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Official Steam client for Ubuntu released

apps.ubuntu.com

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Re: Official Steam client for Ubuntu released

#31

Post by kunai »

noahl wrote: post #24

I think most people are excited about Steam on Linux because of gaming, but I've actually been excited because of better driver support. If this makes Nvidia put more effort into their Linux drivers and tools, it will make life a lot better for CUDA programming too. (I haven't tried OpenCL or AMD GPGPU stuff yet.)

Agreed, but it's doubtful that nVidia will support the Quadro (which is pretty much the best workstation chip around, and also what I use) just because of Steam. If anybody wants to render very complex gradients and shading using a regular GeForce, it's not going to be nearly as good as with a workstation-optimized chip. Many CAD apps are much slower on an nVidia gaming chip than they are on a workstation card.

So, at least for me, I'm still probably going to get left in the dark if I buy a new chip because support for the Quadros are egregious.

Re: Official Steam client for Ubuntu released

#32

Post by okor »

It's a big step forward. The games are getting better but they really need a knockout game to push the linux platform forward, something like Borderlands. Something epic. Artsy/Indie games only go so far. Still, happy things are moving forward.

Re: Official Steam client for Ubuntu released

#33

Post by noahl »

kunai wrote: post #31
noahl wrote: post #24

I think most people are excited about Steam on Linux because of gaming, but I've actually been excited because of better driver support. If this makes Nvidia put more effort into their Linux drivers and tools, it will make life a lot better for CUDA programming too. (I haven't tried OpenCL or AMD GPGPU stuff yet.)

Agreed, but it's doubtful that nVidia will support the Quadro (which is pretty much the best workstation chip around, and also what I use) just because of Steam. If anybody wants to render very complex gradients and shading using a regular GeForce, it's not going to be nearly as good as with a workstation-optimized chip. Many CAD apps are much slower on an nVidia gaming chip than they are on a workstation card. So, a…

Interesting. Do you know why CAD programs are slower on gaming chips? I know the gaming cards sometimes have much worse double-precision performance than the GPGPU cards, but I must admit that I don't know what the difference is on any particular chip. It could also be a memory issue or something like that.

Re: Official Steam client for Ubuntu released

#34

Post by pmh »

noahl wrote: post #33
kunai wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, but it's doubtful that nVidia will support the Quadro (which is pretty much the best workstation chip around, and also what I use) just because of Steam. If anybody wants to render very complex gradients and shading using a regular GeForce, it's not going to be nearly as good as with a workstation-optimized chip. Many CAD apps are much slower on an nVidia gaming chip than they are on a workstation card. So, a…

Interesting. Do you know why CAD programs are slower on gaming chips? I know the gaming cards sometimes have much worse double-precision performance than the GPGPU cards, but I must admit that I don't know what the difference is on any particular chip. It could also be a memory issue or something like that.

From what I recall when I previously looked into this, it's almost exclusively driver optimizations that are present/enabled for workstation cards and not the gaming equivalents.

Re: Official Steam client for Ubuntu released

#35

Post by cube13 »

kunai wrote: post #31
noahl wrote: post #24

I think most people are excited about Steam on Linux because of gaming, but I've actually been excited because of better driver support. If this makes Nvidia put more effort into their Linux drivers and tools, it will make life a lot better for CUDA programming too. (I haven't tried OpenCL or AMD GPGPU stuff yet.)

Agreed, but it's doubtful that nVidia will support the Quadro (which is pretty much the best workstation chip around, and also what I use) just because of Steam. If anybody wants to render very complex gradients and shading using a regular GeForce, it's not going to be nearly as good as with a workstation-optimized chip. Many CAD apps are much slower on an nVidia gaming chip than they are on a workstation card. So, a…

The funny thing is that my experience with Quadro chips and gaming is that support is pretty much non-existant, even on Windows.

My work laptop has a Quadro GPU, and I did try Starcraft 2 on it. SC2 wouldn't actually recognize the chipset, so I was set on very low settings.

Re: Official Steam client for Ubuntu released

#37

Post by Raphael_Amiard »

noahl wrote: post #24

I think most people are excited about Steam on Linux because of gaming, but I've actually been excited because of better driver support. If this makes Nvidia put more effort into their Linux drivers and tools, it will make life a lot better for CUDA programming too. (I haven't tried OpenCL or AMD GPGPU stuff yet.)

> it will make life a lot better for CUDA programming too

Well having done quite a bit of CUDA programming under Windows and Linux, i'm interested in knowing what you find lacking on Linux ?

Performance wise i can report CUDA is just as fast on Linux as it is on windows.

Regarding tool support, i actually prefer to work under Linux, not because tools are better per se, but because your usual Unix tool chain does wonders with C++/CUDA. Under windows you have to struggle with Visual Studio just to get syntax highlighting.

There seems to be the profiler that is windows only. I never used it so i can't report on that.

EDIT : More generally, i've always found NVIDIA driver support for Linux to be very solid. Of course, it's closed source, but then so it is on Windows. I've never had a problem with an NVIDIA card on Linux, and i can't say that much about AMD/ATI.

Re: Official Steam client for Ubuntu released

#38

Post by jevinskie »

noahl wrote: post #33
kunai wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, but it's doubtful that nVidia will support the Quadro (which is pretty much the best workstation chip around, and also what I use) just because of Steam. If anybody wants to render very complex gradients and shading using a regular GeForce, it's not going to be nearly as good as with a workstation-optimized chip. Many CAD apps are much slower on an nVidia gaming chip than they are on a workstation card. So, a…

Interesting. Do you know why CAD programs are slower on gaming chips? I know the gaming cards sometimes have much worse double-precision performance than the GPGPU cards, but I must admit that I don't know what the difference is on any particular chip. It could also be a memory issue or something like that.

During the GeForce 2/3 era, the BIOS on the card would lock out Quadro/professional features using software. The hardware was identical. I am not sure if this is still the case.

Re: Official Steam client for Ubuntu released

#39

Post by renanbirck »

AdrianRossouw wrote: post #36

Also, from what I can tell, you should be able to unlock the indie bundle games in steam. even if you don't buy anything, it might be a good show of support.

Unfortunately, not all of the Humble Bundle games are available on Steam for Linux, even if they have Linux versions.

Re: Official Steam client for Ubuntu released

#40

Post by renanbirck »

Nux wrote: post #18
darxius wrote: post #14

I see this as a very big "win" for Linux. I can't wait to game tonight, thanks Steam.

This is a big win for Ubuntu+Nvidia; the other distros received a well placed "go fuck yourselves". This is like gaming on Macos being a win for BSDs. :-)

Working nicely (from cursory testing of non-graphics-demanding games, anyway) on Arch + Intel graphics.
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