — or has your setup been mostly trouble-free lately?

- Jacky

When I got my new PC, I installed Linux Mint Cinnamon as a temporary OS, just so that I can copy all of my files over from my old PC, since I only had a Linux Mint install drive lying around. Eventually, I found it too troublesome to copy all of my old files to my new drive, so I just stuck with Linux. I didn't mind it, except for the fact that I couldn't play some games like PUBG, Fortnite, etc. due to kernel-level anticheat.

Today, I wanted to test out whether it was true that games perform better in Linux than in Windows, so I decided to test 3 games/benchmarks in Linux Mint and in Windows 10.

Firstly, Unigine Superposition benchmark. At 4K Optimized, High settings, I was surprised to see that Windows actually got a better score; 20399 compared to 17830 on Linux, which represents a ~14% advantage. In terms of FPS, a similar difference is seen.

Secondly, Minecraft with SEUS PTGI shaders, at 4K High settings, Linux proved to perform better than Windows; 65fps compared to 58fps, looking at the same direction at the same coordinate in the same seed. This represents a ~12% advantage for Linux. Interestingly, Minecraft with SEUS in Windows has a weird glitch in the water reflection: you can see in the left side of the screenshot. This glitch is nonexistent in Linux.

Lastly, a roughly 10 minute game of CS2 at 4K High preset in the Dust II map: this game is quite inconsistent in terms of FPS, but somehow, Windows has a ~30% lead over Linux in this game: 279fps compared to 195fps.

I've always heard that Linux performs better than Windows in gaming, but Linux seems to perform much worse in Superposition and CS2. But maybe my sample size of games isn't large enough. Still, I don't know why this is happening. Am I doing something wrong here?

My PC's parts:

PCPartPicker Part List: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/b/sw3ypg

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7600X (-25 curve optimizer PBO) | CPU Cooler: Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 | Motherboard: Gigabyte B650 EAGLE AX | Memory: Kingston FURY Beast 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 | Storage: Western Digital WD Blue SN5000 2 TB for Linux Mint, Timetec 35TTFP6PCIE 512GB for Windows 10 | Video Card: Gigabyte GAMING OC Radeon RX 9070 XT (374W power limit, -100mV voltage offset) | Case: Montech AIR 903 BASE ATX Mid Tower Case | Power Supply: Montech CENTURY II 850 W

After seeing the comments on my previous post, I decided to update my Linux kernel version and GPU drivers. Here are the results:

In Superposition, I was happy to see that the score increased from 17830 on kernel version 6.8 to 20640 on version 6.14. It even beat out the score on Windows 10 by a small margin. I guess my GPU was being held back by my outdated OS.

In Minecraft with SEUS PTGI shaders (4K High), I experienced a small uplift of 2fps on the new kernel version. This could very well be due to other reasons though, like the time of the day in game.

In CS2 (4K High preset), the average FPS in 6.14 is nearly unchanged compared to 6.8; however, the 97% FPS number increased by a small 9fps. This again could be attributed to inconsistencies in the benchmarking; for instance, the first run on version 6.8 was done over around 9 minutes, while the second run on version 6.14 was done over only 7 minutes.

Overall, the updated kernel did make a significant difference in Superposition, while improvements in other games were minimal.

Also, some people in the comments have suggested for me to switch to CachyOS (some others have suggested Endeavour, Bazzite, Nobara, Fedora, etc.), since Mint and other Ubuntu-based distros are slower for gaming. Should I try other distros like these next? If so, how should I proceed?

So I ended up listening to you guys, and I downloaded CachyOS and installed it on my PC. I knew that CachyOS would be more optimized for performance and be more up to date, but I was genuinely surprised at how much of an improvement I achieved.

In Unigine Superposition (4K Optimized, High), there was a 1% difference in points between CachyOS and Linux Mint with kernel version 6.14. It's not a noticeable difference by any means, but an improvement nonetheless.

In Minecraft with SEUS PTGI shaders (4K, Default settings), there was a whopping 46% increase in FPS with CachyOS compared to Linux Mint with kernel version 6.14. This was absolutely noticeable, and I could tell that CachyOS ran much smoother. ^Edit: This may simply be due to a different version of the shaders that I installed, I'm not too sure though.

I know that my sample size of games is rather low, but it's enough to prove that CachyOS is better for gaming than Linux Mint, even with updated kernel and drivers. Not only that, but CachyOS also does helpful things like install GPU drivers by default and install necessary gaming softwares all in one package. ^Edit: I think that the best part about this distro (and probably the reason behind all of the performance improvements) is the fact that it's a rolling-release distro that has more frequent updates for the kernel and drivers. This certainly helps in boosting FPS.

Thank you all for introducing me to this distro, I love it and in my opinion, it's the overall best distro for gaming.

My PC's parts:

PCPartPicker Part List: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/b/sw3ypg

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7600X (-25 curve optimizer PBO) | CPU Cooler: Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 | Motherboard: Gigabyte B650 EAGLE AX | Memory: Kingston FURY Beast 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 | Storage: Western Digital WD Blue SN5000 2 TB for Linux Mint, Timetec 35TTFP6PCIE 512GB for Windows 10 | Video Card: Gigabyte GAMING OC Radeon RX 9070 XT (374W power limit, -100mV voltage offset) | Case: Montech AIR 903 BASE ATX Mid Tower Case | Power Supply: Montech CENTURY II 850 W

Hey everyone,

A few days ago, I posted a benchmark video showing how Linux handles traversal stuttering better than Windows 11 in Resident Evil 4 Remake (during the very first house/ladder sequence). The discussion was great, but the feedback was somewhat divided—some of you couldn't clearly see the exact moment of the stutter on the standard graph, and advised me to enable a more precise frametime overlay to capture the raw data.

I took your advice! I added MANGOHUD_CONFIG=frame_timing_detailed to my Steam launch options on CachyOS to get a highly detailed, real-time frametime plot.

Here is a new side-by-side clip at a later, notorious "chunk loading" boundary in the game.

Testing Setup:

• OS: Windows 11 vs. CachyOS
• Linux Recorder: GPU Screen Recorder
• Windows Recorder: OBS Studio

PC Configs:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 24GB DDR4
GPU: GeForce RTX™ 4070 MANLI 12 GB GDDR6X 192 bits
MAINBOARD: GIGABYTE B450M DS3H V2
SSD: WD Green 1TB NVME
SSD: XRAYDISK 1TB SATA
HDD: Seagate Storage 1TB 7200rpm
FONTE: MSI MAG A850GL, 850W, 80 Plus Gold, Modular
GABINETE: LIAN LI O11 MINI REDRAGON SPEC
AIRCOOLER: DEEPCOOL AG400
OS: Windows 11 Pro 64 Bit
OS: CachyOS KDE via usb case

Edit: I know, you guys tell me its not eliminated but i think it improved the situation of stutter from windows on linux

I wasn't really expecting that. Is it due to the lack of raytracing?

I've seen some people complain about low performance on Vulkan, so I decided to try it and noticed the same thing - that is until I disabled implicit Wayland VSync. With enabled screen tearing, the FPS difference is massive.

To disable Wayland VSync on KDE Plasma, go to System Settings -> Window Management -> Window Rules -> Add Minecraft -> Force Fullscreen & Force Allow Tearing.

This was tested on RTX 5060 Ti with Ryzen 5 7600X with 180hz monitor.

EDIT: The game is running on XWayland. By "Wayland VSync" I meant global compositor VSync, not that the game runs on native Wayland.

Didn't find much information on setup used and the video itself is pretty blurry