If I had to boot a game and shut it down each time, I’d only pickup the device when I had set aside time to game.
Since I can suspend and resume whenever, I pickup my steam deck all the time. I can play in the car and just suspend when we arrive or I can play for a few minutes while waiting for a meeting to start.
I can play while my wife gets ready.
Sometimes meets get canceled or there is traffic, so gaming sessions can really stretch out into a longer play time.
If I couldn’t suspend, I wouldn’t have played in those moments.
Yeah same, being able to stop playing immediately is huge for me. There are a lot of games I would struggle to play through without it.
Diablo 4 not playing nice with suspend (due to the always online requirement) was the main reason I couldn't get into it and didn't buy it after the free to play week ended.
I feel like this really the killer feature.
I’ve seen a ton of digital ink spilled on all manner of positives, such as how amazingly-portable it is, or how it’s been doing wonders for the advancement of Linux gaming.
But, I’ve yet to see anybody—outside you—speak about how amazing the suspend/resume is. And, that for me, is the reason why I play on a SteamDeck almost exclusively these days—even though I have a small collection of games I can play on Mac. I have such small windows of opportunity, and appreciate I can still play a game, even for a little as a few minutes.
My experience with suspend has not been good - causing glitching and requiring shutting the game down and reloading from a previous save whenever I suspended in a cut scene. As a result I haven't used it much due to those first couple of trials; maybe it's better now.
I have noticed a slight reduction in framerates when loading back in from a suspended state but only on certain games. Namely High On Life
I was in the middle of Witcher 3 when I got my deck, and pausing during a cut scene (and some are feature film length, it fells like) caused the video to go slide-show and the audio to get choppy, and there was no recovering the game. I basically had to go back to the previous save and play back to that point. PITA. Something similar happened in one other game (can't remember at the moment) and I just gave up suspend unless it was something simple / mindless like Yoku's Island Express.
If you don't use suspend mid game, what do you do? Do you shut the device down in between gaming sessions? Or do you just save and exit the game and suspend the OS level?
Usually I just suspend in-game to the game's menu, then hardware-suspend. That's pretty reliable.
I used to like suspend. How is your battery life while suspended? If I left mine in suspend for more than a few hours, it'd die, or I'd pick it up and there wouldn't be enough battery to continue playing without also charging.
Mine just lasts literally weeks, but I never tested it. It is so worry-free that I sometimes go multiple days without picking it up and when I finally do it has like 85% of battery and I don't remember how much it had when I suspended it so I never even think about it. The TLDR is that the suspend in Linux works magically.
Unlike the Switch, which drains 70% of the battery in 3 days of standby. Every time I pick it up I have to charge it, it feels like such a chore that the SD has taken its place completely.
I kinda regret having bought a Switch.
You're talking about sleep/suspend directly from playing a game?
It seems to be a hit randomly and depends on the game, but I only play around the house, so it’s never been a big deal. I also try not to suspend unless I’ve saved already just in case, but I’m willing to take the risk.
I never considered one of the windows-based portables. In fact when I saw that the steamdeck was linux based and was well received, I jumped.
Once I saw how well it worked, I stopped dual-booting my laptop and get to live in linux all the time.
If the article is correct and the market is starting to push this way, that is great news for linux, linux-gaming, and everyone.
Yeah I am baffled at this point anyone at all would consider a MSFT portable PC.
Linux has finally actually arrived, Proton works amazingly well compares to just a few years ago and honestly Valve as a manufacturer of gaming peripherals has a shockingly good track record for solid build quality, even if some of their devices are not super popular.
Oh right did anyone mention you can emulate basically anything other than current gen consoles on a Steam Deck, and the operating system is not going to fight you on that?
I think a lot of people would be more interested in the SteamOS over windows on handhelds if they got to try SteamOS first and see how smooth it is. But without full knowledge on it, a lot of them either assume they'll like windows more because they already know how to use it, or they assume it's steam UI only with no desktop mode (even if people won't actually use desktop mode much, they want it as an option).
I am shocked, shocked I tell you that MSFT using PC Gamers still have not realized they are MSFT fanboys basically exactly the same way you had console fanboys a decade ago.
But, but, they spent so much time learning how to do so much weird esoteric bullshit to make Windows actually run games well, and nearly none of that translates over to a Linux system!
You mean my decades of mastery of an increasingly enshittifying Operating System is... worthless?
That a better alternative exists if I would only take the time to do literally any work to learn something actually out of my comfort zone?
...
I think the modern equivalent of Socrates getting old and complaining about the youths being disrespectful and dancing too lewd of dances is basically people who styled themselves as early adopters and technologically savvy in their childhood and early adulthood, and then just entirely gave up on that while basically simultaneously still claiming to be tech savvy but also being inherently afraid and dismissive of any /actually/ useful new tech innovations.
Gaming has been literally the only thing keeping me on windows for at least a decade now, and with SteamOS/Proton reaching their current levels of compatibility I finally feel like I can make the switch with my next PC and not have to worry about it.
I could put linux on my current gaming tower, but I'll fully admit that it's just easier not to. It's a comfortable shoe at this point that I can't be bothered to change while I already have it. Though if my hand was forced and I had some kind of catastrophic drive failure and lost my OS volume linux is probably what would go there in its place.
There are two other "PCs" in my home that I own, my Steam Deck and a NUC that I use as a home server. Both run linux.
I'm fortunate in that basically nothing I play uses invasive anti-cheat garbage, which is still a huge compatibility problem. It has skeeved me out on windows for a long time, and I've avoided games that use many of them. I had many friends disappointed that I wouldn't join them in Star Wars: The Old Republic back when that first came out precisely because I wouldn't tolerate how invasive the anti-cheat was.
But there are lots of gamers for whom Proton still isn't enough. A single game they want to play that won't run is a dealbreaker. Or the only game they want to play won't run. An OS that won't run the game(s) they want to play isn't fit for purpose for them, and those people are a huge proportion of gamers.
Well, honestly at this point, generally speaking, the kinds of games that currently are hugely popular and only work on Windows?
They usually have very toxic communities.
They usually are expensive.
They are often addicting and they are often designed to coax players into more and more microtransactions and are thus unethical.
They are nearly always a kind of gameplay that is actually not very original, or engaging or challenging for anyone who has a good amount of experience with a wide variety of games, but draw people in due to featuring a popular IP characters/setting/world.
