[jezze]

If Linux previously always outperformed Windows the result should be similar this time around as well. It could possibly be some missing feature or a bug in the linux drivers but it sounds unlikely to me. I mean the architecture isn't fundamentally different. Maybe windows ignores some thermal throttling? Something smells fishy here for sure.

[lemonish97]

Or maybe it is just better?

[dijit]

I doubt it.

There’s three possibilities.

1) Intel is optimising for common cases inside the most dominant desktop operating system.. this is like apple having really good floating point in their cpu’s that makes javascript not suck for performance… and is why macbooks feel snappy with electron.

2) Intel and microsoft worked together when designing the CPU, so Windows is able to take advantage of some features that Linux is only just learning how to handle (or learning the exact way it works).

3) The way the operating systems schedule tasks is better in this generation for Windows over Linux, by accident.

“it’s better” doesn’t really factor, Windows has been shown repeatedly over the last half-decade to be so inferior as to be beaten by Linux when Linux is emulating Windows APIs. It’s difficult to be so slow that you’re slower than someone emulating your platform.

[dartharva]

Neither of your three possibilities refute the parent hypothesis:

> Or maybe it is just better?

[dijit]

No, but if you continue reading the comment, you’ll read why I believe that’s not the case..

[dartharva]

Well that too isn't exactly correct; Windows isn't getting beaten by Wine/Proton on Linux by any significant (nontrivial) margin; at best they're at par, and most of Linux's advantage comes from not having to bear the load of a thousand background processes (unlike Windows) when it's running a Windows app. I perfectly understand the appeal of desktop Linux being an avid user myself, but let's be real here, it's not very likely to run a Windows-native app or game much better than a debloated/LTSC Windows setup.

[dijit]

LTSC narrows it, sure. But 2025 benches prove Proton/Linux beats stock/debloated Win still. [0][1]

Handhelds crush: Bazzite/SteamOS +20-36% FPS on ROG Ally X/Legion Go. Cyberpunk 39FPS@20W Linux vs less Win; Returnal 33 vs 18. [2][3]

AMD desktop: CachyOS +15-80FPS (Cyberpunk/CS2) on RX5700XT vs Win11. Smoother 1% lows too. [2]

NVIDIA par/mixed, tweaks needed.

Vulkan+NTSync > DX overhead. 90% Steam games? Linux wins now.

Anti-cheat blocks the rest.

[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1pxtcv3/rx_57...

[1]: https://gamersnexus.net/gpus/rip-windows-linux-gpu-gaming-be...

[2]: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/06/games-run-faster-on-s...

[3]: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-ROG-Xbox-Ally-with-Bazzit...

[richardwhiuk]

It’s easy to be better when you only implement the mainline of the API

[dijit]

Glib, and not true.

Otherwise Windows could make WSL (1) faster than Linux, but they can’t because they don’t have the similar enough underlying operating system paradigms.

I could give examples, but I think just comparing native python performance on both platforms is the easiest case I can make without going into details.

[LoganDark]

WSL 1 was faster and better than WSL 2, but they abandoned it for its technical complexity and switched to containers / virtual machines, which create a slew of Other Problems.

[dijit]

yes, but was it faster than Linux?

[nimbius]

"Intel is optimising for common cases inside the most dominant desktop operating system."

- literally the history of Intel for more than 30 years and likely why we see this benefit now. gaming the compiler and hoping they wont get caught bought them a decade against AMD.

"Intel and microsoft worked together when designing the CPU"

- I guess the bitterness of Itanium doesnt last forever.

[ori_b]

On only one laptop?

[hulitu]

> On only one laptop?

That's how a good benchmark looks like. From ancient wisdom (Linux Benchmarking Howto): " 5.3 Proprietary hardware/software

A well-known processor manufacturer once published results of benchmarks produced by a special, customized version of gcc. Ethical considerations apart, those results were meaningless, since 100% of the Linux community would go on using the standard version of gcc. The same goes for proprietary hardware. Benchmarking is much more useful when it deals with off-the-shelf hardware and free (in the GNU/GPL sense) software. "

[ori_b]

The oddity is that Windows is slower everywhere but on this one specific kind of laptop, as far as I understand. If it's not a quirk of the laptop, windows would be better everywhere.