Steam OS

[coang]

I am building a new rig, used strictly for gaming, and I would like to try the Steam OS. I want to use the same storage drive from the old computer but all the games on the drive were downloaded using a Windows 7 64-bit platform. Will the games be playable using the Linux based OS? Do I have to download the Linux version of the games?

Thanks

[KKiONI]

In short, you will need to download the Linux versions of all your games since it will have its own set of binaries to execute. It might be possible (depending on the game) to transfer game assets like audio, textures, etc, but that process is tedious work.

[coang]

Would there be any advantages or performance issues running a VM of the Steam OS on W7? I realize I would have to download the games in Linux to utilize them. Or does it make sense to keep everything on a windows platform.

[Forcen]

The only point of using SteamOS in a VM i can think of is testing it to see how it works without formatting your PC. Maybe that is good for you, see how it is before you decide what OS to use for real

There isn't a single game on Steam that is Linux only, so if you use windows you can play all the games.

The big advantage of SteamOS is making a free OS for a living room gaming PC, sure windows works for that but it costs money and have lots of stuff that you don't need if you're ONLY gonna play games.

[KKiONI]

Pretty much what Forcen said.

Using a VM for SteamOS would only be suitable if you just wanted to check it out and test run the installation. With a VM you are essentially giving only a slice of your computer's resources to the guest OS.

Linux/Steam OS support is growing, but not all games are available on it yet. So if you do plan on going through with the installation, you would need to do a quick check of what's supported and what's not.

If you want to try SteamOS, I recommend perhaps toying with Steam's In-Home Streaming feature. Have your main rig with all your games installed on Windows 7 and stream it to a less powerful system running SteamOS.