There are nearly always alternative games that take aforementioned extremely unoriginal at this point game mechanics and actually improve on them, but are less popular due to being a less recognizable IP.
Do you see where I am going with this?
You are talking about the most stereotyoically gamer type people that give basically all people who enjoy games but also have a personality outside of that a hugely bad rap.
These are, generally speaking, the idiots that keep shelling out money to hugely exploitative game studios that consistently release buggy unfinished garbage, or are widely known to have horrible working conditions for their employees, or both.
These are the people who I was talking about, the ones that just need whats comfortable, need that latest version of their favorite IP game, number 7 or 9 in the series.
Now, I am being hyperbolic and I realize that there are exceptions to this, there are actually good games that are still basically currently Windows only because they dont have a large enough staff to keep updating their games and also make multiplayer work on linux.
But, if you look into the technicals of that situation... in many cases the technical fix for this is actually so easy that I have seen people literally submit all of the code for this directly to the devs, or if its closed source a comprehensive overview of how to implement something... and they just do not notice it or say that nobody plays on linux so who cares.
But they are likely to change that stance when they see more and more SteamDeck and Linux Desktop users.
I will be completely fine if all of the COD 386 players are still using Windows in 5 years when someone has figured out how to do a more fun, less bullshit, less toxicity inducing shooter on Linux, or something analogous to that.
Let them keep paying for their own suffering while others move on and... you know. Have fun. Playing games. Remember when games were fun, and engaging instead of soul crushing addictions that ruin you and your life?
Do you see where I am going with this?
Kind of? I agree that leaving those games and their communities behind isn't necessarily a bad thing, but they make up an enormous portion of the gaming market. I can't speak for you, but I'm not going to write off literally millions of people as unsalvageable losses just because they play a game or participate in a community I don't like. I'm sure lots of them don't really like their communities either.
or say that nobody plays on linux so who cares.
And there's the problem. They're right. Even now after all the progress Valve has made it just doesn't make economic sense to invest the time to fix these things. Opening the doors for the players of these toxic and addicting games to at least have the option of using linux is another step in alleviating that.
A rising tide raises all ships, whether you like the source of that tide or not.
Well I think its fair to agree to disagree, or hold different stances on that first point.
Yep, I just dont care about such people, in terms say wanting to make a game any of them would want to play.
I acknowledge thats just me personally and of course other people in other situations would be valid in caring about that demographic.
As to the second point, you may be right, and I may be wrong.
I would say there are far too many variables to forecast how everything will evolve accurately, but I guess I can say that I am confident that the share of linux gamers will grow, and that it will almost certainly spawn analagous, linux games to the current Windows Exclusive ecosystem, but i grant that many other forces at play may impede or prevent certain existing games from doing the work to allow online linux capability, or for bigger established studios heavily influenced or outright funded by MSFT to develop new games or compatibilize existing games in that manner.
Yeah I am baffled at this point anyone at all would consider a MSFT portable PC.
Gamepass is still amazing if you are primarily in the MS/Xbox ecosystem. And not all games work in Linux. And, increasingly, modding (for what few games "support" it) is dependent on third party applications that are rather annoying to set up under linux.
Oh right did anyone mention you can emulate basically anything other than current gen consoles on a Steam Deck, and the operating system is not going to fight you on that?
Does Windows "fight you on that" either? Also, it has been a minute, but I want to say that some of the better emulators are still "windows only" and best run through proton?
I love my steam deck and it (and the ever increasing stupidity of win10) was a big part of finally migrating my personal (gaming) computers over to fedora. But if I were even ten years younger and still cared about competitive gaming and all the bullshit out of Riot et al? It would still be a no go.
And now it has put me in a REAL weird position with stuff like the Yakuza/LAD games since I got into those on Gamepass but would love to grind on the go and... (although, apparently there are save decrypters for Kiwami 2 and 7... but still no good way to get HDR to my big display from my PC).
Linux gaming is (FINALLY!!!) viable. But it is still not perfect and depends on your interests.
You're right, its not perfect, but the ball is now rolling down the mountain, picking up more and more snow.
The technical foundations are now clearly evidenced to be viable, all problems that remain more or less revolve around whether or not a developer decides to intentionally not support linux via a Windows Only AntiCheat that is actually a RootKit or not.
And thats up to momentum of overall users on linux, which is up to other kinds of games making the platform more relatively popular, which we already see happening but of course cannot predict everything about.
Maybe some kind of game developer who is a bit jaded with MSFT for various reasons will make a significantly popular Linux Exclusive game. Who knows?
But yes uh Windows does often fight you in ways when you try to emulate. Most of these ways can be overcome by reasonably competent Windows users, but its far more straightforward on say, a SteamDeck.
In this case it comes down to the experience of the noob user, who will be scared and confused by the experience of maybe i went to a bad website and downloaded a virus, windows is asking me to make sure i know what i am doing and i dont, wow this sure seems risky!
On SteamDeck and SteamOS its less confusing and scary.
Also, theres the whole Pluton thing which I am still baffled people do not know about. The latest gen of AMD and i believe now also Intel CPUs are designed with a basically below ring 0 bit of always active, network enabled microcode than runs below Windows, even below the BIOS/UEFI, and this is a physically seperate part of the CPU that is not possible to physically remove without destroying the CPU.
The whole point of this is advertised as being necessary for security, but it actually isnt. It interfaces with Windows in a way it /almost/ certainly cannot on Linux, and its capable of accessing literally everything on your computer.
It is highly likely that what it will actually be used for is DRM at a below the OS level.
Oh you wanna install known binary with know signature of latest release of an emulator? Nope, not allowed, no matter what you do.
It hasnt happened yet, but the security minded section of the linux community have basically already worked out that its entirely capable of doing this and its absolutely within MSFTs uh, philosophy or market strategy or whatever to do this.
Its also literally documented to have been developed as a result of MSFT not being able to figure out how stop XBoxes from being hard modded and softmodded to allow it to run emulators, amongst other things.
Anyway in regards to emulators on linux vs windows, so far in my experience ive had great luck using linux native emus, usually work better tham windows ones through proton in most cases for st least me personally.
But yes uh Windows does often fight you in ways when you try to emulate. Most of these ways can be overcome by reasonably competent Windows users, but its far more straightforward on say, a SteamDeck.
Do you have any examples of that? The only thing I can think of is the weirdness with permissions and Program Files. And... let's not throw any stones regarding (user friendly) file permissions, where to install an application, etc.
