SDL 3.0 Adds Colorspace Concept, More Code Coming From Valve Around HDR

[phoronix]

Phoronix: SDL 3.0 Adds Colorspace Concept, More Code Coming From Valve Around HDR

Development on SDL 3 continues as the next major update to the Simple DirectMedia Layer for this hardware/software abstraction library commonly used by cross-platform games and other software...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/SDL3-Adds-Colorspace-HDR

[Danny3]

Great!
But I wish Valve would care more about the desktop mode having good HDR support too!
Especially since some people may want to use it to watch HDR-enabled pictures, videos, movies.

[slagiewka]

Great!
But I wish Valve would care more about the desktop mode having good HDR support too!
Especially since some people may want to use it to watch HDR-enabled pictures, videos, movies.

I wouldn't be surprised if in a year or two we will hear how Valve funded work done for Plasma 6 HDR by Xaver et al.

We already know that Valve sees Wayland as the future and may as well be getting ready with what we're seeing with every news

[cassiofb-dev]

Awesome, 2024 is the year of VRR and HDR on linux!

[Quackdoc]

Great!
But I wish Valve would care more about the desktop mode having good HDR support too!
Especially since some people may want to use it to watch HDR-enabled pictures, videos, movies.

this really isn't in the purview of valve, HDR on the desktop is bottlenecked by wayland, and valve's and KDE's... lets call it a macgyver-esq solution is NOT suitable for general desktop usage.

[skeevy420]

this really isn't in the purview of valve, HDR on the desktop is bottlenecked by wayland, and valve's and KDE's... lets call it a macgyver-esq solution is NOT suitable for general desktop usage.

Valve does sell offer trailers for people to preview games on Steam. Game developers are going to want their customers to be able to watch their trailers in the same colorspace as they recorded it. Likewise, it's in Valve's interest to make sure the desktop can play HDR enabled content from Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc from web browsers. Anything that keeps Valve's customers on their OS and their platform even longer means that much more of a chance for them to make money from selling content.

SteamOS, and by extension Linux in general, has to be able to do the things that gamers and graphical oriented users expect a graphical oriented operating environment to do. One of those things is HDR. If Windows does it, Linux has to be able to do it, too, if Valve expects to actually keep and retain SteamOS users. There's only so much Linux compromise that people are willing to make before they'll go back to Windows, which is exactly what happened with the Debian-based SteamOS 1.0 and 2.0 Steam PCs.

As much as I'm pissed that there isn't an official SteamOS 3.0 release yet, I totally understand why from a historical perspective. It's in the purview of Valve to offer people a fully functioning desktop that'll play as many games as possible in the easiest, most compromise free manner. That includes Wayland compositing, scaling, HDR, polishing up the KDE desktop, non-Steam Wine management, Reshade and effects, game streaming, and more. If they don't, it'll just be a repeat of before that sets the Linux desktop back another 10 years.

Wayland: the cause of and solution to all of Linux's desktop problems

[Volta]

this really isn't in the purview of valve, HDR on the desktop is bottlenecked by wayland, and valve's and KDE's... lets call it a macgyver-esq solution is NOT suitable for general desktop usage.

skeevy420

Do we have HDR with X11 or you're just mixing things up?

[ehansin]

No expert here, though knowledgeable enough to read the room (or like to think so!) Feels like lots of traction happening with many areas of the overall Linux desktop space. I see it as sort of an evolving iterative process, one that to me feels like is making forward progress.

On a personal note, I have spent the last couple/few years getting my doo-doo together regarding my personal life and affairs. I stopped looking at it as a monolithic problem that appeared insurmountable, and instead just stated chipping away. I believe in the idea of kaizen, meaning to me "the process of continuous improvement." As I started chipping away, more low-hanging fruit revealed itself, and from there the chipping away continued and continues to continue. Outcomes have been favorable.

I know a lot of people like to poo-poo (and sling doo-oo at) the state of affairs of the Linux desktop. And some very valid criticisms. Pointing out flaws, if received constructively, can help motive changes in a positive direction. In my own experience, I have noticed that as low-hanging fruits get addressed, the overall picture starts to get clearer and clearer. With all these tractions taking hold in the Linux desktop space, I feel optimistic that some good stuff can come out of it. Looking forward to it.

[ssokolow]

I thought a previous Phoronix article said the plan was to drop X11 support in SDL 3. I imagine that'd hurt uptake, given how long developers did things like building for 32-bit Windows for compatibility with the broadest base of users.

[hartree]

Valve's work is very appreciated. The new Like A Dragon worked instantly on release on Nobara with HDR using gamescope-session.
I couldn't have dreamed linux gaming would ever be this good ten years ago.