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More Evidence For Steam Games On Linux
SheeEttin writes "Back in November 2008, Phoronix reported that Linux libraries appeared in the Left 4 Dead demo, and then in March, Valve announced that Steam and the Source engine were coming to Mac OS X. Now, Phoronix reports that launcher scripts included with the (closed beta) Mac version of Steam include explicit support for launching a Linux version."
Then full respect for valve. Though they lost some respect for their shoddy PS3 ports.
This is an indication of support for the Steam distribution platform, and some Valve games on Linux. Good luck getting EA to build Linux binaries for their games, because Steam doesn't do that for you.
Good on Valve for going this way, and maybe it's the push big publishers need to start telling devs to create native Linux binaries, but don't think for a moment that that this means all Steam games will run natively on Linux.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Someone is obviously working on the idea, which is grand, but that's all we can tell at this point. The number of projects that are started and eventually canned because they're either to hard to finish, too costly, or just too expensive to bother marketing that they won't turn a profit is pretty vast.
The fact code exists does not necessarily mean we'll ever get to play the games.
But let's be optimistic. A native version of Steam would be pretty awesome. Here's hoping whoever is behind the project is successful. :)
http://twitter.com/onion2k
This could be an ancient script cut-and-pasted to suit. Heck, I've still got a Makefile that has a section for Ultrix but it doesn't mean that it works or that I'm supporting it.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Between APPL market cap catching up to MSFT, people moving off to apple products in droves, google's dominance, and non-MS phones, plus the increasing user-friendlyness of Linux distros, microsoft hasn't been in the news lately. Now I can *finally* move off of windows totally, if games on linux take off.
Seems that the "Microsoft is dying" meme might well happen, but not due to a single MS-killer, but emergence of new monopolies?
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Could this be something Valve uses in-house rather than something which will be made public? Something for dev work?
This is no evidence at all. Valve has released dedicated Linux servers for their games for years including steam. Come on don't take phoroCRAP serious. They make news of nothing.
As an aspiring game developer, I look at Valve's actions with a lot of excitement lately. Steam and Source are coming to Mac for sure now, and so that means Source SDK should be updated to support deployment to Macs. If Linux is included in this package, it only sweetens the deal. For developers just getting started, Source would have a unique advantage over the other engines available currently (e.g. Unreal, Crytek) in that it would allow developers to reach as wide an audience as possible. I really hope this happens.
If they do this I will buy a few games the moment they are released. I hate DRM but this kind of development needs to be encouraged. Now if only ATI and/or Nvidia would open up their specs, or some open protocol/source solution would come into existence.
If it comes to Linux via Steam, I'll have no excuse left.
Leela: "Is all the work done by children?" Alien: "No, not the whipping."
a Red Letter Day!
Never used steam myself so maybe someone can enlighten me. The video drivers for Linux are crap compared to Windows, does this mean they have some way access the hardware properly? Or does it mean you need twice the hardware to run at the Windows equivalent performance?
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
2010 could be the year of the linux desktop, then!
Ever dig into their "benchmarks"?
They're a bunch of morons that keep coming back no matter how many times you kill them.
Valve: Bringing video game DRM to Linux. (And I don't care about how much you think Steam is great and wonderful, it's still DRM and it cannot be tolerated.)
There could still be a chance that the support there is only to launch dedicated servers easily, no? Or am I missing something?
Isnt the "modern graphics hardware" inside the PS3 already outdated? How then can it be modern.
Perhaps they can't "Handel" modern graphics hardware - what I want to know is if they can Bach it or not
I think this is excellent. TF2 already runs pretty great under Wine, I consistently get ~ 60FPS with max resolution and effects.Perhaps if they release a native port I can get closer to the 90FPS I can achieve with Windows.
Not that it really matters much at those rates, but on newer games that will push my hardware to the limits it could be the difference between 20 FPS and 30.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
The modern graphic hardware that can't do better than 720p on some games?
If anyone here can remember back in the day when Half-Life 2 was coming out you should remember at one point the source code was leaked. I think I found it on a IRC and downloaded it. In that alone was build scripts and conditional syntax for Mac OS X and Linux Version. Granted they most likely have to overhaul that code because Mac OS X and Linux has changed greatly over the years. It just comes to show that Valve never forgot about poor Linux and Mac, they were just waiting for the right time.
at the risk of burning karma i will post this. /my/ isp complains when i download allot of data, it doesn't matter to them if it's legit or not.
