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The State of Linux Gaming In the SteamOS Era
An anonymous reader writes: It's been over a year since Valve announced its Linux-based SteamOS, the biggest push yet from a huge company to bring mainstream gaming to Linux. In this article, Ars Technica takes a look at how their efforts are panning out. Game developers say making Linux ports has gotten dramatically easier: "There are great games shipping for Linux from development teams with no Linux expertise. They hit the 'export to Linux' button in the Unity editor and shipped it and it worked out alright. We didn't get flying cars, but the future is turning out OK so far."
Hardware drivers are still a problem, getting in the way of potential performance gains due to Linux's overall smaller resource footprint than Windows. And while the platform is growing, it's doing so slowly. Major publishers are still hesitant to devote time to Linux, and Valve is taking their time building for it. Their Steam Machine hardware is still in development, and some of their key features are being adopted by other gaming giants, like Microsoft. Still, Valve is sticking with it, and that's huge. It gives developers faith that they can work on supporting Linux without fear that the industry will re-fragment before their game is done.
Hardware drivers are still a problem, getting in the way of potential performance gains due to Linux's overall smaller resource footprint than Windows. And while the platform is growing, it's doing so slowly. Major publishers are still hesitant to devote time to Linux, and Valve is taking their time building for it. Their Steam Machine hardware is still in development, and some of their key features are being adopted by other gaming giants, like Microsoft. Still, Valve is sticking with it, and that's huge. It gives developers faith that they can work on supporting Linux without fear that the industry will re-fragment before their game is done.
This Linux gaming renaissance is most likely a side effect of how every other gaming platform besides Windows uses "something else". That something else is Linux compatible. That reduces the distance between Linux and what has already been ported to.
Android, MacOS, even the PS4 and Wii's are intermediate steps towards Linux.
It's no great surprise that the most interesting ports for Linux are being done by a MacOS porting house.
Beyond the big titles, Linux is a significant part of the market. The indies were already porting to Linux because of this.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The downside of installing Windows in a VM is that you need to install Windows ...
Unless you pirate it it is not free
potential problem:
All the VMs I've tried (well, actually a grand total of one - Virtualbox) don't correctly configure for Direct3D. A yardstick app I use is (conveniently) Homeworld, the original one from 1999 not the reboot which I couldn't run if I mashed all my hardware together. If that doesn't run, then I don't have the DirectX driver in right.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Indies are porting to Linux because the idea of a Linux game means that they'll get some love that they wouldn't otherwise get. It's a market that is presently untapped as most big studios haven't yet come to care about Linux as a platform. They ship Linux, they get guaranteed press, ergo more sales.
Thirty four characters live here.
Sorry, but I could live tomorrow on Linux.
I only use Windows because it was "for free" because of my employer buying me a laptop.
But for five years, I managed and supported a 90% Windows network with hundreds of devices primarily using a laptop which had LibreOffice, etc. installed.
OS - sorted.
Office suite - sorted (sorry, but it is. I used to get people envy my LibreOffice setup, as I could do everything they could do, and manage their same files they managed, and also do things like open ancient foreign formats that people emailled us still).
General apps - sorted.
Games - 1/3rd of my Steam account "just works" on Linux.
For years, I didn't have Windows or Office, as an IT professional supporting users on Windows and Office. Sure, it would have been nice to have a native tool occasionally, but for the odd things I needed (e.g. AD admin tools) it was always safer to just remote-desktop into a Windows machine, or use VM's (Samba tools just aren't there yet).
For everyday use, personal and business, I used Linux as the base OS and for the vast majority of tasks. Only when I was doing something very Windows-specific did I have to load up a Windows tool and always did it from a Linux machine.
SteamOS games are mostly the same games you get in steam on windows. also you don't need steam os it works in most linux distros, SteamOS is just geared towards a fullscreen steam ui for using on a tv with a gamepad or what have you.
Linux games on Steam?
http://store.steampowered.com/...
crazy dynamite monkey
>Worthy Office Competitor
Most people don't need anything more than Google Docs.
>but muh obscure Word function
If you're using something obscure in modern versions of Office, you're going to lose when you try to share the document with /other/ Office users. And don't even get me started on formatting when everyone and his brother has slightly different fonts installed (well, it certainly seems that way).
Most (sane) offices have standardized on Office 97 formats, out of desperation with Microsoft's ever changing formats. Office 97's formats are well known and well handled by Office alternatives.
>Windows 10 looks very good
It does? When the icons look like they've been done in Paint?
The Oxygen icons in KDE are better.
>DirectX
Sorry, OpenGL is still better.
--
BMO
And that's where something like SteamOS can help by being "the definitive Linux". It eliminates all the political power plays, backstabbing and other nastiness that happens over Linux.
Yes, Linux is great - its greatest strength is also its greatest weakness - the diversity.
Developers don't care about fights over systemd or PulseAudio or whatever else stuff powers the modern Linux system. They don't. But with all sorts of distributions doing all sorts of different things, well, it doesn't help in the porting.
