any body got any news on steam for linux

Jonny Blaze · 19-11-2013 12:23am

The absolute only thing preventing me from fully moving to ubuntu is that I cant play many (any?) games on it. I run a ubuntu virtual machine on windows 7 and would really love to do the switcheroo and run virtual windows on top of linux, but until there's more robust support for gaming i'll be shotgun wedded to windows for the forseeable future!

What I don't get is that surely a large percentage of developers play games and develop on linux.. so what makes it such a bad idea to support as a platform?

srsly78 · 19-11-2013 1:25am

Because everyone's linux is slightly different, and it's normal to mess around with your system files and even recompile your own kernel. That's without even getting into the whole nightmare of graphics/sound on linux

This isn't necessarily linuxes fault of course, just the way things are.

I have written lots of code for linux, but it was never targetted at the desktop. Always for stuff running on servers.

Ste_JDM · 19-11-2013 3:24pm

Jonny Blaze wrote: »

The absolute only thing preventing me from fully moving to ubuntu is that I cant play many (any?) games on it. I run a ubuntu virtual machine on windows 7 and would really love to do the switcheroo and run virtual windows on top of linux, but until there's more robust support for gaming i'll be shotgun wedded to windows for the forseeable future!

What I don't get is that surely a large percentage of developers play games and develop on linux.. so what makes it such a bad idea to support as a platform?

1) Virtual Machine would never be an option for gaming. A VM cant access the hardware as fast as native, besides you are already splitting extra resources for the 'host' OS.

2) While Linux never took off can be down to the rise of the DirectX API and how popular Windows became. DirectX locked the developer in to having their games only work on Windows (and now Xbox). But then you have other consoles such as the Playstation which use OpenGL instead. Now comes which is faster? DX or OpenGL and over time OpenGL has caught up and with the creation of the Unity Game Engine we see oh so many upstart dev's using something affordable to hit all the major platforms in one move.

The OpenGL API is also used in your smart phones (iOS and Android) There is also WebGL for the web.

Finally, as mentioned above, Windows is top dog, as a developer who needs to make money off my products. I need to hit the platform with the most users. So Windows was always number one but that is changing as games are developed to be OpenGL, look at Id's RAGE, it does not use DX what so ever but OpenGL (even though its not available on linux but is on Mac). As for Metro. The Windows version uses DX11 and the Linux/Mac build using OpenGL. To them these releases shows their confidence in putting out a game not locked to DX11 and to get more people on various platforms to play their game. So give em feedback!

If I was to make a game (me and a few folks from my course are thinking about it) we all already agree to use open standards to hit the nail on the head and get it out on Windows/Linux/Mac and even PS4. Major dev's are also thinking the same.

Jonny Blaze · 21-11-2013 5:55pm

Ste_JDM wrote: »

1) Virtual Machine would never be an option for gaming. A VM cant access the hardware as fast as native, besides you are already splitting extra resources for the 'host' OS.

Oh yes totally agree, what I meant was that I would love to be able to do it, but it's just not possible, hence why I'll be on windows for the foreseeable future.

I would also love for linux to magically become a well supported gaming platform so that I could just completely ditch windows but that is just not going to happen.

Again you're totally correct with the assessment of the market in terms of the rise of windows as the majority pc gaming platform but it is a crying shame is all!

Must admit I am keen to see how this steambox performs (in market terms) though.

bpb101 · 21-11-2013 6:42pm

Jonny Blaze wrote: »

Must admit I am keen to see how this steambox performs (in market terms) though.

I would love to see aswell how much of the cost they will get down by mass produced systems and will it be cost efficient to mask your own steam box

bpb101 · 28-11-2013 7:32pm

#steamsaleon

bpb101 · 30-11-2013 8:51pm

first look at the all amd steam box(would have thought it be black)

http://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/a-steam-machine-from-ibuypower-has-been-shown-off.2769/?utm_content=buffer4b247&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer

Ste_JDM · 01-12-2013 4:53pm

So! What games are everyone playing on Linux at the moment?

matrim · 01-12-2013 5:01pm

Ste_JDM wrote: »

So! What games are everyone playing on Linux at the moment?

