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Valve joins the Linux Foundation

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Re: Valve joins the Linux Foundation

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This coming from the guy who just told someone their problem is that they are running Linux Mint... Nice Ad Hominem [1] you threw out there. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

I don't see ad hominem. He explicitly stated that fragmentation would not be an issue for gaming on Linux, and then in response to someone saying that Steam didn't work, he said "Well, that's because you're running Linux Mint". That sounds to me like a fragmentation problem. I'm not attacking him personally, I'm pointing out that he literally just used fragmentation as an excuse for why something didn't work while at…

Yes, and if you'd read anywhere else in the thread, You'd find that the Linux Mint issue does not happen because there's a package in the LM16 repositories for steam. Which means that the entire issue of LM not running steam is moot. Which means there is no fragmentation issue in Linux as related to steam.

Which means we're left with your Ad Hominem, which you don't see.

Re: Valve joins the Linux Foundation

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gaming on OSX doesn't work as well as on a PC because you can't put OSX on custom hardware. ...What? That's a complete non sequitur. There are high-end and low-end Macs, just as with anything else, and high-end Macs play games just as well as high-end Windows boxes. And of course you can put OSX on custom hardware, it's just not a popular option. > You sound like an iOS developer. It's not like every Windows PC has…

> high-end Macs play games just as well as high-end Windows boxes Are you joking? Because even $2000 iMacs come with mobile GPUs. Not to mention CPUs that cannot be overclocked etc. That's comparable to a high-end gaming laptop , not a PC.

Have you been paying attention to Intel's graphics improvements? At the rate they're going, we'll have the power of (current gen) desktop graphics in just a few iterations. I think you could even make the claim that the current Iris graphics are as powerful as current-gen consoles, though you wouldn't know it from all the crappy ports and the lack of a low-level graphics API.

(Also, people still overclock their CPUs?)

Re: Valve joins the Linux Foundation

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, their motives aren't sinister , which is all you can really want or hope for. In a capitalistic market, vanishingly few players will switch to Linux out of altruism. Which is perfectly fine, in my opinion. Everything is more predictable when each player acts in their own best interests. Then it's just a matter of understanding their incentives.

Yet, players could have some amount of foresight, and not wait untill MS actualy pushes a knife into their hearth (lucky Valve this one was dull) before trying to defend themselves.

Foresight is always easy in retrospect. MS was a partner, not a treat, until the Windows Store.

Re: Valve joins the Linux Foundation

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This coming from the guy who just told someone their problem is that they are running Linux Mint... Nice Ad Hominem [1] you threw out there. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

I don't see ad hominem. He explicitly stated that fragmentation would not be an issue for gaming on Linux, and then in response to someone saying that Steam didn't work, he said "Well, that's because you're running Linux Mint". That sounds to me like a fragmentation problem. I'm not attacking him personally, I'm pointing out that he literally just used fragmentation as an excuse for why something didn't work while at…

Fragmentation won't be an issue because, in all honesty, if people want Steam to work, they'll use either Steam OS or the recommended Linux distro - Ubuntu.

Re: Valve joins the Linux Foundation

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Keep in mind that most people who play games (and I'm not talking about Angry Birds or Facebook games but people who use Steam) tend to build their own PCs. Do you have a source for this?

Visit gaming forums, Steam discussion boards, Reddit etc.

To be fair you're not describing "people who play games", you're describing gaming enthusiasts.

Re: Valve joins the Linux Foundation

#206
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For OSX, the potential userbase is always whoever has the money to buy extremely pricey Apple hardware, at least if you want to game on it, since getting a competent gpu almost always requires the rest of the components be really pricey. But the kind of gaming that Linux lacks is the kind that need pricey components. I can play Organ Trail or World of Goo on Linux right now. If I want to play COD, I'm going to need…

I think you're over-estimating how much money it takes to get a relatively good gaming computer. You could probably build an entry-level gaming machine for around 700 to 800 dollars. Add in a keyboard, mouse, and a nice monitor and you'll probably end up closer to 1,000 USD. That's still 200 to 300 dollars cheaper than a Macbook Pro or an iMac, and 100 dollars cheaper than building the equivalent system running Windo…

>That would be equivalent to, say, buying a desktop from Dell (300~500 USD) and an XBox One (500 USD),

As a reference, the fastest home consoles now(XBO and PS4) are based on an AMD Jaguar core (AMD's version of the Atom), with 8GB of Ram. You can build a (Faster) AMD A10-based machine with the same specs for less than $400 in Canada.

