The testing focused on popular, graphically demanding titles, including Cyberpunk 2077, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Red Dead Redemption 2. Across these games, SteamOS consistently delivered higher average frame rates and smoother performance under the same settings and hardware.

In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, for instance, SteamOS showed a performance uplift of up to 10% compared to Windows 11. Even in games that historically performed better on Windows due to DirectX optimization, SteamOS showed either comparable or superior results—thanks largely to the Vulkan graphics API and Proton, Valve’s compatibility layer for running Windows games on Linux.