Slashdot Mirror

Steam Link was such a huge success that... Steam no longer sells it.

Steam Link hardware sold out

The supply of physical Steam Link hardware devices is completely sold out.

Moving forward, Valve intends to continue supporting the existing Steam Link hardware as well as distribution of the software versions of Steam Link, available for many leading smart phones, tablets and televisions.

Don't be dense, the web is overflowing with complaints about stuttering and stalls due to not enough vram, for example this one or feast your eyes on this. If you want to play those games with your gimped vram then you need to turn down settings including shadows and supersampling. It only gets worse from here. The new standard for mainstream GPUs is 8GB, too bad Nvidia didn't get the message. They will pretty soon.

And before you quibble about system ram vs vram, here's the consensus on Steam. "For newer titles no unless you're content with Medium to Low settings. You will need 4GB+ of VRAM if you wish to game at 1080p at an acceptable framerate. 1440p and higher you will need 8GB+ of VRAM."

https://store.steampowered.com...

Steam has Wine built in nowadays, but it's called Proton as part of its internal usage. This is the list that's compatible, and officially they have Proton enabled by default for these titles: https://steamcommunity.com/gam...

They've also been doing a lot of work and upstreaming features to Wine, like DirectX12 to Vulkan API.

I would love nothing more than to see DirectX DIAF but the truth is no developer is going to rewrite their existing code because there is no $$$ in it. Therefore, if I can get all my Steam games to work on a Linux kernel via a Microsoft derived Linux kernel/DirectX implementation I'm all for it.

Nobody implied developers should go rewrite their shit to remove DirectX

You could use the Linux version of Steam with Proton to make the Windows games from your Steam account work on Linux

And I just played the Windows version of Starcraft 2 on Linux using Lutris to configure the correct Wine version etc.

Currently, there are no Steam forum rules specifically protecting females/women/girls from attacks, degrading posts, and misogyny. I posted a request for a rule addition and it was locked the first day.

https://steamcommunity.com/dis...

I posted an article here on Slashdot, but sadly it and dozens of others never made it to the front page. I have excellent Karma, and help out with the moderating here.

Here, watch this: 10 EPIC games with VULKAN support (PC 2018). There is a good reason why it is easier to name the game engines that do not support Vulkan than those that do. What reason? Better performance. Those engines that currently do not support Vulkan, do support DX12 or Metal, basically the same thing. So 100% of major engines are already moved to Vulkan or similar. For most of those, their Vulkan render path gives the best performance.

Now, somebody desperate to justify their pet theory that Vulkan is not the way forward for 3D rendering might point to some cases where Vulkan (or DX12) actually slows the game down. This is because the initial implementation of Vulkan is sometimes just a translation layer for OpenGL, which is single-threaded, so the translation is single-threaded too. On top of that you have the translation overhead. Result: no improvement, or actually a regression. However, that was then, this is now. (...we continue to see much lower CPU utilization when using Vulkan rather than OpenGL.)

Vulkan improves performance in several ways: 1) distributes rendering across multiple cores 2) lifts state out of the inner render loops 3) shortens the path for submitting render data 4) supports fine grained control over caching of render assets. (Not an exhaustive list.) None of this is a secret; all of it is known to anybody who could call themselves a game developer. You are very obviously not one of those. But do us all a favor and please stop shitting on the internet with your ignorance. If you are confused then do a little research.

Need to virus scan new downloads from Steam before first run. You'd think Valve would, but I guess not.
https://steamcommunity.com/app...

As a liberal and libertarian, I'm fine with *ADULTS* having access to any kind of content they want. If they want to take the no censorship, high road they sure as hell need to clean up their age verification system. I play counter strike and BF4(non-steam) with my 15yo. niece and I've seen his game library, and I know damn well many of his games are supposed to be over 18.

First hit of google on how to work around steams age restriction:

https://steamcommunity.com/dis...

> You can buy games on Steam no matter what age you are as long as you set your age to over 18 when a store-page asks for you DoB

So it pains me to say this, but until they fix this gigantic loophole, they are in the wrong here.