Re: Valve joins the Linux Foundation

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you joking? Because even $2000 iMacs come with mobile GPUs. Not to mention CPUs that cannot be overclocked etc. That's comparable to a high-end gaming laptop, not a PC. And what's wrong with high-end gaming laptops? My $1000 MacBook Pro has played everything I've thrown at it acceptably well, and it's not even particularly high-end. It's no longer the mid-90s, when you needed a new $2000 rig every year to keep…

There's nothing wrong with gaming laptops, it's just that both their performance and the experience they provide pales in comparison to a PC. (A PC that costs less, mind you.) I mean, you cannot realistically say that you can have an immersive experience on a 15 inch, 1600x900 monitor when it comes to graphically intensive games. Also, with CPU bound games like Arma overclocking can result in a difference of 15-20 fp…

I can't seem to load up the steam hw surveys for the various different video cards, but it would be interesting to see how many users are running at or below the latest MBP specs.

Re: Valve joins the Linux Foundation

#208
I must say, I'm surprised by how many naysayers there are, considering Gabe thinks Linux is the future of gaming. There really is no technical reason why this can't happen, we just need to make it happen...

Re: Valve joins the Linux Foundation

#209
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be contradicting yourself. Gaming doesn't work on OS X because it has too small a user base, but Linux's user base is much smaller. Playing on a Macbook is impossible (presumably for performance reasons?), but you talk about putting Linux on a 2002 PC for gaming. And Linux may or may not run on the latest generation hot stuff, depending on how much time you want to spend to get your newest graphics card w…

> Gaming doesn't work on OS X because it has too small a user base, but Linux's user base is much smaller. There's an estimated 20 million Ubuntu users worldwide, probably another 10 million or so of other Linux distros. Not to mention, Linux (and thus Steam OS) is easily installed. Adoption isn't a problem. Gaming on OSX doesn't work as well as on a PC because you can't put OSX on custom hardware. > As an aside, Lin…

> Gaming on OSX doesn't work as well as on a PC because you can't put OSX on custom hardware.

I'm sure most of those 20 million Ubuntu boxes have top-of-the-line CPUs and blazing fast GPUs, right? Fact of the matter is, the vast majority those machines won't be able to run anything other than 2D games.

Also, before we start condemning OSX as a platform with no games, need I mention Borderlands 2? Metro: Last Light? All of Valve's titles? Civilization? Bioshock Infinite? Batman: Arkham City? XCOM: Enemy Unknown? I mean, come on. At least do some research.

> You sound like an iOS developer.

Don't do that.

Re: Valve joins the Linux Foundation

#210
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And Linux may or may not run on the latest generation hot stuff, This is quite wrong. Most of PC gaming occurs on the desktop, and desktop hardware Linux compatibility is excellent. You see more issues on laptops, true, but again that's not where the main gaming crowd is on PC.

I would not go so far as to say that 3D hardware support in linux is "excellent". Probably as good as on Mac, true, but far from excellent. Basically if you want high end graphics on Linux you need to use an Nvidia card and their closed drivers. This closes of a section of the linux community right away. Intel and AMD have open source drivers but AMDs are terrible (no power management, buggy) and Intel still does not…

See, this right here is a perfect example of "Moving the Goalposts" [1]. We first redefine "excellent" to mean "without flaw", then state that using non-open drivers, which are freely available, no longer makes linux driver support excellent because it closes a section of the linux community. This also comes dangerously close to being a "No True Scotsman" fallacy as well [2].

What's even more interesting is that in a different post, you said that AMD's open drivers were better than their closed ones, citing power management and less bugs as one of the benefits. Here you are doing a complete 180.

Go to Phoronix.com and show me the benchmarks where Nvidia's windows drivers consistently outperform the Linux ones.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_scotsman

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