SteamOS vs Windows 11 on Legion Go - Ultimate Performance Test!

#legiongo #handheldpc #gaming #steamos

Disclaimer: This video was filmed before Lenovo released the latest GPU drivers with AFMF (although frame generation works only on external monitors because of the portrait display of the Legion Go).

For this video I installed SteamOS (Bazzite) on the Lenovo Legion Go, and ran a few benchmarks to answer the ever important question - Is SteamOS better for handheld PCs like the Rog Ally or the Legion go compared to Windows 11?

In my opinion SteamOS provides a much better user experience, but there are also drawbacks apart from performance, with installing and using third-party game launchers like Ubisoft connect, Epic, and so on.

More Lenovo Legion Go content:

Chapters in the video:
- Intro: 00:00
- Test methodology: 03:06
- Assassin's Creed Mirage: 04:14
- Cyberpunk 2077: 06:13
- Red Dead Redemption 2: 07:13
- Starfield: 08:00
- The Verdict: 09:43
- Outro: 11:17

Anyways, thank you for watching, if you liked the video consider hitting the like button, and if you'd like to see more content like this let me know in the comments and SUBSCRIBE to the channel for more!

[ginocavalieri]

You need to fix the title of the video, there is no publicly available official version of steam OS. Your comparison is between windows and bazzite, not steam OS.

[chrisweeksnz]

Thanks for sharing numbers! Does game suspend work properly on Bazzite like steam os? Ie. can you power off the system mid-game and just continue for where you left off easily? I heard that didn’t work on Windows. I’m interested in removing long load times to incrementally finish longer games (ie RDR2, etc…).

[Invid]

Nice video. I only have two critiques. First, 3 games is not enough to draw any conclusions about relative performance, especially if you're going to use poorly optimized games like Starfield which barely runs on its native OS. Two, I would have liked to see a frametime graph on Windows too. For me, the biggest benefit of Bazzite is that frametimes are smoother on Bazzite, and that matters when you're running a display that doesn't have VRR to help smooth out uneven frame pacing. You can turn on frametime graphing in Rivatuner on Windows. For some people they want the highest framerates, but for me, I'm far more sensitive to stuttering and Bazzite performs better there for me.

[AlekseiAK]

Thank you very much, friend, for these competent tests with all the numbers and clarifications! Subscribed!

[rahulrao]

Why are the games on bazzite more popped in color?

[federicogori]

Hi, thanks for the video! With my Rog Ally the experience was totally the opposite. I was able to play at 30 fps at lower wattages than Windows at the same game and settings and I had much less stuttering and generally higher minimum fps, however I didn’t have a drastically higher average, I could say that the average was the same if not better than maximum 4fps for the same game and settings.

[Cakebattered]

Thanks for sharing your experience. Your results mirror that of nearly all the others. There's a reason Valve hasn't released SteamOS for third party devices. I don't think the outcome would be much different.

[XStyhler]

Nice Video, but why did you use a Video Format that could not easily be stretched to full screen?
1280x720 (720p) would be the correct scale on a 1080p screen as it's the same proportions
800p would be the native resolution on the steam deck, which is 16:10 and not 16:9

[onilpotris]

Great video!
Can you comment on battery life on those games and watts?

[jonesknow]

Last year, I owned a Steam Deck, but this year I sold it and bought a Legion Go instead. If all anti-cheat systems worked on Linux or if companies like EA provided updates for Linux, I would definitely use Bazzite OS. On the Legion Go, I mostly play FC 24, MW3, and Forza Horizon 5. Two of these games don't work on Linux because of Anti-Cheat. I hope this issue gets resolved in the new versions of these games.

[littlejack]

Do you know how to put windows back on after doing this?

[cleonx]

Currently i use bazzite in dual boot this is a surprise for me, my impression was that runs smoothly withow windows, windows is ok but without without the windows interface behind the ux improves a lot, just the steam system as a launcher is sweet

[AlwaysBWise]

Pretty interesting video and findings. Given that the Linux distros are supposed to be less resource intensive, I would have expected to at least see them pull ahead in the 1% lows. Would you mind testing and comparing The Last of Us on medium and Helldivers2 on low if you have the games already?

[ShaneMiltonProductions]

You should not use custom ini files just run the games and set same settings in games I use amd gpu on windows and linux and all my windows games run faster on linux so I think you are doing something not right.

[colossusblack]

Bazzite apologists out here working overtime.

[letsgtaracing]

How to install steam os on legion go, I have it

[kingforkings]

(2/2) Assuming you run half resolution in gamescope via -h 800 -w 1280 -f %command% .... and steam gamemode is set to 2560 x 1600 and either integer or nearest neighbour since FSR1 which looks great can reduce FPS when the ceiling of the GPU is hit, it should get like 45-65 FPS. I say that because I have the 8845HS APU which runs 60 Watts and the Legion stopps at 30 and every handheld which says it can go past that hits the max designed specs of the 7740u aka Z1e. It seems you might run the game either with ChimeraOS's SteamGame Mode which was removed for some time with the Valve's Game Mode for some issues and the difference is that games run in 800p vs Chimera at the panel's native resolution without going into each game's properties to set a custom resolution which is what I named in the first line but automated. In desktop mode this has to be added by the user and going back to gamemode would run gamescope twice and crash. I don't like gamemode because a keyboard fixes all the shortcommings running non-steam games and more and less failure points where steam might reset settings on a failed Steam Game Mode update. I have the SD LCD since year one and have seen so much. Switched to Nobara and soon will stay on Bazzite because I use my Tuxedo Pulse 14 for all the mutable needs on Linux. I would not run atomic. For the 780m gfx generation 900p is max what the chip can do easily in either native desktop compositor if fullscreening a windowed game works or if a game supports fullscreen than that.... otherwise gamescope: you would run every game at some FSR3 or XeeS to upscale to 900p and then use the compositor's feature to use Nearest Neighbour to the display's resolution with no FPS penality. I don't have many videos about the 8845HS, but Black Ops3 is a good example with Nacht Der Untoten Zombies map.

Edit: Starfield runs at least 40 FPS and should hit 60 with the right settings. I would have to ask my friend who tried Bazzite for 2 days and prefers Windows because his IT job is always Linux based. I don't see why it runs too slowly.

FramGen works in steam game mode which uses Gamescope. Desktop compositors dont support it yet, so when not using Gamescope so you are spreading false info pal.

[FerdinandJosephFernandez]

But Bazzite is not SteamOS isn't it? Bazzite is built on top of Fedora, SteamOS is based on Debian.

[JosephEllis-epsg]

I dual boot.. the repack version of mirage runs significantly better than the official version on bazzite

[timwinfury]

Hey guys, sup all :)
did anyone experience a squeaking left top speaker of the legion go after installing Bazzite OS ? It sounds like you hear the electricity running through it. It didn’t do this before I installed bazziteOS.