In this case it comes down to the experience of the noob user, who will be scared and confused by the experience of maybe i went to a bad website and downloaded a virus, windows is asking me to make sure i know what i am doing and i dont, wow this sure seems risky!
As opposed to the newbie who was told everything works perfectly with no issues and then can't play Valorant or whatever? That has ALWAYS been the problem with linux gaming. The evangelists overhype everything and people very rapidly find the frustration points. If you go in knowing what those are, you can make an assessment. If stuff that "should work" doesn't? You assume even more problems will occur and reinstall windows.
As for the giant wall of speculation on hardware level DRM: Uhm... if anything, that would be an argument to stick to windows if you are "a gamer". Since most people, as has been demonstrated time and time again, don't actually care about that kind of stuff.
Because, you are right, it is about "momentum". And we have decades of "Oh, Linux is amazing and all of your games will work perfectly and fuck Microsoft for these ideological reasons that nobody cares about. Oh, that game doesn't work? You must be wrong or it isn't a good game". And every single time it becomes "Well, I don't particularly care about what a bunch of paste eating children think is the most important issue in the world and I want to play my favorite video games so..."
Honesty is the key. That is WHY the Steam Deck worked so well. Valve basically said "A lot of games, maybe even most games, work but you should check the store page to confirm". And Valve very much under-promise on that. The vast majority of games DO work but even something like "You have to hit steam+x to bring up the keyboard" will prevent it from being Verified.
But we still have the evangelists who vague post and mostly preach ideology who insist on over promising at every step.
Well I was talking specifically about the ease of setting up emulation on in particular SteamOS vs Windows.
Its complex on both compared to say installing a game from Steam on either Windows or SteamOS, but installing Emus is more user friendly on SteamOS than on Windows.
Also its fairly easy to see if a game will work on SteamOS. You look for the little SteamDeck verified icon.
How is it any harder to install an emulator on windows versus linux?
For the latter, most people will just use emudeck and/or retroarch (which is run by a transphobic piece of shit). For Windows it is retroarch and, funny enough, emudeck.
You could make the argument that the various package managers might give linux an edge. But windows has chocolatey (that probably has emulators) and the sort of official windows package manager (that probably does not). But also? You probably don't want to use the version of duckstation or whatever that is in an apt repository because it is going to be out of date. Which gets back to either learning how a flatpak/appimage works or downloading standalones on both sides that will periodically tell you to go back to the site and get an updated version.
Yes I would make the argument that using package managers is vastly more simple than hunting down exes on the internet, yes.
And I do not think that asking someone to learn how package managers work, while using a Linux system, is unreasonable.
Its not very complicated once the basics are learned. And its a fundamental step to understanding how basically any Linux OS works. And once youve got the basics down, its generally far simpler and more convenient to use than the Windows alternative, in many cases.
Handles all the needed libraries, no need to hunt for additional dependencies elsewhere on the internet.
Unless you go hog wild with it and install a bunch of experimental garbage that some random guy told you is really cool and way better for blah blah reasons that blows up and then that same gug goes oh thats because -insanely specific procedure or insanely specific dependency or insanely specific compatibility problem because /actually/ that guy is a maniac who has no idea how to develop qualitt software-, leaving you in dependency conflict hell...
...Unless you do that.
And this is a trap that many Windows power users fall into that many non Windows power users /do not/ fall into, myself included as originally falling into that trap.
The Windows Power User /will almost always/ overestimate both the need to, and their ability to customize and trick out a Linux install, precisely because they are so very used to needing to try every little weird thing to get Windows to do what they want, but they do not usually realize until it is too late that the ways they learned to do this more or less do not really apply to Linux.
Its the whole thing I mentioned earlier.
MSFT PC Gamers, who often by necessity are also Windows Power Users, get frustrated that their expertise of customizing Windows is nearly useless and often counter productive on Linux.
Then they have a bad experience, get mad about it, meanwhile people who come from different backgrounds rarely have this problem.
Finally, on SteamOS, on a SteamDeck, well youve got a matched and static OS and Hardware configuration. So... your emus either will or wont work, just gotta find one solution for one problem, or wait for the emu devs to patch a bug.
No need to figure out a million potential issues caused by a million potential different hardware configs on a Windows DesktopPC.
Kind of sidestepped why you generally don't want to use package managers for a lot of emulators but... okay.
Aside from that: it sounds like I have been speaking to linux as a whole whereas you are very specifically targeting SteamOS as on the Steam Deck. And... I fundamentally disagree with that approach. I love my Steam Deck.
But I very much do not like that we are potentially seeing exactly the same path that is Android on Google Phones. A fixed SKU and a fairly locked down "immutable" OS is user friendly, but it also gives the vendor immense levels of control over your device. And while it might start out nice with "Just install whatever you want on top of the official stuff", we can just look at Google/Android and how there has been an ever increasing push to "strongly discourage" people from using anything but the play store. And, as more and more security concerns arise, there will be an excuse to lock down even more of that.
Or, for that matter, remember when everyone and their mother touted Chrome as the solution to all the problems of Internet Explorer and Netscape (hmm) and so forth? And... yeah.
Because everything else in your post: All of those apply tenfold with Linux. Hell, I am likely going to set aside some time this weekend to fully purge and reinstall everything nvidia related on my desktop because I have had strange behaviors regarding wayland and gaming.
If your answer is that SteamOS specifically is more user friendly than Windows then sure, I'll give you that. But there are a LOT of implications of that. And, as we can see with the handheld that kicked this all off, we are actually looking at a fork of SteamOS that suddenly adds back in all of the "single hardware SKU" related issues. And... looks a lot like the start of the mess that is Android.
Sorry I am unable to reply again in exhaustive detail, but:
I have never had any significant problems using Linux native emulators on debian, set up to use sources and just be updated via sudo apt get update && sudo apt get uprade.
As to your troubles with Nvidia hardware, thats not surprising, they are far more black box with their code than AMD is, which is why Valve partnered with them for the SteamDeck.
As to an Android like situation, well, one, I meant fixed OS as in only one OS on the SteamDeck as opposed to multiple possible OSs, not as in immutable. SteamOS is not immutable. Its largely derived from Arch for Christs sake haha.
But all that aside, yes your Android style situation is possible, but uh to me that seems like a good argument to stick with a SteamDeck?
