A Half-Year Since Valve Released Steam Play For Linux, Its Marketshare Is Still Sub-1%

[jojo7887]

Linux marketshare is still low probably not because Linux gaming isn't growing, but because for every new Linux user there's 50 Windows ones, let's face it most pre built systems and almost every laptop comes with Windows. The lack of popular Multiplayer games unfortunately doesn't help and choosing between your favorite game over a different OS can be a very hard choice, I was in that position myself 5 years ago when I made the full switch.

I often see the line "Linux is harder than Windows", in part yes due to its' nature but that's not even half of the story, stepping out of your comfort zone from a lifetime of Windows and into a new unfamiliar territory is not easy.

Whenever I tried Linux I barely knew how to install it even though the GUI setup was pretty straightforward, the unix filesystem spoke another language and there was no "C:". Fast forward 5 years since those days and now I play around with the OS, I compile from source, write my own scripts and I can play more games than I ever imagined thanks to all the efforts. I can safely say Linux is my new comfort zone. Making me use Windows feels like torture, I feel naked and powerless without all the Linux tools I'm now used to, hell I don't even know how to compile "HelloWorld" in Windows.

I believe the story of why macOS has a higher share is no different than Windows, it comes with every PC Apple sells.

Random thought - I wonder what would happen if Apple were to switch their OS to Linux while retaining the same look and feel of macOS (which is somewhat already possible in Linux).

Keep in mind that Linux only in the last year got the ability to play Windows games at almost native speeds thanks to Wine and DXVK, we didn't have Vulkan or many AAA titles before that. It will become popular, but needs time and support.

[starshipeleven]

big titles started off on pc.

They were not big titles back then. They were just good games, just like many others offered by other smaller companies that still exist on PC.

But still, what about Halo (Xbox), or AssCreed (multiplatform)? They didn't even started on PC.

if you want to be the basement dweller of games then no. I guess if you think tetris is the pinnacle of gaming, LOL...

If you think you need to play trash games just because they are made by big companies, you are the basement dweller, not me.

For example, is Divinity Original Sin (and the 2) coming from a big company? No. Is it damn good strategy RTS with modern graphics? Yes.

Are games like Outward https://store.steampowered.com/app/794260/Outward/ made by big companies? no. Is it a good open-ended RPG with pretty decent combat system with modern graphics? Yes.

What about Stellaris, from Paradox? A great strategy game.

Were Homeworld (the original) and Homeworld Cataclysm (now available renamed on GOG as Homeworld: Emergence because of copyright issues with Blizzard) made by big studios? No they were not, but they still became great titles.

[Dukenukemx]

Correct, you need a distributed infrastructure. Google and other tech giants do have that as they need it also for their current services. They just need to add the "cloud consoles" in their datacenters spread around the world.

Like I said before, "techno babble". Have you tried playing a game on server hardware? A 56 core Intel Xeon running at 2.6Ghz is not a gaming CPU. Even still you could probably achieve 60fps since Stadia is limited to that frame rate anyway, but GPU's are a different story and I doubt Google has these server grade GPU's all over the place. They will be at specific key points, not right next door. Also games do make extensive use of a GPU where a CPU is something you can make use of for other tasks while gaming. So again the GPU's they use for Stadia are probably going to be used specific for gaming.

No we are at a tipping point. There is a significant amount of people that have decent Internet, even in third world countries like the US, and it could be enough to set the ball rolling

From a purely technical standpoint, it did manage to stay in the same ballpark of a console (and only twice the latency of a PC) with a 15Mbit connection which is achievable in many places. https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...tream-gdc-2019
and
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...yssey-analysis

Even if the connection was fine, you still have data caps and dealing with wifi routers. Anyone who can run an Ethernet wire to their PC or to a Stadia thin client isn't going to use Stadia. Casual gamers though use crappy wifi routers supplied to them by their ISP that couldn't handle two Netflix streams at the same time, let alone Stadia plus Netflix. An 802.11ac wifi might, but certainly not Stadia at 4k and Netflix at 4k at the same time.

not really.

I'm not sure what this is even supposed to convey. Are "radeon server GPUs" somehow worse than NVIDIA gaming cards? Really?

But still, it's not even a "radeon server GPU" but a custom thing with 16GB of HBM2 ram https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...c-and-analysis
and it's supposed to be "elastic" aka you can join more than one of these things to run a single game.

If you don't know then you aren't in any position to convey what is or isn't the future. RTX means Ray-Tracing and at the moment no Radeon GPU has this feature. I swear you Google employee's need to learn some basic gaming etiquette.

It's better than a low end PC but of course not better than a high midrange or even high end gaming PC. But it's not terribly relevant.

Stadia isn't competing with PC but with consoles, that's its manifest target audience.

In order to Stream something like a game you need to compress the image and Google's compression technology isn't lossless. You're going to see a blurry image, you're going to see artifacts from the compression. Even a Intel GPU would still be better because everything stays sharp and clean. There is no free lunch when it comes to video streaming.

Please explain the rationale for using crappy compression algorithms when people is streaming REALTIME 1080p games FROM THEIR OWN PC, with no appreciable loss of quality. And Google is somehow unable to do at least the same.

Also, none of the demos showed this.

Even a good compression algorithm is not going to have the same image quality as one generated by your PC. That is a fact of compression. As ReviewTechUSA has explained people have expressed issues with image quality. Their 1080p requires 25 Mbps while 4k requires 30 Mbps. Really, an extra 5 Mbps for 4k? If you believe that then...

