The Valve and Steam Platform Discussion Thread

[Multi-headed Cow]

The performance gain will have to be pretty damn good to bother dual-booting.

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/faster-zombies/

 

[Bruticis]

The performance gain will have to be pretty damn good to bother dual-booting.

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/faster-zombies/

That has to be the stupidest example I've ever seen benchmarked. A tablet PC could run L4Derp15 at 100 fps.

 

[DalekFlay]

That has to be the stupidest example I've ever seen benchmarked. A tablet PC could run L4Derp15 at 100 fps.

270fps is acceptable, but I really need a flat 300fps for the game to feel smooth.

 

[nihil]

I hope they're serious about the input lag. That other Linux based console is really bad in that regard, I've heard. Maybe Android makes it even worse, though.

Related: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/2547

Android runs almost everything through a Java interpreter. This makes it much slower than it could be, but easy to program for.

This is about input latency, though, not execution time. I know the Android phones I've tried have a bit of lag, but I don't know how much is Android and how much is the Linux kernel.

Anyway, the link I provided is about Steam on Linux, not Android. I never played games on Linux myself so I don't know how bad the input lag is, but if I'm to get a new dedicated gaming OS, it better be low.

 

[Dexter]

http://arstechnica.com/information-...ith-linux-pledges-help-on-open-source-driver/

 

[Metro]

Who can soothe the feud between Nvidia and the Linux community?!?!?! Who else but...

ITZ CUMMMING! Repent now!

 

[Cowboy Moment]

The performance gain will have to be pretty damn good to bother dual-booting.

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/faster-zombies/

That has to be the stupidest example I've ever seen benchmarked. A tablet PC could run L4Derp15 at 100 fps.

Yeah, I mean, if it were CDS darling BF3 running at 60 instead of 52 fps, that would be way more impressive than some old zombie game.

 

[tuluse]

This is about input latency, though, not execution time. I know the Android phones I've tried have a bit of lag, but I don't know how much is Android and how much is the Linux kernel.

Anyway, the link I provided is about Steam on Linux, not Android. I never played games on Linux myself so I don't know how bad the input lag is, but if I'm to get a new dedicated gaming OS, it better be low.

The GUI runs through the Java interpreter. That's where the lag comes from.

Fuck, the Linux kernel having built in input lag is ludicrous. This is the system that 80% of the world's servers run on. You think everyone is fine if 50ms of lag gets added on to each sql query?

 

[Cowboy Moment]

This is about input latency, though, not execution time. I know the Android phones I've tried have a bit of lag, but I don't know how much is Android and how much is the Linux kernel.

Anyway, the link I provided is about Steam on Linux, not Android. I never played games on Linux myself so I don't know how bad the input lag is, but if I'm to get a new dedicated gaming OS, it better be low.

The GUI runs through the Java interpreter. That's where the lag comes from.

Fuck, the Linux kernel having built in input lag is ludicrous. This is the system that 80% of the world's servers run on. You think everyone is fine if 50ms of lag gets added on to each sql query?

There is some truth to this, in the sense that you can have perceived input lag if highly interactive applications (the desktop environment and other shit you're actually using) don't get cpu time with a low enough latency when a user does something. On average, the kernel can have no input lag, but simply not care to give a high enough priority to interactive tasks specifically.

That said, this is a complaint from like 2005, before good multicore cpus and the new cpu scheduler. I personally use Linux for work, have a ton of shit constantly running in the background, and never see sound breaking up or any input lag. In fact, yesterday, this discussion inspired me to test this; so I spawned 32 processes running a distributed cpu-intensive task - cpu use shot to 100% instantly - then fired off a youtube channel with some music videos, and started playing the linux version of Mark of the Ninja. Needless to say, everything worked just fine.

 

[Dexter]

They're not really talking about "I played a YouTube channel and some music and could still play a game for which input lag doesn't really matter all that much" kind of latency though:
http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/latency-the-sine-qua-non-of-ar-and-vr/
http://www.altdevblogaday.com/2013/02/22/latency-mitigation-strategies/

 

[abija]

Fuck, the Linux kernel having built in input lag is ludicrous. This is the system that 80% of the world's servers run on. You think everyone is fine if 50ms of lag gets added on to each sql query?

You think when your server is bombarded with requests is a good idea to waste CPU time to get low latency instead of making sure the active tasks finish faster? There's a very good reason they are usually conservative with that setting.

 

[tuluse]

You think when your server is bombarded with requests is a good idea to waste CPU time to get low latency instead of making sure the active tasks finish faster? There's a very good reason they are usually conservative with that setting.

The point is that there is no inherent latency in the Linux Kernel. User added latency is another thing entirely.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

This is pretty disgusting, this is just another Trojan Horse for Valve, while they look like they're doing something for the little guys.

