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Valve's SteamOS Now Supports Vulkan, The Cross-Platform Alternative To DirectX 12 (pcworld.com)
SteamOS just gained support for Vulkan, the cross-platform alternative to Microsoft's DirectX 12 and Apple's Metal. This should make it easier for developers to write and optimize games for SteamOS, closing the performance gap with Windows and encouraging more developers to support Linux. This feature arrived in SteamOS Brewmaster version 2.63. Valve added version 355 of the Linux Nvidia driver, which means SteamOS offers Vulkan support when used alongside Nvidia hardware. Intel's graphics hardware should also support Vulkan on SteamOS in the near future. AMD is still working on its new driver, known as AMDGPU, that will replace the current fglrx driver for SteamOS and other Linux-based platforms. If you use Linux distribution besides SteamOS, you can download Nvidia's Vulkan-ready Linux driver or an experimental version of Intel's Vulkan-enabled graphics driver.
I have lots of steam games, but I dont trust the steam client and therefore certainly dont trust the steam OS.
... and for years valve was fucking silent on the matter.. refused to even acknowledge a problem...
...and later when it finally became "common knowledge" that flash wasnt safe all they fucking did was allow you to disable "message of the day"s rather than fix the fucking security nightmare.
Here is the deal. Steam includes a web browser (currently based on webkit I think) but on windows you cannot disable flash in the steam client. The only thing that you can do is remove the client from your global flash plugin folder, which means flash will no longer work in any browser that uses this location, not just steams.
Over the years the valve forums have been inundated with requests for this ability, pointing out that multi-player game servers can force valve games into rendering arbitrary html and flash content in their "message of the day"
Until valve shows some fucking responsibility towards the users of their software, there is no fucking way that I will run their fucking operating system. I dont give a fuck how "open source" it is, because shit being "open source" doesnt protect me if the people writing it are some fucks that wont lift a finger to prevent their users from getting fucked by notorious security holes that they themselves enabled.
"His name was James Damore."
Does it run GTAV and where do I get this OS? ps.: gtfo stalker. i'm not a lamb type. i'm not even your type. not even type of friend. startup getting the fuck away from here.
Their console. Steam has been pushing Vulkan a lot.
I was surprised to learn that very few games are running on DX12 (maybe 1-3?)..
Vulkan already has one and it's looking likely to get more. I'm guessing Valve at least will port all their modern titles to it. If so, Valve is really playing the long game on becoming less dependent on MS Windows..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
SteamOS != Steam.
I have issues with the statement "the cross-platform alternative to DirectX". OpenGL was a cross-platform graphics standard before DirectX even existed.
I have issues with the statement "the cross-platform alternative to DirectX". OpenGL was a cross-platform graphics standard before DirectX even existed.
I have similar issues, but for other reasons.
Once commanding benefit to DirectX is that it attempts to loop unroll shaders and effects, and if it can't do it -- it drops them on the floor. While this may mean that that graphical dust storm isn't as pretty as it might have been otherwise, it also means that you don't crash or hang the video card, and as of DirectX 9 and later, even if you do, to get the compatibility sticker, the manufacture has to make it possible to reset the card and restart pending operations. So if you are able to hang the card anyway, despite the unrolling, the OS can unhang the card, and go merrily on its way.
One of the big problems with games on Mac OS X or Linux is that they tend to directly target OpenGL, rather than an OpenGL emulation running on top of Direct X, as is done on Windows. Which means it's possible to take down the cards hard, because there's no unrolling layer between the instruction stream and the card to protect it. Apple tries to make this happy by always keeping a spare channel lying around, so it can talk to the card to recover, but it doesn't always work out.
Vulkan seems to have the same problem that OpenGL itself has, in this regard. So it is *NOT*, in fact, a crossplatform alternative to using DirectX, it's a replacement for OpenGL to make it more difficult to buy other people's graphics cards. Which I kind of could care less about, if it supported the unrolling the way Direct X does, rather than just being different for the sake of being different. To me, it just looks like a handy way to hang your system, instead of using the even handier OpenGL.