So, to summarize:
There are no problems except when there are problems
Yeah, one vendor getting an unhealthy market share is bad so let's give Valve that marketshare
Also "immutable" is generally used to refer to how SteamOS handles package/library versions. Its an increasing push among many "user friendly" distros that I generally like. But it is also why we basically all said "Uhm... da fuq?" when ayaneo talked about running steamos. And is why they are actually running holoos (?).
Also, it predates the vast majority of us but it is worth looking at the actual rise of Windows. A lot of the arguments you are making have direct parallels to why people should use ms-dos and later windows over a lot of the older dos OSes. Or, again, look at the rise of Google Chrome and Android. A company can start off "awesome" but end up becoming the bogeyman we all hate.
Ok so youre being ludicrous now.
Would more accurately be stated as 'there are no problems if you can follow basic instructions and not wildly do things you dont fully understand'
This simply assumes as matter of indisputable fact that Valve having more marketshare is... bad? For... some reason? Is there some inherent reason why an extremely niche handheld basically gaming device with additional capabilities, a thing they pioneered not too long ago, is there some reason this is not entirely to be expected by a manufacturer pioneering a totally new kind of product?
Seriously, what?
Ok so very quickly, yes SteamOS is immutable amd I was unaware of that as I do not have literally all the free time in the world, but thats all irrelevant to the point I was making there?
I am not equipped with enough knowledge or foresight to perfectly predict the evolution of new products markets and technology and never claimed to, and you have suddenly shifted into that frame of reference to respond to me.
If Valve ever reverses course on being, you know, the most effective FOSS advocate in terms of getting members of the general public maybe likely to switch to FOSS to actually do so, then I will be pretty shocked and surprised.
If they suddenly come out with some kind of obvious policy that would be very bad for FOSS in general, then I'd be critical of it.
Companies shittifying is obviously a thing that happens in the tech industry, and I guess you see Valve laying some kind of groundwork for this. I currently disagree, but if it does happen, then everyone in FOSS will do what everyone in FOSS has always done and adapt.
I am sorry, I would think it would make way more sense to be critical of things like what Canonical has been doing for a while now if you want to be worried about the FOSS scene.
I'm glad that Linux is getting backing from a huge company in this way. However, at its core the steam deck is a Linux based device with a heavily tailored UI running on known hardware with 1st party drivers. Consumers have been using Linux in this way for years without realising it. Sure, this one gives you far more control than you normally get but (in my opinion) the problems with Linux desktop come from support for a wide range of scenarios and peripherals. That hasn't improved enough for me to switch last time I tried.
At some point, Valve will release a Steam Deck 2 - It will be slimmer and even better than the first. Maybe in a couple of years I am guessing
Then that will be it because other companies will be releasing cheaper devices with their Steam OS. Steam simply cannot compete with them on price, and the feature set (other than faster chips) will mostly be locked in.
In short, there will be now Steam Deck 3 - Gaben strikes again
Nah, we'll get Steam Deck 2 Episode 2, then Steam Deck Alyx
Is that random person you are walking past in AD 2038 a PMC guarding your local refugee camp after climate change has destroyed the world's economy?
Now theyre a Civil Protection Officer!
Then the game instructs you to find a real life crowbar and present it to the Steam Deck 3 camera for verification.
HEV suit voice: You know what to do.
I have a feeling that the steam deck 2 will be on par with PS6 given how the steam deck is on par with the PS4 now and can play some PS5 games.
Hear me out... Half Life 3 will be released but it won't be a game it will be a handheld console
Steam can definitely compete with them on price. It runs steam out of the box; and they can expect to make some sales on that. OEM margins are already razor thin, and Valve has a major leg up on them.
I am really hoping some wizard makes Steam OS work on the Legion Go.
Valve promised quite a while ago that they'd release a public version of SteamOS and they haven't yet. Until they release it, the ball's on their court.
From what I understand (and definitely dont take my word for it at all) the 'SteamOS on other systems' initiative has taken a bit of a backseat.
Its unfortunate since so many newer & excitingly capabale handhelds are offering such a poor OOTB experience with win11.
Don't bazzite and chimera OS work on legion Go? They carry a lot of steamOS patches and features
Yeah, trying ChimeraOS now. So far so good.
Does it have a user accessible UEFI? If so, has anyone had any luck booting HoloISO or Chimera on it?
As much as I love Valve I think it'd be weird for a 3rd party handheld to boot directly into the Steam UI. I get that there aren't any viable alternatives atm, so I guess this is where we are. Wouldn't hurt with a more store-neutral solution, in the end.
If I am not mistaken, you /can/ have that be a thing, as I am fairly sure the actual SteamOS is open source and Valve would /probably?/ allow that to come stock on a potential alternate handheld...
But kind of their whole thing is it is optimized for the hardware set up they are using.
So... you could theoretically have an or multiple competing Not Valve but Yes SteamOS Decks, but from the standpoint of the economics of building a market viable gaming machine, Valve would still probably have a serious edge in that market for a while.
Almost like Valve actually understands the entire tech industry better than nearly any other tech company or something.
I'm fairly sure valve has openly said they plan for SteamOS to be used by other handhelds
Had not heard that, interesting!
That might happen if any other launcher chooses to natively support Linux. Right now Steam is the best option.
Yeah, Heroic or whatever just isn't good enough. Joe Random doesn't want that kind of jank on his gaming appliance.
Honestly, I disagree with Heroic not being good enough, I think it's the only other launcher on Linux that is. It's very polished and everything has worked out of the box for me. The problem is simply that it's unofficial, no company would ship it on a gaming device.
It would be better if I could boot up and chose my launcher just like I choose Netflix, HBO, or Hulu from my Roku home screen. Of course, that could be accomplished with a custom front end / explorer in Windows, but since MS is pushing more into the OSX "we own the experience" with tons overhead and reduced customizable UI, and none of the other launchers support Linux, it's pretty much just a pipe dream.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
We can only hope this is the start of a trend, as Valve's gaming-focused operating system brings many advantages over gaming portables (and maybe desktops) that run a full Windows installation.
In an increasingly competitive portable PC gaming market, being able to cut out that significant cost over Windows-based alternatives could be a big deal.
Our review of the ROG Ally highlights just how annoying it can be to have to fiddle with Windows settings on a touchscreen running "an awkwardly scaled" version of the OS.
That comes through in many little ways, like a built-in "suspend" mode, tons of battery-optimization features, and menus that are designed for a small screen and joystick navigation.
That's a huge change from the desktop-focused "Steam Machines" era of the mid-'10s, when early versions of SteamOS could only run the relative handful of games that developers bothered to explicitly port to Linux.