Doesn't matter, the benefits for the ecosystem owner are too big to pass up so they will keep trying until they make it.
The "cloud console" has always been a wet dream of both console vendors, btw. You know, being able to kill the used game market in one simple move and have full control on distribution so they can create regional exclusives similarly to other media (movies mostly).

I'm aware of that, and it'll fail miserably. If you haven't heard the AAA gaming industry isn't doing so hot lately and their games are failing left and right. This move would just push people to Indie game developers who actually don't have a problem porting their games to Linux. Microsoft tried that with Xbox One before it was even launched and to this day they are hurting from that decision. Remember this fiasco?

Now, I don't want to be captain obvious, but if you take a successful product and replace it with an empty shell with above-average graphics, and it fails hard.... it's completely expected.

Game studios rarely expect failures from their AAA games. Just like Google doesn't expect Stadia's exclusives to suck either. Don't you all have phones and tablets... and Smart TV's?

[Yndoendo]

Well, unfortunately you really can't run very many games with Proton. I'm glad Valve is working on it, but they need to work on in a lot more. I still have to use a custom wine installation to play my Windows games. Even the ones that do work with Proton, like No Man's Sky, don't run very well.

I was happy to find Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice worked just fine with Proton, since they do not plan for a Linux native, on the initial release date. World is a changing.

[Yndoendo]

I think it's an oxymoron to try and make Linux gaming friendly when yet so many distros, even Ubuntu, aren't as simple to use as Windows ....

Ever had to fix corrupt system registry? Cannot be done, only a full reinstall. Never had a corrupt file in Linux that couldn't be reinstalled or reconstructed. Getting more gamers and grandparents to use the OS are two separate issues.

[Dukenukemx]

Ever had to fix corrupt system registry? Cannot be done, only a full reinstall. Never had a corrupt file in Linux that couldn't be reinstalled or reconstructed. Getting more gamers and grandparents to use the OS are two separate issues.

Linux to me is easier to deal with than Windows. The only time it isn't is when I need to install graphic drivers. Oibaf's PPA is great but it does break often and isn't a simple install for a Windows user. Even Nvidia driver's can be difficult when Windows users have to deal with terminal commands. Otherwise I don't need to install drivers for anything else as everything is automatically handled in Ubuntu or Mint.

As a gamer it needs to play "ALL" my games. Not just Steam obviously cause no one person uses Steam exclusively. Unfortunate truth but there are other places to get exclusive games besides Steam. There are other issues like people using older hardware that don't have Vulkan or OpenGL 4.5 like Radeon HD 5000 and 6000 users. A Radeon HD 6850 user might play Fallout 4 just fine on Windows 10 but wouldn't on Linux using Wine. Especially if they have a laptop where it isn't as easy as upgrading the GPU on a desktop.

It's getting there, I feel it just needs more time.

[Bsdisbetter]

They were not big titles back then. They were just good games, just like many others offered by other smaller companies that still exist on PC.

Madden, NBA to name just two.
Even titles like Battlefield and Farcry sell far more on console than pc yet started the opposite.
So I'm not sure what you're arguing (other than for argument's sake).

But still, what about Halo (Xbox), or AssCreed (multiplatform)? They didn't even started on PC.

If you think you need to play trash games just because they are made by big companies, you are the basement dweller, not me.

Comprehension not a strong point. Read what I wrote instead of what you think I wrote.

For example, is Divinity Original Sin (and the 2) coming from a big company? No. Is it damn good strategy RTS with modern graphics? Yes.

Are games like Outward https://store.steampowered.com/app/794260/Outward/ made by big companies? no. Is it a good open-ended RPG with pretty decent combat system with modern graphics? Yes.

What about Stellaris, from Paradox? A great strategy game.

Were Homeworld (the original) and Homeworld Cataclysm (now available renamed on GOG as Homeworld: Emergence because of copyright issues with Blizzard) made by big studios? No they were not, but they still became great titles.

And? I don't care about these games, never have, never will. As I stated, linux and all it's 1000 incantations will never attract the pc gaming market of microsoft or even apple, they'll just languish in indie game territory because even big house developers are skipping pcs now. fact.
Queue the outrage.

[skeevy420]

Like I said before, "techno babble". Have you tried playing a game on server hardware? A 56 core Intel Xeon running at 2.6Ghz is not a gaming CPU. Even still you could probably achieve 60fps since Stadia is limited to that frame rate anyway, but GPU's are a different story and I doubt Google has these server grade GPU's all over the place. They will be at specific key points, not right next door. Also games do make extensive use of a GPU where a CPU is something you can make use of for other tasks while gaming. So again the GPU's they use for Stadia are probably going to be used specific for gaming.

I play games with a dual processor Xeon x5687, 48GB DDR3 ECC, root on BTRFS, games on ZFS, with an RX 580. Is that server hardware enough? My hard drives are still 7200 rpm FWIW.

Currently playing Dirt Rally and getting 60fps smooth, an average of 59fps, a minimum of 52fps, using a mix of ultra, high, and medium with 2x MSAA.

[Britoid]

Having to add PPAs to get up to date drivers is retarded and no gamer should be expected to do that to game.

Likewise, no gamer should be expected to use a rolling distro where things do break.

[skeevy420]

Having to add PPAs to get up to date drivers is retarded and no gamer should be expected to do that to game.

Likewise, no gamer should be expected to use a rolling distro where things do break.

I don't have rolling release problems with Manjaro. Use a sane rolling release distribution and those problems are non-existent.

Rolling release and bleeding edge rolling release are not the same things and y'all need to quit acting like they are.