Steam will stop supporting Windows 7 and 8 in 2024.

[ds]

It's not even valve that is discontinuing support, it's some middleware they use for steam that is doing so isn't it?

Yes it's Chrome (or CEF to be precise) - but that did not magically sneak into the Steam client without Valve noticing. Responsibility with problems caused by middleware still lies with the developers that chose to add that dependency.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

responsibilities? in the era of eulas? you'll own nothing and you'll be happy, you degenerate entitled gamer.

 

[OSK]

because there isn't a "linux 10" which needs triple the hardware, offers half the working features and is a whole giant security structural weakness disaster waiting to happen.

So use Linux instead.

 

[Lagole Gon]

I still use windows 7 and it works perfectly fine.

Alas, I'm buying a new PC. I guess I should get windows... uh... 10? 11?
Wait, there's 11? I thought windows 10 was the last windows form and updates will replace normal releases.
I guess windows 9 now doesn't exists for nothing? What a horrible fate...

 

[Thane Solus]

First they are all payed by MS to do this, second they have worst programmers on the planet. All their launchers including Steam are a deviation of nodejs, chrome js etc, which are the biggest bloatware pos made by man. Second every pos engine or library, now tries to push up the latest update, which usually is the biggest bloatware crap made by indians. Unreal 5 cant into shaders unless u have 2x+ nvidia 57x drivers, unity 2022 is also a POS bloatware etc. You thought it was bad until now, wait to see the next year games and beyond, the stupidity will make Idiocracy a Citizen Kangz. Most of the good programmers retired long time ago, now only idiots and Indians are left, and jesus, not even free, is not worth it. Enjoy the entropy lul

Hilariously Blizz had a professional launcher, but they ditched that and now they use some chromium js garbage as well. Multi billions companies (Steam, Blizz) but infected by ESG, one way or the other.

 

[deuxhero]

I still use windows 7 and it works perfectly fine.

Alas, I'm buying a new PC. I guess I should get windows... uh... 10? 11?
Wait, there's 11? I thought windows 10 was the last windows form and updates will replace normal releases.
I guess windows 9 now doesn't exists for nothing? What a horrible fate...

Linux. Nowdays Proton runs nearly everything without third party malware. It runs some old games that don't work on Win 7 (Freedom Force) without issue, and it actually performs better than Windows 10/11 on some modern games (barely, +2% FPS, likely just Windows being horribly bloated than anything)

 

[Lagole Gon]

I still use windows 7 and it works perfectly fine.

Alas, I'm buying a new PC. I guess I should get windows... uh... 10? 11?
Wait, there's 11? I thought windows 10 was the last windows form and updates will replace normal releases.
I guess windows 9 now doesn't exists for nothing? What a horrible fate...

Linux. Nowdays Proton runs nearly everything without third party malware. It runs some old games that don't work on Win 7 (Freedom Force) without issue, and it actually performs better than Windows 10/11 on some modern games (barely, +2% FPS, likely just Windows being horribly bloated than anything)

Proton? Isn't that some Steam thing? I'm more of a GOG guy.

 

[ds]

Proton? Isn't that some Steam thing? I'm more of a GOG guy.

Proton is just Valve's version of Wine with DXVK and other gaming-specific enhancements. It's not inherently tied to Steam so you can use it with GOG - some distributions have a package for it. Steam just integrates it nicely so you can simply click "Play" on Windows games and it'll use Proton - that you won't get without Steam.

 

[deuxhero]

I still use windows 7 and it works perfectly fine.

Alas, I'm buying a new PC. I guess I should get windows... uh... 10? 11?
Wait, there's 11? I thought windows 10 was the last windows form and updates will replace normal releases.
I guess windows 9 now doesn't exists for nothing? What a horrible fate...

Linux. Nowdays Proton runs nearly everything without third party malware. It runs some old games that don't work on Win 7 (Freedom Force) without issue, and it actually performs better than Windows 10/11 on some modern games (barely, +2% FPS, likely just Windows being horribly bloated than anything)

Proton? Isn't that some Steam thing? I'm more of a GOG guy.

You can set it up (with some effort) to work on other stuff.

Look at ProtonDB and see compatibility reports for youself. Note how many of the bronze/silver ratings are titles that last got a report 1.5+ years ago.
https://www.protondb.com/

 

[Avonaeon]

Lutris is like a steam client for your gog games. It works pretty well.
Linux is quite different and there's definitely some re-learning you have to do. I've found it quite exciting learning it, but sometimes it can be frustrating when it's something that was easy in windows you have to set it up yourself to be easy on Linux.