In the short term, we won't be making significant changes to what's arriving on Steam until we've finished some of the tools we've described in this post.

From the official announcement.

> but others like Ark - Survival evolved (which is insanely graphics demanding) will even on a 1080ti - get the "light ray" bug, where there's "rays" of darkness that will overshadow the game, psychedelic rain that will make it impossible to fly - and they all blame Nvidia drivers...which in turn blame bad coding on the game devs, or game engine devs. etc.

ARK was built with a heavily modified Unreal Engine 4. I seriously doubt that the (GPU) shaders running Linux are different from the shaders running on Windows -- but it would be good to confirmation on that.

Still, that sucks that nVidia + Epic won't take responsibility for it. :-/

Have you tried turning off light shafts ( god rays) and bloom?

r.BloomQuality=0
r.LightShafts=0

> I still run Linux 90% of my time at home

If anyone is curious you can filter in Steam games that run on Linux via this link:

http://store.steampowered.com/linux

https://steamcommunity.com/app...

"...we're continuing to invest significant resources in supporting the Vulkan ecosystem, tooling and driver efforts. We also have other Linux initiatives in the pipe that we're not quite ready to talk about yet; SteamOS will continue to be our medium to deliver these improvements to our customers, and we think they will ultimately benefit the Linux ecosystem at large."

Valve cited this yesterday as the reason they are no longer accepting Bitcoins as a payment option.

"As of today, Steam will no longer support Bitcoin as a payment method on our platform due to high fees and volatility in the value of Bitcoin."

http://steamcommunity.com/game...

https://blockchain.info/charts...
https://blockchain.info/charts...

So, how is bitcoin not dead now?

http://steamcommunity.com/game...

Due to high volatility and transaction costs:
https://steamcommunity.com/gam...

SteamVR now has (beta) Mac support

http://steamcommunity.com/grou...

Didn't know since I just game on console. With all the problems PC ports have anyway I find it too frustrating to play on that platform.

Or the new "Melee Spaceship" on Steam. 2-man dev team with an 80's look. https://steamcommunity.com/sha...

The Vive uses Interleaved Reprojection, which drops the framerate to 45 fps, and then doubles (and warps the second copy of) each frame. This is enabled when the fps drops below 90. More info 'here.

That's basically still how it is. The Linux driver performance is substantially worse than the Windows driver.

True mainly when the Linux port is actually a Direct3D wrapper. For a decent native port there are already cases where Linux soundly beats Windows, for example, here where Dota 2 on Linux with OpenGL 3.3 beats Windows DX11 by a wide margin. Not just that, but if you follow the Dota 2 scene, you know that Windows network lag and game crashes are painful and regular. About time to enjoy some of that buttery smooth Linux network experience and rock solid stability, don't you think? Especially when serious money is involved.

What makes you think your Xbox One console isn't spying on you just as much?

Oh, don't get me wrong, I got off the Microsoft train at the 360 station

What makes you think your PlayStation 3, Wii U, or PlayStation 4 console isn't spying on you just as much?

Problem is, in order to be sure a game will run on a "Steam Machine", you have to restrict your list to the titles that run on Linux

I concede that the existence of titles not ported to Linux and games' varying minimum CPU/GPU/RAM requirements could cause consumer confusion. But because a Steam Machine can act as a Steam Link endpoint, you can run a game on a compatible Windows PC elsewhere on your home LAN and display it on your Steam Machine's monitor.

if you start calling Windows-based machines Steam Machines, you also have to look out for what small percentage of titles don't run on Windows.

There are four possibilities for a Steam game: Windows-only; Windows and Linux; Windows and macOS; or Windows, macOS, and Linux. Though this begins to sound reminiscent of Monty Python's SPAM sketch, my point is that Valve forbids the other three possibilities (macOS and Linux, macOS-only, and Linux-only). From Greenlight FAQ:

To remain in Steam Greenlight and qualify for distribution via Steam, your game must at least run on a Windows PC. You can also be developing for any other platform you like, but we are only able to support PC, Mac and Linux releases at this time.