I moved completely to linux to get away from drm of this kind. i admit steam is a somewhat successful digital distribution system but the drm they bundled with the games makes them too hard to swallow. requiring a constant internet so the games can phone home when needed, sorry offline mode only works a few times before steam refuses to run games until you get back online. along with removing your control of the installed files for the game by putting them in one big file, i have also heard rumors that it prevents you from making backups of the install files though i can't confirm this since i don't want to buy a steam powered game. Also the big push for online distribution also erks me because unlike a small minority of people
I would not be surprised if it does come to linux but requires a kernel module to get the drm to work and prevent users from defeating it since on linux users are more in control of what their computers do then in windows which has long ceded that control company's that do this.
Graphics don't make the game, they only colour it in. Games dependant on fantastic graphics tend to age like sour milk and have almost zero replay value.
Steam already runs a lot of classic DOS-based games by using DOSBox, which
is available for linux. Those would certainly be released for steam
on linux as well.
If they get a stable, reliable windows emulation running, they could also
release more modern windows-based games, but I wouldn't expect any
good 3d acceleration.
Point is, you don't necessarily need the publishers to rebuild their games
to be linux native.
They have a selection of their own games to port, they've moved to a cross-platform front-end - there's no reason they would care to build and test all their games on Linux just to sell to the few thousand geeks. Surely if they're putting effort into Linux, it's because they have a more popular Linux-based platform in mind - maybe their own, maybe Chrome OS, Android... but being the owner of a games platform like that without it being tied to expensive PCs, or to consoles with pricey gatekeepers, would be a major boost for Valve.
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
I moved completely to linux to get away from drm of this kind.
The million-dollar question is, how to get more developers. It takes huge amounts of time to develop all software, games or whatever else, and the time needed grows exponentially with how good you want it to be. How to get programmers so much time, while they still manage to pay their bills. It's understood the software will not be for sale, so...
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Last time I checked, all of their Source games were available on the Xbox 360, too, which uses a PowerPC architecture.
Having said that, Team Fortress 2 apparently runs into memory issues with the 360 due to its texture resolution... and the number of additional textures added to the PC version in its various updates. Which is why the 360 version has never had said updates.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Yes, but to get root access... That's not a Windows term, is it. Root is the Admin account on Unix-style systems
"Administrators groupkit" isn't as catchy.
PLATFORM=linux32
Seriously? It's 2010, and they're making it 32-bit? I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, but 32-bit is rather limited these days.
If you (and I do mean you personally) are spending time doing that sort of tidying on your releases, then you're not working on paid tasks, and you are surplus to requirements.
Unless the requirements include 1. that trade secrets about future releases don't leak, and 2. that nothing more offensive than the video submitted to the rating agency ends up on the disc.
Companies normally don't include "clutter" and left over files in a release tree. Normally, you would have a carefully prepared and checked distribution tree, where every file is accounted for.
Then I guess Hot Coffee, the hidden unfinished sex minigame in one of the Grand Theft Auto games, wasn't "normal".
Isnt the "modern graphics hardware" inside the PS3 already outdated?
Is the PS3's RSX GPU more outdated than the integrated GPU that ships with most PCs?
Graphics don't make the game, they only colour it in.
Would you rather play Missile Command on an Atari 2600 or on an Xbox 360?
Well, they have to let the hardware cook for a while to see if it's up to the state of the Mozart. Perhaps in the Beethoven.
No, it's an issue of patch size. You are limited to somewhere around 4MB for a patch on the 360 (it can of course, decompress into something bigger)
"We need to get over this notion, that, for Apple to win... Microsoft must lose." - Steve Jobs, 1997
You do know that Linux was born as a desktop OS, don't you? :)
The modern graphic hardware that can't do better than 720p on most games? Fixed that for you. There are maybe a handful of true 1080p games for the PS3. Hell, the PS3 can't even render full 720p for some games (see: Modern Warfare, GTA IV, etc).
The fact is, that RSX core is equivalent to the Geforce 7000 series GPUs, and the PS3 came out during the same time when the 8800GTX was available. Thus, the PS3 already had obsolete graphics (compared to PCs anyway) even when it was released.
