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SteamVR To Get Linux and Mac OSX Support Within 'a Few Months' (roadtovr.com)
Valve is planning to introduce beta versions of its SteamVR platform for Mac OSX and Linux users within a few months, RoadToVr reports citing an executive. From the report:One thing's for sure, if you're a PC user wanting to indulge in a spot of immersive entertainment right now, the choice of operating systems on which you can do so are mostly limited to just one. Windows dominates the VR PC landscape right now and that looks set to continue for a while longer. However, Valve will soon move to encourage a diminishing of that monopoly, as it plans to bring SteamVR -- the company's Steam-integrated VR platform -- to both Linux and Mac OSX platforms within the next few months. The initiative was revealed by Valve's Joe Ludwig during a talk at this year's developer-focused Steam Dev Days event in Seattle last month. During the talk, Ludwig outlined the company's view that VR should be as open to innovation as possible, touting the benefits for the long term evolution of virtual reality and how Valve, with OpenVR, are trying to keep what Ludwig calls platform "gatekeepers" from (as they see it) stifling progression in the VR space. Additionally, Ludwig stated that it's been listening to developer and user feedback during SteamVR's first year in consumer hands, and says that they've heard clearly that a version of SteamVR is wanted on other operating systems.
This has been a nightmare from start to so far. I'm a long time Linux user so I'm more experienced in Linux than I am on the windows platform.
The only reason I run windows 10 on my computer (and I have to admit, totally against my will) is for the HTC Vive and Steam VR games. Windows 10 has been nothing but a sorry experience of me, numerous security kernel crashes, freezes, lockups and whatnot. On the SAME computer I had NO freezes or lockups on the Mint Linux 17.3 platform.
The Minute I can run Steam VR and Anyland on Linux with my Htc Vive - bye bye windows 10, hope to never see you again.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Not holding my breath. This was supposed to be available on release, so we'll see.
Bullish Machine Tzar
and says that they've heard clearly that a version of SteamVR is wanted on other operating systems.
According to the latest hw/sw survey:
Windows 95.46%
OS X 3.52%
Linux 0.89%
I'm sure they're vocal, but I doubt Steam is any real hurry.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Windows 95.46%
What's this you say, most people who want to run VR are running the only computer OS that can do so! Amazing.
The percentage will climb when OS X and Linux support comes to pass... in no way does current use indicate total platform demand.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
... you're running Windows.
But if you're running OS X or Linux for other purposes, you play games but you won't go out of the way to access them, this is a "very nice that it's available" option.
What this announcement mainly shows is that Valve is still looking for options to not be so dependent on Microsoft.
I apologize for the lack of a signature.
There's not a single OSX running machine I'm aware of that meets minimum spec for Vive. I'm not sure why they're bothering with that...
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Most of the computers Apple sell only have built-in Intel graphics. Others have laptop-class GPUs. And they keep making their computers, even their desktop ones, thinner for absolutely no logical reason.
Tim Cook seems too happy to push users to iPhones and iPads, the Macs appears to be merely an afterthought at this point.
This is a survey of Steam users, not SteamVR.
Yes, and?
The fact that SteamVR users must run Windows means that the Steam numbers are pushed towards the Windows side of the spectrum by people who just default to running Steam in Windows because otherwise they would have to switch to use SteamVR.
The numbers would be 0% if it were for SteamVR since they cannot run it at all.
Sigh. Any Mac user can make use of it via Bootcamp running Windows on Mac hardware. Which has been true for ages now.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Linux supports all the best hardware, so not having on Linux is a simple market decision- there are way more Windows customers.
Mac is a different beast. While smaller than the PC market, almost everyone with a Mac has some money to spare, and their ecosystem is rich in people who would use VR to create, view, etc. Additionally, there are some die-hard Mac gamers (seriously lol), who, like the much smaller Linux base, buy cool game related stuff at a higher rate than the equivalent section of the PC market. The problem with Mac isn't that such a thing wouldn't be profitable or worth the effort, it is the general lack of 3D hardware on the Mac.
