Steam Survey Results For July 2014 Show A Slight Drop In Linux Usage

[teeedubb]

Civ5, l4d2 and xcom are native, also add portal2 to that list. And using fps is not a solid metric to use for comparison, how about overall smoothness and grahpic detail levels - they make more of a difference than 20% higher fps when the game is already running at 60+ fps.

[sarmad]

Civ5, l4d2 and xcom are native, also add portal2 to that list. And using fps is not a solid metric to use for comparison, how about overall smoothness and grahpic detail levels - they make more of a difference than 20% higher fps when the game is already running at 60+ fps.

There are also other metrics to include when determining performance, like loading times and overall responsiveness of the system.

[teeedubb]

There are also other metrics to include when determining performance, like loading times and overall responsiveness of the system.

Exactly. Add stability too. And as much as I hate to say it, at this point in time windows has the upper advantage in this area. Thank god its the only area.

[psycho_driver]

Exactly. Add stability too. And as much as I hate to say it, at this point in time windows has the upper advantage in this area. Thank god its the only area.

You're doing something wrong.

ixion@smaug ~ $ uptime
12:37:03 up 155 days, 11:57, 2 users, load average: 0.45, 0.54, 0.36

That's on a system constantly being used for god knows what by two toddlers, a facebook-game-playing mother-in-law, and my actively participating in a few game betas.

I can't go more than a couple of hours on my windows 8.whatever laptop without it proclaiming that it shall reboot to apply updates.

[sarmad]

You're doing something wrong.

ixion@smaug ~ $ uptime
12:37:03 up 155 days, 11:57, 2 users, load average: 0.45, 0.54, 0.36

That's on a system constantly being used for god knows what by two toddlers, a facebook-game-playing mother-in-law, and my actively participating in a few game betas.

I can't go more than a couple of hours on my windows 8.whatever laptop without it proclaiming that it shall reboot to apply updates.

I think he's talking about stability of games on Linux, not stability of Linux itself.

[teeedubb]

Yes the stability of games. Eg, xcom turns into a stuttery mess after some time playing.

And if I am doing something wrong I'd like to know what it is. I have tried various games on two different machines (both nvidia + intel) with steam os, kubuntu 14.04 and a minimal openbox Ubuntu 14.04 install, plus previous versions of *buntu. Tried using the steamos compositor, kwin, Compton and no compositor. Different drivers, kernels and filesystems to no avail.
I don't have the luxury of time these day to put so many hours into just getting a game to run on par with its windows counterpart, especially when I have a windows install where its setup to be console-like and getting a game to run at its best is as easy as clicking install the play.

Here's some observations:
Metro LL: Glitchy graphics, low fps and wireless 360 controller is all messed up. Apparently you can edit a XML file to fiz the controller. Yay!
L4d2: opening scene on single player has these micro stutters.
Civ5: dx9 level graphics, plus it doesn't feel as smooth as windows (not fps, but in general). Game is solid though.
Witcher 2: sub par performance.
Serious Sam 3: again microstutters. Plus for controller to work you need to edit a XML file.
Guacameele: on par with windows, but hardly the most demanding game.
Xcom: horrible fps after some time playing.

I know its early days, but as I said before any serious PC gamer already has a copy of windows and there is no benefit to using Linux. Hopefully this changes.

PS: you can stop the forced reboots on windows 7 with a simple registry edit. I imagine it would be the same with win8.

[johnc]

Yes the stability of games. Eg, xcom turns into a stuttery mess after some time playing.

And if I am doing something wrong I'd like to know what it is. I have tried various games on two different machines (both nvidia + intel) with steam os, kubuntu 14.04 and a minimal openbox Ubuntu 14.04 install, plus previous versions of *buntu. Tried using the steamos compositor, kwin, Compton and no compositor. Different drivers, kernels and filesystems to no avail.
I don't have the luxury of time these day to put so many hours into just getting a game to run on par with its windows counterpart, especially when I have a windows install where its setup to be console-like and getting a game to run at its best is as easy as clicking install the play.

Here's some observations:
Metro LL: Glitchy graphics, low fps and wireless 360 controller is all messed up. Apparently you can edit a XML file to fiz the controller. Yay!
L4d2: opening scene on single player has these micro stutters.
Civ5: dx9 level graphics, plus it doesn't feel as smooth as windows (not fps, but in general). Game is solid though.
Witcher 2: sub par performance.
Serious Sam 3: again microstutters. Plus for controller to work you need to edit a XML file.
Guacameele: on par with windows, but hardly the most demanding game.
Xcom: horrible fps after some time playing.

I know its early days, but as I said before any serious PC gamer already has a copy of windows and there is no benefit to using Linux. Hopefully this changes.

PS: you can stop the forced reboots on windows 7 with a simple registry edit. I imagine it would be the same with win8.

yeah i kinda gave up on linux gaming for now since it doesn't work

[sarmad]

Yes the stability of games. Eg, xcom turns into a stuttery mess after some time playing.

And if I am doing something wrong I'd like to know what it is. I have tried various games on two different machines (both nvidia + intel) with steam os, kubuntu 14.04 and a minimal openbox Ubuntu 14.04 install, plus previous versions of *buntu. Tried using the steamos compositor, kwin, Compton and no compositor. Different drivers, kernels and filesystems to no avail.
I don't have the luxury of time these day to put so many hours into just getting a game to run on par with its windows counterpart, especially when I have a windows install where its setup to be console-like and getting a game to run at its best is as easy as clicking install the play.

Here's some observations:
Metro LL: Glitchy graphics, low fps and wireless 360 controller is all messed up. Apparently you can edit a XML file to fiz the controller. Yay!
L4d2: opening scene on single player has these micro stutters.
Civ5: dx9 level graphics, plus it doesn't feel as smooth as windows (not fps, but in general). Game is solid though.
Witcher 2: sub par performance.
Serious Sam 3: again microstutters. Plus for controller to work you need to edit a XML file.
Guacameele: on par with windows, but hardly the most demanding game.
Xcom: horrible fps after some time playing.

I know its early days, but as I said before any serious PC gamer already has a copy of windows and there is no benefit to using Linux. Hopefully this changes.

PS: you can stop the forced reboots on windows 7 with a simple registry edit. I imagine it would be the same with win8.

I am guessing (and hoping) that SteamOS will change this. One of the reasons Windows games run fine is because it's only one setup developers have to test against. SteamOS will become a reference platform for Linux game developers, and a reference platform for other distros as well when it comes to gaming. If a game runs fine on SteamOS but not on distro X then they know it's something specific to their distro.

[curaga]

360 controller not working on Linux? Complain to Microsoft, after all, they fully support their controller hardware with Linux drivers.

[teeedubb]

360 controller works great in Linux, just not in Metro LL. Seems pretty obvious that I was talking about a 360 controller and that particular game from what I wrote, no?