If your game is macOS-only, you should be selling it in the Mac App Store rather than Steam.

Isn't this basically the same as suing winter because people gamble on hockey

Not really. Valve has been on a lot of people's radar already for how some of its F2P marketplaces are operating. (Team Fortress, DOTA, and CS:GO in particular.)

http://wccftech.com/problem-un...

A 2nd part of the issue is that the major Casino's are unregulated, allow minors to play, (and accusations that its rigged by its owners etc.) So these sites are operating illegally; and quite probably corrupt.

There's a reasonable argument to bad that Valve has an obligation to prevent such sites from tying into its APIs etc.

There is also a reasonable argument to be made that Valve is endorsing it by allowing such things as this:

For example:

CS:GO Lounge
"A community based around the trading of CS:GO items "

"trading" lulz... right, "trading"... the discussion has a nice forum post pinned for everyone:

Bets: the all-in-one guide
http://steamcommunity.com/grou...

or this, a "hey kids, if you got scammed its on you" and then signs off with safe betting.

http://steamcommunity.com/grou...

This isn't on some 3rd party site. This is right on the steam forums, in a Steam Group. You can arguably suggest that its not steams problem to stop 3rd parties from betting... but this stuff is right on Steam. They probably do need to take some ownership of the issue if they are letting it make itself that comfortable right on steam itself.

Isn't this basically the same as suing winter because people gamble on hockey

Not really. Valve has been on a lot of people's radar already for how some of its F2P marketplaces are operating. (Team Fortress, DOTA, and CS:GO in particular.)

http://wccftech.com/problem-un...

A 2nd part of the issue is that the major Casino's are unregulated, allow minors to play, (and accusations that its rigged by its owners etc.) So these sites are operating illegally; and quite probably corrupt.

There's a reasonable argument to bad that Valve has an obligation to prevent such sites from tying into its APIs etc.

There is also a reasonable argument to be made that Valve is endorsing it by allowing such things as this:

For example:

CS:GO Lounge
"A community based around the trading of CS:GO items "

"trading" lulz... right, "trading"... the discussion has a nice forum post pinned for everyone:

Bets: the all-in-one guide
http://steamcommunity.com/grou...

or this, a "hey kids, if you got scammed its on you" and then signs off with safe betting.

http://steamcommunity.com/grou...

This isn't on some 3rd party site. This is right on the steam forums, in a Steam Group. You can arguably suggest that its not steams problem to stop 3rd parties from betting... but this stuff is right on Steam. They probably do need to take some ownership of the issue if they are letting it make itself that comfortable right on steam itself.

I like steam but this is good that the ACCC took them to court and won. Their refund policy is BS. I bought payday 2 ( http://store.steampowered.com/... ) when it had just came out for something like US$25 full price. I trusted the word of the developer who said it would NEVER have microtransactions ( http://steamcommunity.com/app/... ) in the game. Those scumbag developers then added in microtransactions anyway turning it on a P2W game. I tried multiple times through steam to get it refunded and each time I got a template response from steam denying the refund. If this was sold in the shops in Australia it would be ILLEGAL because it was not what I bought nor was it advertised as such to have microtransactions.

I will never buy a overkill game again.

the Linux version is coming shortly

Awesome! Thanks for the information.

the Linux version is coming shortly

Apparently, plan to release a linux port after they fix some things.
Reference:
https://steamcommunity.com/app...

NOW it is.

Already been done.

from a community mod

They're going around locking topics like whackamole now.

Here's the text if you're leery:

Account information incorrect
We've gotten reports that people sometimes see other people's account information on the account page. Valve has been made aware of this and are working on a fix.

Some frequently asked questions:
- No, Steam is not hacked

- Creditcard info and phone numbers are, as required by law, censored and not visible to users

I program in games you insensitive clod!

Assuming you're aware that it requires an online server when you buy it.

I recently bought LEGO Batman 3 since I love the LEGO games and enjoyed the previous two Batman games in the series. None of them have ever had an online component. LEGO Batman 3 has no online multiplayer, it only has single player and split screen co-op.

