That just isn't true. While it is very good now, it is not faster and more stable than Windows. I have performance issues on Linux that just don't happen on Windows.
Well that is the issue. The experience varies quite a lot depending on a number of factors. Whereas on Windows it doesn't really vary.
I have an all AMD machine and almost all the games will run the same or better on Windows. I have friends that have tried gaming on Linux and all of them have found the experience worse.
I did run a win debloat script from and use a local account so I don't have the Windows Spyware running in the background so that may make a difference.
Just an aside. I've been using Linux for quite a while now (over-20 years) and the biggest issue is that the community constantly misleads new users about the experience of moving from Windows to Linux. The latest iteration of this has been gaming.
Perhaps it’s just evidence that anecdata isn’t some universal truth.
I’ve had the complete opposite experience for the vast majority of games, where in most cases performance for me has been better on Linux than it was on Windows (can’t compare like for like now as I no longer have a Windows install outside of a VM). Friends of mine experience weird mid-session crashes and hangs on Windows that I’ve never had on Linux. I’m running an Nvidia GPU which is supposedly some kind of Linux boogeyman, but have had only one issue with EDID of a specific monitor and that’s it. Just my experience YMMV.
> Perhaps it’s just evidence that anecdata isn’t some universal truth.
This isn't though. I have hard numbers. I've actually measured the performance. You get 5-20 FPS less and often more input latency and stutters (1%, 0.1% lows). If the machines doesn't well with Linux, it can be much worse.
Basically on HN whenever you express an opinion based on a significant amount of experience. You get someone basically saying "this is anecdote". There is a difference between "an anecdote" and "I've actually have a huge amount experience with this stuff.
Have you produced an exhaustive survey across a wide range of hardware and driver and display manager combinations? I’m happy to be an outlier here but my own experience doesn’t match with what you described hence my reply.
If I admit to anything less than doing a gamer nexus style benchmarking suite you will just claim it is an anecdote.
I have actually tested on a number of different distros and display managers and at least two different video card chipset manufacturers. No it isn't exhaustive, but it decent enough sample size to determine that the claim that Linux performs better than Windows isn't true. Even if it is the case,the results are so variable you are better just using Windows because things are more consistent.
I am saying this BTW as someone that first started using Linux in the early 2000s. I think gaming now is really good on Linux. Is it better than Windows? Well I don't have to run Windows now to play games and that is good enough for me.
And I get totally different results. It not just the distro. It the version of the Kernel, the version of proton, whether you are using X or Wayland etc. Etc. Etc.
The very point I am making is that it is so variable. So posting benchmarks pretending that it proves anything is asinine.
I won't even get into all the other issues with the mouse getting lost on some games, text being too small/to large. Having to fuck around with LD_PRELOAD flags and loads other gumpth that is never mentioned on a YouTube video.
Your claim was that you tested and "You get 5-20 FPS less and often more input latency and stutters (1%, 0.1% lows)", "it decent enough sample size to determine that the claim that Linux performs better than Windows isn't true". That you tested so well, that it can't be considered to be anecdata. You claimed that it is universal truth.
So I provided you with solid data from testers, who found many cases in which Linux was on par or faster than Windows.
There seems to be little evidence of that, at least from a reputable source.
For some games it can be. For some games Proton performs far worse than Windows. It's not steady across the board. And some have stability issues, bugs, major performance problems, or just flat out don't work.
I want Proton to be the future as well, but I think it's important not to oversell it as a drop-in replacement either.
EDIT: GN highly recommends against apples-to-oranges comparisons of the two, but even looking at their own data for AMD cards (with exact same CPU, RAM, and motherboard) it clearly shows Proton being behind on the order of 6-15%. Not a lot, but not ahead either. You can compare the numbers for the AMD cards against this video's here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP0axVHdP-U
EDIT 2: Instead of just down-voting because the result makes you unhappy, how about responding with well-sourced proof otherwise?
> There seems to be little evidence of that, at least from a reputable source.
I dunno. I remember a little while back some reviewers got a hold of both a Windows version and Linux version of a handheld gaming machine that had exactly the same hardware. The conclusion reached was that the Linux version was better in nearly every way.
As I remember it, a little while after this happened, some muckety-muck in the Gaming Division in Microsoft announced something like "We're making a new committment to consistent, high performance in Windows on handheld gaming devices! We're going to ensure all those little game-spoiling roadblocks are removed!". Which, like, good job making it NOT look like you're spasmodically reacting to bad press, guy.
> Handhelds and desktop PCs can perform differently.
The handhelds we're talking about are -essentially- a low-power [0] laptop in a tiny case. Again, we're talking about exactly the same hardware, that provides substantially worse performance when Windows is the OS than when Linux is the OS.
> I want Proton to be the future as well, but I think it's important not to oversell it as a drop-in replacement either.
Proton needs to be understood as a temporary solution to make the back catalogue on Linux comparable to Windows.
Eventually there is a tipping point and most games will have native Linux binaries. Once that happens all developers will gradually follow suit to avoid being left behind. Perhaps Valve's latest hardware efforts will finally bring this about.
Proton will still exist for older games and as hardware continues to become more powerful, loss of performance won't matter much.
From personal experience, all of the games that I personally play seem to work at least as well if not better on Linux than Windows. The only exception is FSR4, but that ought to be fixed soon.
FWIW, I wasn't the one who downvoted you. I can't even downvote here as I'm apparently "karmically broke". I have 468 karma, not sure how much I even need to downvote...
