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Valve Begins Listing Linux Requirements For Certain Games On Steam
Deathspawner writes "Perhaps hinting at the fact that the official Steam for Linux launch isn't too far off, Valve has begun updating some game pages to include Linux system requirements. Some games don't list only Ubuntu as the main supported distro, with some listing Linux Mint and Fedora as well. A common theme is that Valve recommends you always use a 'fully updated' OS, regardless of which distro you use. And based on the system requirements laid out so far, it's safe to say that Serious Sam 3: BFE will undoubtedly be the most system-intensive game released at launch."
Because having the freedom to choose is good.
Disclaimer: I avidly use Steam on OSX, but I'm constantly frustrated with it's buggy state. If the linux client proves to be better over time (with a good offering of games) I'll be upgrading my linux box and going that route.
I just got my beta invite yesterday -after specifying I was on Debian Sid (I never expected an invite since I'm not using Ubuntu). Will fiddle with it and get it running today, I'll definitely buy a few games just because.
Seems like they are close to releasing.
The way I see it, this entire situation is hilarious. Us Linux people have been wanting something like this to happen for, well, forever, and it is finally happening. The lack of serious gaming on Linux has been one of the things holding it back on the desktop market. Now that we're finally getting that, and a serious contender to the Windows gaming hegemony is present, all anyone can do is cry and scream "not good enough dammit not good enough" because not every Steam title ever made will be available on release. I bet if the year of the linux desktop ever happens /. will be the first one to criticize it.
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
I surely hope Linux Mint catches on,, it is basically Ubuntu minus the bad decisions Canonical has made recently.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
More choices typically work out better for consumers. Sure, you can game on your WinPC, or OSX, or your Dreamcast or XBox or whatever, but arguing that enabling Linux gaming is a bad idea is terribly short sighted. More choices = more competition = better value for consumers.
I, for one, will likely sign up for steam/Linux and make sure to buy a game or three to see how it goes as I support this development. I sincerely hope Valve gets plenty rich doing this as it finally proves a business model that Loki Games (remember them?) couldn't do a decade or so ago. (I bought all their games)
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Maybe this is how it already works - but if it isn't here's an avenue I would investigate:
Shouldn't it be possible for Steam to build a hypervisor type environment? If they have a common hypervisor they port the game once to run in that environment. Then all they need to do is get their hypervisor running on Windows, *NIX, MAC, whatever.
There's definitely some additional processing overhead on this, but it seems that it would be a very efficient model once you have the hypervisor built. I would think you could probably push the specs/API/etc to the game publishers and have the game developer team adopt their game to the platform.
I don't know anything about how Steam works under the covers so maybe they're already doing this. I'm curious, but not enough to do the legwork.