Guess what? It requires an online connection to some server somewhere. This isn't mentioned in the Steam page anywhere. If you can't connect to the server, you can't play the game.

I hadn't thought to check if it required an Internet connection to play because why the fuck should it?!! (And if I had checked, I almost certainly wouldn't have found out about it because none of the reviews mention that fact.)

Steam Community thread.

it's not just likely, they already have a bunch of companies releasing stuff in November.

There is also a Steam community group where they post announcements, with a DIY section. It's also meant as a console/htpc replacement not as a desktop replacement.

If and when it's stable/good enough I might eventually actually be able to run Linux as my primary desktop with some SteamOS packages on the side (Windows 7 Ultimate at home, because I'm a gamer). I'm glad they chose Debian instead of Ubuntu in the end because that's not what they said they were going to do early on.

However the assholes spamming every game thread with "When will there be a Linux version" then often being very snarky, rude and arrogant about it aren't helping the cause much.

Hi, See: post from Valve developer, Henry Goffin, on a Steam Community thread about Steam's offline mode: "Offline Mode is designed to be indefinite. You can't access any of Steam's online features such as friends lists or saved game synchronization, of course, but the client should allow you to run in Offline Mode for as long as you like." http://steamcommunity.com/disc...

... an AK-47?

It looks like you need a Steam account to watch. You can view the list of public broadcasts, but attempting to watch them (even on the supported browsers) brings me to a login page. No idea if it works in just a browser if you have a Steam account.

Oh, and if you're at work, visiting that page also verified other reports that people were using it to stream porn. So visit it at your own risk.

Not that it means anything, but I got you beat by 45 days. https://steamcommunity.com/id/...

Steam has indeed come a long way, about 10 years ago it was loathed and hated by gamers. Many people would not buy a game if it needed Steam, Ubisoft with their crappy launcher are where Steam was 10 years ago.

10 years ago, Steam was a glorified auto-updater that sat there and sucked up system resources... something like 64MB of RAM when 128-512MB was standard.

Steam now takes something like 128MB of RAM in a time when 8192-16384MB of RAM is common. In addition to being an auto-updater, it also has a store, friends list, friends chat, game library, a non-puke green color scheme, and a host of other features. ...and if you ask me how I know this, I'll toss my Steam "11 year" badge at your face.

(Note: I'm guesstimating at these RAM usage numbers, and they're the numbers when you're not actively using it.)

Adult diapers.
Anti-convulsives.
Strong tranquilizers
Sixteen pairs of clean underwear.

Dramamine?

Already felt a bit of motion sickness playing it with a standard monitor, though there's a hack for that too (which does seem to help):

http://steamcommunity.com/app/...

I hate Steam for doing this. All those fucking cards and coupons in my inventory and no option to just delete them.

http://steamcommunity.com/id/trashbot

Here's a better more relevant example
2012 - Unity
2013 - DK
2014 - UE4

On top of that, the subject matter is questionable. It's a "furry's vs human's" game

http://steamcommunity.com/app/...
"ishanda --- Kerbal Space Program Apr 17, 2013 @ 2:29am; If you REALLY want Star Trek Style impulse engines why not mod them yourself? All you really need is to make copies of the relevant part files, change the name of the Xenon Tank to "Deuterium" and change the Ion Engine to "Impulse Engine" and then change a few values to make them super efficient. Done."

Still looking forward to seeing how the real device pans out though... Just like I'm still wondering about all the claimed cold fusion results which may also be exploring new areas of physics and chemistry with the behavior of hydrogen atoms at the edges of metal lattices or in cracks in them perhaps in interaction with electro-magnetic pulses ...
http://www.extremetech.com/ext...

I'm still waiting on "Tom Swift and his Space Solartron" though: :-)
http://www.tomswift.info/homep...
"The main invention in this book is, of course, the Space Solartron. The Space Solartron was probably Tom Swift's most amazing -- and far-fetched -- invention. Its purpose was to make space travel practical by creating oxygen, water, and food from sunlight -- not a simple task, to be sure."

