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SteamOS

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Re: SteamOS

#201

Post by mikevm »

theschwa wrote: post #13

"In SteamOS, we have achieved significant performance increases in graphics processing, and we’re now targeting audio performance and reductions in input latency at the operating system level." I'm really interested to see the trickle down effect that this will have on other Linux flavors. Having a push for standardization from a big name company like Valve should provide a better Linux experience for everyone.

What performance increases in graphics processing are they talking about?

I'm with you thought, I do hope all of their work will be landed in mainline kernel so everyone could enjoy the benefits, and we could play games (through Steam or other methods) on most Linux distros, without much hassle.

Re: SteamOS

#202

Post by dragonwriter »

topbanana wrote: post #120

Most Steam games require keyboard and mouse. I don't see how that can work in the living room

> Most Steam games require keyboard and mouse. I don't see how that can work in the living room

If the issue is "how do you get control devices that work for that use case", wireless keyboards and mice with suitable range for living room use exist (I've seen them mostly used in large conference rooms, but the requirements aren't very different.)

If the issue is "how do you use control devices in that environment since they call for surfaces", lapdesks, coffee tables, etc., are frequently found in living rooms. If people want to play their existing keyboard-and-mouse focussed Steam games in their living rooms, its not hard to see how they can.

But I think that -- as with other consoles -- the games that are playable with more traditional "gaming controllers" will be more popular for the livingroom role than keyboard-and-mouse driven games. But plenty of PC games have, for years, been very similar to console games and support game controllers (even though they usually had KB/mouse support since that's what you could count on users having on the PC platform), so I don't think this is going to be much of an issue.

Re: SteamOS

#203

Post by wonderzombie »

bsimpson wrote: post #132
makmanalp wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interesting thing is that convincing AAA publishers to port merely requires them to think it'd be profitable. 20 years ago, if someone asked to raise a quarter of a billion into a video game, they'd be laughed out of the building. Now it happens often. Over the years, increasingly big-budget games got funded and created. So, all they need to do is to replicate a similar process. First you move all the indie games…

I believe Humble Bundle has a partnership with a consultancy that will take care of porting a game to other platforms to enable their Mac/Linux/Windows value proposition. Valve could probably do something similar (though I imagine it's a lot more work to port a AAA game than an indie platformer).

If you're using an off-the-shelf engine (Unreal engine, say), it's probably somewhat easier, as some of the work would be one-off, at least in theory. But I don't honestly know how that breaks down.

Re: SteamOS

#204

Post by mikevm »

saraid216 wrote: post #33
xSwag wrote: post #10

Oh my god. This provides a genuine chance for year of the linux desktop in 2014, for gamers at least.

Gaming is one of the last legitimate refuges of Windows dominance. There are a lot of us who wouldn't care about (read: would be willing to switch) their OS if not for PC gaming.

Also MS Office, Adobe Photoshop and a bunch of other Windows-only or Mac-only tools.

Re: SteamOS

#205

Post by moistgorilla »

xentronium wrote: post #58
Robadob wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A large part of it may be covered by this functionality; "You can play all your Windows and Mac games on your SteamOS machine, too. Just turn on your existing computer and run Steam as you always have - then your SteamOS machine can stream those games over your home network straight to your TV!"

It's a dual-edged sword, as being able to stream windows titles doesn't give much incentive for game devs to fully support linux, does it?

Valve has a lot of power. They can offer discounts and say that instead of taking 30% of every game purchased through steam we will only take 20% if it supports steam os. I'm sure developers would consider it when they can be making 10% more from every sale.

Re: SteamOS

#206

Post by asdasf »

cwoods wrote: post #191
asdasf wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't make any sense. If you can handle ~20ms of latency from your TV itself, how is <1ms of latency from a local ethernet connection a problem?

I really doubt an ethernet connection can push a full HD video frame in 1ms. The <1ms is for ping, which uses a really small network packet. Pushing 1080p HD video is a totally different matter.

ping uses whatever size packet you tell it to:

    $ ping -s 1450 192.168.11.10
    PING 192.168.11.10 (192.168.11.10): 1450 data bytes
    1458 bytes from 192.168.11.10: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=0.646 ms
    1458 bytes from 192.168.11.10: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=0.478 ms
    1458 bytes from 192.168.11.10: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=0.469 ms

Re: SteamOS

#207

Post by stonemetal »

anentropic wrote: post #63
xSwag wrote: post #10

Oh my god. This provides a genuine chance for year of the linux desktop in 2014, for gamers at least.

Isn't this specifically not a desktop system?

Depends on what you mean. It is specifically designed to be a "living room" OS, like steam's big picture mode not a desktop system. So yeah not a traditional desktop experience.

Nothing in the release said steam only or no desktop, and they call out the ability to create content on the platform specifically Users can alter or replace any part of the software or hardware they want. Gamers are empowered to join in the creation of the games they love. Rather sounds like what they are doing is going to be open source and allow non games to run. Even if they don't ship with KDE or Gnome by default it should be possible to get something up and running.

Re: SteamOS

#208

Post by ZeroGravitas »

jayd16 wrote: post #69
rkalla wrote: post #26

This is effectively the software-only equivalent of a console launch. Is anyone else skeptical that they can motivate publishers to spend time/money porting their games to the Linux platform? Valve certainly has a better chance than most at pulling this off (and likely enough user/market data to make this seem like a valid investment) I am still super skeptical that these publishers are going to spend the time portin…

I suppose they could plug the hole a little including a dalvik vm and get android games running too. In theory they would be able to get a large amount of games working and kill the OUYA. I'm not sure that's in the best interest of the Steam store unless they plan to start selling android games.

Some of the Valve documents explicitly sell the porting to Linux/OpenGL process as a stepping stone to mobile. And given their talk of breaking pointless silos I can imagine a steam store on Android that can play any Steam game you've got the horsepower for.

Re: SteamOS

#209

Post by mikevm »

Given the current high-end game engines that seem to support all the popular platforms out of the box (Windows, Mac, consoles), how difficult is it really to ship a game with Linux support?

Re: SteamOS

#210

Post by wonderzombie »

aroman wrote: post #78
anentropic wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this specifically not a desktop system?

Yes but it's virtually the same core software stack as on the desktop. So the linux distros get a huge leg up in that arena.

Are you sure about that? Why wouldn't this be more similar to Android than, say, Linux Mint? Who says they're even using any of the typical userspace bits?

I would bet a money (albeit a small amount) that, to a first approximation, they're really only using the Linux kernel.

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