That's also a huge change from the Steam Machines era, when Ars' testing showed that many SteamOS games ran significantly worse than their Windows counterparts on the same desktop hardware.
The original article contains 651 words, the summary contains 178 words. Saved 73%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
The suspend feature is wildly important for me.
If I had to boot a game and shut it down each time, I’d only pickup the device when I had set aside time to game.
Since I can suspend and resume whenever, I pickup my steam deck all the time. I can play in the car and just suspend when we arrive or I can play for a few minutes while waiting for a meeting to start.
I can play while my wife gets ready.
Sometimes meets get canceled or there is traffic, so gaming sessions can really stretch out into a longer play time.
If I couldn’t suspend, I wouldn’t have played in those moments.
Yeah same, being able to stop playing immediately is huge for me. There are a lot of games I would struggle to play through without it.
Diablo 4 not playing nice with suspend (due to the always online requirement) was the main reason I couldn't get into it and didn't buy it after the free to play week ended.
I feel like this really the killer feature.
I’ve seen a ton of digital ink spilled on all manner of positives, such as how amazingly-portable it is, or how it’s been doing wonders for the advancement of Linux gaming.
But, I’ve yet to see anybody—outside you—speak about how amazing the suspend/resume is. And, that for me, is the reason why I play on a SteamDeck almost exclusively these days—even though I have a small collection of games I can play on Mac. I have such small windows of opportunity, and appreciate I can still play a game, even for a little as a few minutes.
My experience with suspend has not been good - causing glitching and requiring shutting the game down and reloading from a previous save whenever I suspended in a cut scene. As a result I haven't used it much due to those first couple of trials; maybe it's better now.
I have noticed a slight reduction in framerates when loading back in from a suspended state but only on certain games. Namely High On Life
I was in the middle of Witcher 3 when I got my deck, and pausing during a cut scene (and some are feature film length, it fells like) caused the video to go slide-show and the audio to get choppy, and there was no recovering the game. I basically had to go back to the previous save and play back to that point. PITA. Something similar happened in one other game (can't remember at the moment) and I just gave up suspend unless it was something simple / mindless like Yoku's Island Express.
If you don't use suspend mid game, what do you do? Do you shut the device down in between gaming sessions? Or do you just save and exit the game and suspend the OS level?
Usually I just suspend in-game to the game's menu, then hardware-suspend. That's pretty reliable.
I used to like suspend. How is your battery life while suspended? If I left mine in suspend for more than a few hours, it'd die, or I'd pick it up and there wouldn't be enough battery to continue playing without also charging.
Mine just lasts literally weeks, but I never tested it. It is so worry-free that I sometimes go multiple days without picking it up and when I finally do it has like 85% of battery and I don't remember how much it had when I suspended it so I never even think about it. The TLDR is that the suspend in Linux works magically.
Unlike the Switch, which drains 70% of the battery in 3 days of standby. Every time I pick it up I have to charge it, it feels like such a chore that the SD has taken its place completely.
I kinda regret having bought a Switch.
You're talking about sleep/suspend directly from playing a game?
It seems to be a hit randomly and depends on the game, but I only play around the house, so it’s never been a big deal. I also try not to suspend unless I’ve saved already just in case, but I’m willing to take the risk.
I never considered one of the windows-based portables. In fact when I saw that the steamdeck was linux based and was well received, I jumped.
Once I saw how well it worked, I stopped dual-booting my laptop and get to live in linux all the time.
If the article is correct and the market is starting to push this way, that is great news for linux, linux-gaming, and everyone.
Yeah I am baffled at this point anyone at all would consider a MSFT portable PC.
Linux has finally actually arrived, Proton works amazingly well compares to just a few years ago and honestly Valve as a manufacturer of gaming peripherals has a shockingly good track record for solid build quality, even if some of their devices are not super popular.
Oh right did anyone mention you can emulate basically anything other than current gen consoles on a Steam Deck, and the operating system is not going to fight you on that?
I think a lot of people would be more interested in the SteamOS over windows on handhelds if they got to try SteamOS first and see how smooth it is. But without full knowledge on it, a lot of them either assume they'll like windows more because they already know how to use it, or they assume it's steam UI only with no desktop mode (even if people won't actually use desktop mode much, they want it as an option).
I am shocked, shocked I tell you that MSFT using PC Gamers still have not realized they are MSFT fanboys basically exactly the same way you had console fanboys a decade ago.
But, but, they spent so much time learning how to do so much weird esoteric bullshit to make Windows actually run games well, and nearly none of that translates over to a Linux system!
You mean my decades of mastery of an increasingly enshittifying Operating System is... worthless?
That a better alternative exists if I would only take the time to do literally any work to learn something actually out of my comfort zone?
...
I think the modern equivalent of Socrates getting old and complaining about the youths being disrespectful and dancing too lewd of dances is basically people who styled themselves as early adopters and technologically savvy in their childhood and early adulthood, and then just entirely gave up on that while basically simultaneously still claiming to be tech savvy but also being inherently afraid and dismissive of any /actually/ useful new tech innovations.
Gaming has been literally the only thing keeping me on windows for at least a decade now, and with SteamOS/Proton reaching their current levels of compatibility I finally feel like I can make the switch with my next PC and not have to worry about it.
I could put linux on my current gaming tower, but I'll fully admit that it's just easier not to. It's a comfortable shoe at this point that I can't be bothered to change while I already have it. Though if my hand was forced and I had some kind of catastrophic drive failure and lost my OS volume linux is probably what would go there in its place.
There are two other "PCs" in my home that I own, my Steam Deck and a NUC that I use as a home server. Both run linux.
I'm fortunate in that basically nothing I play uses invasive anti-cheat garbage, which is still a huge compatibility problem. It has skeeved me out on windows for a long time, and I've avoided games that use many of them. I had many friends disappointed that I wouldn't join them in Star Wars: The Old Republic back when that first came out precisely because I wouldn't tolerate how invasive the anti-cheat was.
But there are lots of gamers for whom Proton still isn't enough. A single game they want to play that won't run is a dealbreaker. Or the only game they want to play won't run. An OS that won't run the game(s) they want to play isn't fit for purpose for them, and those people are a huge proportion of gamers.
Well, honestly at this point, generally speaking, the kinds of games that currently are hugely popular and only work on Windows?
They usually have very toxic communities.
They usually are expensive.