But Valve can easily dictate the game environment and say games must work on SteamOS. And SteamOS will (or will not - up to Valve) have services like systemd or PulseAudio or NetworkManager or whatever. So by basically dictatorial dictate, Valve creates a Linux-based OS for games without all the political Linux BS that goes with it. Sure the Linux admins will whine and complain that it's not "their one true Unix" or whatever, but everyone else is happy to have something to code for and work on.
And if it happens to work outside of SteamOS, bonus.
They don't require a user have expert knowledge.
This isn't 1998 anymore. Linux doesn't require "expert knowledge" to run and use. My parents in their 50's are using Linux full-time (even though they don't know they are) as is my sister - who knows it but doesn't really regard the fact as more than an interesting piece of trivia.
Linux works just as simply as any other OS these days. You want a program? Go to Software Center and search for it. It installs. The icon appears in your menu.
Yes, you CAN get technical and in depth with the system if you want, but that's no different than Windows having the registry and Powershell available if you want to tweak things.
Right now Linux just isn't popular with gamers because there are no games for it, and there are no games for it because gamers don't use it. It's chicken and egg problem, but it's changing, albeit slowly. I personally use my Linux system for everything EXCEPT games, though I'll admit that I'd be excited to ditch Windows even for the games if I could (I do have a PS4 that I play some stuff on). It is nice though that Pillars of Eternity will be available for Linux and is coming out very soon. I've been waiting for that one for quite a while and it may be the first "real" game I'm able to play there.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Please explain why I am able to play all the old Linux ports of games like the original unreal tournament (I haven't acquired new ports for a while) with no problem when Linux is a moving target?
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
To answer your why. The number one reason for using DirectX APIs is because of the ease of use with Visual Studio, the second reason is that commonly game development courses until recently focused exclusively on Direct (that has changed because of mobile devices).
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
I bought my 14 year old daughter a new laptop that had Windows 8 on it. She wiped it out and installed Linux. She runs Steam for most games, and WINE for a couple because Steam does not quite work for them.
She is not computer illiterate, but she is not an IT guru either. She googles what she needs to know and follows guides she finds.
and shipping a title for a platform when it doesn't actually work on that platform, or has issues that nobody ever even bothered to check because they don't want to spend any time on QA for the platform is worse for the company's PR than not shipping the title for that platform in the first place.
Then why is EA shipping games for any platform at all?
Sorry but I predict that SteamOS will be dead in 3, probably less, and in the meantime it will be given a trickle of updates while it slowly winds down. The reason? Windows 8 and the MSFT store.
The entire reason for the existence of SteamOS was that Gabe feared Windows 8, specifically the Windows Store. He gave interviews railing on Win 8 and talking about how shit the MSFT store was gonna be for lock in, bla bla bla....so what happened? Windows 8 went over with all the desirability of a trainwreck, the MSFT store turned out to be a spyware ridden clusterfuck, and the CEO that pushed that crap "decided to pursue other interests" rather than get canned. The new guy? Seems to actually have a brain and isn't trying to fuck his partners by sticking a Winflag on everything under the sun.
So every. single. reason. given for making SteamOS? Gone, finished, wasted. Why spend who knows how many millions to develop your own Operating System to defeat somebody who has already waved the white flag? Not to mention as long as Torvalds has a pulse the driver situation will NEVER get any better as Torvalds refuses to let go of the same crap driver model he has been pushing since 1993, so they get the "fun" of dealing with that mess, and for what? MSFT is giving away Windows 10 so you can't compete on cost, MSFT has all but given up on the Windows store, in fact the entire time I've been running Win 10 I don't think I've ever had so much as a "FYI did you know we got a store?" pop up, so that is not a threat, and Steam already has big picture mode in Windows so they can't even use a 10 foot UI as a selling point!
The Linux fanboys can scream and curse me all they want, but time will prove me right. Gabe royally fucked up the SteamOS launch by telling the OEMs it was ready when it wasn't (probably because he didn't know what an unstable POS the Linux driver model really is) so they ended up being left with their dicks in their hands and had to rush out their "Steamboxes" with Windows 8.1, which with the amount of hatred Windows 8/8.1 has? Might as well have just flushed the Steamboxes down the john. After taking a bath like that you can bet your last nickel that Gabe will NOT be getting any more custom hardware, Linux users simply do not buy enough games, hell most will refuse to support Steam simply because its DRM, so the growth in that market is practically flatline, and finally no reason in hell for Windows users to switch to a limited subset of their Steam library when Win 8 is dead and Win 10 looks to be another Windows 7 level hit, so what advantage is there for Valve continuing to sink millions into SteamOS?
