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Valve's SteamOS Now Supports Vulkan, The Cross-Platform Alternative To DirectX 12 (pcworld.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the live-long-and-prosper dept.

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.

12 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. Re:isnt steam a launcher? by nnull · · Score: 3, Informative

    Their console. Steam has been pushing Vulkan a lot.

  2. Vulkan could overtake DX12 in adoption! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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..

    1. Re:Vulkan could overtake DX12 in adoption! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Valve is really pushing vulkan hard. I think it was at a recent SIGGRAPH that a valve employee basically said if you aren't targeting a 2016 release for a DX12 game, don't even bother with it since vulkan will do just as much across more platforms with higher performance. I'm with Valve here 100%. The moment AAA titles are releasing on Linux and Windows at the same time, I ditch windows forever and I know I'm not alone on that. Gaming is the single thing that keeps me on windows still, and I hate dual-booting so I stay in windows all the time for the few times I game. If I can play BF4, GTAV, , etc on Linux without performance or fidelity loss (compared to windows version) that will be the final deciding factor. I might not wait that long though if Microsoft has its way. I was planning on switching to W10 before M$ went batshit insane with forcing everyone to upgrade and then sending back "telemetry" data even after you specifically disable it doing so. It may not be nefarious or private data being sent back, but the very fact that M$ is going about this whole thing in a shady way has put me off. W7 will for sure be my last M$ operating system. I just hope Valve gets the gaming industry as a whole running Vulkan before W7 becomes inadequate for future hardware generations.

  3. Re:isnt steam a launcher? by p0p0 · · Score: 4, Informative

    SteamOS is a Debian-based Linux operating system in development by Valve Corporation designed to be the primary operating system for the Steam Machine video game consoles.[2] It was initially released on December 13, 2013, alongside the start of end-user beta testing of Steam Machines.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  4. Re:I have lots of steam games by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    That's weird because my cousin once used foul language in a steam game I bought and we ended up getting the Royal Marines at our front door with several chests full of gold. Given my own experience here, I highly doubt your story.

  5. Re:isnt steam a launcher? by sunderland56 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  6. Is it available on... by unixisc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Cross Platform? Please tell me that it means more than just Windows + Linux, and that I can install & run it on FreeBSD

  7. Re:isnt steam a launcher? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  8. Re:isnt steam a launcher? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  9. Re:I have lots of steam games by ArylAkamov · · Score: 3, Informative

    No, the state keeps you from driving on public roads if you did that. You are still perfectly free to drive your own car on private property.

    Notice how he said he can no longer play offline single player?

  10. Re:isnt steam a launcher? by Barefoot+Monkey · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  11. High hopes, he had high hopes. by westlake · · Score: 3, Informative

    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%