I haven’t had it good luck with Bazzite in the pasthowever, I gave Legion Go another go this time and it was fantastic. Everything is fast, both in game mode and on the Gnome desktop, but there’s something I didn’t expect. It loads games faster from the moment I press it Play on Steam.
I’m not entirely sure why either. It’s the same SSD with Windows 11 installed, the same games and the same Steam account. Still, Windows 11 is known for being full of junk that slows it down. Will I go back to Windows 11? It’s probably because of how slow Lenovo has been to update the most important driver for this handset, the graphics.
Sometimes it’s not the hardware’s fault
Windows 11 is heavy duty for desktop processors
The AMD Z1 Extreme inside the Legion Go isn’t the fastest of the APUs, and the handset doesn’t have the 24GB of shared RAM that the ROG Ally X gets to such great effect. But it has a fantastic display with a fast refresh rate, accurate colors and plenty of brightness during gaming.
The one thing holding it back has always been Windows 11. Okay, maybe two things, because Legion Space isn’t a good app, and switching between multiple dashboard-like apps isn’t a good time for me. I’m not sure if it’s anyone.
See how much system resources Windows is taking up. I’m already using 30% of available RAM on a 96GB desktop. It wasn’t such a high percentage in Legion Go, but then there was only 16GB to play with. Everything from opening apps to browsing menus and of course loading games was slow.
Linux operating systems are the future of handheld gaming
I’m not sure if the Year of the Linux Desktop will ever happen, but the Year of the Linux Handheld is already there. As SteamOS gets stronger, Bazzite is branching out to cover more devices and other distros are popping up. I use Bazzite because I didn’t like being beaten by the ROG Ally X, which refused to boot while installed, and because I needed to have a machine running it for ongoing testing.
Bazzite made my Legion Go playable again
Gaming has never been faster and the desktop mode is fluid
I’m still not 100% sold on unmodified OSes, but I can’t deny that Bazzite has transformed my Legion Go from a slug to a racing car. I’m not a fan of Gnome either, but I went with it instead of KDE because I wanted to rule out variables in my last failed attempts, and I have to say, it’s growing on me. The cartoony, oversized icons work on the smaller screen of a handheld, and I like the visual reminder that I’m not using SteamOS.
I don’t like hyperbole either, but holy cow is it faster now. Even downloading games over Wi-Fi is faster, not by much, but noticeably. Navigating through Steam’s game mode is smooth and fluid, and I no longer have to press the play button more than once to load games. they just work.
I could point fingers at Lenovo’s backpacks and Windows 11’s bloat, but I’m in too good of a mood to do that. What I will say is that I don’t know why Legion Go has been sitting in the closet all this time when it could have been used. Time to hand over my steam deck to the guys and use the higher powered gear I’ve been neglecting.
I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was
When we had access to two Legion Go S handheldsWe’ve done a head-to-head comparison between Windows 11 and SteamOS. No game running on Windows 11 came close to FPS in the SteamOS tests, or even close. How embarrassing.
Anywhere up to 75% faster, which is amazing to think about when you’re just changing the software the game runs on. That’s before you consider that SteamOS and every other Linux distro doesn’t even run the game natively and has to convert Windows API calls to usable ones by the Linux kernel.
Windows 11 is still what slows down PC gaming handhelds
Even with New manual mode in Windows 11It’s still slow compared to Linux-based handheld operating systems. The only reason I keep Windows on a handheld is to play a few multiplayer games with Windows only anti-cheat software and the Game Pass Ultimate games I still haven’t finished on PC. Whether it’s Bazzite, Nobara, or SteamOS, when you go open source, the gaming experience is better on handhelds, and I’m not sure Windows can catch up.