There just isn't any which is why they went from trumpeting SteamOS every chance they got to a trickle of low priority press releases, Valve knows MSFT isn't gonna push them off of Windows, hell since Gabe screamed bloody murder GFWL was shut down, the push to combine Windows and Xbox gaming has all but died, MSFT is just no longer a threat to Steam and Gabe knows it. Expect SteamOS to slowly wane until its nothing but a trickle, followed by a little press release a year or two quietly announcing SteamOS is gone, there just isn't a good reason for it to exist any longer.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
That is fucking awesome- go forth, multiply, and be fruitful. Maybe that's not that weird for 14 year olds these days, but when I was 14, that was pretty unique
No. I'm speaking of just Ubuntu on a desktop.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
I do macro work in Excel
They haven't removed macros from Excel yet? Strange, that's where the trend is headed. Don't worry, there's always next version.
there is no denying that Office is simply the best productivity suite
I deny it.
Specific tool, huh? You mean like the ability to customise toolbars programatically, allowing you to make an add-on that installs its own toolbar button? That feature that got removed with the awesome new ribbon interface?
Let me guess: I'm misjudging the poor ribbon - it's actually awesome, and I'm just too stupid to realise that - they did a bunch of usability tests with a bunch of non-technical people and came to the conclusion that it's better in 100% of cases. I'll come around after using it for a while. And that feature which was removed which I need? I didn't actually need it, I'm just misguided and too stupid to realise it.
Instead of writing a 'setup toolbar button' bit into the 'install' routine for my addon, I should distribute my add-on with a page-long set of instructions for how to set up a button in the "quick access toolbar". Because the stupid users who don't even know what they want are smart enough to do that.
Right?
I do macro work in Excel that can't be replicated in LibreOffice.
I've never come across anything I can do in excel with VBA that I can't do with OOBasic. In fact, the opposite is true.
What you actually mean is "I can't be bothered switching from VBA to OOBasic - Learning is hard."
Then riddle me this...why does NOBODY, and I do mean nobody, not in FOSS nor in proprietary, support Torvalds driver model? After all if it was good there is absolutely NOTHING stopping them from adopting it, right? And what about BSD, why does it not follow the great Torvalds driver model?
"nobody" migth have been an exageration. Intel does. As do plenty of others (logitech, realtek come to mind, but there's a lot more). But I think naming Intel should prove that it's not just just one man.
Also, BSDs follows an extremely similar model: In the kernel tree. Most OpenBSD don't support binary blobs either, I've no idea about the rest.
The reason why is obvious, its because its shit that just won't scale. Hell basic math will show you that "let the kernel devs handle it" utterly collapses when the number of drivers reaches 5 figures because there simply is not enough kernel devs to keep up with all the hardware that is already out, much less the hundreds of new devices released this and every other quarter. It really VERY simple, in 1993, when the entire OS could fit on a single floppy? Then sure letting the kernel devs handle it made sense, they had MAYBE 30 drivers all told to deal with, now how many is there? 100,000? 200,000? Even if you pumped up the devs on coke and locked them in a room with NOTHING to but but deal with drivers they would have MAYBE 5 minutes every 3 years for each driver!
The devs just check that everything is the tree is ok, The drivers themselves are written by the hardware developers. When I had an issue with a Logitech mouse on PowerPC, it was a Logitech dev that submitted that patch to the linux kernel. That model does scale.
But if you truly believe what you are saying? Then put your money where your mouth is and take the Hairyfeet challenge which just FYI only requires Linux to run HALF, I repeat HALF as long as a Windows lifecycle. Surely your OS can do half of what Windows can, right? I look forward to seeing your video posted here and the complete vid on Dropbox. of course we'll never see it because if you actually attempt to take the challenge you'll see what I saw countless times and that is Torvalds.driver.model.doesn't.work. and it all comes down to his driver model being made of fail.
The hairyfeet challenge is stupid. Is someone is stupid enough to invest money on something without knowing what it is or any previous research to see if it fits their purpose, they deserve what they get. Even if you know nothing about PCs, you can ask someone that does.
The problem is not related to the driver model at all (which is actually far better than the MSFT one), but to the fact that microsoft has a huge amount of money, has held a strong monopoly over a very long time, and there's a lot of money motivating manufacturers to just write windows drivers. It's money, there's nothing technical about that.
I suppose by "nobody" you mean "everybody except nvidia"? Because the nvidia binary blobs are pretty much the only drivers that occasionally have problems with kernel updates due to the way they really mess around deep into the kernel (ie: they implement their own drm code and X api). With Nouveau finally starting to mature, this is thankfully becoming less and less of a problem. But pretty much every other driver (proprietary or otherwise) seems to work just fine with the linux driver model.
Meanwhile a Windows user can buy a PC and have the drivers that come on the system run for the ENTIRE LIFE of the system, I can take a copy of XP RTM, install the drivers, and then run it through the entire life of the OS, 3 service packs and countless patches, know how many drivers will be non functional at the end? NONE, that is how many drivers will be broken at the end and THAT is what you are competing against, and failing miserably!
So, are you saying that over the life time of your system (what is that, say 6-7 yrs?), you never update the drivers? What do you think a service pack is? Nevermind. Anyway, it doesn't matter because you are wrong. SP2 broke a lot of XP drivers (and software for that matter), including the nvidia driver. Yes, you can now download an updated nvidia driver that works, but at the time of the SP2 release the old nvidia driver did not work on SP2.