I’ve seen gameplay performance go much higher than the Max FPS the benchmark gave me.

That's typical. Benchmarks are supposed to present a "worst case scenario" in terms of performance, at least if they're designed correctly. Ideally, if your system performs well in a benchmark then it should, in theory, have zero problems with the actual game.

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This would be one of the many reasons Valve does not recommend people use the beta version if you want stability.

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I trust the Steam hardware survey about as much as I trust political polls. I wish Valve would just release the actual numbers so we can put an end to all of this guesswork and speculation.

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Used an Xbox 360 gamepad for years (I have two of them, actually) but once I got a Steam Controller, I have pretty much abandoned them. The Steam Controller, in my opinion, is the best gamepad ever made. The touchpads are so vastly superior to an analog stick that it's not even a contest. And the customization that allows it to support literally any game ever, even ones designed without controller support, is amazing. It is the first controller ever that gives mouse and keyboard a run for its money. I would have never considered trying to play a game like Stellaris with a gamepad, but with the with Steam Controller, it's actually a viable option.

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Used to love KDE, but it's gotten too bloated over the last few years. I've been using MATE for the last couple of months, and it's been great. Very fast and stable while still being feature rich

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I agree, nothing wrong with Wine ports for older games, or even newer games if the performance is good.

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Quoting: skinnyrafBTW., Valve does not need to do this to have any "clear proof". Just put some data identifying Steam Machines and/or SteamOS in telemetry they collect anyway - or modify the hardware survey to display on SteamOS.

I guarantee you that Valve knows to the person precisely how many people are using Linux/SteamOS to play games, but for whatever reason, they have chosen not to disclose that information, which is frustrating when I hear developers say they're not supporting Linux based on the Steam hardware survey.

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Quoting: cxphergmailcomI just support games that run on Linux (usually this also means they are multi platform).

I haven't bought a non-Linux PC game in nearly 3-years.

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I think we also forget just how much money Microsoft has put into promoting DirectX, from training to technical support to straight-up paying developers to use it. I think this is part of the reason for some of the misgivings about OpenGL, because, like Linux (until recently), there's no big corporate powerhouse behind it generating goodwill.

I do agree with the concluding paragraph: if a game runs well for me in Linux, and I enjoy it, I couldn't give a pair of fetid dingo's kidneys that it theoretically performs better in Windows, but a lot of people don't think that way. For many gamers, that FPS number is, for whatever reason, a significant source of bragging rights, and as long as Linux lags behind Windows in terms of gaming performance, there are a lot of gamers who will never take it seriously.

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Paradox's grand-strategy games have always been a bit sparse in terms of combat mechanics (with the possible exception of the Hearts of Iron series), so Stellaris' combat is exactly what I would expect from a Paradox game.

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