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Valve joins the Linux Foundation

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Re: Valve joins the Linux Foundation

#211

Post by Finster »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #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...

Agreed. After years of haranguing Nvidia, for example, it wasn't until Valve started pushing linux gaming that Nvidia FINALLY started clearing the air a bit on their atrocious driver support.

Valve has a lot of influence in PC gaming. Whether it's enough to raise linux as a preferred platform for PC gaming, only time will tell, but I hope it does.

Re: Valve joins the Linux Foundation

#212

Post by [deleted] »

adamors wrote: post #185
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #177

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…

[deleted]

Re: Valve joins the Linux Foundation

#213

Post by aclevernickname »

easy_rider wrote: post #40
FridayWithJohn wrote: post #2

The one thing that has forced me keep Windows on my PC is the fact that most games require it. Hearing that such a large player in the gaming industry wants to move to Linux is really fantastic news.

The only thing that bugs me is that driver support is lagging behind so bad on Linux. I remember when Linus said something about why you should buy ATI for linux gaming. Because they have open source drivers.. In the end I returned my ATI card. My older Turion x64/hd3650 something laptop is still struggling with whatever flavor Linux. Still a work in progresss to get my Samsung 40" full hd TV through HDMI detected as…

There have been rather fast Open drivers for the HD3650 for at least two years now. I'm curious as to what distribution you're using that would exhibit these sorts of problems in 2013.

Re: Valve joins the Linux Foundation

#214

Post by aclevernickname »

easy_rider wrote: post #62
codfrantic wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try again, I'm using my HP Minilaptop with AMD components on (X)ubuntu or Linux Mint, 32 inch samsung is detected better in Linux then it is in Windows. (automatically runs it Full HD compared to Windows' 1366x768 )

Cool, could you hint me which version(s) of (x)ubuntu and mint are working out for you? I couldn't get passed the Mint login screen after installation. Couldn't drop to tty either. System froze over :( I'm now on ubuntu 12.04 which seems better, but still.. HDMI/dual monitor is bugging me out.

Kubuntu 13.10 (or the latest Chakra if you don't like *buntu) should work, and solve your HDMI pain.

Re: Valve joins the Linux Foundation

#216

Post by aclevernickname »

Skoofoo wrote: post #125
kayoone wrote: post #7

While this is great, its a bit sad that Valve is mostly doing all of this now, because they fear losing their dominance on windows to the native Store in Win 8.x In the end its a win-win for everyone if it works out, just their motives are questionable.

Before Windows 8, Valve seemingly couldn't care less about Linux! It bothers me how Valve tries to make itself out to be Linux's best friend nowadays. They also talk about open source a lot despite them ever releasing only proprietary software.

Seemingly.

They've only been running all their servers on Linux PC's for upwards of 10 years now.

Re: Valve joins the Linux Foundation

#217

Post by keeperofdakeys »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #84
casca wrote: post #6

It will be interesting to see whether Valve can encourage the move to Linux gaming. Their biggest asset at this time is the distribution model of Steam, but that's not sufficient to get the big publishers to develop for OSX, never mind Linux. Edit: Valve's game list: http://www.valvesoftware.com/games/

You shouldn't think of OS X and Linux as two completely separate platforms in this regard, since they share a lot of relevant tech. I would imagine the work put in to making OS X ports translates well to Linux and vice versa and it's the combined sales that people will consider when deciding whether to port (or what base technologies to build on for brand new projects). As SteamOS takes off there's also the possibili…

While both may be Posix systems, the GUI, mouse and audio apis are much different - so there is still a lot of work you'd need to do. Since both use opengl though, you get rid of half the trouble by porting.

It's also important to remember that many game makers don't make their own engine, and so the engine must support OSX/linux (most classic linux ports have used the unreal engine, or source engine). Unity is quite good in this regard, you can hit a button to export your project to all three different platforms.

Re: Valve joins the Linux Foundation

#218

Post by unsignedint »

zurn wrote: post #132
coldtea wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not like every Windows PC has the same screen resolution and hardware, yet it's the biggest gaming platform... No, but it has excellent binary compatibility, long term game APIs, and stable 3D and audio driver APIs. Which is what matters for desktop gaming, and what Linux does not have. As for screen resolution and hardware capabilities, those matter on mobile (e.g iOS vs Android), and mostly for applications,…

Someone needs to dig up pre-ELF binaries for NetHack and XPilot and we can have a backwards compatiblity race, on latest versions of Ubuntu and Windows. Linux has a better chance now that Windows has dropped 16-bit support :)

Even Windows binaries WINE on 64-bit runs 16, 32, and 64-bit applications! :-)

Re: Valve joins the Linux Foundation

#219

Post by aclevernickname »

michaelgrafl wrote: post #23
cabbeer wrote: post #10

Right now the only thing keeping me from running linux full time is the Adobe Master Collection (PS AI LR ID AE...)

I use Linux mostly but log into OS X or Windows for those. I could probably run them in a virtual machine though. The one thing that keeps me from using Linux exclusively are pieces of software that I use to make music but are only available on Windows (e.g. Guitar Amp Plugins by LePou or various processors by Variety Of Sound). I don't see those coming to Linux anytime soon, sadly. If Reaper would come out in a nati…

I suspect you would get great enjoyment out of KXStudio [1]. built-in support for Windows VST plugins (via Carla/Vestige). Wine with the WineASIO setup working means that FL Studio (and similar) works flawlessly under JACK. Also, there is nothing in the windows world that competes with JACK and Claudia.

You might also want to check out the Linux Musicians forum [2]. Most of your itches are probably already scratched by someone.

[1] http://kxstudio.sourceforge.net

[2] http://www.linuxmusicians.com/

Re: Valve joins the Linux Foundation

#220

Post by aclevernickname »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #13
cabbeer wrote: post #10

Right now the only thing keeping me from running linux full time is the Adobe Master Collection (PS AI LR ID AE...)

Will it run in a Windows VM on Linux?

Adobe's Creative Suite runs great in KVM (with the Spice backend). Runs faster than Virtualbox or VMWare Player, even over remote session.
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