1: SteamOS don’t run unnecessary services in the background. (especially stuff like print services and other random shit)
1b: Even regular Linux, which does run a bunch of extra services, still generally has less overhead because it’s still being optimized for lighter weight systems, and it idles more efficiently too. Meanwhile Windows doesn’t have a good way to tell your printer driver and its corresponding services to shut up when you’re gaming.
2: Antivirus programs
3: Drivers, graphics system. This is both a plus and minus, but for performance mostly plus. More efficient driver model, less overhead again. Sometimes the performance comes from lacking features which doesn’t get executed fully, though. Sometimes it comes from translating to Vulkan, because DirectX has some more overhead (and in these specific cases you can get the same performance boost on Windows by switching to Vulkan).
I mean, this is wrong. The CUPS daemon literally is a print service and does exist in Linux. It’s just socket based so tends not to use resources until asked.
The CUPS daemon does not get killed during games. It wouldn’t be needed anyways
Antivirus programs? When was the last time you tried Windows, the mid-00s?
Anyway, it’s not random print services causing CPU overhead, that’s old timey stuff. In this case it’s being RAM heavy in a RAM-limited scenario and, from their testing, Lenovo being really terrible at keeping their AMD Windows drivers updated. As part of the test they manually switched to an ASUS version of newer AMD drivers and saw significant boosts in some games.
Modern graphics drivers are a mess of per-game features and optimizations. Different manufacturers keeping things at different levels of currency is a nontrivial issue and why some of this benchmarking is hard and throwing five random games at the problem doesn’t fully answer the question.
All modern versions of Windows will have Microsoft’s Defender antivirus/malware protection turned on by default. That means you incur a penalty every time a file is accessed from disk, or a process is launched, or a library loaded, or sockets are used or certain APIs are called.
It’s better than most 3rd party AV software but it’s still a performance overhead that could be turned off.
I mean… you can turn it off. I wouldn’t, but you can.
I just haven’t heard it referred to as “antivirus programs” in ages, it sounds so 20th century to me. Say what you will about MS’s monopolistic tendencies, but at least they killed the parasitic “antivirus” industry with that one.
I think Windows Defender is a fantastic line of defence and it’s definitely better than installing garbage from Trend, McAfee etc. That said, Lenovo, HP, MSI, Dell etc still preinstall crapware on their new machines from Norton or their ilk threatening that my machine is “at risk” if I don’t pay them money.
I wouldn’t turn it off unless I knew that I was only installing games from Steam. But if I did I think performance would improve. A game from Steam could still contain malware so you have to exercise some common sense. Even on SteamOS a game could be malicious but since its containerized the scope for damage is limited but not necessarily impossible to break out.
1: SteamOS don’t run unnecessary services in the background. (especially stuff like print services and other random shit)
1b: Even regular Linux, which does run a bunch of extra services, still generally has less overhead because it’s still being optimized for lighter weight systems, and it idles more efficiently too. Meanwhile Windows doesn’t have a good way to tell your printer driver and its corresponding services to shut up when you’re gaming.
2: Antivirus programs
3: Drivers, graphics system. This is both a plus and minus, but for performance mostly plus. More efficient driver model, less overhead again. Sometimes the performance comes from lacking features which doesn’t get executed fully, though. Sometimes it comes from translating to Vulkan, because DirectX has some more overhead (and in these specific cases you can get the same performance boost on Windows by switching to Vulkan).
I mean, this is wrong. The CUPS daemon literally is a print service and does exist in Linux. It’s just socket based so tends not to use resources until asked.
The CUPS daemon does not get killed during games. It wouldn’t be needed anyways
Antivirus programs? When was the last time you tried Windows, the mid-00s?
Anyway, it’s not random print services causing CPU overhead, that’s old timey stuff. In this case it’s being RAM heavy in a RAM-limited scenario and, from their testing, Lenovo being really terrible at keeping their AMD Windows drivers updated. As part of the test they manually switched to an ASUS version of newer AMD drivers and saw significant boosts in some games.
Modern graphics drivers are a mess of per-game features and optimizations. Different manufacturers keeping things at different levels of currency is a nontrivial issue and why some of this benchmarking is hard and throwing five random games at the problem doesn’t fully answer the question.
All modern versions of Windows will have Microsoft’s Defender antivirus/malware protection turned on by default. That means you incur a penalty every time a file is accessed from disk, or a process is launched, or a library loaded, or sockets are used or certain APIs are called.
It’s better than most 3rd party AV software but it’s still a performance overhead that could be turned off.
I mean… you can turn it off. I wouldn’t, but you can.
I just haven’t heard it referred to as “antivirus programs” in ages, it sounds so 20th century to me. Say what you will about MS’s monopolistic tendencies, but at least they killed the parasitic “antivirus” industry with that one.
I think Windows Defender is a fantastic line of defence and it’s definitely better than installing garbage from Trend, McAfee etc. That said, Lenovo, HP, MSI, Dell etc still preinstall crapware on their new machines from Norton or their ilk threatening that my machine is “at risk” if I don’t pay them money.
I wouldn’t turn it off unless I knew that I was only installing games from Steam. But if I did I think performance would improve. A game from Steam could still contain malware so you have to exercise some common sense. Even on SteamOS a game could be malicious but since its containerized the scope for damage is limited but not necessarily impossible to break out.