Valve Has Another Linux Graphics Driver Developer Working On Open-Source AMD

[RussianNeuroMancer]

i have only one question. why didn't valve do this push in 2012?

Because there was no point in pushing r600g and GCN support was like https://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/dr...5a34c3cdd4f0fe back then.

[FishPls]

i have only one question. why didn't valve do this push in 2012?

Valve has always been in this project for the long term play, they never intended to get to the year of the linux desktop in a year or two.

[dungeon]

i have only one question. why didn't valve do this push in 2012?

I think there was something like 30 or 40 linux games avaliable on steam at the very end of 2012. and now there is about 3000.

More shit you get to support, more became clear where you are weak and what is really missing... so you just push there, fix all weak places one by one and that is it

[humbug]

i have only one question. why didn't valve do this push in 2012?

Wasn't AMD focused on fglxr at the time for gamers? They cannot do anything to improve proprietary drivers.

Remember valve as a company has no particular affiliation with open source software. As far as hardware support is concerned they will move in the direction that Nvidia, AMD or Intel indicates to them. They just want linux to work well as a gaming ecosystem for steam.

Now that AMD has made it clear to Valve and to the public that their longterm roadmap for gamers on linux is to use the open source drivers Valve thinks ok we have the money we can pay people to help move things along in that direction. They are launching steamVR on linux soon using vulkan and they want RadV to be in shape for that launch. They also want to remove fglxr from steamOS and replace it with MESA which will give them more flexibility and stability going forward.

On the other hand Nvidia's longterm roadmap says linux gamers are expected to use the propitiatory driver so Valve is not going to fight that by hiring open source devs for them.

[humbug]

Hope AMD will see this as a good strategic opportunity. They have a 3rd party company who is extremely rich and willing to pay people to work on their drivers full time. They should collaborate closely and try to leverage this.

One thing I feel AMD needs to do is convince more developers to use their hardware with MESA drivers. Carry the message that this is the most conformant openGL driver etc... With regard to PC gaming (he probably meant windows) I heard Raja Koduri saying they want to do this; get back developer mindshare. It's especially relevant on linux where each openGL driver seems to be different.

This is great. AMD is making amazing progress, but they do need help. I'm glad that Valve is focusing on important things that AMD seems to put as a lower priority.

AMD does not put it as a low priority. They seem to be doing good work. But you have to understand their financial situation, they cannot easily hire people offering them big packages right now. At least now they are managing to break even, by the end of 2017 with Ryzen they will be profitable again and maybe they can expand their driver teams.

[smitty3268]

i have only one question. why didn't valve do this push in 2012?

I think back then they were pushing AMD to improve fglrx. Some ex-Valve employees have implied that getting anything done in that direction was almost impossible.

[pal666]

Because there was no point in pushing r600g and GCN support was like https://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/dr...5a34c3cdd4f0fe back then.

seems like a point in pushing gcn and even r600g had more users then

[pal666]

Wasn't AMD focused on fglxr at the time for gamers? They cannot do anything to improve propitiatory drivers.

check " ATI/AMD's New Open-Source Strategy Explained
Written by Michael Larabel in Display Drivers on 6 September 2007"
soon 10 years btw

[Dukenukemx]

Excellent, now if only we can do something about Wine, cause it sucks. As much as I'd like to have native Linux games, I know not everyone wants to port their games over. But if enough people are playing them on Linux, then they'll have no choice but to port them. Looking at you EA and Blizzard.

[duby229]

Excellent, now if only we can do something about Wine, cause it sucks. As much as I'd like to have native Linux games, I know not everyone wants to port their games over. But if enough people are playing them on Linux, then they'll have no choice but to port them. Looking at you EA and Blizzard.

Oh my, I learned to hate EA. Over my years I bought plenty of retail games, and even still to this day the biggest bane of all is disc checking mechanisms. Some games have nocd cracks, which allow the game to function, but many many games I own won't play in wine because of that stupid crap.

Now on the other hand there exists now cdemu which is nice. It doesn't fool disc checking mechanisms though, but I hope someday it will be able to.