Fubarberry

In the current situation, choosing the Windows 11 version for the Legion Go S is a what only a fool would do.

Let’s sum it up:

• Worse performance across the board
• Worse power consumption
• More expensive

The Windows 11 version only makes sense if there are games with anti-cheat that you don’t want to miss on. There are some notable exceptions like GTA 5 Online and APEX Legends where SteamOS support was removed recently. And there’s Fortnite, outside of Steam, that remains unplayable on SteamOS. There’s probably a few more too, but those are the important ones that come to mind. If such titles don’t matter for your gaming patterns, the SteamOS of the Legion Go S version is the obvious choice.

After [seeing the benchmarks], you must be wondering if Lenovo actually bothers with the Windows version at all! Truth is, it’s worse than that. You can’t even find a mention of the SteamOS version of the Lenovo Legion Go S on Lenovo’s website. I am so NOT kidding. There is “View Models” button, but there are no other models apart from the Windows 11 Home version.

I checked a few country sites for Lenovo, and it’s inconsistent as hell for a Global company. France only has the Windows version, Japan doesn’t even list the Legion Go S model (still stuck at the previous Switch like model), and finally I could find the SteamOS version on Lenovo’s site in Indonesia!

So, guys, I don’t want to kill your enthusiasm, but this sounds very much like We are just pretending to release a SteamOS version but in fact we advertise the Windows model everywhere instead. Since I am familiar with large companies, I guess the story was like that. Someone in Business Development managed to secure a deal with Valve, the CEO must have said OK, does not cost much anyway. And then the BD guy went fishing in each territory, asking for the Marketing leaders who wanted to launch that SKU, and turns out most region heads were not interested in hearing about SteamOS. This is probably why you end up with said SKU only listed in some small regions and not the main ones. It’s probably a pilot, at most. I was not in the room, so I don’t really know, but it does sound and smell like this kind of situation.

Well, in the US, if you are actively looking for it, you can find it on Best Buy, at least…

In short, you have SteamOS delivering all the goods, but there’s no appetite on the manufacturer’s side to do anything about it. Sad. Note that Lenovo is the only manufacturer with an official support stated for SteamOS on the Legion Go S. Valve is offering support for additional handhelds (the original Legion Go, and the ROG Ally) but that’s considered experimental and not official at the moment (see their recovery image page).

According to the creator of lsfg-vk:

A couple of hours ago Deck Wizard has made a video on Lossless Scaling in which they present a new Decky plugin for lsfg-vk. On Reddit, the creator of that plugin claimed they had collaborated with me to create this, however this is incorrect and was likely the result of a language barrier.

I was asked to collaborate, but I instead requested them to wait with the plugin until the new configuration system was written, as otherwise a large portion of the plugin would have to be rewritten to account for it. They did not listen and pushed the plugin out without communicating with me beforehand.

As a result of this, the plugin already has many issues such as incorrect labeling of options and misleading descriptions of other options. Likely in collateral, the video created by Deck Wizard further spreads these wrong explanations. I want to clear up these things. First of all, the settings recommended by Deck Wizard are 30% flow scale and no performance mode. I can not state enough how terrible these options are. With 30% flow scale, internal calculations are happening in 96x54 images with some going down to 2x1, producing extremely inaccurate results. Instead, it is recommended to keep flow scale at 85-100% with performance mode enabled, as this gives a much larger performance boost while retaining immensely higher quality.

Clearly all of this is simply a result of poor communication and as such I will not support the Decky plugin. Do not ask about help with lsfg-vk when using the Decky plugin. Perhaps in the future an official lsfg-vk Decky plugin can be made in actual collaboration with me. Pancake - Developer of lsfg-vk

The plugin is still the easiest way to use Lossless framegen ATM, but it's definitely worth knowing about this.

Trying it out in Shadows of Doubt right now, took performance from an unstable 25-31 fps to 61-71 fps with I set on performance mode and x2 fps. Don't really notice input lag.

It's not on the decky store yet, so you have to download the extension zip manually.

Here's the extension github with full instructions and details.

Basically you'll:

1. Install the plugin. Once it's on the decky store you can install it from there, but in the meantime do this:

   • Download the .zip from the release page
   • In Game Mode, go to the settings cog in the top right of the Decky Loader tab
   • Enable Developer Options
   • In the new Developer tab, select "Install from zip".
   • Choose the "Lossless Scaling.zip" file you downloaded (likely in the Downloads folder)
   • If it does not show up, you may need to restart your device

2. Purchase and install Lossless Scaling from Steam

3. Open the plugin from the Decky menu

4. Click "Install lsfg-vk" to automatically set up the compatibility layer

5. Configure settings using the plugin's UI controls:

   • Enable/disable LSFG
   • Set FPS multiplier (2-4) Note: The higher the multiplier, the greater the input lag
   • Enable performance mode - Reduces gpu load, which can sometimes majorly increase FPS gains
   • Adjust flow scale (0.25-1.0)
   • Toggle HDR mode
   • Toggle immediate mode (disable vsync)

6. Apply launch commands to the game you want to use frame generation with:

   • Option 1 (Recommended): ~/lsfg %COMMAND% - Uses your plugin configuration
   • Option 2: Manual environment variables like ENABLE_LSFG=1 LSFG_MULTIPLIER=2 %COMMAND%

See the linked article for a list of the supported games.

Blizzard games are of course included, but we also get:

• Avowed
• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4
• DOOM: The Dark Ages
• Sea of Thieves
• Crash Bandicoot™ 4: It’s About Time

If you need help on installing Battle.net, gamingonlinux coincidentally just published an article on getting it installed.

You can also use Non-steam launchers

These controllers were all working on SteamOS before as far as I know, so I'm interested to see what this changes. My understanding is that previously their controllers just show up as generic xbox controllers, and now they will be properly recognized. We'll see if this has any other benefits like custom bindings for back buttons and things like that.

Source

Edit:

According to @dualpad@lemmy.zip

got the 8bitdo Ultimate 2 wireless controller with the latest firmware update, and can confirm dinput mode lets me map the back buttons and extra bumpers to different inputs through Steam Input. Analog triggers and gyro work too.

Microsoft has long wanted to get vendors out of the kernel. It's a huge privacy/security/stability risk, and causes major issues like the Crowdstrike outage.

Most of those issues also apply to kernel anti-cheat as well, and it's likely that Microsoft will also attempt to move anti-cheat vendors out of kernel space. The biggest gaming issues with steamOS/Linux are kernel anti-cheat not working, so this could be huge for having full compatibility of multiplayer games on Linux.