tech
SteamOS tested on dedicated GPUs: No, it’s not always faster than Windows
Ars testing shows SteamOS fares better on iGPUs than powerful graphics cards.
TL;DR
- Windows generally shows better gaming performance than SteamOS on identical hardware, with notable differences in games utilizing 8GB of VRAM.
- Games like Returnal show SteamOS performing significantly worse than Windows when VRAM is a bottleneck on an 8GB GPU.
- On integrated graphics, SteamOS shows a more competitive performance against Windows, sometimes even slightly exceeding it.
- Valve is reportedly working on memory management improvements for SteamOS to address the 8GB VRAM limitations.
- The current state of SteamOS on hardware other than the Steam Deck or Lenovo Legion Go S is considered a work in progress.