Valve Funds Glassy Mesa Development For Better Driver Performance

[kringel]

I noticed that quite a percentage of my Linux games on Steam don't use DRM at all. Example: Kentucky Route Zero. The Steam version (in that regard) is the same version as the DRM-free Humble Widget/Store version. While no Steam running at all I can run the binary from the folder (.../SteamApps/common/Kentucky...) just perfeclty fine. There's a list somewhere about all games that do not use DRM (that is: you have to run an instance of Steam) at all. Wikipedia or somewhere.

That should be fine for the folks who want to avoid any "DRM" at all. However Steam's DRM doesn't have to do anything with DRM as from mp3s, video steaming, Microsoft etc.

What sucks about not owning the copy entirely is sometimes forced auto-updates ("update required"). Example from the Windows world: People who would love to play an older version of Half-Life 2, e.g. from the physical copy they bought. There are some reasons to want this, but legally it is impossible. Or sometimes games get new features or updates can break something. That's a point against Steam, I agree.

[Kivada]

If Valve products didn't violate two separate policies regarding software on my system, I'd buy the shit out of Valve games too.

(I have a strict "No DRM, no piracy" policy (A.K.A. "must own what I pay for, must not implicitly endorse what I shun") and the Steam client runs up against the policy that the only non-games that are allowed to be closed source are the grandfathered-in BIOS, nVidia drivers, Flash, Skype, and Opera 12.x)

And yet you guys fail to see where Steam isn't using a DRM scheme that violates a damn thing. Getting your games through steam is like buying direct download .flac files from bandcamp.

[ssokolow]

I'll buy the shit out of Valve games if they continue to fund Mesa development like this. Albeit, this looks mostly like experimental work. I also wonder how this works with AMD, who already have the radeonSI shader code in llvm.

If Valve products didn't violate two separate policies regarding software on my system, I'd buy the shit out of Valve games too.

(I have a strict "No DRM, no piracy" policy (A.K.A. "must own what I pay for, must not implicitly endorse what I shun") and the Steam client runs up against the policy that the only non-games that are allowed to be closed source are the grandfathered-in BIOS, nVidia drivers, Flash, Skype, and Opera 12.x)

[_SXX_]

As i know intel will not use that .

Why do you think so?
Intel only was against using LLVM inside their own driver when these optimizations done before driver get the shader.

[[Knuckles]]

I pretty sure they didn't get any real profit from releasing SteamOS for now. Might be you know any other game development company that contributed into Linux open source drivers that much?

Loki games?

In all seriousness, this is a pretty long-term investment, and I'm glad that valve seems to be sufficiently profitable to be able to do this and survive

[dungeon]

As i know intel will not use that . So this is only an experiment, if and only if Valve decide to use it .

[_SXX_]

Remember how much they take from work already done in Linux world and compare it to how much they give back. Suddenly their contributions are not looking that impressive anymore.

I pretty sure they didn't get any real profit from releasing SteamOS for now. Might be you know any other game development company that contributed into Linux open source drivers that much?

[gutigen]

Valve is indeed rocking, one of the few companies that is contributing to the world and needs our support.

Valve is cool, but contribution which we all can benefit from is only a side effect of their new business which SteamOS is going to be. Remember how much they take from work already done in Linux world and compare it to how much they give back. Suddenly their contributions are not looking that impressive anymore.

However, I'm glad they are here obviously and as a fan of mesa this project sounds awesome

[TheOne]

Valve Rocks!

Valve is indeed rocking, one of the few companies that is contributing to the world and needs our support.

[baffledmollusc]

Ah Valve. You're some of my favourite people.