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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."
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.
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.
You mean the shoddy PS3 ports they authorized once, realised how shoddy they were and then never touched again?
Valve: Bringing gaming to Linux. (And I don't care how much you think it can't be tolerated, it's still great and wonderful and I will continue to use it.)
Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
Isnt the "modern graphics hardware" inside the PS3 already outdated? How then can it be modern.
ATI had to do a number reset, as did Nvidia, simply because the numbers were getting too huge. It is actually pretty trivial to compare, simply look for the DirectX version. You can also search the net and find nice charts like this which will give you details like TDP which will help you make a more informed choice. With the bang for the buck firmly in the AMD camp right now that is what I use, and the easy rule there is 50>70>90, with the 50 being the budget (like my HD4650) followed by the 70 and the 90 being the hardcore chips. And of course for the ultra hardcore you have the X2, which is simply 2 GPUs.
If you are wanting a SFF gaming PC you would be MUCH better off building instead of buying. I have found unless you spend crazy money they tend to use cheaper parts in the SFF boxes and if you build it yourself you can get better choices on parts and CPU/GPU. If you don't mind the advice of an old greybeard PC builder I would probably go with a shuttle such as this one. Add a 95w Deneb quad, such as the 925 quad, along with one of the low power 5xxx GPUs, and you'd have a nice mini gaming rig. Unfortunately nearly all the "DVD player" styled boxes ATM are Atom based and Atom sucks. So unless you are simply wanting the biggest ePeen I'd look at a quad core AMD with an ATI 5xxx chip for graphics. That is what I've been building for my customers lately and they couldn't be happier with the performance or the power usage.
As for Linux and DRM, the way I always understood it is for DRM to have any kind of chance it has to have low level hooks that the user does NOT have access to, and of course since Linux allows you to get and recompile the source it would be pretty easy to have one person recompile a "DRM disabler" that feeds a false message to the DRM allowing it to run whenever. One of the other posters mentioned TiVo, but that is a "black box" where the DRM is enforced at the hardware level like a PS3 which of course doesn't work with a general purpose box like a PC. And as for steam itself being a form of DRM protection, most of the latest RAZR1911 games are actually Steam rips. So while steam has been bypassed on windows, with a much more "hacker friendly" OS like Linux I doubt it would take any time at all to bypass DRM, which is what I was getting at.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.