Sigs are for losers
The 360 has a scaler chip and renders most of its games in 720p or less before scaling up to whatever output is specified by the user. PCs have more advanced graphics cards-no shit, Sherlock. Consoles more than make up for it with tightly optimized programming-with the result that the graphics actually get better over the life of the console, as opposed to PC where it starts out smooth and then gradually gets slower and sloooower until you fork out another $300 for another GFX card and/or CPU/mainboard combo. Don't know about you, but I hate that feeling, although I love everything else about PC games (free online play, mods, etc).
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
I would rather play the actual arcade version in an emulator.
The Atari 2600 is yet another "adaptation" of the original. It's really no different than an Xbox version.
There's really on substitute for the genuine article.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Didn't Valve post job listings two years ago looking for people to port Steam and Source to Mac and Linux? Wasn't that the biggest and most important clue that they intend to do these ports?
The Mac port became official. Should we be surprised there are hints they are working on the Linux port?
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
I can't view teamfortress.com directly here at work (even Google's cache of it is blocked), so here's hoping Google gave me the right link.
TF2 Blog entry explaining why the Xbox 360 version hasn't been done. Note, this is from April 2, 2009.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Is the PS3's RSX GPU more outdated than the integrated GPU that ships with most PCs?
Right, because Steam gamers run off integrated gaphics. Moron.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Yes. All the content they've added (new models, game modes, and so on) would be impossible to just push out as a patch for the 360.
"We need to get over this notion, that, for Apple to win... Microsoft must lose." - Steve Jobs, 1997
I would rather play the actual arcade version in an emulator.
WRONG!
The correct answer is you'd rather hit ebay, hunt down an original cabinet, perform the maintenance and repair necessary, and then bask in the awe of both your geek and non-geek friends when they see it sitting in your living room.
Now hand in your geek card.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
...it starts out smooth and then gradually gets slower and sloooower until you fork out another $300 for another GFX card and/or CPU/mainboard combo.
Keeping my PC somewhat updated (not cutting edge, by any stretch) costs me around the price of a console every 3-4 years. Most PC games can be run at decent quality with 3+ year old hardware now. The age of companies pushing the "extremes" (Mostly ID, though Crytek got their play too) is pretty much dead. Most PC games are console ports now, meaning you can run them on any hardware that isn't much newer than that in the current generation of consoles.
I actually haven't found a game I can't run at near max settings with my old, $100, ATI 4650.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
How many times have we seen prototype code left for dead? I give this story a half-life of 1 or 2 days before Gabe counter strikes. The portal for a Linux gaming solution has passed, we might as well call this our day of deafeat. :(
Team Fortress 2.
That's not stopping them from doing what they did for Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2... released it as DLC that you have to pay for (while PC users get it free).
For that matter, Left 4 Dead 2 had a new one of those today.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
No.
Uhhhh...I would say that is a BIG yes considering that the RSX is based on the Nvidia 7800 and even the cheapest desktops I am building ATM come with the AMD 4xxx chips, unless you are counting Intel which anybody who actually cared about graphics wouldn't.
As for TFA, doesn't Steam support DRM? I thought you couldn't do DRM on Linux thanks to the GPL, so how exactly would that work? After all wouldn't it be trivial to bypass any Steam DRM on Linux, by simply intercepting whatever hooks they use? Considering how anti-DRM RMS and other vocal members of the Linux community are I just don't see how that would work unless they are going DRM free, which I doubt the game companies would allow for anything recent.
And now slightly OT, but has any Linux users tried getting GOG games running on Linux? While steam is okay GOG with their DRM free installers and loads of extras is a nicer experience IMHO, and I would love to recommend it to some of my Linux using friends, but since I don't currently have a Linux box setup and haven't been able to find anything one way or another about whether GOG running on Linux I am curious. So has anybody gotten GOG installers to run? Is it easy, hard, or royal PITA? Inquiring minds want to know.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Well, the graphics are stunning - I'm sure you're familiar Mo's art, in their games. Before you buy the game, just Schop around for a supported card.
OK I said it.
