Intel Arc support has officially arrived on SteamOS, and we are testing the brand new Intel Arc B580 to see if it can power the ultimate budget Steam Machine...
For a long time, Intel was the only GPU manufacturer that worked just as well on Linux as it did on Windows. The problem was that they only made integrated graphics, so it was useless for gaming.
Arc was their first attempt at a discrete PCIe GPU. The Linux community had the expectation that Linux would be a first-class citizen. IIRC it missed the bar, but it wasn’t horrible.
By the time this all happened, AMD was hitting performance parity between Windows and Linux. You’ll notice in the steam hardware survey that AMD is the undisputable king of Linux.
If Arc is now working well on SteamOS, it’s probably worth re-evaluating.
For a long time, Intel was the only GPU manufacturer that worked just as well on Linux as it did on Windows. The problem was that they only made integrated graphics, so it was useless for gaming.
Arc was their first attempt at a discrete PCIe GPU. The Linux community had the expectation that Linux would be a first-class citizen. IIRC it missed the bar, but it wasn’t horrible.
By the time this all happened, AMD was hitting performance parity between Windows and Linux. You’ll notice in the steam hardware survey that AMD is the undisputable king of Linux.
If Arc is now working well on SteamOS, it’s probably worth re-evaluating.
For a long time, easily a decade now, Radeon drivers work better under Linux than Windows: https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2013/09/26/dolphin-emulator-and-opengl-drivers-hall-fameshame/
Intel also has way better hardware support than AMD, for some reason.