- [Narrator] Forget what you know about Chromebooks,
this is a gaming laptop now!
- Steam is finally coming to Chromebooks, baby.
And that means that you and all of your Chromebook friends
can finally join the elite league of gamers, or does it?
We tried the Steam Alpha and it's cool,
but it might actually really be Chrome itself
that isn't ready for gaming.
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- The thing that makes Chromebooks great
is also what makes them awful for gamers.
A laser focus on simplicity.
You can do browser things
and maybe run a couple of Android apps, but that's about it.
Sure, in 2018, Google added a Linux implementation
called Crostini, that allows you to use pretty much
any desktop environment you'd want on your Chromebook.
But that's not an improvement to Chrome OS.
You can do that on any computer,
but with the introduction of native Steam gaming,
this 11-year-old OS, much like an 11-year-old human,
looks like it will be doing a lot of growing and changing
in the coming years.
So how does Steam on Chromebooks work?
Well, since it's an Alpha,
you'll have to switch to the dev channel,
change a few flags and type a couple lines
into the terminal, and boom!
You're up and running.
Assuming of course, you have a supported Chromebook.
We have two, the Acer Chromebook Spin 713
and the Asus Chromebook CX9.
So why these two?
Well, they are among these six supported devices
that can run this Alpha.
Yes, you heard correctly,
just six 11th gen Intel Chromebooks
are supported for the Alpha.
Support should expand as this rolls out,
but, for now, like the Food Network,
you can get a taste vicariously through our video.
Yum, (slurps) tasty.
First up, let's talk about gaming performance.
We were hoping to compare Steam on Chrome OS
to these same machines running Windows
by swapping the M.2 SSDs.
But, yeah, no, they won't even boot up.
Turns out these Chromebooks use coreboot instead of UEFI,
meaning we'd have to flash firmware onto them.
But since these are on loan
from their respective manufacturers, we couldn't do that.
That means a one-to-one comparison on the same laptop
will have to wait until Steam is available
on Chrome OS Flex,
the version of the OS you can install on any machine.
For now, what we can do is compare the Steam Alpha
to running Steam games in Crostini, on the same machine.
Now, remember, it's an Alpha.
There are a bunch of issues like no DX12 games,
weird performance and scaling at non-native resolutions,
and a Kanye West level of general instability.
So while you should take these results with a pinch of salt,
if you're chomping at the bit to piece some Gs
on your C book, here's what you can expect.
- Our limited benching gave us some strange results.
You could say they were a little bananas.
lttstore.com.
Half-life: Lost Coast worked swimmingly
with very slight gains in the Alpha
over the Linux implementation.
But when we look at the Talos Principle,
well, things get interesting.
In Crostini, the game was unplayable,
scoring between 0 and 3 frames per second.
But when it ran through the Alpha,
well, look at that, that's a playable game!
But curiously, it performed substantially better
on our lower-spec I5 Chromebook,
a strange trend we noticed in all of our benchmarks,
despite the I7 equipped CX9 possessing more execution units
than the GPU on the I5.
We think it's a driver issue on the Intel side of things,
because it persisted in both Crostini and the Alpha,
but we were unable to nail down exactly what was happening.
In other Alpha weirdness,
we tried to benchmark Shadow of the Tomb Raider,
but that just stopped working altogether after an OS update.
That's what an Alpha's like, folks.
- Now, the bugs are to be expected.
But the thing that shakes my belief
that gaming could succeed on Chrome OS
is that PC gaming often requires tinkering
and Chrome OS is by definition, a limited OS.
For example, file management is horrendously obfuscated.
You can't tell where your files are located in relation
to other folders, or even navigate to your Steam game files.
You can see the file structure by using Steam's file browser
but you can't do anything with it.
If Google wants to take gaming seriously,
they need to make it easier
for people to troubleshoot and manage their device.
You know, it's like medium-level tinkering.
Chrome OS has this massive chasm
between the limited things typical users can do
and the unlimited possibilities available to developers.
But what about gamers?
It's like you get the choice
between a tricycle or a unicycle.
I need a middle ground.
Where can I do things like install a mod or tweak graphics
or power management settings
without needing dev level knowledge of the OS.
You can't just power wash your problems away
when you have a quarter terabyte of content to redownload.
But let's talk about why Google
is bringing Steam to ChromeOS at all.
Back in 2013, Google took a stab at making Chromebooks
premium with the Chromebook Pixel,
a laptop that was just a couple hundred dollars shy
of directly competing with the MacBook Pro.
And it was a flop.
Reviewers liked the hardware but no one wanted Chrome OS.
So Google tried again, and then again, and again.
And after nearly a decade,
I think that Google has finally realized
that if they wanna sell a premium Chromebook,
they need to sell the idea of a premium OS.
And gaming is part of that idea,
especially for the next generation of Chromebook buyers.
You see, Google has been invading schools
all over the world, leading to scores of children
being brought up on Google's OS.
And as they switch from their school provided laptops
through their own personal devices,
Google is hoping they don't want to jump ship
by making Chrome OS a compelling package
as a sole personal computer.
Google would love for you to switch,
but they're trying to get your kids to stay,
and gaming will be a core part of that retention plan.
Wait a second, how does Stadia fit into all this?
Aha, you forgot about Stadia, didn't you?
In classic Google fashion,
it seems like the left hand doesn't really know
what the right hand is doing because bringing Steam
to Chromebook seems like it's going to harm Stadia's growth.
I mean, sure, local gaming and game streaming are different,
but Stadia is Google's gaming brand.
And it seems like they're fine to just kinda
leave it in the wings rather than make any effort
to integrate it into Chrome OS.
In my opinion, that would be a more logical move.
Stadia as a cloud-based service
is more in line with Chrome OS vision
of a cloud-based future.
Whereas traditional PC gaming that is being introduced
by this Steam Alpha is kind of antithetical
to how Chrome OS has always worked.
Oh, this one died, how appropriate.
And there are other reasons
I don't want a game on a Chromebook anyway.
The OS sucks at translating track pad inputs
to accurate mouse movement.
Window management is slow and frustrating.
And the design language
has a general lack of information density,
and I can't change any of it!
While I certainly welcome the idea of playing games
I already own on my Chromebook,
for this to work properly, Google needs to really commit
to making gaming a good experience.
And that means that Chrome OS
will have to become something it's never been.
That might be good for gamers
but bad for people who are happy
with Chrome's lightweight simplicity.
It's a balance that will be hard to find,
but Google, I think you could do it.
So long as you don't abandon the project.
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- Thanks for watching this video.
Hey, if you liked it, why don't you go check out
the one where Linus struggles to buy his son a Chromebook
against Linus' will.
We make him do these things for content. (laughs)