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SteamOS

store.steampowered.com

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Re: SteamOS

#491

Post by mortdeus »

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 wrote a response to your comment but it became rather long so I decided to make it into a blog post instead.

http://mortdeus.blogspot.com/2013/09/linux-core-component-po...

Re: SteamOS

#492

Post by asdasf »

clarry wrote: post #279
asdasf wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Latency is a measure of the time it takes for a packet to travel to its destination. No part of ethernet networks cares what the payload in those packets are. You don't magically get more latency because the data in them can be interpreted as frames of video.

You can look up latency and it has a more general meaning. We're talking about a time delay. In this context we're not concerned about the time it takes to tranfer a single TCP packet, we're concerned about the time it takes to transfer a complete frame of video (under the assumption that a complete frame is required before the receiving end can display it). So bandwidth plays a role, and if you're sending larger fra…

>So bandwidth plays a role

Of course it does, but we're not talking 10Mb/s networks here. People stream 1080p content all the time, gigE can handle that no problem. The only latency concern would be the encoding step, not transferring the data.

Re: SteamOS

#493

Post by asdasf »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #388
asdasf wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they haven't. They have released bits and pieces under NDA, but never actual complete docs. That's the problem. Maybe you should have listened a little closer to the "flak" to see if it was actually legitimate problems.

ATI has released (almost) complete specifications at this point, NVIDIA has released nothing. http://renderingpipeline.com/graphics-literature/low-level-g...

All you get is register dumps. Compare the ati and intel info on that site. Intel has released full docs. Ati has done as little as possible to be able to say "we released stuff" for publicity purposes.

Re: SteamOS

#494

Post by asdasf »

simias wrote: post #358
pachydermic wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think that the people at Valve would be able to find a solution if anyone could... or are you claiming that this is a hard nut to crack and SteamOS's streaming solution won't end up being that great for high-resolution TVs?

Oh I'm sure if they put their minds to it they can make some improvements and clever optimizations. The thing it becomes exponentially more difficult the lowest the latency you want to achieve, obviously. Also, you have to remember that steam won't control the encoding end of the pipeline (and if the "steambox" is third party hardware with steamOS installed, no control at all on the hardware). Which means that in the…

Why are people acting like this is impossible even after it has been done? Remember onlive? Notice how the latency was entirely the same as your network latency to their servers, and there was no problem with encoding adding any (noticable) additional latency?

Re: SteamOS

#495

Post by asdasf »

simias wrote: post #351
rocky1138 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about scrapping the conversion to streaming video entirely and replacing it with a networked graphics protocol that allows one PC to draw on another's graphics natively?

Well that would simplify things greatly of course, but then it means bit hit on the bandwidth. I mean, a 720p60Hz stream in 4:2:0 (12 bits per pixel) still amounts to 663Mbits/s. You won't get that out of a gigabit link realistically (at least not over IP). Of course you could use a lightweight compression algorithm, but you'll have to divide this bandwidth by at least 5 to make it manageable for the average home net…

>You won't get that out of a gigabit link realistically (at least not over IP)

I just got more than that using scp with no compression. Yes, you absolutely can get that realistically from gigE.

Re: SteamOS

#496

Post by galaktor »

pippy wrote: post #331

The first circle is SteamOS, the second will likely to be the Steambox: http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/ There's also a third circle there...

I'm surprised yours is the only comment I saw pointing out the incremental approach to this "living room" goal Valve has been using.

The steam box will obviously require some OS to run, and it seems perfectly reasonable to ship the OS, get feedback for it and it's features (i.e. streaming), and have it production-tested once the inevitable steam box is ready. Why take the risk of shipping all-new-everything when you can do it in smaller steps?

Re: SteamOS

#497

Post by GalacticDomin8r »

quiesce wrote: post #482
toblender wrote: post #179

I wonder if history will repeat itself, will Valve be the next Apple? Apple took FreeBSD and makes it into OSX. > Valve takes Linux and makes it into SteamOS. Apple makes iTunes for music, unifying digital music download > Valve makes Steam for games, unifying digital game download Apple make IPOD for digital music playing > Valve make (SteamBox?) for game playing Damn I wish I could own some Valve stock...

> Apple took FreeBSD and makes it into OSX. No, they took NeXTSTEP and made it into OS X. However much they may now have in common, the history of the codebase goes back years prior to the existence of FreeBSD.

Let's try again with facts:

http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-advocacy/2008-Aug...

Re: SteamOS

#498

Post by Flenser »

rkalla wrote: post #371
geuis wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market is already there. Steam already has more users that both Xbox and Playstation combined.

Assuming you meant Xbox 360 and PS3, I think your stats are off: * Steam - ~60 million [1] * Xbox 360 - ~80 million [2] * PS3 - ~80 million [3] If you literally meant the Xbox and PS2 from 11 years ago, then yes, you are probably correct :) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_(software) [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_consoles#Microsoft [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selli…

That's an unfair comparison. It should be with XBox Live [1] and PlayStation Network [2]

    * Steam - ~60 million users
    * XBox Live - 46 million users as of February 2013
    * PlayStation Network - +100 million
although PSN includes PlayStation Portable and PlayStation Vita handhelds so the number of PS3 users is probably similar to XBox given the number of consoles sold.

Also, the Steam page you referenced says: "Steam has an estimated 50–70% share of the digital distribution market for downloadable PC video games"

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_Live [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Network

Re: SteamOS

#499

Post by visualphoenix »

andoriyu wrote: post #409
visualphoenix wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both PS4 and Xbox One are now on the X86 architecture. They also share the same GPU (with minor differences). PS4 runs a BSD derived OS with a Sony-specific graphics library called RSX (very similar to OpenGL, but much lower level). Xbox 360 and PS3 games threw away the fixed function graphics pipeline. Everything was done with shaders. With Linux graphics drivers nearing OpenGL3 compliance, it is much more feasible…

Isn't RSX (Reality Simulator) was just a name for nvidia graphic chipset in PS3? Oh wait, it is. PS3 used libGCM and PSGL, which is pretty much OpenGL ES 1.1 + Nvidia Cg. Don't forget the fact that OpenGL ES isn't OpenGL. XBox never used DirectX neither, because why would you need such abstraction if all of your target market has the exact same hardware inside? (I'm omitting fact that guy above compared Direct X and…

I certainly did confuse the RSX (ps3 GPU) with libGCM (the ps3 GPU library). I haven't forgotten that OpenGL ES isn't OpenGL - it's OpenGL minus all of the garbage.

It's also true that Xbox 360 did not use DirectX. But they DID have an abstraction in the form of the XDK (Xbox 360 SDK).

Comparing OpenGL and DirectX is not retarded - they are both competing graphics libraries that are slowly converging on the same feature set.

Re: SteamOS

#500

Post by visualphoenix »

kibibu wrote: post #455
visualphoenix wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both PS4 and Xbox One are now on the X86 architecture. They also share the same GPU (with minor differences). PS4 runs a BSD derived OS with a Sony-specific graphics library called RSX (very similar to OpenGL, but much lower level). Xbox 360 and PS3 games threw away the fixed function graphics pipeline. Everything was done with shaders. With Linux graphics drivers nearing OpenGL3 compliance, it is much more feasible…

Just FYI the PS4 low-level library is called GNM, and their higher-level wrapper is GNMX. (source: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-how-the-cre... )

I was wrong re: ps4's library name. Thanks for the article. I left the games industry just before the transition to the new consoles.
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