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SteamOS

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Re: SteamOS

#341

Post by aroman »

wonderzombie wrote: post #210
aroman wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As others have said, the important point here is that the core of Linux support is here. They've already ported all of their major titles to Ubuntu-based desktop linux, and I would be extremely surprised if SteamOS did not inherit greatly from that effort.

Even if SteamOS uses different toolkits or packaging (which it very well might), the amount of effort to get those titles to run on typical desktop linux distros should be relatively very minimal.

I highly doubt it would be more similar to Android than Linux Mint simply because they have already invested time and money into making Steam run on the Linux Mint family of distros (i.e Ubuntu), and (to my knowledge) none working on the android stack.

Re: SteamOS

#342

Post by sliverstorm »

mladenkovacevic wrote: post #336
deletes wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know that the circle represents the SteamOS. The brackets int the second announcement must represent SteamBox. The third announcement has two circles with a plus sign in between which has to do something with connectivity to other players. Probably an equivalent of Xbox Live. ( My bet for the name is SteamPipe :) ) If Half-Life 3 was represented it would have to be a sign inside the circle as it is mainly a single…

Why is the circle off to one side of the box. Maybe I'm reading too much into it... but perhaps it could be a game controller and not a set-top box?

That could be interesting... but I must say, the Xbox360 controller is fantastic, inexpensive, and easily integrates with a PC. Sort of a solved problem, if you will, so unless they have significant value to add, I'd hope they'd focus elsewhere.

Re: SteamOS

#343

Post by wonderzombie »

rkalla wrote: post #188
jsnell wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there is some teasing along those lines there: > Watch for announcements in the coming weeks about all the AAA titles coming natively to SteamOS in 2014. But more importantly, control of Steam gives Valve a lot of leverage in this. It's easy to see the reasons for Linux support in indie games. But harder to see why mid-tier developers like Paradox or Eugen started to port their latest games to Linux. It's a goo…

Juho, great call-out with the "Steam-related carrot", I hadn't really thought down that path but you are absolutely right. Valve could easily offer big discounts in their split with the publishers for the first few years for Linux sales. My (possibly very incorrect) assumption was that the profit from the Linux sales were so low as to not matter, but maybe they can provide a catalog-wide carrot... something more sign…

This is likely to be coupled with some manner of hardware launch, as well. I am skeptical that the name "Linux" will be a particularly useful term in that context.

Couple that with my skepticism that they're actually shipping much if any traditional Linux userspace software, and it's even less useful to compare potential SteamOS users to traditional Linux users.

Other than that I agree that with Valve as a patron there's a lot more credibility. Steam was a long-term move, and it paid off. So Valve has a good track record and solid momentum. If they can help make it easy for game companies to port their work, taking out a significant or non-trivial amount of work and offer the carrot of sales & paying customers, I could see this taking off.

I was skeptical of Steam back in 2004 but I wasn't thinking long term enough. Launching your own operating system isn't a short term move. It suggests to me that this will only get better and more impressive over time, if Valve is as committed to this as it seems.

Re: SteamOS

#344

Post by dragonwriter »

rocky1138 wrote: post #329
simias wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked on the particular issue of streaming real-time video over wireless, I can say that the main issue is not link latency. The main lag comes from encoding/decoding. If you do it naively you encode frame-per-frame (encoding slices is more difficult), and the encoder does not only outputs iframes: you get partial frames that depend on both previous and future frames. Also the decoder does not always output f…

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?

It seems to me, intuitively, that the only ways to do that are:

1. Essentially equivalent to streaming, or

2. Essentially equivalent to normal CPU->GPU communication but over the network (and, thus, needing the bandwidth that local CPU->GPU communication has if you want to avoid slowing things down -- GigE wouldn't seem to be enough, much less WiFi, even if you consider only bandwidth and not latency.)

Re: SteamOS

#346

Post by DigitalSea »

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…

If they announce Half Life 3 as an exclusive launch title for Steam OS, I think there are a lot of people who would give it a shot. Steam is a very influential and well-connected company, don't underestimate them.

Re: SteamOS

#347

Post by twidlit »

matthew-wegner wrote: post #48
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…

Valve has three announcements this week: http://kotaku.com/looks-like-well-hear-about-valves-new-hard... One of the announcements is widely believe to be the long-rumored Steam Box hardware...

1. Steam

2. Steambox

3a. some VR peripheral (looks like a VR goggle/headset to me)

3b. some special cross-play between Steambox and Windows/Mac/Linux

3c. cross play between steambox and PS4

Re: SteamOS

#348

Post by snotrockets »

baldfat wrote: post #235
snotrockets wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PS3 runs FreeBSD likes Android runs Linux. That is, they may share a kernel and some tools, but the user spaces are mostly alien.

PS3 ran on Cell CPU Architecture. Now PS4 run FreeBSD 9.0 modified BUT x86 architecture! Android = Linux Ubuntu = Linux they both run the same exact kernel! BSD != Linux because they are 2 different kernels. Why do people always try to say Android is not Linux?????

Android uses the Linux kernel. But when one talks about Linux, one usually means GNU/Linux: that is, the kernel and the unix (or rather, not unix) userspace.

Android has little, if any, of that user space. That is, assume I have a dynamically linked Linux program: I'd probably won't be able to run it on Android, even if cross-compiled to the proper hardware, because much of the libraries and tools one expect a Linux distribution to have are missing there.

Re: SteamOS

#349

Post by pekk »

jeltz wrote: post #314
pekk wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve cannot magically produce a homogeneous experience across all Linux distributions. They need some degree of consistency in the environment in order for users to have a reasonable experience. It isn't their job to prop up every two-bit distribution.

Most games currently at Steam have no problems running at almost any modern Linux distro.

That's worlds away from certifying that all the Steam games will run on arbitrary Slackware boxes.

Re: SteamOS

#350

Post by otikik »

To me the big thing is "Music, TV and Movies". If they are able to get rid of the "This Show is not Available in Your Country" thing, that would be huge.
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