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Valve: Linux Better Than Windows 8 for Gaming
dartttt writes "In a presentation at Ubuntu Developer Summit currently going on in Denmark, Drew Bliss from Valve said that Linux is more viable than Windows 8 for gaming. Windows 8 ships with its own app store and it is not an open platform anymore and Linux has everything they need: good OpenGL, pulseaudio, OpenAL and input support."
He's just angry that Windows Marketplace is going to cut into his donut funds.
I've read alot about companies saying win8 is bad for gaming yet very few are actually willing to put their money where their mouth is and actually produce linux native games (or at least games that work perfectly well under wine). Couple that with the lack of installed userbase with capable hardware and the commercial aspects of linux don't really stack up. As much as I'd love to run mint full time its stuck on its vm currently or on underpowered hardware (where linux really shines as a desktop making old/low powered hardware useable!) neither of which are gaming capable.
The only thing tying a lot of people (myself included) to Windows is gaming. With how much I hate the new ModernUI, I've been taking another look at going back to Linux as a main O/S.
What I fear is that Valve will dive deep into Linux, and then suddenly realize that supporting software like steam and games on Linux may be a bit more challenging than they thought it would.
The myriad hardware types out there with myriad sets of less-than-optimal drivers might present myriad problems, even if Valve does master the video-card/opengl end of things. I know I get vastly different experiences with Ubuntu depending on if I install it on one desktop versus another versus my laptop. They all have their own sets of issues, and none of them are remotely perfect.
This whole affair with valve just reminds me of some computer user adopting a new platform with vim and vigor...and then realizing it's not all it's cracked up to be a few weeks or months later. I myself did this with mac, but it took a couple years for me to come to my senses, unfortunately.
There are MANY legitimate reasons why Linux on the desktop has not taken off. I fear that Valve just hasn't encountered the right set of those reasons yet.
Windows 8 isn't had for gaming, it's just bad for Valve. Vale has wanted Steam to be a general App Store for a long while, and if regular plebes start using the Windows Marketplace, they'll lose that battle before they even begin. Valve's just concerned with their potential market being at risk.
Steam works the same in Windows 8 as in Windows 7 from what I've seen thus far. There is no way most gamers would buy a game in the Microsoft app store if the same game was available on Steam. Seems like Valve is more concerned about the competition from the Microsoft App Store than about how open Windows 8 as an O/S is.
Valve is one of the most influential companies in the gaming world. If they speak people will listen.
This single statement will cause thousands of gamers to check out Linux.
This is a market that is willing to spend hundreds of dollars and hours of tweaking to gain a few percent more performance. Any rumour about a better system will cause a flood of gamers that want to be the first to get the advantage.
You make a good point, but Valve has the clout to pull this off and negate your argument.
sig: sauer
In this case, Valve's agenda is the lesser of two evils. Either MS gets their way and Linux desktops continue with the relatively sparse gaming library compared to Windows systems, or Valve gets their way and at least Linux gets a lot of the titles that were formerly Windows-only.
I'd rather a viable company scheme be one that operates within the structure of the general structure of Linux based desktops than requiring Windows or wine. Purists can still run their desktop with the same (or even better) selection of truly free software, and the rest of us can use a free desktop without compromising or dual boot to get at a few titles we really would enjoy.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
The problem with Windows 8 is that it isn't the best choice for anything anymore. Want to run old Windows apps? Want to run old games? Want to develop new games (as in TFA)? Want to run current Windows apps? Want a tested, stable Windows platform? Want a minimal hardware Windows platform? Whatever your question, there are better alternatives than Windows 8. Microsoft has really dug themselves into a deep hole at the moment...and the implications for the future are breathtaking.
The heading is somewhat misleading. I think that this should be clarified that Linux provides a better environment for game development. Linux has not actually hit that tipping point of having more available games.
Steam is already an effective and popular app store on Windows. And they hope to become the proprietary app store on Linux. That's why Valve is so dead against Windows 8 - Microsoft could take away their status as the app store.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Roll another Debian-a-like, tailor it to games, market it through Steam to Windows users and say "Why update to Windows 8? Here's a free OS. Live boot it and see if you like it."
Disclaimer: the author is tired of keeping a creaking XP partition going just for Steam, and would bite their hand off to get in on a beta and help out.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Valve is already releasing their game. When will you be releasing yours Mr. AC? And when do you expect to surpass Valve in revenue?
-- Linux user #369862
I was there for the talk. He didn't really say that "Linux is better for gaming." Given the current user base, state of drivers and various flux in the stack, nobody in their right mind would say such a thing.
What he did say is that Ubuntu is an "open platform." Not really the same thing as "better," unless you're a writer at an Ubuntu fanboy site.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
As soon as there is a single fully working audio stack for linux that doesn't require fidgetting with configuration like crazy to get it to work, and it's compatible with *all* games, then you're a step closer to being viable.
Except the fact that getting bluetooth mouse/keyboard to work is a huge pain unless you buy one of the specifically linux supported bluetooth sets, but I pick my hardware based on quality/price, not OS support because I shouldn't have to (and don't with windows).
Yes, open is great, but until every hardware company is ensuring a simple fully functional driver for their devices on it and there is a common interface for software to all of those drivers ala directX/directSound, windows will be a better gaming platform even for linux enthusiasts. Unfortunate, as all the software stacks that do exist for linux tend to outperform windows by a fair margin, because of significantly better OS architecture.
Simply put, it's a problem of robustness and consistency. When I want to shoot zombies I don't want to have to restart my sound system or HID system and re-enter pin codes and set defaults again, nor do I want to spend weeks configuring and scripting auto-configuration setup for such a thing. So it's a waste of game developers time to try and target linux when they live a crunch-mode life as it is with huge risk of flop resulting in practically no money-back for the effort even when they're focussed on only one OS.
Indeed, therefore they should not ever try to support Linux.
Good, they don't have to. They can continue to run Windows 7 or install and use Steam on Windows 8. But we'll probably be forced to make a decision in Windows 9.
Good to see people are still wholly ignorant about what Valve is doing.
There's no good gaming APIs to use. Where is the DirectX equivalent?
Developers have had no trouble with OpenGL on iOS and Android. Why would PCs be different? Direct3D benefits Microsoft due to lock-in, but I have a hard time seeing how its use benefits developers. And even Microsoft's usual advantage of legacy compatibility isn't really an issue here, since the market for Doom clones and WoW clones (the only PC games that the gamer crowd cares about as far as I can tell) moves so fast that everything is being rewritten every year anyway.
Linux does have other problems with its graphic subsystem: the lack of open drivers for nVidia, the lack of any decent drivers for AMD/ATI, and most of all the 20 layers of legacy crap that the typical Linux desktop staggers beneath. But this has nothing to do with the underlying API for 3D games, which is clean and simple OpenGL.
Come on, don't you miss the good ol' days of DOS gaming?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
It is pretty much identical to Windows 7's gaming performance, with some minor exceptions (which will likely be fixed with driver updates or game patches over time). Don't just take my word for it either, check out the conclusion to this article from TomsHardware:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/windows-8-gaming-performance,3331-13.html
William George