Dankpods used 12 computers with different hardware to test the performance of 5 games in 1080p and 4K, comparing the average fps results of the games' built in benchmarks to determine which OS ran the game better across the same hardware: Windows or Bazzite.
Some notes on methodolgy under this spoiler
Each game uses the same in game graphics settings in Windows and in Linux. The Linux distro used was Bazzite, using the version specific for the graphics card hardware fpr each individual machine. To be clear, this means that he installed the Bazzite version for (legacy) nVidia as appropriate.
Each bazzite install was fresh, no copying installs or swapping around a drive with it pre-installed. After install, it was updated using system update and rebooted, repeated until no updates remained.
Screenshots of some of Dankpods's comments to this effect:
There are many comments under the youtube video pointing out that in many of the Linux runs, it was not actually using the correct driver, comments about the experience using other distros, and comments about various potential fixes and workarounds.
This misses the point. Dankpods intentionally tested this way, and used Bazzite, to try and show what this would be like for the average gamer schmuck without a ton of technical skill interested in switching to Linux. Out of box experience matters in this situation, even though it's not quite fair to compare that between free opens source distros and an OS created by a megacorp. To the average end user, it won't matter. They just want it to work.
Prepare to be upset. With this particular testing methodology, Linux doesn't really win overall.
I'm interested to hear the community's thoughts on this.
Yeah, the video's length is absurd. I enjoy his content, but an hour of watching clips of the same damn benchmarks isn't particularly interesting. Definitely should have been cut down further, imo.
Anyway.
I think as people with technical background, we need to understand that for Linux to eventually overtake Windows it needs to work for the average knuckledragger.
Wade didn't have to google how to install the driver on Windows in advance (as far as we know, that's some important clarification that's needed).
Bazzite is supposed to be the distro for minimum hassle gaming, and they even have specific distro releases for these old nVidia cards, which he used.
What is the point of having a specific release for that hardware if it doesn't work? If users have to take extra steps after the install, there should be something that pops up on first boot to direct them to it, or a warning about this when you download the iso.
It shouldn't be on the user to have an issue first, then guess at what they need to search to get useful info.
I get that Linux maintainers are loathe to turn the experience into "Windows Lite" where it reminds you to wipe your own ass with their proprietary paper, but at some point I think we need to accept a bare minimum level of hand holding can be useful for user experience.
How hard would it be for a message box to pop up: You're using NVM/llvmpipe and you may not be getting the full support for your GPU. Click here for more info. Click here to never show this again.
Did he actually install a (correct) bazzite image to each machine or did he just swap hard drives? Because that matters.
There's half a dozen different versions of bazzite and bazzite installers. Each for different use cases. All that allows automated driver installs, but how you got there makes a difference. Swapping a hard drive to a new machine might make the NVIDIA drivers just not be there (because it was installed using an image for AMD GPUs). It will boot and the OS will work, but it will not use the graphics card appropriately.
I know you've been told as responses to your other comments, but for anyone else browsing, he didn't just swap drives. He did fresh installs of the correct versions for the hardware.
It seems that he likely did this during a period where the nVidia drivers were not supported, which still isn't a mark in the favor of Bazzite that something like that can be easily missed by the end user.
I think he got hung up on how long this took him personally when he was editing, and used that to justify a long fucking edit. I have no idea how he managed to strecth this into a freaking hour.
It is an issue that lasted a week at most. It actually was such a non issue that it wasn't even picked up as a bug report. Dude just had the absolute worst timing in the world. If he had waited a couple days or updated the systems again then, he wouldn't have even noticed.
This is the worst case escenario being amplified and showcase as the typical OOB experience. There's a reason benchmarks are such a niche in content creation, specially when the audience knows way more than the creator about the subject matter. When people like nexus exist, it is a risky business.
I get that he was going for his typical silly and goofy vibe, but he missed the mark. Shouldn't have tried to showcase this results at all. It's like saying to showcase the out of the box experience of a new car and getting hung up that the car ran out of fuel on the highway. Like, fueling is the bare minimum a car requires out of the dealership. Drivers check and install is the bare minimum every gaming computer requires on a fresh install. Not even windows can do gaming without installing proprietary drivers first. It is disingenuous. I love this bloke but he should stick to pouring extraneous liquids into oil pans in cars, he completely misread the benchmark audience.
This.
The only point of brazzite is that you don't have to spend hours setting up, configuring and debugging. If that doesn't work, there is no point in using brazzite.