way back in December 2013 steam
announced a new operating system that
might free us from Microsoft's grip so
that we might enter gaming Nirvana what
we got was steam OS and it's kind of
still in beta welcome back to craft
computing everyone as always I'm Jeff if
you want a gaming pc you run Windows or
according to seems most recent Hardware
survey ninety eight point three one
percent of you do it is the platform
that every triple-a game is released on
and for every GPU out there there is a
matching driver but not everything is
perfect just because Windows is the most
popular first the OS itself costs
roughly a hundred dollars it's a sizable
chunk of change for most people
especially budget oriented gaming PC
builds like this one I put together for
five hundred dollars last month
game developers also lean heavily on
Microsoft DirectX it is the API used
most frequently in PC and Xbox game
development and is nearly the industry
standard that's not to say there aren't
other api's out there such as OpenGL
Vulcan or mantle but as Windows is the
number one operating system by a wide
margin
that's what developers are using and it
further cements the relationship between
Windows and gamers enter gabe newell and
valve they proclaimed a vision for the
future of gaming back in 2013 one that
would be free from microsoft's hold on
consumers one where you could build a PC
from off-the-shelf components and
download a free operating system where
your entire library of purchased games
would await you or you could purchase
the steam box a pre-built gaming PC with
Linux pre-installed from your favorite
retailer in the early days of steam OS
hardware compatibility was the biggest
hurdle for the fledgling operating
system as valve decided to abandon
legacy BIOS boot mode which was used by
x86 operating systems for the past three
decades and instead opted for supporting
only the newest variant UEFI in late
2013 only brand new boards supported the
new boo standard so there was no
experimenting with steam OS on your old
Core 2 Duo machine you had to be running
the latest and greatest in modern
hardware those who could run CMOS saw
performance relatively on par with
Windows when paired with the same
hardware and same settings
there weren't many games on the market
which could easily be converted to run
on Linux because as I said earlier most
relied on DirectX
Valve even had to rework a few of their
own games to run an OpenGL to get them
ported over to Linux well that's all
fine and dandy Jeff
but you said steam OS exists today
what's it like well I'm happy to say
that since UEFI has come standard on
pretty much every motherboard since the
release of steam OS insulation was a
relative breeze I was originally going
to run this test on an MSI be 350
motherboard with horizon 520 400 G to
make it more of a console comparison but
insulation would complete and boot to a
black screen I'm guessing there isn't
support for the on-board Vega 11 GPU yet
so I wound up installing this on my 8700
K test bench with a 1050 Ti once the
Installer finished I was greeted with a
login screen entering my Steam ID and
password took me to what looks like big
picture mode from standard Steam install
as steam OS is aimed at console
replacement I wanted to do as much
navigation as possible on my Xbox 360
controller unfortunately I kept getting
lost in the interface and wound up using
a keyboard and mouse most of the time
this was also a common complaint back
when steam OS was new so I'm a little
disappointed they haven't improved this
interface yet so cool it boots and it
runs but what about games well taking a
look in my personal games library we can
see over five hundred and five titles
owned there's a large number of triple-a
titles here too spanning over a decade
of PC gaming games like GTA 4 and 5
fallout 3 new Vegas and for Borderlands
1 into Dishonored hitman absolution Mass
Effect and a number of any titles that
picked up along the way such as Alan
Wake gunpoint World of Goo or human fall
flat and over the past 4 years there
were a number of turbo a crossover
titles promised to be coming to steam OS
Batman Arkham Knight gauntlet evolve
project car Street Fighter 5 The Witcher
3 total war Rome
none of these were ever actually
released on steamos and if we add one
critical filter to my games library
displaying only those that are steamos
compatible we see the list shrink from
505 down to 127 titles there are some
surprising triple-a games here such as
Borderlands 2
Mad Max shadow of Mordor as well as
nearly everything made by vowed
including csgo and Team Fortress 2
but notice nearly none of the game
that I listed previously are present
here if your biggest names and industry
players aren't present it makes it
really hard to create a competitive
ecosystem if you're an eSports player
those games are actually well
represented on this list with games like
csgo rocket League payday 2 Team
Fortress 2 and more the games like pub G
aren't even on this list nor can you get
fortnight or overwatch as those aren't
even available on Steam on the window
side of things and even if those games
were available on Linux if you're not
fluent in the OS installation of any
software outside of steams friendly
wrapper can be a chore for the average
person now I did spend a fair amount of
time playing games inside of steam OS
and the experience was unquestionably
good I installed the game's launch them
and the experience was seamless
rocket League played just as well inside
of steam OS as it did on Windows as did
Borderlands 2 human fall flat csgo
gunpoint and pretty much any other game
that I tried there was nothing inside of
those games that told me I was not
playing on a Windows PC so conclusion
time
what is steam OS today steam OS seems to
be struggling for air fighting a war
that it seemingly can't win gamers don't
get excited at the prospect of
abandoning windows in favor of a new
lower-cost alternative not because steam
OS isn't better but because it's not
comfortable steam was attempting to
entice the console crowd over to the PC
side of the room but it didn't offer any
of the benefits of the PC gaming crap
there's no modding support
there's no versatility of a PC as you
really can't install other software
easily and the built-in web browser is a
bit of a joke especially if you're using
a controller add to that my personal
games library is just 25% the size that
it is on Windows while managing to
remove nearly every blockbuster title
from it I can start to see why this
didn't take off in the year since now
I'm not personally ready to give up on a
windows free gaming future but steam OS
has a long way to go before it can be
seen as a serious contender although if
Microsoft keeps up its aggressive update
policies shoddy driver management
intrusive ads in the Start menu and
taskbar and keep stealing all of our
data well there might just yet be a
glimmer of hope for steam OS so long as
it can flush out a truly competitive
ecosystem now I'm assuming that 98.3 1%
of you are gaming on Windows today but
would you move to another OS if it could
bring a full games library and
third-party application
support I know I totally would but let
me know your thoughts down in the
comments make sure to LIKE this video
and subscribe as I've got a number of
great videos planned for the coming
weeks including two new wished comm
orders and a knockoff x58 motherboard
review you will not want to miss those
if you like the channel and want to
financially support it look me up on
patreon or check out the video
description for my Amazon affiliate link
every dollar made goes directly back
into content for this channel make sure
to catch my live show talking heads
every Wednesday night at 8 p.m. Pacific
time it's a time for myself and a
co-host to grab a few beers and get
caught up on the world of tech with some
craft beer talk thrown in there for good
measure thank you everyone for watching
I'm gonna go finish this beer and as
always I will see you in the next video
cheers guys