They are often addicting and they are often designed to coax players into more and more microtransactions and are thus unethical.
They are nearly always a kind of gameplay that is actually not very original, or engaging or challenging for anyone who has a good amount of experience with a wide variety of games, but draw people in due to featuring a popular IP characters/setting/world.
There are nearly always alternative games that take aforementioned extremely unoriginal at this point game mechanics and actually improve on them, but are less popular due to being a less recognizable IP.
Do you see where I am going with this?
You are talking about the most stereotyoically gamer type people that give basically all people who enjoy games but also have a personality outside of that a hugely bad rap.
These are, generally speaking, the idiots that keep shelling out money to hugely exploitative game studios that consistently release buggy unfinished garbage, or are widely known to have horrible working conditions for their employees, or both.
These are the people who I was talking about, the ones that just need whats comfortable, need that latest version of their favorite IP game, number 7 or 9 in the series.
Now, I am being hyperbolic and I realize that there are exceptions to this, there are actually good games that are still basically currently Windows only because they dont have a large enough staff to keep updating their games and also make multiplayer work on linux.
But, if you look into the technicals of that situation... in many cases the technical fix for this is actually so easy that I have seen people literally submit all of the code for this directly to the devs, or if its closed source a comprehensive overview of how to implement something... and they just do not notice it or say that nobody plays on linux so who cares.
But they are likely to change that stance when they see more and more SteamDeck and Linux Desktop users.
I will be completely fine if all of the COD 386 players are still using Windows in 5 years when someone has figured out how to do a more fun, less bullshit, less toxicity inducing shooter on Linux, or something analogous to that.
Let them keep paying for their own suffering while others move on and... you know. Have fun. Playing games. Remember when games were fun, and engaging instead of soul crushing addictions that ruin you and your life?
Kind of? I agree that leaving those games and their communities behind isn't necessarily a bad thing, but they make up an enormous portion of the gaming market. I can't speak for you, but I'm not going to write off literally millions of people as unsalvageable losses just because they play a game or participate in a community I don't like. I'm sure lots of them don't really like their communities either.
And there's the problem. They're right. Even now after all the progress Valve has made it just doesn't make economic sense to invest the time to fix these things. Opening the doors for the players of these toxic and addicting games to at least have the option of using linux is another step in alleviating that.
A rising tide raises all ships, whether you like the source of that tide or not.
Well I think its fair to agree to disagree, or hold different stances on that first point.
Yep, I just dont care about such people, in terms say wanting to make a game any of them would want to play.
I acknowledge thats just me personally and of course other people in other situations would be valid in caring about that demographic.
As to the second point, you may be right, and I may be wrong.
I would say there are far too many variables to forecast how everything will evolve accurately, but I guess I can say that I am confident that the share of linux gamers will grow, and that it will almost certainly spawn analagous, linux games to the current Windows Exclusive ecosystem, but i grant that many other forces at play may impede or prevent certain existing games from doing the work to allow online linux capability, or for bigger established studios heavily influenced or outright funded by MSFT to develop new games or compatibilize existing games in that manner.
Gamepass is still amazing if you are primarily in the MS/Xbox ecosystem. And not all games work in Linux. And, increasingly, modding (for what few games "support" it) is dependent on third party applications that are rather annoying to set up under linux.
Does Windows "fight you on that" either? Also, it has been a minute, but I want to say that some of the better emulators are still "windows only" and best run through proton?
I love my steam deck and it (and the ever increasing stupidity of win10) was a big part of finally migrating my personal (gaming) computers over to fedora. But if I were even ten years younger and still cared about competitive gaming and all the bullshit out of Riot et al? It would still be a no go.
And now it has put me in a REAL weird position with stuff like the Yakuza/LAD games since I got into those on Gamepass but would love to grind on the go and... (although, apparently there are save decrypters for Kiwami 2 and 7... but still no good way to get HDR to my big display from my PC).
Linux gaming is (FINALLY!!!) viable. But it is still not perfect and depends on your interests.
You're right, its not perfect, but the ball is now rolling down the mountain, picking up more and more snow.
The technical foundations are now clearly evidenced to be viable, all problems that remain more or less revolve around whether or not a developer decides to intentionally not support linux via a Windows Only AntiCheat that is actually a RootKit or not.
And thats up to momentum of overall users on linux, which is up to other kinds of games making the platform more relatively popular, which we already see happening but of course cannot predict everything about.
Maybe some kind of game developer who is a bit jaded with MSFT for various reasons will make a significantly popular Linux Exclusive game. Who knows?
But yes uh Windows does often fight you in ways when you try to emulate. Most of these ways can be overcome by reasonably competent Windows users, but its far more straightforward on say, a SteamDeck.
In this case it comes down to the experience of the noob user, who will be scared and confused by the experience of maybe i went to a bad website and downloaded a virus, windows is asking me to make sure i know what i am doing and i dont, wow this sure seems risky!
On SteamDeck and SteamOS its less confusing and scary.
Also, theres the whole Pluton thing which I am still baffled people do not know about. The latest gen of AMD and i believe now also Intel CPUs are designed with a basically below ring 0 bit of always active, network enabled microcode than runs below Windows, even below the BIOS/UEFI, and this is a physically seperate part of the CPU that is not possible to physically remove without destroying the CPU.
The whole point of this is advertised as being necessary for security, but it actually isnt. It interfaces with Windows in a way it /almost/ certainly cannot on Linux, and its capable of accessing literally everything on your computer.
It is highly likely that what it will actually be used for is DRM at a below the OS level.
Oh you wanna install known binary with know signature of latest release of an emulator? Nope, not allowed, no matter what you do.
It hasnt happened yet, but the security minded section of the linux community have basically already worked out that its entirely capable of doing this and its absolutely within MSFTs uh, philosophy or market strategy or whatever to do this.
Its also literally documented to have been developed as a result of MSFT not being able to figure out how stop XBoxes from being hard modded and softmodded to allow it to run emulators, amongst other things.
Anyway in regards to emulators on linux vs windows, so far in my experience ive had great luck using linux native emus, usually work better tham windows ones through proton in most cases for st least me personally.
Do you have any examples of that? The only thing I can think of is the weirdness with permissions and Program Files. And... let's not throw any stones regarding (user friendly) file permissions, where to install an application, etc.
