Proof In Steam's Mac Client Of Linux Support

[faemir]

I hope this will be released, but i'm more inclined to believe it's an internal Valve only client like the blizzard WoW one.

[bugmenot]

Whoa go the spam !! Great way of getting your point across Gilboa !!

Forgot the reset:
X.org, Why on earth should Valve care about it? I'm using binary games that were compiled against XFree86 (!!!) / i386 and they work just fine under F12/x86_64...
As for Compiz, if you're stupid enough to run 3D studio under Windows 7 and start a game you'll get the same effect: lousy performance.
This is why anyone with half a brain disable composition before starting heavy 3D application or game. And this is why most distributions doesn't enable composition (Compiz / KDE-effects) by default.
If you're smart enough to enable, you should be smart enough to suspend it.

- Gilboa

If someone had "half a brain" they would realize that the most popular distribution (Ubuntu) enables Compiz by default when it detects a compatible graphics card/driver. Someone with "half a brain" would also realize that Compiz is not really an application rather a core OS feature. So your point is invalid because there are many users that haven't enabled compiz that are running it.

Even though I'm most likely wasting my time, I'll byte.
Lets see who can't play source games under Windows, shall we?
1. Desktops that use IGP chipsets. (According to the last report, we are talking about, what, ~60% of the market?)
2. netbooks. (Unless you bought an ION netbook, I'll be polite and assume that 5% of all netbooks use this chipset.)
3. Notebooks. (According to my supplier, ~50% of all the computers he sells are notebooks, ~40% desktops, 10% servers, most of the notebooks [1/5] use IGPs)
4. Olders desktops. (Neither nVidia nor ATI support >3 y/o cards. Good luck trying to install games on a P4/2.4HT with 6600AGP.
5. People that prefer (or do not know how) to use MS-supplied drivers.


- Gilboa

Geez, you typed all that out without realizing the whole point of what I was talking about ?? I was talking about SOFTWARE not HARDWARE. Of course people are going to realize that they are not going to run the latest games on older hardware and netbooks .. I mean any old noob knows that. So again your point is invalid.

[storma]

Agreed. I run compiz and don't disable it for games. Call me stupid but it works for me.

And of course, with your point, I can easily pick up any game and run it under win2k can't I??

The rest of it I'm sure you guys will understand..

[gilboa]

(Someone please enable EDIT!)
Back when I was a Windows developer (mostly low-level stuff in C), my primary OS was NT (3.5.1/4.0/2K).
You cannot even being to imagine the hoops I had to go through to get Win95 games running under NT4 and Windows 2000.

Trust me, running games under Linux is -easy-.

- Gilboa

[gilboa]

Forgot the reset:
X.org, Why on earth should Valve care about it? I'm using binary games that were compiled against XFree86 (!!!) / i386 and they work just fine under F12/x86_64...
As for Compiz, if you're stupid enough to run 3D studio under Windows 7 and start a game you'll get the same effect: lousy performance.
This is why anyone with half a brain disable composition before starting heavy 3D application or game. And this is why most distributions doesn't enable composition (Compiz / KDE-effects) by default.
If you're smart enough to enable, you should be smart enough to suspend it.

- Gilboa

[gilboa]

If you think I am trolling then obviously you haven't got a firm grip on reality.

Even though I'm most likely wasting my time, I'll byte.
Lets see who can't play source games under Windows, shall we?
1. Desktops that use IGP chipsets. (According to the last report, we are talking about, what, ~60% of the market?)
2. netbooks. (Unless you bought an ION netbook, I'll be polite and assume that 5% of all netbooks use this chipset.)
3. Notebooks. (According to my supplier, ~50% of all the computers he sells are notebooks, ~40% desktops, 10% servers, most of the notebooks [1/5] use IGPs)
4. Olders desktops. (Neither nVidia nor ATI support >3 y/o cards. Good luck trying to install games on a P4/2.4HT with 6600AGP.
5. People that prefer (or do not know how) to use MS-supplied drivers.

So, in short, unless you have recent hardware (Say GF8xxx / ATI 3xxx and above) coupled with a recent platform (Athlon64X2 / C2D and above), you're most likely screwed.

... Here's the thing, the same hardware will run nicely under Linux, unless, of course, you <b>choose</b> to use OSS drivers.
In this case, the performance you'll get will be on-par, if not better than the VESA drivers that XP used when faced with recent hardware.

Are we done?

- Gilboa

[bugmenot]

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If you think I am trolling then obviously you haven't got a firm grip on reality.

If Valve releases a client for Linux this is what they have to come up against:
- Distributions who use different Kernels and Xorg versions.
- People who run OSS graphics drivers such as Norveau which doesn't even have stable 3D APIs.
- People who run ATI's binary driver which has serious 3D performance and stability problems.
- People who run Compiz which is known to interfere with 3D games, from personal experience, this is true for example mouse leaving the screen and unable to move the character in FPS like Prey.
- Poor support for games in Xorg, for example, playing a game in a different resolution to your desktop resolution Xorg cannot recover your desktop resolution after you have exited a 3D game.
- Poor support for dual-screen configurations in Xorg where you play a game and often the graphics are either messed up or stretched across your screens because Xorg doesn't have proper dual screen support.
- On certain distribution configurations a mere security update can break your graphics drivers

etc.. etc..
So the only people who could actually play games on Steam Linux are people who are running NVIDIA's binary driver.

Don't get me wrong, I love running Linux as my main operating system but I think that its not ready for mainstream gaming.

[whizse]

EA games pledged it support for Meego (which is based on standard freedesktop.org architecture), which gives a bit of hope they will release games not only for mobiles, but also for desktops. I wonder if Valve gonna beat them.

Interesting, this was news to me. Considering that Meego is now targeting both normal laptops and (budget) desktops it would probably make sense for Valve to push Steam into the same area (if not the Source games).

[Adarion]

a) There is proof when I see it working.
b) Steam, mkay, Not actually the software I waited for on Linux (DRM, online, spying,...) but if their actual GAMES would be ported then, well I'd consider messing around with that steam system.

[gilboa]

Ignoring the troll for a second, we again put far too much trust into the token and string.

In reality, the Steam UI frontend is also used to install servers and SDKs.
As such, porting the Steam UI by itself doesn't necessarily means that Valve is porting the Source engine to Linux - far from it.

- Gilboa