Thank You, Valve • Hacker News Board

Re: Thank You, Valve

#311

Post by noirbot » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 4:38 PM UTC

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #109

noirbot wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone is implying they did it for any other reason. Only a bunch of people jumping on to a seemingly good thing a company did to be a killjoy about it. Yes, they're clearly doing this to help the Steam Deck and other projects. I'm sure that will make them money and I'm sure someone at the company will do something with that money that people object to. That's just the nature of living in anything beyon…

>Only a bunch of people jumping on to a seemingly good thing a company did to be a killjoy about it. That's 100% the reaction here every time Microsoft launches something benefiting devs and consumers. Everything is scrutinized with skepticism. Why should other billion dollar tech companies get a pass? Or why the double standards? How do you think Valve would be towards consumers if they were to become a monopoly in…

I'm not saying that Valve should be above complaint. I'm also annoyed when people show up in threads about WSL or VS Code or whatever else that Microsoft does just to be like "Stop liking this, Microsoft is evil". I'm just saying that "But they're a company so nothing they do can be good" is a generic response without anything interesting behind it. You can post it on every thread about every action done by every company and it will be true.

I'm not saying not to be paranoid, but unless the point is just "people can't enjoy things made by companies" maybe save the actual paranoia for cases where it's clear that the action is going to be a big downside. There's no call to action except "don't talk about this" or "why are you buying things from a corporation?"

So much of it just feels mean-spirited to me. That there's literally no possible thing any company could do that wouldn't be spun as "well this is just good PR to cover up X evil thing they're doing." And that's maybe true, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't encourage them to do good things and recognize them when they do them. It feels like a perverse joy in stomping on other people's happiness, even if it's justified.

It's like showing up at someone's birthday and reminding them they're a year closer to death and debilitating old age diseases. It's true, but what does anyone gain by doing that. Are people on this forum A. unaware of corporate malfeasance or B. able to be persuaded from their current position on its dangers? I'd say that's almost never the case here.

Re: Thank You, Valve

#312

Post by outworlder » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 4:39 PM UTC

Rooster61 wrote: post #28

I dig most of this article, and I do applaud the work Valve is doing for the Linux gaming ecosystem, but I draw a line at supporting kernel level anti-cheat drivers. That trend in gaming bothers me to no end, and I refuse to knowingly install a game that features one. The presence of 15 year old script kiddies using aimbots does NOT IN ANY WAY justify having kernel level control over my machine, Linux or otherwise. V…

> The presence of 15 year old script kiddies using aimbots does NOT IN ANY WAY justify having kernel level control over my machine, Linux or otherwise. Valve, and every other company that contributes to gaming in general, kindly stay the fuck out of our kernels.

I agree that we should take a stance and I don't like kernel-level drivers any more than you do.

Kernel-level drivers are required on Windows. However, we even know if this is also going to be required on Linux?

Re: Thank You, Valve

#313

Post by ribit » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 4:40 PM UTC

I vehemently disagree with sentiment expressed in the article. Sure, on the surface the work done Valve does significantly improve the state of Linux gaming. But this is not Linux gaming. This is Windows gaming under Linux. We need to think about the long-term effects, about maintaining a healthy ecosystem. I cannot imagine how delegating Linux and Vulkan to be a long-term emulator of DX12 and Win is supposed to be healthy. What about platform autonomy? Shouldn't we strive towards a future where Vulkan is a strong, independent API with its own voice and not just an interface for emulating DX12? And one where game developers actively want to support Linux as first class citizen and not just make Windows games and putting all the burden of compatibility on the maintainers of the emulation layer.

The worst outcome of this is that the market share and quality of Vulkan implementations will diminish. WebGPU is a strong upcoming API contender on the mobile side, which IMO has a good chance of displacing Vulkan for many applications. And if DXVK works that well on Linux, more developers might end up choosing DX12 and only supporting Windows. Giving up autonomy and becoming a subordinate of a different technology stack is never a good idea. I mean, if this is the way how the Linux community wants to play, then why not make it official and just scrap Vulkan and have a DX-compatible API in place with IHV drivers?

Re: Thank You, Valve

#314

Post by jasonwatkinspdx » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 4:41 PM UTC

0xedd wrote: post #152

sbarre wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this logic is that most multiplayer games have post-sale economies with cosmetics and other add-ons, and I would guess that most of those sales comes from casual players. So while anti-cheat helps protect the pro/serious players (who in some ways are community/marketing leaders in this world of Twitch and YouTube), it also creates a fair environment for all the casual and aspiring players who keep sp…

Your argument falls short. Pro cheating uses hardware to cheat. It streams the video output and keyboard/mouse input to an AI/ML. Making these kernel anti-cheat useless there. Casual players looking to spend money on cosmetics aren't affected by cheaters because the system influencing the players to buy isn't affected by the cheaters. The way most of these "influence systems" work is by using marketing strategies. It…

> Casual players looking to spend money on cosmetics aren't affected by cheaters because the system influencing the players to buy isn't affected by the cheaters.