As opposed to the newbie who was told everything works perfectly with no issues and then can't play Valorant or whatever? That has ALWAYS been the problem with linux gaming. The evangelists overhype everything and people very rapidly find the frustration points. If you go in knowing what those are, you can make an assessment. If stuff that "should work" doesn't? You assume even more problems will occur and reinstall windows.
As for the giant wall of speculation on hardware level DRM: Uhm... if anything, that would be an argument to stick to windows if you are "a gamer". Since most people, as has been demonstrated time and time again, don't actually care about that kind of stuff.
Because, you are right, it is about "momentum". And we have decades of "Oh, Linux is amazing and all of your games will work perfectly and fuck Microsoft for these ideological reasons that nobody cares about. Oh, that game doesn't work? You must be wrong or it isn't a good game". And every single time it becomes "Well, I don't particularly care about what a bunch of paste eating children think is the most important issue in the world and I want to play my favorite video games so..."
Honesty is the key. That is WHY the Steam Deck worked so well. Valve basically said "A lot of games, maybe even most games, work but you should check the store page to confirm". And Valve very much under-promise on that. The vast majority of games DO work but even something like "You have to hit steam+x to bring up the keyboard" will prevent it from being Verified.
But we still have the evangelists who vague post and mostly preach ideology who insist on over promising at every step.
Well I was talking specifically about the ease of setting up emulation on in particular SteamOS vs Windows.
Its complex on both compared to say installing a game from Steam on either Windows or SteamOS, but installing Emus is more user friendly on SteamOS than on Windows.
Also its fairly easy to see if a game will work on SteamOS. You look for the little SteamDeck verified icon.
How is it any harder to install an emulator on windows versus linux?
For the latter, most people will just use emudeck and/or retroarch (which is run by a transphobic piece of shit). For Windows it is retroarch and, funny enough, emudeck.
You could make the argument that the various package managers might give linux an edge. But windows has chocolatey (that probably has emulators) and the sort of official windows package manager (that probably does not). But also? You probably don't want to use the version of duckstation or whatever that is in an apt repository because it is going to be out of date. Which gets back to either learning how a flatpak/appimage works or downloading standalones on both sides that will periodically tell you to go back to the site and get an updated version.
Yes I would make the argument that using package managers is vastly more simple than hunting down exes on the internet, yes.
And I do not think that asking someone to learn how package managers work, while using a Linux system, is unreasonable.
Its not very complicated once the basics are learned. And its a fundamental step to understanding how basically any Linux OS works. And once youve got the basics down, its generally far simpler and more convenient to use than the Windows alternative, in many cases.
Handles all the needed libraries, no need to hunt for additional dependencies elsewhere on the internet.
Unless you go hog wild with it and install a bunch of experimental garbage that some random guy told you is really cool and way better for blah blah reasons that blows up and then that same gug goes oh thats because -insanely specific procedure or insanely specific dependency or insanely specific compatibility problem because /actually/ that guy is a maniac who has no idea how to develop qualitt software-, leaving you in dependency conflict hell...
...Unless you do that.
And this is a trap that many Windows power users fall into that many non Windows power users /do not/ fall into, myself included as originally falling into that trap.
The Windows Power User /will almost always/ overestimate both the need to, and their ability to customize and trick out a Linux install, precisely because they are so very used to needing to try every little weird thing to get Windows to do what they want, but they do not usually realize until it is too late that the ways they learned to do this more or less do not really apply to Linux.
Its the whole thing I mentioned earlier.
MSFT PC Gamers, who often by necessity are also Windows Power Users, get frustrated that their expertise of customizing Windows is nearly useless and often counter productive on Linux.
Then they have a bad experience, get mad about it, meanwhile people who come from different backgrounds rarely have this problem.
Finally, on SteamOS, on a SteamDeck, well youve got a matched and static OS and Hardware configuration. So... your emus either will or wont work, just gotta find one solution for one problem, or wait for the emu devs to patch a bug.
No need to figure out a million potential issues caused by a million potential different hardware configs on a Windows DesktopPC.
Kind of sidestepped why you generally don't want to use package managers for a lot of emulators but... okay.
Aside from that: it sounds like I have been speaking to linux as a whole whereas you are very specifically targeting SteamOS as on the Steam Deck. And... I fundamentally disagree with that approach. I love my Steam Deck.
But I very much do not like that we are potentially seeing exactly the same path that is Android on Google Phones. A fixed SKU and a fairly locked down "immutable" OS is user friendly, but it also gives the vendor immense levels of control over your device. And while it might start out nice with "Just install whatever you want on top of the official stuff", we can just look at Google/Android and how there has been an ever increasing push to "strongly discourage" people from using anything but the play store. And, as more and more security concerns arise, there will be an excuse to lock down even more of that.
Or, for that matter, remember when everyone and their mother touted Chrome as the solution to all the problems of Internet Explorer and Netscape (hmm) and so forth? And... yeah.
Because everything else in your post: All of those apply tenfold with Linux. Hell, I am likely going to set aside some time this weekend to fully purge and reinstall everything nvidia related on my desktop because I have had strange behaviors regarding wayland and gaming.
If your answer is that SteamOS specifically is more user friendly than Windows then sure, I'll give you that. But there are a LOT of implications of that. And, as we can see with the handheld that kicked this all off, we are actually looking at a fork of SteamOS that suddenly adds back in all of the "single hardware SKU" related issues. And... looks a lot like the start of the mess that is Android.
Sorry I am unable to reply again in exhaustive detail, but:
I have never had any significant problems using Linux native emulators on debian, set up to use sources and just be updated via sudo apt get update && sudo apt get uprade.
As to your troubles with Nvidia hardware, thats not surprising, they are far more black box with their code than AMD is, which is why Valve partnered with them for the SteamDeck.
As to an Android like situation, well, one, I meant fixed OS as in only one OS on the SteamDeck as opposed to multiple possible OSs, not as in immutable. SteamOS is not immutable. Its largely derived from Arch for Christs sake haha.
But all that aside, yes your Android style situation is possible, but uh to me that seems like a good argument to stick with a SteamDeck?
So, to summarize:
There are no problems except when there are problems
Yeah, one vendor getting an unhealthy market share is bad so let's give Valve that marketshare
Also "immutable" is generally used to refer to how SteamOS handles package/library versions. Its an increasing push among many "user friendly" distros that I generally like. But it is also why we basically all said "Uhm... da fuq?" when ayaneo talked about running steamos. And is why they are actually running holoos (?).