You will have the linux zealots screaming gpl violations. See how long proprietary software will last under linux. Proprietary software and drivers should be targeted for BSD based distro's. WiiU, PS3, and PS4 all run freebsd as the OS so why not.
They want to take the money from the hard working and give it to the lazy people. Look at the problems europe has.
They serve the fallen angel.
...and sanders is her apprentice.
We will get such a strong army, putin will be scared and we will get along with him.
I can't agree more. Please mod parent up.
Cross Platform? Please tell me that it means more than just Windows + Linux, and that I can install & run it on FreeBSD
Vulkan [...] [is] a replacement for OpenGL to make it more difficult to buy other people's graphics cards.
Whose graphics cards? The graphics card vendors representing roughly 99.5% of the market support Vulkan, and the other 0.5% don't matter because their stuff is very old super low performance embedded chips that isn't useful for gaming anyhow.
an OpenGL emulation running on top of Direct X, as is done on Windows
Stop spewing bullshit. Windows provides a user mode thunk layer to allow installable client drivers (OpenGL, OpenCL, Vulkan, Mantle) to communicate with WDDM kernel mode drivers.
Awesome. Way to go SteamOS! DirectX is pretty much the only thing that has been driving the gaming scene on PCs. Take that away from Microsoft and you'll be able to get Linux PCs that people are happy with, rather than being forced to game on Windows. Kudos Nvidia, kudos SteamOS.
there's no unrolling layer between the instruction stream and the card to protect it.
I've worked on graphics drivers for 3 major vendors, and every one of them can and does unroll loops in OpenGL shaders. The actual situation is complex for both DX and GL, as it involves a myriad of factors such as the version being targeted, whether the loop bounds are statically known by the compiler, and whether they vary per SIMD-channel. Furthermore, GL supports device restart on hung shaders, and this is tested for in many common test suites.
So, your post is almost entirely incorrect. Charitably, we can chalk it to innocent ignorance rather than a vested interest in spreading misinformation about platform-independed APIs.
The statement is "the cross-platform alternative to DirectX 12" - specifically 12, and not DirectX in general. On Windows your options for Mantle-like APIs are currently Vulkan and DirectX 12, i.e. the platform-limited alternative to Vulkan is DirectX 12, and the cross-platform alternative to DirectX 12 is Vulkan. I hope that helps you feel a bit better about the headline.
It is an open API (though not free, you have to pay membership dues) that can be implemented on basically any platform people wish. As of right now, only nVidia and Intel have implemented it and only on Windows and Linux as far as I know, nVidia may have it in their drivers for other platforms. Apple has expressed no interest and most other OSes rely on the graphic drivers to provide APIs. AMD will eventually probably get a driver out, they were one of the driving forces behind Vulkan, however they suck at drivers so it always seems to take them a long time.
This should make it easier for developers to write and optimize games for SteamOS
It's difficult to get solid numbers on Steam Machine sales. But they don't appear to be setting the world on fire:
Alienware Steam Machine ASM100-6980BLK Desktop Console (Intel Core i7, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD) NVIDIA GeForce GTX GPU 3.1 Stars. #3,293 in Computers & Accessories #237 in Computers & Accessories > Desktops
The Steam Hardware & Software Survey: January 2016 doesn't offer much to feed on:
Windows 95%
Win 10 64 Bit 33% and Trending upward.
OSX 4% No change.
Linux 1% No change.
Ubuntu 0.4%. Mint 0.2%
there's no unrolling layer between the instruction stream and the card to protect it.
I've worked on graphics drivers for 3 major vendors, and every one of them can and does unroll loops in OpenGL shaders.
They try, but they do not drop them on the floor entirely when it can not be proven that they will run in bounded time. Google actually has a similar technology that it uses in Chrome to "test the waters", but doesn't deploy it in Linux versions.
The actual situation is complex for both DX and GL, as it involves a myriad of factors such as the version being targeted, whether the loop bounds are statically known by the compiler, and whether they vary per SIMD-channel.
Yes. And if they *aren't* statically known by the compiler, it should drop the things on the floor, like Windows tends to. It's not a very ideal solution, but it works well enough that I would not have been resetting my G5 desktop when something decided to go crazy and take the card with it.
