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Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

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Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#61

Post by Melatonic »

doublerabbit wrote: post #56
zem wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had barely played games for years, and got a steam deck just because it seemed like a cool linux device I could use both for gaming and tinkering. it has definitely gotten me back into gaming in a big way, the experience really is very nice.

I just wish my hands wouldn't cramp on hand-held devices. I've never been able to use handhelds for longer than thirty minutes. Goes for console controllers too.

Maybe you need larger controllers ?

Also possible the touchpads are better for fatigue than joysticks

Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#62

Post by IshKebab »

ozarkerD wrote: post #30
ryandrake wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So many chipmakers and development board manufacturers see software/driver support as some kind of necessary evil--a chore that they grudgingly do because they have to, and they will do the absolute minimum amount of work, with barely enough quality to sell their hardware.

It bewilders me. Software's gotta be easier than hardware right? Not that either is easy but as a software engineer, the engineering that goes into modern hardware mystifies me.

I've done both. There are difficulties with both but overall I would say software is significantly more difficult than hardware.

Most hardware is actually relatively simple (though hardware engineers do their best to turn it into an incomprehensible mess). Software can get pretty much arbitrarily complex.

In a way I suspect it's because hardware engineers are mostly old fogies stuck in the 80s using 80s technologies like Verilog. They haven't evolved the tools that software developers have that enable them to write extremely complicated programs.

I have hope for Veryl though.

Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#63

Post by zozbot234 »

jsheard wrote: post #53
sbarre wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, I had not connected those (hypothetical) dots, but I could see it.. Or maybe there's 2 next-gen Steam Decks, an ultra-portable ARM-based one that's as small as can be, and a more performant x86 one with AMD's next-gen APU...

Yeah, there's a real gap in the market for a relatively compact handheld which can play low-spec PC games. The AMD-based handheld PCs available today are all pretty chunky.

There's plenty of "relatively compact" ARM-based handhelds targeting the retro market already, but many of them are shipping with a pitiful amount of RAM (1GB or so) making them an absolute non-starter, while others (selling for significantly higher prices) run crappy Android-based OS's that will never be updated. There is a gap in the market for a good-quality retro-like handheld shipping with a Linux-native OS (or even just enabling one to be installed trivially after-the-fact, with everything working and no reliance on downstream hacked-together support packages).

Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#64

Post by FiddlerClamp »

uejfiweun wrote: post #45

The Steam Frame shows a lot of promise in terms of letting people play games on a massive virtual screen. But with the hardware, even more is possible. I hope they are working on a compatibility layer that allows 2D games to be rendered in 3D, like the 3D TV of the 2010s. In my opinion that would be a killer app.

VITURE's Immersive 3D already offers this for several platforms (for VITURE glasses).

Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#65

Post by charcircuit »

Zambyte wrote: post #47
charcircuit wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has contributed more to open source than Valve while being a public company. It's not just Valve who sponsor open source work.

But what percentage of what Google has produced has been Free Software vs what percentage of what Valve has produced? Google may have produced more Free Software, but Google also produces way more things.

I don't think this very practical or relevant here, but I expect Google to have a higher percentage. Valve employees are focused on Valve's proprietary software: Steam, SteamVR, their games, etc. Valve more often pays contractorsto work on open source software than work on it themselves.

My comment was more to prove that it possible to do open source while having share holders. My claim that Google does more is auxiliary to it.

Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#66

Post by _cenw »

The Winlator-releated ecosystem already works pretty well, there just isn't a good frontend or integration for it yet. That's what is really exciting here.

Gamehub is a proprietary app by a Chinese controller manufacturer with some suspicious behavior and several LGPL violations that unfortunately works much better then the alternatives. Funnily enough their CDN endpoint is called "bigeyes", which when researching a bit was apparently their (failed) effort to bring x86 VR to ARM almost 10 years ago. Some people have "debloated" the app, but it seems very amateur hour to me and the process isn't very transparent (the GitHub repo is just a readme)

There's also GameNative, which seems promising, but is very buggy.

And Winlator itself, which is a mess of tons of tunables and different forks that I really don't have the patience for when PC handhelds exist today and have a much better ecosystem.

Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#67

Post by 8676456497096 »

righthand wrote: post #44
TingPing wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you mean the CAD files for the shell? I'm not sure that is the most important part but it would be nice.

Sorry my point is that the Steam Deck is the only product of theirs that really supports beneficial open source in software and hardware. If you don’t think fossing the case is enough then you’re making my point for me that buying the machine, frame, or controller doesn’t do anything for foss. It’d be like donating to Mozilla and expecting the money to go to Firefox development.

Valve paying for the development of KDE, Wine and adjacent projects is beneficial for FOSS.

Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#68

Post by bityard »

huseyinkeles wrote: post #7
stavros wrote: post #4

I don't play games almost ever, but I'm going to buy all the products Valve releases soon, just to support their OSS efforts. They seem to be the only vendor that's opening stuff up, rather than locking it down.

That’s what happens when you don’t need to please the shareholders.

If you think publicly-held companies are bad, wait until you see what private equity gets up to.

Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#69

Post by Dylan16807 »

_aavaa_ wrote: post #29
charcircuit wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has contributed more to open source than Valve while being a public company. It's not just Valve who sponsor open source work.

They seem to be skimping out on their contributions to FFmpeg.

They aren't. Sometimes headlines are misleading.

Re: Helping Valve to power up Steam devices

#70

Post by jayd16 »

rpmisms wrote: post #43

It's incredibly obvious that they're trying to make Steam Deck 2 ARM-based. That's the generational change Valve is waiting for. This is gonna be fantastic.

I wouldn't go that far but they are clearly poised for that, should it be adventageous.

The Frame is essentially there already, with what should be the top mobile arm setup.

If an x86 chipset dropped that fit their needs better, I don't think Valve would hesitate. I think it's just a matter of Valve trying to enable the best options down the road, whatever they may be.

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