The 2026 Linux Summer Games - Dankpods compares performance in games across Windows and Linux on 12 machines

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.