But seriously though, a smart move by Valve if they can pull it off. There is an untapped market for real games on Linux. They would be the only game (pardon pun) in town, and many/any linux user would likely be more than happy to fork over money for games that run naively on Linux, particularly given the cost structure and the slick nature of remote distribution by Steam. I would even go so far to say that many, having saved 100-400$ by not having to buy a Windows OS, would justify or rationalize spending more on Valve games, and this is "Free" money (i.e. they saved it initially, so why not spend it on things that are fun, like games).
So while "Year of the Linux Desktop" it might not be, it is certainly a step in the right direction, as well as a step towards OS parity.
In another note, it might be interesting to see if this effects netbooks. Steam has a lot of independents, and smallish, low horsepower type games that are really cheap. Netbooks can only install stuff via networks (generally speaking). So think of a netbook, running Linux, and Steam, and using that service to install netbook friendly games onto netbooks. An interesting combination I think. Particularly given the low cost nature of all the above... low cost netbook, low cost linux, low cost gaming... Definatly a niche, but perhaps a very popular/profitable one. Look at iPhones for example.
Nothing in the GPL says that a program cannot have use DRM. I'm not sure where you got that idea, or that it would be "trivial to bypass Steam DRM on Linux." Steam itself is the DRM for most Valve games - you have to log into Steam before playing. Secondly, while certain members of the Linux community may be very anti-DRM, Linux is about freedom. That includes the freedom to install closed source software or DRMed software on your system.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
I was just Chopin for a new one. The Strauss of making the decision is killing me, but my old one is Schutz.
"People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything."
I think that this gives more information:
http://www.valvesoftware.com/job-SenSoftEngineer.html
Port Windows-based games to the Linux platform.
http://store.steampowered.com/public/client/steam_client_linux Probably helps the cause too. Phoronix has posted a new article: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=ODE3Mw
http://www.valvesoftware.com/job-SenSoftEngineer.html
Right, because Steam gamers run off integrated gaphics. Moron.
What laptop video chipset isn't integrated? Or do you claim that nobody plays any Steam game on a laptop?
The opening game should be Beat Hazard if this manages to come together. :) How I've become so addicted to this Asteroids like Steam game that produces "levels" based on your individual mp3 tracks with pulsating visual feedback effects to nearly give anybody a seizure. Welcome Steam!
"True refinement seeks simplicity."
An interesting, if minority viewpoint. Still, anybody doing that knows what they're in for and has low expectations.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
How about a compromise? Missile Command emulated but controlled by a standalone arcade-grade trackball?
Good-bye
Geeks don't compromise. That's what regular people do.
The otaku is not strong in this one....
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
I would say that is a BIG yes considering that the RSX is based on the Nvidia 7800 and even the cheapest desktops I am building ATM come with the AMD 4xxx chips
You just pointed out one of the problems with PC graphics hardware right there: there isn't a number that a buyer can look at to see whether two products are even in the same ballpark as to performance. I have an old PC with a Radeon 9000, but 9000 > 7800, and 7800 > 4xxx. In fact, 7800 was the model number of an old Atari game console.
unless you are counting Intel which anybody who actually cared about graphics wouldn't.
I'm looking into small-form-factor gaming PCs. Should I buy or build?
I thought you couldn't do DRM on Linux thanks to the GPL
TiVo does DRM on Linux. GPLv2 allows this. Linux is GPLv2 and it won't be GPLv3 any time soon.
After all wouldn't it be trivial to bypass any Steam DRM on Linux, by simply intercepting whatever hooks they use?
I don't see why not. Mass copyright infringers bypass Steam DRM on Windows all the time.
Well obviously there's going to be DLC content. However, actual changes to the .exe need to be in the patch, and all their additions (hats and so on) need to be able to all fit into the 360's RAM.
"We need to get over this notion, that, for Apple to win... Microsoft must lose." - Steve Jobs, 1997
Too much wine make a man drunk, but just enough wine makes Steam run on Linux
THIS WOULD BE .... AMAZING! Granted, wine does already run most of the games but you have to admit its not as stable/fast as straight up native.
but the fact that the dedicated servers will be happy to run in Linux means the core is already there, its just a matter of graphics support,
Except that, for a modern game, the "graphics support" is among where the biggest chunks of effort go in. And in the case of Source, these parts are highly dependent on an API which isn't portable at all - DirectX.