 

[catfood]

I still use windows 7 and it works perfectly fine.

Alas, I'm buying a new PC. I guess I should get windows... uh... 10? 11?
Wait, there's 11? I thought windows 10 was the last windows form and updates will replace normal releases.
I guess windows 9 now doesn't exists for nothing? What a horrible fate...

Linux. Nowdays Proton runs nearly everything without third party malware. It runs some old games that don't work on Win 7 (Freedom Force) without issue, and it actually performs better than Windows 10/11 on some modern games (barely, +2% FPS, likely just Windows being horribly bloated than anything)

Proton? Isn't that some Steam thing? I'm more of a GOG guy.

You can set it up (with some effort) to work on other stuff.

Look at ProtonDB and see compatibility reports for youself. Note how many of the bronze/silver ratings are titles that last got a report 1.5+ years ago.
https://www.protondb.com/

Yeah, I'm checking some of the GOG games that I've installed and all of the ones that are labeled bronze or silver work just fine.

 

[Tavar]

The most chilling part of this news is that Steam has an embedded version of Google Chrome. This shit is supposed to start games not funnel data to Google.

 

[lycanwarrior]

Keep buying deeper and deeper into our glorious "online services" economy, citizen, it's for your own good! You'll own nothing and nobody'll give a shit whether you're happy or not, but oooh, look at those cloud saves and shiny, shiny cheevos!

Ironically, Newell once characterised piracy as a service problem...

Also ironic since Steam was the first DRM/digital store launcher on the PC.

 

[OSK]

I'm more of a GOG guy.

Be aware that GOG doesn't give a shit about Linux. They don't have an official client available, but there are alternative game launchers like Lutris, Heroic Games Launcher, and Minigalaxy. Unfortunately, the biggest problem with all of them (unless something changed recently) is that none provide incremental updates, meaning you need to re-download the entire game when an update comes out. So while GOG games are definitely playable, it's not the nicest user experience. Compare that to Steam where the experience is nearly identical to Windows.

 

[Azdul]

This right here's precisely the sort of attitude that got us into this shit where we no longer "purchase" a copy of a software package for own use, but instead "license" it at the provider's whims and when stuff changes under our ass, we're "not even forced to use it, bro."

You have the right to use an old OS, but you don't have the right to force third-party vendors to continue to support it indefinitely.

I don't expect Microsoft to keep giving me free updates past its lifecycle, but I also don't want some mandatory update to turn into something other than what it was when I paid for it.

To extrapolate from that, I don't expect Newell to keep supporting our continued business on a deprecated OS outside of his company's control, but I would want him to supply a technical solution for users to retain access to the products he's already sold them such as they were at the time he sold them. For instance in this case, some barebones Windows 7 client that'd just allow the games to run. No cloud features, no updates, just here it is, either let users download or backup their products and then run them.

More generally, the point is that all notions of ownership, consumer protection and fair business practices are being eroded at an alarming rate in this magnificent modern world of ours, and everything IT-related is leading the fucking charge. If our lawmakers had the slightest bit of backbone and inclination towards the public interest, mandatory updates would be out the fucking window and providers would have to supply customers with the ability to retain personal use copies of their existing software if the provider discontinued support or (this being another can of worms in dire need of attention) chose to update their terms post-acquisition.

I'm on the other side of IT business.

There is no need for the Congress to introduce the new laws - just revert DMCA. The idea that company can sue individual for 'legal costs' is outrageous.

If the company can prove that certain actions of individual caused X amount of lost revenue - they can sue individual for X amout of $$$.

Adding in legal costs is unfair - and it means that The People should boycott every company that took advantage of the stupid law - and NEVER buy anything from Rockstar or Nintendo. Until Congress will take action.

 

[Damned Registrations]

So has it occured to you "LOL just update" guys that whether or not Valve has the right to just stop being compatible with your game... has absolutely nothing to do with what microsoft does? If it's acceptable that you can no longer access your library because they stopped supporting windows 7, by the same logic it's acceptable if they stop supporting everything except linux or mobile phones or whatever the fuck they want.

Either they're obligated to maintain accessibility to the software they sold you, or they're not. What microsoft is doing has nothing to do with that. If microsoft decides it hates valve and makes windows incompatible with steam forevermore, valve needs to cut out it's DRM and let everyone keep playing whatever they bought, not blame microsoft for no longer supporting valve's DRM scheme.