This is a rather confused thing to say. Are there players out there that just grind cosmetics and don't care about win rate, game quality, or wasted time? Probably a handful.

But the overwhelming majority of players in a game are there to have fun and cheaters utterly destroy that. Cheaters, smurfs, etc, are a plague on online multiplayer gaming where one troll ruins everything for everyone else match.

At the end of the day it's just a game, and if the game disappears or whatever humanity will go on. So let's not lose perspective. But saying casual players aren't affected by cheaters is flat out wrong.

I worked in gaming as well, so I'm familiar with the issues you're referencing, but hyperbolic exaggerations don't help us address it.

Re: Thank You, Valve

#315

Post by ghostly_s » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 4:41 PM UTC

fareesh wrote: post #262

As a consumer, Valve comes across like Google. They build products and features and then they often sit untouched, sometimes for years. They are terrible at communicating to their playerbase and even their contracted talent. The DOTA2 community has had to deal with these aspects of Valve for years. CS:GO is now also essentially a forgotten project, and within the span of just a couple of months, the FPS crowd is movi…

Huh? According to Wikipedia, CS:GO is a game which came out in 2012, still receives regular updates and has an active competitive community.

Re: Thank You, Valve

#316

Post by outworlder » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 4:43 PM UTC

INTPenis wrote: post #20

Claiming will be the year of the Linux desktop has become a running joke among me and my friends. So I wouldn't make such bold claims. But other than that I am completely on board with what the author is saying. I come from the same background. Until just a couple years ago I had a Windows PC solely for gaming. Now I can't remember when I last booted Windows on it. Another weird side effect of this gaming revolution…

> I still need X11 to share my desktop on MS Teams (thanks Microsoft for that btw), and I still need it for most games.

Which GPU do you have? I can run most games on Wayland on AMD (including the likes of Cyberpunk).

I still boot up Windows sometimes due to the lack of HDR support.

Re: Thank You, Valve

#317

Post by drran » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 4:43 PM UTC

maccard wrote: post #100

oefrha wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? You can totally build an aimbot using nothing but image recognition.

And when we get to the point that those are available to anyone with $40 and a credit card they'll be handled. Until then they're a theoretical attack for all intents and purposes.

https://github.com/HarrisonKeeling/overwatch-aimbot

Re: Thank You, Valve

#318

Post by Thiez » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 4:45 PM UTC

FredFS456 wrote: post #79

Thiez wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly would an open source anti-cheat do its job effectively?

By using hardware attestation? Same mechanism used by secure boot and DRM could be used for anticheat.

How would hardware attest to the game server that the player cannot see through walls, and that their aim is not nudged (subtly or overtly) in the direction of enemy faces? Keeping in mind that the cheater has full control over the software running on their computer, so they can decide what to send to the server. Also the cheater doesn't need to alter the game itself, they could access the game memory and implement their aimbot by having a clever mouse-driver.

Re: Thank You, Valve

#319

Post by SkyPuncher » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 4:46 PM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #82

dagw wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I played competitive video games seriously I would absolutely want them to take cheating seriously and take any necessary measure to stop it. At the same time I think they should also make the most serious kernel/driver level anti-cheat software optional. If you don't to want to install it you can still play the game, just not on any of the 'pro' servers. Think of it a bit like doping tests in sports. As long as y…

The serious cheats in competitive games these days don't rely on hacking the game anymore. They use a separate computer connected taking your HDMI out as an input and then controls your mouse and keyboard inputs. They use ML models and OpenCV. You watch the second computer's monitor and it draws huge boxes around things you shoot and it assists your aim. It doesn't even have to be a PC game, you can do the same with…

> The serious cheats in competitive games these days don't rely on hacking the game anymore.

This may be true for a class of cheats, but it isn't broadly true. That means these category of cheats can only enhance what is already visible.

In FPS games, being able to see players position through walls is a super valuable cheat _and_ requires access to the underlying game engine (to extract player location).

Re: Thank You, Valve

#320

Post by R0flcopt3r » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 4:46 PM UTC

JamesMcMinn wrote: post #252

R0flcopt3r wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People still buy Nintendo and Sony consoles which also don't come with Xbox Game Pass, so I fail to see the argument here..

I'm not arguing that people wont buy the console, I'm arguing that if they buy a console that has support for a different operating system, one which plays all of the same games and more, and also enables them to use services that they already pay for, then they're going to install that other operating system. A relatively small number of people are buying the steam deck to use Linux, most are buying it to play games…

I don't think the majority of steam deck users will bother installing windows on it. But it'll very much depend on the state of SteamOS 3.0 and proton.

In any way, it's a good think that you can install Windows on it. Finally being able to buy fancy bespoke hardware that isn't dependent on some cloudshit makes me happy.