r/SteamOS • u/DeMingus69 • 3d ago

How viable is SteamOS/Linux for Intel/Nvidea hardware?

I've heard mixed things about the driver support being bad and or unstable. I've been wanting to try it out on my desktop ever since switching my ROG ally over to steam os but I have a 9th gen i7 and a 4060 so I would rather not if the support is just going to give me more headaches.

1 Upvotes

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6

u/Jwhodis 3d ago

SteamOS doesn't work with NVIDIA as Steam's computers (Deck + Machine) don't use it. There are tons of alternative Linux distros though like PikaOS, Bazzite, etc.

Any distro with KDE Plasma will look similar to SteamOS's desktop mode.

3

u/triggerftu 3d ago

Intel it works. For Nvidia use catchyOS, less bloat and with how it’s built you get better performance then Bazzite.

6

u/Kriss_Hietala 3d ago

steamOS not really yet. But bazzite and cachyos works fine, even with gamemode.

2

u/mixedd 3d ago

SteamOS won't work without compiling third party custom build of it. Bazzite, Nobara, CachyOS works with Nvidia, with a caveat that you'll have performance impact on DX12 titles compared to Win (tough nowadays less than ut was a year back), will need to go over environmental args, and some things will need workarounds like for example Reshade with full addon support (most often used for RenoDX) may fail to work when DLSS is enabled and crash your game, and similar.

In short, if you want plug and play with Nvidia stay on Win, if you're eager to thinker, play around with environmental vars, and slight debugging it works on Linux

2

u/_sLLiK 3d ago

Just as a reminder of the obvious, you can set up the Steam binary on any Linux distro and get the best of most worlds. It's just not specifically the immutable distro maintained in part by Valve, so more is required of you.

1

u/AdditionInteresting2 3d ago

Steam os on the msi claw 8ai is slowly getting better. But I set my expectations low and hitting 60 fps is already enough. But it's so not there yet. Maybe in a year or so

1

u/ghanadaur 3d ago

Not yet. nVidia support is NOT yet available for SteamOS. Period. It is being worked on. But not available yet. Stick with CachyOS or Bazitte for nVidia.

1

u/idontlikeredditusers 3d ago

i used it on a 9070xt ryzen 7 5800 and its not ready for custom pcs it either works or it doesnt atm outside of valve hardware

nvidia far away

1

u/captainstormy 3d ago

SteamOS has a lot of problems with Nvidia that need to be ironed out still.

However as long as you install their proprietary driver Nvidia works fine on Linux. Though there can be a performance loss compare to windows on DX12 games. That's an Nvidia driver issue for them to fix not a Linux problem. And they have been working on that, it's not nearly as much as it was.

Bazzite would be a great place to start for a Linux gaming PC.

1

u/Ecks30 3d ago

You would have to go with Bazzite or CachyOS if you want to play your games on Linux or you could look for the unofficial version of SteamOS for Nvidia cards, but you will have the same problems as you would for Bazzite in game mode while using an Nvidia GPU.

1

u/system_error_02 3d ago

Nvidia doesn't work on steamOS at all. Intel CPUs are fine. Nvidia works on distros like Bazzite or CachyOS but you will lose performance vs windows and encounter issues with gamescope and other things. Nvidia is a poor choice for anything linux as they dont have open user stack drivers like AMD. AMD works even better on Linux than on Windows in a lot of cases, and is the best choice if considering Linux at all and AMD is baked right into the linux kernel.

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u/itsCarterr 3d ago

With 4060 want go with bazzite I used on my 3060 ti pc without issues