Of course, all of these functions will only work in tandem with your DRM-free Steam account where Valve can block you out of all of your game library on a whim. This is pretty much like Android, which is just a way for Google to push their services relying on a Google account so they can make money. Hence this "free" SteamOS is just a Trojan Horse, lulling you into a false sense of security to make you even more captive of their walled garden.

They don't care about helping people be more free from Microsoft or encouraging gaming on Linux, they want their own platform where they can have control. Steamworks is about the same thing.

 

[Morgoth]

Enjoying your fucking Wii U?

 

[Dexter]

SteamBox Announcement in... http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamMachines/

This year we’re shipping just 300 of these boxes to Steam users, free of charge, for testing. You can make yourself eligible to get one. How? Read on!

The fuck is this shit? xD

 

[Toffeli]

Steam Machine coming, choo choo!

 

[Humanity has risen!]

Enjoying your fucking Wii U?

At least on a console you can keep your games locally, don't have to ever log online, and they are yours forever.

 

[Name]

What games will be available during the beta?
The nearly 3,000 games on Steam. Hundreds already running natively on the SteamOS, with more to come. The rest will work seamlessly via in-home streaming.

Hundreds=185?

Wait, nealy 3,000 = 2178?

 

[Cowboy Moment]

They're not really talking about "I played a YouTube channel and some music and could still play a game for which input lag doesn't really matter all that much" kind of latency though:
http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/latency-the-sine-qua-non-of-ar-and-vr/
http://www.altdevblogaday.com/2013/02/22/latency-mitigation-strategies/

Err, in an OS latency based on cpu scheduling is the only one that makes a difference. The point is that if I can get up to 100% cpu load and still easily do this stuff then the scheduler works fine and input lag problems are probably not caused by the kernel itself.

FYI, I also played Super Metroid on the linux version of zsnes recently and didn't notice any difference compared to the Windows version either. Or does input lag not matter there either?

 

[tuluse]

What games will be available during the beta?
The nearly 3,000 games on Steam. Hundreds already running natively on the SteamOS, with more to come. The rest will work seamlessly via in-home streaming.

Hundreds=185?

Wait, nealy 3,000 = 2178?

The store page lists 305 games for Linux right now, http://store.steampowered.com/browse/linux/.

Now that is probably a little inflated with things like demos counting, but still a good start.

 

[Name]

What games will be available during the beta?
The nearly 3,000 games on Steam. Hundreds already running natively on the SteamOS, with more to come. The rest will work seamlessly via in-home streaming.

Hundreds=185?

Wait, nealy 3,000 = 2178?

The store page lists 305 games for Linux right now, http://store.steampowered.com/browse/linux/.

Now that is probably a little inflated with things like demos counting, but still a good start.

Just click that link. The link that titled 305 games.

 

[Caim]

Worth the weight.

 

[Edifice]

This is pretty disgusting, this is just another Trojan Horse for Valve, while they look like they're doing something for the little guys.

Of course, all of these functions will only work in tandem with your DRM-free Steam account where Valve can block you out of all of your game library on a whim. This is pretty much like Android, which is just a way for Google to push their services relying on a Google account so they can make money. Hence this "free" SteamOS is just a Trojan Horse, lulling you into a false sense of security to make you even more captive of their walled garden.

They don't care about helping people be more free from Microsoft or encouraging gaming on Linux, they want their own platform where they can have control. Steamworks is about the same thing.

Hooray for even more PC games being dumbed down for gamepads.

 

[tuluse]

Just click that link. The link that titled 305 games.

I have no idea what you're saying, but here's what I see.

 

[Dexter]

This is pretty disgusting, this is just another Trojan Horse for Valve, while they look like they're doing something for the little guys.

Of course, all of these functions will only work in tandem with your DRM-free Steam account where Valve can block you out of all of your game library on a whim. This is pretty much like Android, which is just a way for Google to push their services relying on a Google account so they can make money. Hence this "free" SteamOS is just a Trojan Horse, lulling you into a false sense of security to make you even more captive of their walled garden.

They don't care about helping people be more free from Microsoft or encouraging gaming on Linux, they want their own platform where they can have control. Steamworks is about the same thing.

It doesn't matter, it could turn out that GabeN is literally Hitler and moving to Linux would still benefit everyone, Linux and OpenGL are Open while Windows and DirectX are not thus Microsoft holds everyone by the balls.

I expected more though to be honest, 300 "SteamBox Beta" seems kind of non-commital so far and all the "We will announce more later" is kind of annoying.
I really hope the third Announcement has to do with software and isn't just their Controller: http://gamerant.com/valve-console-controller-hold-137072/