 

[JarlFrank]

Microsoft doesn't even do anything it's the crappy Chrome middleware they're using in the newest Steam client.

I noticed that the Steam client takes up a lot more RAM than it used to, both on my Windows 7 PC and my new Windows 11 laptop. Just a shitload of bloat that wasn't there half a year ago.

 

[The_Mask]

Microsoft doesn't even do anything it's the crappy Chrome middleware they're using in the newest Steam client.

I noticed that the Steam client takes up a lot more RAM than it used to, both on my Windows 7 PC and my new Windows 11 laptop. Just a shitload of bloat that wasn't there half a year ago.

Yeah, they updated the UI and functionality when you play a game.

I'm not sure if it makes total sense, but that's the only excuse I can see to it.

 

[Modron]

I noticed that the Steam client takes up a lot more RAM than it used to, both on my Windows 7 PC and my new Windows 11 laptop. Just a shitload of bloat that wasn't there half a year ago.

Yeah steam always had a bit of a memory leak but it was a very slow one before. Nowadays in order to avoid steam using up a lot of resources you have to reset it fairly often.

 

[Forest Dweller]

So has it occured to you "LOL just update" guys that whether or not Valve has the right to just stop being compatible with your game... has absolutely nothing to do with what microsoft does? If it's acceptable that you can no longer access your library because they stopped supporting windows 7, by the same logic it's acceptable if they stop supporting everything except linux or mobile phones or whatever the fuck they want.

Either they're obligated to maintain accessibility to the software they sold you, or they're not. What microsoft is doing has nothing to do with that. If microsoft decides it hates valve and makes windows incompatible with steam forevermore, valve needs to cut out it's DRM and let everyone keep playing whatever they bought, not blame microsoft for no longer supporting valve's DRM scheme.

This, exactly.

 

[Semiurge]

I'm more of a GOG guy.

Be aware that GOG doesn't give a shit about Linux. They don't have an official client available, but there are alternative game launchers like Lutris, Heroic Games Launcher, and Minigalaxy. Unfortunately, the biggest problem with all of them (unless something changed recently) is that none provide incremental updates, meaning you need to re-download the entire game when an update comes out. So while GOG games are definitely playable, it's not the nicest user experience. Compare that to Steam where the experience is nearly identical to Windows.

Wait, wasn't the whole point of GOG that you don't need a launcher, or did that change when I wasn't looking? So who cares if there isn't an official Linux launcher, you can use Lutris instead if you must.

 

[JarlFrank]

I'm more of a GOG guy.

Be aware that GOG doesn't give a shit about Linux. They don't have an official client available, but there are alternative game launchers like Lutris, Heroic Games Launcher, and Minigalaxy. Unfortunately, the biggest problem with all of them (unless something changed recently) is that none provide incremental updates, meaning you need to re-download the entire game when an update comes out. So while GOG games are definitely playable, it's not the nicest user experience. Compare that to Steam where the experience is nearly identical to Windows.

Wait, wasn't the whole point of GOG that you don't need a launcher, or did that change when I wasn't looking? So who cares if there isn't an official Linux launcher, you can use Lutris instead if you must.

You don't need a launcher for GoG games, you can download installers straight from the website.

 

[Semiurge]

I'm more of a GOG guy.

Be aware that GOG doesn't give a shit about Linux. They don't have an official client available, but there are alternative game launchers like Lutris, Heroic Games Launcher, and Minigalaxy. Unfortunately, the biggest problem with all of them (unless something changed recently) is that none provide incremental updates, meaning you need to re-download the entire game when an update comes out. So while GOG games are definitely playable, it's not the nicest user experience. Compare that to Steam where the experience is nearly identical to Windows.

Wait, wasn't the whole point of GOG that you don't need a launcher, or did that change when I wasn't looking? So who cares if there isn't an official Linux launcher, you can use Lutris instead if you must.

You don't need a launcher for GoG games, you can download installers straight from the website.

Well yes, that was the whole point of my post. But when have people ever valued freedom? They actually requested GOG to add some kind of launcher for cheevos and playtime tracking, and so now we have Galaxy. GOG might've created it anyway, but it's clearly what the majority wants.

I generally don't play games that are still receiving updates regularly. That may be the only rational reason to use a launcher, if it can keep the fresh releases up to date without constant reinstalls. If.

 

[gabel]

You will own nothing.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

I generally don't play games that are still receiving updates regularly.

same. still waiting for the chance to play troubleshooter.