Football manager 2014. Taking up way to much time that I should be using to study

bpb101 · 11-12-2013 7:39pm

steam box packed and out on the first mail truck on friday.
steam os available for the download this friday the 13th as well.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTU0MTE

bpb101 · 13-12-2013 1:38am

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamuniverse#announcements/detail/1930088300965516570

Johnboy1951 · 13-12-2013 2:07am

We’ve had to make the difficult decision to limit our beta to the U.S. only, because of regulatory hurdles.

Any ideas what this is about?

Grudaire · 13-12-2013 1:16pm

Probably something similar to the issue that the raspberryPi had when the first batch was being shipped...

Khannie · 13-12-2013 1:19pm

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Any ideas what this is about?

Pretty sure getting the CE mark is a pain in the arse. I'm just guessing though.

Johnboy1951 · 13-12-2013 1:38pm

Khannie wrote: »

Pretty sure getting the CE mark is a pain in the arse. I'm just guessing though.

Would that have affected the sending out of the 'test' devices?

13-12-2013 1:42pm

Beta testers probably have to sign legal documents relating to disclosure, publicity etc. Doing that across multiple legal systems is going to be harder than restricting it to one

I'm guessing

bpb101 · 13-12-2013 8:06pm

i would say the steam os will go live at 8, companys ussauly try and put new products out at 12
8 here is 12 Washington time i was wrong

fun fact: valve only have like 330 employees but worth over 2.5billion.
making each employee worth $7,575757.576

bpb101 · 14-12-2013 8:45pm

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamuniverse/announcements/detail/1927836595762715926

anybody try it out yet.

I cant atm , have amd graphics.

PropJoe10 · 14-12-2013 9:52pm

Anyone tried out the SteamOS yet? Would be interested to hear some feedback on it, although I know its only a beta.

Khannie · 16-12-2013 1:10pm

Haven't tried it myself. Debian based. Short review here. Looks pretty decent.

If they got netflix integration somehow, that would be superb.

Ste_JDM · 17-12-2013 11:49am

Going to try it out on a VM this week but I wont replace my OS with it. Still a lover of Solydk which is Debian so it's all good!

matrim · 17-12-2013 12:08pm

I don't see the point of trying it now when I have a perfectly good Ubuntu install that does everything I need (including steam). It's very very unlikely to be my primary desktop and I already have a windows install I don't bother to boot into

bpb101 · 18-12-2013 1:15am

Ste_JDM wrote: »

Going to try it out on a VM this week but I wont replace my OS with it. Still a lover of Solydk which is Debian so it's all good!

tell us how you get on

bpb101 · 25-12-2013 8:46pm

LINUX boys , l4d2 is free as in free beer till tomorrow. You have to install it and if you do , you keep it for good.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/550

unfortunately , there is a whole system crash at the moment (probable related)

Ste_JDM · 29-12-2013 7:28pm

Never got round to playing with Steam OS but there are loads of video's on it. Its built on Debian and future steam machines will use AMD CPUs and GPUs too. So as a Solyd user with AMD hardware...I am happy!

bpb101 · 01-01-2014 9:39pm

steam stats

Grudaire · 01-01-2014 10:17pm

Steam OS isn't listed yet!

bpb101 · 01-01-2014 11:36pm

Grudaire wrote: »

Steam OS isn't listed yet!

50 million users of steam - 300 steam machines
way to small. what lets say 5000 steam os people.. thats 0.0001% way to small

Grudaire · 02-01-2014 12:19am

bpb101 wrote: »

50 million users of steam - 300 steam machines
way to small. what lets say 5000 steam os people.. thats 0.0001% way to small

Yeah I was wondering whether it would show up as Debian or SteamOS.

But now that you mention it to get to 0.1% you would need 50,000 people to manually install the OS... definitely optimistic :pac:

bpb101 · 02-01-2014 1:22am

Grudaire wrote: »

Yeah I was wondering whether it would show up as Debian or SteamOS.

But now that you mention it to get to 0.1% you would need 50,000 people to manually install the OS... definitely optimistic :pac:

also , steam os was released in mid december, prob too late for the stats survey

any body got any news on steam for linux

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