Here Is Valve's Source Engine Left 4 Dead 2 On Linux

[blackout23]

Aren't we getting a little off topic?

[Luke_Wolf]

DSL from cd start very fast

Starts... the problem is not starting, the question is running. Even running from the command line using a disk for stuff is slow as hell when using a LiveImage unless it's VMed because of the I/O issue. The problem is is that you're not caching the disk in RAM and in normal circumstances you aren't going to have the 8-16 GB to be able to do so and while still having the RAM in order to be able to run the game itself.

just cut all gnome/kde and other useless stuff, just pure game and essential system elements [kernel, libraries and little configuration]

Even cutting down to that doesn't save you what you need in order to pull this off for RAM caching on a normal system

after boot, all game fles are on ram

Good luck with that, that's not how these images operate, and they can't do it even if you wanted to as general because most people don't have 8-16GB of RAM

booted game have access to hdd specified folder after you enter password for user. so you can save game.

that requires excessive setup and I see it breaking very easily honestly because you're having to Chroot and otherwise

gamecd containt kernel that we need, drivers, good set of libraries.

so it can be started from cd, or from linux you boot everyday[if libraries compatible]

okay, but what about when stuff updates? like the game.. that would require the disk image to be rebuilt by the liveimage people and a lot more downloading than just pulling in a Delta-RPM

[fenixkane]

Video! We want the video, not the slide presentations!

Seconded. I would like video of the talk as well.

[sandain]

Misleading title is misleading.

If I can't go out and buy or download the game, then is it really 'here'? I don't think so. Do you remember Duke Nukem Forever? I do...

[disi]

Many modern games can well use more than 10GBs of disk space so have fun copying that to memory. You would need at least dual layer DVD or Blueray for that and not to mention 8-12GBs of memory. The read speeds of modern Blue-rays and dual layer DVDs are around 30MB/s so just copying the files to memory would take at least 5 minutes not to mention the rest of the boot. Sounds like a great plan.

I personally hope that physical media dies as fast as possible and thanks to ultrabooks it's finally becoming reality.

Not sure what ultrabook means, I have a ~3 year old Toshiba, which doesn't have a CD/DVD any more and my custom laptop has a drive bay in the DVD-Slot...

[NomadDemon]

you dont need to copy whole cd at once

[Teho]

after boot, all game fles are on ram

Many modern games can well use more than 10GBs of disk space so have fun copying that to memory. You would need at least dual layer DVD or Blueray for that and not to mention 8-12GBs of memory. The read speeds of modern Blue-rays and dual layer DVDs are around 30MB/s so just copying the files to memory would take at least 5 minutes not to mention the rest of the boot. Sounds like a great plan.

I personally hope that physical media dies as fast as possible and thanks to ultrabooks it's finally becoming reality.

[NomadDemon]

DSL from cd start very fast

just cut all gnome/kde and other useless stuff, just pure game and essential system elements [kernel, libraries and little configuration]

after boot, all game fles are on ram

booted game have access to hdd specified folder after you enter password for user. so you can save game.

gamecd containt kernel that we need, drivers, good set of libraries.

so it can be started from cd, or from linux you boot everyday[if libraries compatible]

[Luke_Wolf]

I'd like to see live CDs or DVDs with the game loaded on it.
It would make your PC feel like a gaming console but with a long bootup time.

Are you insane?

#1. Live CDs are slow as hell because they have to deal with the I/O rate of either the DVD drive or the USB port which since USB 3.0 isn't really mainstream you can't get away with that out.

#2. Unless it's a liveUSB it's read-only, which guess what? means no saves, no updates, no mods.

#3. why the hell do you want livecds for playing games? nobody likes the CD swapping game which is why no-cd patches exist and are proliferant, and if you're going to suggest VMing it... well guess what? you're basically asking for unacceptable loss of performance and hackiness that is just going to be to the detriment of your experience. Although it's a valid question of if VMing it would actually be faster than booting from LiveCD because the image is stored on your HDD and thus you don't have to deal with terrible I/O speeds.

[boot]

Acording to Valve's Facebook page:

Just a quick note to let everyone know that a part of the Valve Linux team will be presenting at SIGGRAPH 2012; specifically the Birds of a Feather program.
Tonight (6 PM in the Gold Ballroom - Salon 3 of the JW Marriott Los Angeles at LA Live), Rich Geldreich will be talking about our experience in porting Left 4 Dead 2 to Ubuntu 12.04. The talk focuses on our optimization efforts and is mainly visual; including a short time demo video, Telemetry results, and other visual media. The team will be available for questions afterwards.
After SIGGRAPH, we'll post anything we have to share on the blog.