I've mused about even better tech that will extract energy and mass from zero point energy. Although we might then get a "tragedy of the commons" as so much mass and energy is created in nearby outer space as to collectively form a black hole? Now that might be another good mode for the multi-player version of Kerbal Space Program to see what happens politically as that "tragedy" plays out as the outer space equivalent of anthropogenic global warming? :-)
http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/11...

Perhaps that political problem might already be playing out at the core of out galaxy? :-)
http://science.slashdot.org/st...

Back to the EmDrive device, it would not surprise me if the impulse provided by the microwave device is much less than the impulse imparted by photons and/or solar wind on any satellite's solar panels to capture needed electricity. But that might be a non-issue if you have a small "Mr. Fusion" fusion reactor or cold fusion LENR device onboard the satellite? :-)

Of course, station keeping is even easier if you have a "HyperEdit" debugger hook into the simulation. :-)
http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/11...
"If you still think MechJeb is cheating, take a look at HyperEdit. It is cheating. Install it, tap Alt+H, and you're given a menu full of options that let you tweak and edit the game. With a few clicks, you can teleport your craft to the orbit of any planet on the solar system, then use the landing options to gracefully touch down. Alternatively, you can instantly replenish your fuel, obliterate a selected craft, or readjust Kerbin's gravity to make escaping its atmosphere unnaturally difficult. HyperEdit is a flexible toolbox that, when used without restriction, completely destroys the difficulty. With a little imagination, though, you can use it to create your own custom scenarios. It's as simple as popping an abandoned craft on a distant planet, and suddenly you've got the basis for a tricky retrieval mission."

See also:
http://www.simulation-argument...
"This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct

The Apple version looked much better than the NES version. The PC-88 & PC-98 version absolutely demolish the NES version.

Citation needed...oh wait, I have a citation for you that proves you wrong:

http://www.hardcoregaming101.n...

Deus Ex on PS2 had crap textures, low quality soundtrack and tiny levels

They're not tiny, they're split in pieces, the port house didn't know the trick of streaming levels. But take a look at the screenshots...

http://steamcommunity.com/shar...

and the comments at the end about the nice soundtrack and how it looks a touch nicer than the PC version. And this is people on Steam saying this, one of the more anti-console forums on the net.

Half-Life on PS2 came out three years after the PC original and still looked worse than the PC version with Blue Shift,

Do you know why I'm laughing. The graphical upgrade Blue Shift brought to the PC version was provided by the never released Dreamcast version. the High Definition pack are the textures the Dreamcast version used. The PS2 version has enhancements beyond that:

http://half-life.wikia.com/wik...

The PlayStation 2 remake of Half-Life saw even further improved models to the game, also created by Gearbox. This included full facial animation and individually-animated fingers.[4] As such, they're considered a continuation of the High Definition Pack. The PlayStation 2 port took advantage of a "Level of Detail" system, allowing these very detailed models up close without sacrificing performance. Health and H.E.V. Chargers have been converted to 3D and have special animations during use. These extra HD features were never officially released for the PC version of the game.

Both had crap controls on console, rendering them unplayable.

Really, you have copies? Played them? Citation needed, because I have both within 10 feet of me and know how they support effective dual shock controls, and also support keyboard and/or mouse. I personally recommend a hybrid control scheme, using the left half of a dual shock for movement...but mouse for aiming.

Sacred 2 looked like shit on PC, but far worse on console.

What? A game that runs at true 1080p with no upscaling tricks? Even digital foundry, notoriously partisan for the PC, said that.

It was also a very mouse heavy game which again renders it virtually unplayable on a gamepad.

That's not what Sacred 2's developers say. That's not even what people on the PC version say either. Some of them actually wanted gamepad support as well.

Diablo I on PSX came out two years after the PC version and runs at such a low resolution that you can't tell what it happening on screen.

Troll. It's one of the PSone games that runs at 240p. Yes it's low but you can easily make everything out. You can easily find video or screenshots.

Diablo III on console looks like shit compared to the PC version.

That's not what notoriously PC partisan Digital Foundry said:

http://www.eurogamer.net/artic...

