Games run faster on SteamOS with proton than Windows 11, Ars testing finds

FTFY. I hate all these articles that downplay the heavy lifting proton (and all the tools that make it up) are doing. But “Proton makes games run better” doesn’t get the same attention.

Proton is amazing, but it’s entirely overhead translating library/system calls to Linux. It’s accurate to say they run better on SteamOS, not to say Proton is making it run better.

Now maybe Proton makes them run better than a janky but native Linux port, but that’s a separate statement about games being better optimized on Windows.

Proton is amazing, but it’s entirely overhead translating library/system calls to Linux.

That is not at all true.

but that’s a separate statement about games being better optimized on Windows.

Is that though? You can’t say X is better than Y when you’re changing multiple variables. If windows had a proton equivalent and both games ran through it then yes that would be a direct comparison. But you can’t say X + Y is better than Z (by itself)

DXVK is a part of proton that also is available on windows. DXVK alone can get you double digit performance improvements on games. And that’s not getting into all the one off tweaks users can do to proton to optimize the game. Enabling pre compiled shaders gave a huge performance boost for Elden Ring.

How is running an extra compatibility layer not overhead?