Furthermore, GL supports device restart on hung shaders, and this is tested for in many common test suites.
You have to maintain a non-blocked channel with the card in order to do this. And it's a fairly recent feature that vendors tended to leave out of their cards, until Microsoft forced them to include it to get the little badge on the outside of the box that let them claim compatibility with Direct X.
So, your post is almost entirely incorrect. Charitably, we can chalk it to innocent ignorance rather than a vested interest in spreading misinformation about platform-independed APIs.
I have no vested interest in supporting the DirectX platform, or even running Windows. And I'm aware that the Mac OS X nVidia drivers are encapsulated versions of the Windows nVidia drivers, just ported to run on Mac OS X. I occasionally worked with the people nVidia had on site at Apple, in order to resolve bugs, although Charles and Brian did so more frequently. The ATI folks, less so (less bugs, or at least less that came to my attention as a kernel panic).
The issue is the glue layer that Windows has, which adds more overhead, but at the same time provides some safety from bad graphics programming. I'm certain that Microsoft probably lucked into it, and didn't write things that way on purpose.
I'm just laying out my own personal experience.
We should take money from lazy people like Trump and Gates and give it to the hard working like all of China who actually does the making of everything that we use.
Yes, but only if you vote in the next 15 minutes. Oh, and for the low price of 1,999 he'll teach you about real estate, that's a 50% discount compared to the normal price.
Market share is not everything. Just look at Apple.
The Alienware Steam Machine I linked to earlier is ranks about #240 in desktop sales at Amazon. While a pimped-out Cybertron Win 10 gaming rig retailing at $6,000 ranks about #40. CybertronPC Thallium X99 Red Gaming Desktop-Intel i7-5960X, 64GB DDR4,3x NVIDIA GTX980 Ti, Microsoft Windows 10
> it should drop the things on the floor, like Windows tends to
Different AC here, but no, that is not true on more recent shader models.
You have been corrected by a number of individuals here on every major point you raised, and you keep saying more bullshit. You should really stop talking about this subject. You don't know what you are talking about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYWzMvlj2RQ
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/02/linus-torvalds-i-will-not-change-linux-to-deep-throat-microsoft/
That may be true, but the statement was about Vulkan not OpenGL and in a gaming world where DirectX dominates.
It might just be me, but the fact that it says SteamOS and NOT Steam indicates that your point is completely asshat.
You start off with "they try", which is 100% acceptance of the FACT that your original claim was 100% wrong, yet you pretend through the rest of your post that you were right all along.
Your "they try, but it doesn't always work" is ALSO defunct since your admission that DX resets cards is admission that DX doesn't always work, either, else they wouldn't need to reset.
I think we can discard the innocent option.
Since copyright doesn't control the "copy" made to use the game as purchased, you don't have to agree to squat, and if he's not running the Steam net service (running single player), the TOS is ALSO irrelevant.
Please stop demanding people bend over and take it just so you don't feel such a fool holding on to your ankles and crying at the pain.
> Jesus would never vote for a Republican. That's a fact. His teachings vs the Republican teachings are not compatible.
WTF are you talking about??
Jesus taught that you should love your neighbor, help the poor, and turn the other cheek...
Oh.
Once commanding benefit to DirectX is that it attempts to loop unroll shaders and effects, and if it can't do it -- it drops them on the floor.
As to modern OpenGL drivers, where do you get the idea that they don't? More to the point why do you think they couldn't?
The SPIRV compiler could quite easily unroll loops or fail if they cannot be unrolled just like is done on OpenGL ES.
rather than an OpenGL emulation running on top of Direct X, as is done on Windows.
No, this is simply untrue. I would be very interested where you got such a bizarre idea though...maybe you think everything is using Google ANGLE?
So it is *NOT*, in fact, a crossplatform alternative to using DirectX, it's a replacement for OpenGL to make it more difficult to buy other people's graphics cards.
"Other peoples'"? The major vendors all support Vulkan and being an open spec means any new entrant could as well.
Also their developer network, distribution network and own catalog.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.