The Steam Linux Beta Begins...

[phoronix]

Phoronix: The Steam Linux Beta Begins...

Finally... After talking much about Steam on Linux at Phoronix over the years and many people that have doubted the earlier Phoronix exclusives, Valve is rolling out the Steam Linux Beta today!..

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTIyMzA

[Kano]

I am not in the beta and i do not intend to buy the game.

[kwahoo]

In theory a bug could be only in the init phase when there is a speed test for calibration.

I don't think so. It's not too high/too low graphics quality problem. FPS counter is (and CPU frequency too) jumping, eg. 10-70. Check the fps chart

prf_bShowFPSGraph=1
prf_tmRefreshInterval=0

[Kano]

In theory a bug could be only in the init phase when there is a speed test for calibration. Would be a very stupid code however as usually when there is more load the speed goes up.

[kwahoo]

For all with Serious Sam 3 BFE performance issues: check the latest "public beta" update http://steamcommunity.com/app/221410...5737407496778/
There was a CnQ/PowerNow bug. Improvement can be huge:

I'm getting 20-50 FPS on Ultra in the Publicbeta as opposed to about 12-35 on Medium before.

[Kano]

Linux did not drop anything, just AMD did.

[gamerk2]

There are plenty of people who install the 32-bit version intentionally for compatibility reasons. I recall Flash on Linux, among a few other proprietary programs, being a bitch to get working in 64-bit mode. It's better now I believe, but who knows. It wasn't too long ago that I was struggling with my 64-bit OS and reading tons of folks in forums loudly proclaiming that 64-bit was useless and nothing but a problem and that folks should just stick to 32-bit. Again, different now, but I don't doubt that many users have just stuck to 32-bit out of inertia.

Frankly, there *shouldn't* be many programs that have 32 to 64 bit comparability issues. Assuming proper driver/library support to the Kernel, there shouldn't be any apps that don't run.

There's also people who think that 32-bit is faster if you have 4GB or less of RAM, which is still very common for most PCs built before this year. It actually _is_ faster for some programs, hence the whole x86_32 architecture thing that Google was pushing (smaller pointers means data structures are smaller means more data fits in cache and can be retrieved with each memory access means better data throughput). These folks might intentionally be avoiding 32-bit still. Older hardware is popular with Linux users, and in general cutting-edge hardware is geared more towards gamers who are of course not generally Linux users on account of almost every major PC title still being Windows only.

But x64 also gives access to many more registers, which is a tradeoff the more then counteracts the increased memory footprint of pointers, especially in threaded workloads.

Older hardware with less RAM hence is a target market of Steam on Linux, and that includes all the folks who choose 32-bit for speed benefits (even if it's only an imaginary benefit).

Keep in mind, Linux has been starting to drop older H/W at a very alarming rate (ATI 2000-4000 series, and the 4000 series wasn't THAT old). Nevermind Steam isn't exactly a large data intensive program to begin with...

[Larian]

Max graphics:

http://i.imgur.com/froF3.jpg

That looks significantly less like gnaar shit.

[Desti]

This is lowest settings during battle:

http://i.imgur.com/ZxpS6.jpg

Max graphics:

http://i.imgur.com/froF3.jpg

[kwahoo]

I'm optimist

Croteam programmers are old OpenGL "hackers". Original Serious Sam was, in my opinion, the best looking OpenGL game in 2001 and the most optimized game in 2001. They only need bit more time and much more testing, since Windows version of SE3.5 got OpenGL renderer maybe month ago, and Mac OpenGL is bit different.
Now is time for testing and playing with 60 (!) game performance menu options

BTW Has anyone noticed how big is a difference between Windows and Linux port? Only 15 MiB of binaries! Serious Engine is that what I can call "true cross-platform engine" (in opposition to eg. Source).

@Desti
It looks like a Gnaar shit