SteamOS Crushes Windows in Game Benchmarks – And It’s Not Even Close!

General news News Steam Deck Steam Deck News 06/29/2025

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HANDHELD GAMING NEWS – In multiple modern games, Valve’s Linux-based SteamOS matches or beats Microsoft’s operating system in raw performance…

According to Ars Technica, SteamOS running on the Lenovo Legion Go S offers gaming performance equal to or better than Windows in five major games. YouTuber Dave2D added four more titles in which SteamOS either outperformed or fell behind by just a single frame. PCGamer added three more wins to the list, bringing Valve’s performance score to ten wins, zero losses, and two draws.

The Legion Go S is the first handheld gaming device with official driver and support parity for both operating systems, making it ideal for a direct 1:1 comparison. With growing hardware support and a potential desktop release on the horizon, SteamOS could become a real alternative to Windows for gamers.

Game-by-game testing breakdown

Ars Technica tested the following titles: Returnal, Borderlands 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Homeworld 3, and Doom: The Dark Ages. SteamOS won every round except for Borderlands 3, where it lost by just one frame at both 1200p and 800p settings. The biggest win came with Returnal, with SteamOS pushing ahead by 9 fps at 1200p and 17 fps at 800p.

In Dave2D’s YouTube video, SteamOS beat Windows in Cyberpunk, Helldivers 2, Doom Eternal, and The Witcher 3, while Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 gave Windows a single-frame win. That means seven clear victories and two draws for Valve’s OS in his testing.

PCGamer benchmarked Cyberpunk 2077, Black Myth: Wukong, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Hitman 3 on the Legion Go S. SteamOS took the lead in all four, strengthening its top spot and confirming its dominance in Cyberpunk for the third time across tests.

SteamOS still has hurdles to overcome

The biggest current limitation of SteamOS is hardware support and certain game compatibility issues. It can technically be installed on PCs using the Steam Deck recovery image, but this isn’t convenient—and users likely won’t see the same performance gains.

Some games, especially those using aggressive anti-cheat systems, still won’t run on SteamOS. However, Valve has been steadily improving the situation, and the trajectory is clearly encouraging.

Source: PCGamer, PCGamer, Ars Technica

Angyal Anikó

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