What OS do you use for gaming??

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

With the release of SteamOS,and OS X taking marketshare from Windows,I thought it would be interesting to see what OS,people on this forum use when running games.

[Goobley]

I run the vast majority of my games on Windows 7, a few on OS X (due to having had Macs all my life, I always have stuff kicking around on them), I also get a quite few hours of Kerbal Space Program in on Linux (arch and mint) when I happen to be using one of those OSs anyway (KSP's 64bit binary is only available on linux surprisingly due the stability of 64bit unity on othe OSs). TBH my computer spends probably 60% of its time in Windows 7, 5% in OS X and the rest in Linux, but 95% of my gaming is done on Windows.

[kalniel]

Other: iOS 5-7, GCOS

[azrael-]

Up until about 1/1.5 years ago I was mainly gaming on (and using) Windows XP (yeah, I'm a late convert, of sorts ). Since then I spend most of my time in Windows 7, but I haven't been gaming that much in the last year or so.

[Darision]

Windows would be a better OS even if you are going to be gaming, the Steam OS may optimizes the system for gaming but windows allows the opportunity to do more, the only downside is that you have to pay for the ability to access more features.

[KeyboardDemon]

I am currently considering trying out the Steam OS, and was even thinking about installing it on a second SSD so I can Dual Boot with that and Windows 8. Has anyone done this?

What would be the best way to do this?

I've not tried this before, so would like to know about the potential pitfalls and issues I might encounter.

[Dooms]

I'm currently using Windows 8.1.1 and I won't be changing any time soon.

If SteamOS manages to get to a usable point with steaming I may end up running it on a low powered box in the living room but I can't see anything taking Windows place on my main gaming machine. Even if Linux gets more support and love it is never going to get to the point where it will play my entire steam library of over 500 games so that means I would have to keep a Windows boot.... and I just don't like dual booting. I hate the idea of "oh I want to do this, let me restart! Ok I've finished gaming, let me restart again!" even if it only does take a few seconds with SSDs.

[Dooms]

I am currently considering trying out the Steam OS, and was even thinking about installing it on a second SSD so I can Dual Boot with that and Windows 8. Has anyone done this?

What would be the best way to do this?

I've not tried this before, so would like to know about the potential pitfalls and issues I might encounter.

They added Dual Boot in the release a few months ago. There are some tutorials kicking about on the net and I believe the whole installation is much easier now that there is some basic GUI (I installed it before this update and it was a bit of a nightmare getting it going on a VM )

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/how-to-d...view-2015.html is an example but I've not tried it myself.

[dfour]

cat should have seperate votes for win 7and 8/8.1 to see the difference between the OS adoption even though I would guess that win 7 will still be a the top. I know im in no rush to buy win 8.1.

[directhex]

They added Dual Boot in the release a few months ago. There are some tutorials kicking about on the net and I believe the whole installation is much easier now that there is some basic GUI (I installed it before this update and it was a bit of a nightmare getting it going on a VM )

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/how-to-d...view-2015.html is an example but I've not tried it myself.

That looks like a reasonable guide, with only one missing step - before doing anything else, in the partitioner menu, hit "undo" - the default is to replace all the existing partitions, you need to hit undo to get to a pristine "i haven't changed anything" state

[DavidM]

7 + Raspian. (Selected Debian as it was the closest)

[machapman]

Android?

[Ttaskmaster]

Android for a few mobile games, but none are what I'd really consider 'gaming' games, apart from maybe Mass Effect Infiltrator.

[chezney]

Windows 7 all the way, but it's more because my wife almost had a heart attack when she saw windows 8 (damp technophobes).

[HalloweenJack]

windows 8.1

[Lee H]

Windows 8.1 because I am insanity wolf and can't see what all the fuss is about over the start button