So, to finish porting Source to Linux, what you need is a massive rewrite of one of the biggest part of the code.
(From that point of view, id tech-based games have it easier, because they rely on the cross plat-form OpenGL to begin with).
At that point, it sounds almost easier to use winelib as a Direct3D-to-OpenGL wrapper, compile the linux native binaries against it and only rewrite the few remaining modules that need porting.
(Audio and Input come to mind as things which are also often DirectX-dependent and need porting. Although perhaps Valve has already moved their audio pipe-line to OpenAL - which also exist natively on Linux).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
What? You are totally on crack. The vast majority of shipped software from commercial enterprises includes unbelievable amounts of extraneous accumulated cruft. You must not have looked very hard.
ADP used to "accidentally" ship an entire, complete copy of Microsoft's MS-DOS 6.0 with their windows products. (I quoted "accidentally" because the products actually required certain MSDOS6 executables to run, such as attrib).
Commercial companies use multiple programmers and give functional authority to non-programmers who set release dates. Which is a guaranteed recipe for crufty code trees! Some of the open source projects aren't much better, though.
Source would have a unique advantage over the other engines available currently (e.g. Unreal, Crytek) in that it would allow developers to reach as wide an audience as possible.
If you're going to cite big-name engines, perhaps one should also mention that Most of Id Software's engines have been ported to numerous platform since a very long time.
Well of course, it helps them a lot that since Doom (id Tech 1) the engines aren't even developed on DOS/Windows-based platforms (Doom was developed on Next machines) and since 3D acceleration was introduced with Quake1 (GLQuake to be more precise) the engines rely on a very cross-platform 3D API (OpenGL).
So cross-platform is actually part of their design, and recent titles (since Quake III) have been simultaneously available on multiple platform already at launch time.
Another engine, although less renown and less widely used, but which is multiplatform too and has been used for commercial titles is OGRE 3D.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's fine as long as you don't want that game as part of your Kernel (the Windows model)
Userland is anyone's playground as far as I know.
The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat." Lily Tomlin
Indeed, no true Scotsman plays Steam games on a laptop!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
You can't make the DRM effective (except in the case below), but the GPL permits you to try.
Also, since the Linux kernel is licensed using (specifically) version 2 of the GPL, DRM'd systems can be created using it by creating hardware that only runs particular signed versions. This bug in the license was exploited by TiVo, among others.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
A word of warning: GOG's CC billing server is in Cyprus, and your Credit/Debit card may get hit for converting US Dollars to US Dollars. The reasoning is that the bank is foreign, so there needs to be a surcharge. VISA, Mastercard and Discover are charging a 0.8 to 1.5% International Transaction Fees. Most banks are tacking and additional 1.0 to 3.5% extra to that fee, Bank of America and JP Chase are two of the highest offenders. Don't get me started on the $5 foreign ATM fees from those guys, also. Credit Unions, as of March 1st, 2010 have also started passing the VISA/MC fees directly on to their users. Sadly, PayPal is probably the way to go for US users. For those wondering, US Territories are considered foreign countries, so this list includes Guam, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands.
Do i need to say what opengl support would mean for posibility of linux client?
I do hope that the mac port won't depend too heavily on mac-only features like the various "XyZ-Kits" Obj-C APIs (it doesn't need to, and Valve has strong incentive to use more generic APIs, as this would make further console ports a much lower hanging fruit).
But if this turns out to succeed, a future Linux port is getting much more attainable because of this DirectX-to-OpenGL conversion than it was before with the Linux server-only binary.
Now we also have to hope that this OpenGL engine will be as actively maintained and as feature-complete as the DirectX one. (This again would make sense, because the engine will then be accessible to a much larger market : Macs, Consoles, Linux, etc.)
But maintaining 2 different back-ends, and keeping them feature-equivalent is a hard task. (That was 1 among the reasons why software developers moved away from supporting Glide/OpenGL/other.. to DirectX-only or OpenGL-only)
Hopefully Valve *does* have the resources to do it and have a strong incentive to do it (Mac and specially Console support, in addition to the often overlooked Linux).
And once their engine is ported, lots of games relying on it either get insta-magic support, or support at minimal porting costs.
And lots of Linux-powered Netbook get games that could be played to kill time while commuting.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]