Also, it predates the vast majority of us but it is worth looking at the actual rise of Windows. A lot of the arguments you are making have direct parallels to why people should use ms-dos and later windows over a lot of the older dos OSes. Or, again, look at the rise of Google Chrome and Android. A company can start off "awesome" but end up becoming the bogeyman we all hate.
Ok so youre being ludicrous now.
Would more accurately be stated as 'there are no problems if you can follow basic instructions and not wildly do things you dont fully understand'
This simply assumes as matter of indisputable fact that Valve having more marketshare is... bad? For... some reason? Is there some inherent reason why an extremely niche handheld basically gaming device with additional capabilities, a thing they pioneered not too long ago, is there some reason this is not entirely to be expected by a manufacturer pioneering a totally new kind of product?
Seriously, what?
Ok so very quickly, yes SteamOS is immutable amd I was unaware of that as I do not have literally all the free time in the world, but thats all irrelevant to the point I was making there?
I am not equipped with enough knowledge or foresight to perfectly predict the evolution of new products markets and technology and never claimed to, and you have suddenly shifted into that frame of reference to respond to me.
If Valve ever reverses course on being, you know, the most effective FOSS advocate in terms of getting members of the general public maybe likely to switch to FOSS to actually do so, then I will be pretty shocked and surprised.
If they suddenly come out with some kind of obvious policy that would be very bad for FOSS in general, then I'd be critical of it.
Companies shittifying is obviously a thing that happens in the tech industry, and I guess you see Valve laying some kind of groundwork for this. I currently disagree, but if it does happen, then everyone in FOSS will do what everyone in FOSS has always done and adapt.
I am sorry, I would think it would make way more sense to be critical of things like what Canonical has been doing for a while now if you want to be worried about the FOSS scene.
I'm glad that Linux is getting backing from a huge company in this way. However, at its core the steam deck is a Linux based device with a heavily tailored UI running on known hardware with 1st party drivers. Consumers have been using Linux in this way for years without realising it. Sure, this one gives you far more control than you normally get but (in my opinion) the problems with Linux desktop come from support for a wide range of scenarios and peripherals. That hasn't improved enough for me to switch last time I tried.
I just realized something…
At some point, Valve will release a Steam Deck 2 - It will be slimmer and even better than the first. Maybe in a couple of years I am guessing
Then that will be it because other companies will be releasing cheaper devices with their Steam OS. Steam simply cannot compete with them on price, and the feature set (other than faster chips) will mostly be locked in.
In short, there will be now Steam Deck 3 - Gaben strikes again
Nah, we'll get Steam Deck 2 Episode 2, then Steam Deck Alyx
Half Life 3 - Hybrid Action Shooter / Alternate Reality Game.
Is that random person you are walking past in AD 2038 a PMC guarding your local refugee camp after climate change has destroyed the world's economy?
Now theyre a Civil Protection Officer!
Then the game instructs you to find a real life crowbar and present it to the Steam Deck 3 camera for verification.
HEV suit voice: You know what to do.
I have a feeling that the steam deck 2 will be on par with PS6 given how the steam deck is on par with the PS4 now and can play some PS5 games.
Hear me out... Half Life 3 will be released but it won't be a game it will be a handheld console
Steam can definitely compete with them on price. It runs steam out of the box; and they can expect to make some sales on that. OEM margins are already razor thin, and Valve has a major leg up on them.
I am really hoping some wizard makes Steam OS work on the Legion Go.
Valve promised quite a while ago that they'd release a public version of SteamOS and they haven't yet. Until they release it, the ball's on their court.
From what I understand (and definitely dont take my word for it at all) the 'SteamOS on other systems' initiative has taken a bit of a backseat.
Its unfortunate since so many newer & excitingly capabale handhelds are offering such a poor OOTB experience with win11.
Don't bazzite and chimera OS work on legion Go? They carry a lot of steamOS patches and features
Yeah, trying ChimeraOS now. So far so good.
Does it have a user accessible UEFI? If so, has anyone had any luck booting HoloISO or Chimera on it?
As much as I love Valve I think it'd be weird for a 3rd party handheld to boot directly into the Steam UI. I get that there aren't any viable alternatives atm, so I guess this is where we are. Wouldn't hurt with a more store-neutral solution, in the end.
If I am not mistaken, you /can/ have that be a thing, as I am fairly sure the actual SteamOS is open source and Valve would /probably?/ allow that to come stock on a potential alternate handheld...
But kind of their whole thing is it is optimized for the hardware set up they are using.
So... you could theoretically have an or multiple competing Not Valve but Yes SteamOS Decks, but from the standpoint of the economics of building a market viable gaming machine, Valve would still probably have a serious edge in that market for a while.
Almost like Valve actually understands the entire tech industry better than nearly any other tech company or something.
I'm fairly sure valve has openly said they plan for SteamOS to be used by other handhelds
Had not heard that, interesting!
That might happen if any other launcher chooses to natively support Linux. Right now Steam is the best option.
Yeah, Heroic or whatever just isn't good enough. Joe Random doesn't want that kind of jank on his gaming appliance.
Honestly, I disagree with Heroic not being good enough, I think it's the only other launcher on Linux that is. It's very polished and everything has worked out of the box for me. The problem is simply that it's unofficial, no company would ship it on a gaming device.
It would be better if I could boot up and chose my launcher just like I choose Netflix, HBO, or Hulu from my Roku home screen. Of course, that could be accomplished with a custom front end / explorer in Windows, but since MS is pushing more into the OSX "we own the experience" with tons overhead and reduced customizable UI, and none of the other launchers support Linux, it's pretty much just a pipe dream.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
We can only hope this is the start of a trend, as Valve's gaming-focused operating system brings many advantages over gaming portables (and maybe desktops) that run a full Windows installation.
In an increasingly competitive portable PC gaming market, being able to cut out that significant cost over Windows-based alternatives could be a big deal.
Our review of the ROG Ally highlights just how annoying it can be to have to fiddle with Windows settings on a touchscreen running "an awkwardly scaled" version of the OS.
That comes through in many little ways, like a built-in "suspend" mode, tons of battery-optimization features, and menus that are designed for a small screen and joystick navigation.
That's a huge change from the desktop-focused "Steam Machines" era of the mid-'10s, when early versions of SteamOS could only run the relative handful of games that developers bothered to explicitly port to Linux.
That's also a huge change from the Steam Machines era, when Ars' testing showed that many SteamOS games ran significantly worse than their Windows counterparts on the same desktop hardware.
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