On the technical scale, both the PS3 and 360 are running at the equivalent to the PC version's high settings for texture assets, physics and effects - with smoothed dynamic shadows almost a match for PC's highest preset. Quibbles with internal resolution and field of view aside, this is a pristinely presented take on a year-old game that targets 60fps on both platforms, and largely succeeds in nailing exactly

Correct, but if you're familiar with the low-end steam machines, they're meant to be used to stream the games from a separate system with beefier specs. My assumption is that this will be competing with nVidia's Shield console.

Not necessarily. I mean, the streaming feature will probably work great, but the developers seem to also want to make it a true portable machine.

FTA: "SteamBoy is the first device that allows to play Steam games on the go," SteamBoy Machine's press release reads, "you will keep playing your favorite games at the bus, the office, the school or the doctor's waiting room."

Correct, but if you're familiar with the low-end steam machines, they're meant to be used to stream the games from a separate system with beefier specs. My assumption is that this will be competing with nVidia's Shield console.

And I don't want to kill Paarthurnax, it feels wrong, he's a good guy. Fuck Delphine and Esbern.

If you're on PC and want to join the Blades without killing him, give this a try: http://steamcommunity.com/shar...

There are iOS-exclusive games and Android-exclusive games. Are there Windows Phone-exclusive games yet?

Apart from games, Android has AIDE, a Java IDE that works on a tablet with a Bluetooth keyboard. I haven't tried it on an Android phone, but I'm guessing it might work on a phone with a Bluetooth keyboard and an HDMI output when the touch screen emulates a trackpad. Does Windows RT have anything like Visual Studio, Eclipse, or anything else to develop apps on the device? Does Windows Phone even support HDMI out? Instead of HDMI out, Nokia phones have DLNA streaming, which apparently has too much latency for actual interactive use because it's designed for movies, not apps or games.

Nice! I should have mine setup today (I can't actually download it because the single DL is much larger than my monthly bandwidth allotment, so I need to *drive* to an ssh server I've setup... 'mericuh internet). I'm trying to remember what collections are especially good because I haven't played in a while (should change now that it's available on linux), so assuming my memory is still good:

Designed For Danger Collection http://steamcommunity.com/work...

12 Angry Tests Collection http://steamcommunity.com/work...

Dilapidation Collection (if I recall correctly this is of especially high quality) http://steamcommunity.com/work...

Killing Machine Collection http://steamcommunity.com/work...

And there are many other great ones which aren't coming to mind yet. Some of the above--at least in my opinion--are better than the SP or coop campaign (at least in terms of how challenging and interesting the puzzles are)

Nice! I should have mine setup today (I can't actually download it because the single DL is much larger than my monthly bandwidth allotment, so I need to *drive* to an ssh server I've setup... 'mericuh internet). I'm trying to remember what collections are especially good because I haven't played in a while (should change now that it's available on linux), so assuming my memory is still good:

Designed For Danger Collection http://steamcommunity.com/work...

12 Angry Tests Collection http://steamcommunity.com/work...

Dilapidation Collection (if I recall correctly this is of especially high quality) http://steamcommunity.com/work...

Killing Machine Collection http://steamcommunity.com/work...

And there are many other great ones which aren't coming to mind yet. Some of the above--at least in my opinion--are better than the SP or coop campaign (at least in terms of how challenging and interesting the puzzles are)

Nice! I should have mine setup today (I can't actually download it because the single DL is much larger than my monthly bandwidth allotment, so I need to *drive* to an ssh server I've setup... 'mericuh internet). I'm trying to remember what collections are especially good because I haven't played in a while (should change now that it's available on linux), so assuming my memory is still good:

Designed For Danger Collection http://steamcommunity.com/work...

12 Angry Tests Collection http://steamcommunity.com/work...

Dilapidation Collection (if I recall correctly this is of especially high quality) http://steamcommunity.com/work...

Killing Machine Collection http://steamcommunity.com/work...

And there are many other great ones which aren't coming to mind yet. Some of the above--at least in my opinion--are better than the SP or coop campaign (at least in terms of how challenging and interesting the puzzles are)