Bringing it to the Mac then implies that either the new Macintoshes are suddenly deemed strong enough for VR, or that there will be Macs with better computation within the next year or two. Perhaps a new Mac pro, or strong cards on an iMac, who knows. That implication is pretty interesting to me.
I've been playing around with a Playstation VR Headset. It works just fine on Linux, has head tracking built into the headset and is detectable over USB. thanks to libpsvr: https://github.com/adawarp/lib... it is really easy to make the headset switch from Cinema mode into VR Mode. I am currently working on Adding VR support to Vegastrike and Freespace 2.
Is anyone actively working on reverse engineering the Vive to make it supported? Playstation VR already works.
> I am one of those guys who preordered Vive
This is the problem, sadly. There are companies that are reliably worth preordering from, if you are into their stuff. Preordering a Nintendo product has never left me disappointed- they all turn out pretty similar to what you expect, within reason. But in the general case, a preorder is a huge mistake. Most ESPECIALLY with Linux support. The Linux community is small but very passionate, and will organically boost anything that is pro-Linux. While Linux gamers don't control any section of any market, they are absolutely a decent amount of free advertising. So a top tier cross platform anything will get more press, and more positive press, if it promises to support Linux. In general, I strongly recommend you don't preorder a Linux thing unless a very similar product from the very same team launched day 1 on Linux in the past. Because if not, what are the odds that they will succeed on their launch? If anything goes wrong, they'll pull the Linux devs to handle their "real" launch on Windows, and put Linux off until later. If the product doesn't succeed to whatever bean counting standard is desired, they won't ever bother finishing it.
Basically, the industry *as a whole* has a long and consistent habit of lying about day 1 Linux support. In general, you should always assume it is a lie. Just wait for the real launch, then buy it if it works in Linux. Much easier, doesn't let you get ripped off, and doesn't incentivize bad actors.
I'm writing this on a windows 10 computer.
but this shit is _more_ true than 15 years ago! windows 2000 was _great_.
Have you tried to debug for example the problem WHY the start menu doesn't pop up sometimes? have you reached the conclusion that installing Classic start menu is a must because of that? the start menu doesn't open up because it's a METRO APP that the operating system puts into sleep/hibernation mode and DOESN'T WAKE IT UP. it saves like 2 mbytes of ram. I think it does it less if you have all kinds of ms push notifications, advertisements and such enable in the start menu to keep the os from sleeping it. there is no _easy_ way to mark it as something the os shouldn't put in the sleep state, only way I know of is to attach a debugger to it(!!!!) to prevent the os from freezing it.
this is just the pinnacle of bad user interface layer design and programming in windows 10 mind you. it affects tens of millions of pc users. of all the things you should have written as a windows program they chose to do this and not even mark it specially.
also don't ever ever take a look at the indian cuisine coding inside cortana. it will make you cry. "what do you mean take a look inside it? how the fu... oh.. the scripts.. the scriptss..".
Have you tried to disable any of the stuff you don't actually want in windows 10? have you looked into how much of it .. well, plain doesn't work. why the fuck bother with making a remote management interface that ONLY BREAKS YOUR COMPUTER and cannot be actually be used to actually "manage" anything!
also after cumulative updates, that just get installed without asking, sometimes all your network interfaces are reset - ipv6 is enabled again, all the smb shares are at their defaults and so on. all the metro apps you uninstalled are installed again.
oh and two finger scrolling doesn't work on this laptop right now because I can't be arsed to do the manual copying of the files since MS changed something since they released the drivers for this laptop and the driver installer ends up being installed in some fake sandbox location and not the right one so the driver doesn't find it's files.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
but.. it's not like you wanted textures and stuff, yeah?
look, a lot of the vr stuff on the market is actually developed for cardboard(daydream) and gearvr. it doesn't really need that much to run 90fps.
also the more photorealistic you try to go the more diminishing the returns are - also partially due to that the vr displays are a bit low resolution still - going with ultra high texture counts and polygon counts doesn't really help all that much with the experience.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.