It'd be neat to have a comparison like this that has some stats or resources consumption graphs. How many of these wins are CPU, GPU, or other would be interesting to get a pulse on.
Info on the Legion Go S: specs on the Ryzen Z2 Go APU here are overall very similar to the Steam Deck's custom apu; 4 Zen3+ cores, 12CU RDNA2 iGPU (a 680m). A (Windows based) test shows a perhaps double digit % lead for the Z2 Go. I'm a huge fan of there being a second USB port, enabling simultaneously charging and display. Notably has a 32GB ram model. Base: $650 (on sale for $500 recently). https://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Ryzen-Z2-Go-Processor-Benc...https://www.pcmag.com/comparisons/lenovo-legion-go-s-vs-valv...
Given Microsoft's recent 'This is an Xbox' and 'Windows 11 will be the platform for gaming' messaging, and the demolishing of the Xbox division, this may be good timing.
Results like this may light a fire under MS to finally fix some deep problems in Windows' performance. At least, one can hope.
Very interesting that the Cyberpunk 2077 results showed 28% performance improvements as well as a 25% increase in battery life.
Often better performance is due to more efficient use of hardware, which comes at an energy cost. Other times it allows the hardware to work more efficiently, like avoiding spinning on locks.
> So, guys, I don’t want to kill your enthusiasm, but this sounds very much like We are just pretending to release a SteamOS version but in fact we advertise the Windows model everywhere instead. Since I am familiar with large companies, I guess the story was like that.
As a Linux user since the last millennium, this dance is so incredibly familiar.
> In his own column, Gassée has written several times about Microsoft's Windows OEM License and the ways in which it limits the freedoms of PC OEMs. In July 2001, I spoke with Gassée to find out why no dual-boot computers with BeOS or Linux installed alongside Windows can be purchased today
> It's impossible to know precisely how much, but if you do the math and assume that it's $30 per computer from those various sources, that would yield $200 million or more than 25% of Dell's profitability. It could be more or less than this number, but any way that you look at it, Dell is dependent on Microsoft for a massive chunk of their profits.
So, uh, good luck. Sure is an amazing coincidence how many PC vendors suddenly have a competitor to the Steam Deck, that happen to run Windows, and especially push their Windows versions.
I don't get the comparison here. Imagine comparing a Toyota corolla out of the dealer's lot with a highly customized Honda civic optimized for street racing. Guess which will be faster? lol
Windows is a general purpose operating system. Can SteamOS run random accounting software from 2002? makes no sense right? apples and oranges.
Why pick the obvious terrible choice for the category? A good comparison would have been consoles like playstation or xbox (Microsoft's gaming optimized OS/platform akin to SteamOS). Then if they used similarly specced PC, it would be reasonable benchmark.
I've had a lot of weird issues with my early model Steam Deck from 2022.
I'd be interested in knowing how these later devices do in basic usability issues like will the device freeze for 30 minutes if booted when your internet is down but your network is up and it can't confirm your Steam credentials on startup.
Will switching inputs on an HDTV result in the dock needing to be disconnected and reconnected before you get a video signal? Etc.
I guess the OEMs (Lenovo in this case) still don't want support calls about why their game (anti-cheat enabled, fortnite, etc) won't run on their new Legion Go S.
This year I switched over to Linux and Mac completely away from my high end Lenovo Windows gaming laptop, using the latter only when absolutely necessary, and I couldn’t be happier. I’m not putting up with ads in my goddamn start menu, opt-out or no.
I personally own the older but almost identical version of the Legion Go and while i really think Steam OS is the defacto better operating system for Handleld gaming i still don't switch because what the article missed is the big buzzword Named Frame Generation. Yes windows has worse performance if you count Frame Gen out. Steam OS saddly had no Framegen on launch and now a relatively Old version of it. I think for handheld gaming this really is the killer feature. You get double or even triple the frames in those More demanding 3d titles, added smoothness for the 2d indi games, and the normally occurring downsides like graphic artefacts are a lot less of a problem because of the smaller screen size. Even on windows Lenovo is slow to update their official Drivers but you can either go directly to AMD or get the asus Handheld drivers instead, if you are willing to jump through the hoops that its. This feature which currently has a lot of bad press(rightly so) really is perfect for Handheld gaming and Valve should be staying on top with the updates more.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 30.2 ms ] threadAnd the open source situation promises only better and better. Work in Mesa 25.2 is improving the next gen geometry, enabling much better culling for example. https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-Better-NGG-Mesa-25.2
And a recent organizational shift; the Radeon software folks are leaving behind their proprietary stack & will be working purely on the open source stack. https://www.phoronix.com/news/Radeon-Software-Drop-Prop-GL-V...
It'd be neat to have a comparison like this that has some stats or resources consumption graphs. How many of these wins are CPU, GPU, or other would be interesting to get a pulse on.
Info on the Legion Go S: specs on the Ryzen Z2 Go APU here are overall very similar to the Steam Deck's custom apu; 4 Zen3+ cores, 12CU RDNA2 iGPU (a 680m). A (Windows based) test shows a perhaps double digit % lead for the Z2 Go. I'm a huge fan of there being a second USB port, enabling simultaneously charging and display. Notably has a 32GB ram model. Base: $650 (on sale for $500 recently). https://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Ryzen-Z2-Go-Processor-Benc... https://www.pcmag.com/comparisons/lenovo-legion-go-s-vs-valv...
Results like this may light a fire under MS to finally fix some deep problems in Windows' performance. At least, one can hope.
Often better performance is due to more efficient use of hardware, which comes at an energy cost. Other times it allows the hardware to work more efficiently, like avoiding spinning on locks.
As a Linux user since the last millennium, this dance is so incredibly familiar.
> In his own column, Gassée has written several times about Microsoft's Windows OEM License and the ways in which it limits the freedoms of PC OEMs. In July 2001, I spoke with Gassée to find out why no dual-boot computers with BeOS or Linux installed alongside Windows can be purchased today
https://birdhouse.org/beos/byte/30-bootloader/
> It's impossible to know precisely how much, but if you do the math and assume that it's $30 per computer from those various sources, that would yield $200 million or more than 25% of Dell's profitability. It could be more or less than this number, but any way that you look at it, Dell is dependent on Microsoft for a massive chunk of their profits.
http://www.michaelrobertson.com/archive.php?minute_id=131
So, uh, good luck. Sure is an amazing coincidence how many PC vendors suddenly have a competitor to the Steam Deck, that happen to run Windows, and especially push their Windows versions.
Windows is a general purpose operating system. Can SteamOS run random accounting software from 2002? makes no sense right? apples and oranges.
Why pick the obvious terrible choice for the category? A good comparison would have been consoles like playstation or xbox (Microsoft's gaming optimized OS/platform akin to SteamOS). Then if they used similarly specced PC, it would be reasonable benchmark.
I'd be interested in knowing how these later devices do in basic usability issues like will the device freeze for 30 minutes if booted when your internet is down but your network is up and it can't confirm your Steam credentials on startup.
Will switching inputs on an HDTV result in the dock needing to be disconnected and reconnected before you get a video signal? Etc.