It's Been 3 Years Since Valve Launched The Steam Linux Beta, Now At 1,600+ Linux Games

[Tori]

Linux really needs the next gen drivers before it can start real momentum for gaming. Need AMD/NVIDIA drivers to support Vulkan and have features like what Windows has, such as costless vsync, gsync, freesync and framerate limiters would be nice. There is a whole heap of things needed, but they need to work good not crapo like how vsync currently works (murders FPS, very costly, hardly works).

I currently run 390x under Ubuntu MATE, and it has been a tough time getting decent performance and dealing with catalyst limitations (OSS not there yet).

G-sync is working fine on Linux. The nvidia proprietary drivers are really good.

[L_A_G]

Being someone who switched to using Linux on their personal machine fairly recently (still run OSX on my laptop) I do have to say that I was very positively surprised when I realized how quickly gaming on Linux was picking up Steam (pun intended). I hope Steam Machines take off like their fans are saying, but I'm somewhat skeptical about that seeing how the WiiU has shown that even good software isn't always enough to sell a console, it's got to be the "right" software (in this case titles like CoD, Assassin's Creed, FIFA, NHL, Halo and all the other AAA console exclusives). Most of these 1600+ titles are smaller indie titles and while there are a lot of big AAA titles launching, it's still nothing like what Windows and consoles get in this department.

While I don't miss most of the titles that aren't coming out on Linux (the only titles from this year that aren't console exclusives are Mad Max and Fallout 4), I do believe that for gaming on Linux to take off these big AAA titles will somehow have to be coaxed onto Linux, which will be a challenge to say the least remembering that Apple was able to coax the CoD-franchise onto their platform, but then saw Activision stop porting over new releases because of lacking sales. If Steam machines take off it could provide the sales necessary to attract these big titles and keep them, but this would requite something of a flying start so that lacking sales don't poison the well with money conscious publishers.

Still... I bought my machine mostly so that I could do GPGPU development work on the desktop (got tired of doing it over SSH) and I've now found myself using that machine more or less just as much for playing games as doing GPGPU development for OpenCL and CUDA.

[zerothis]

With over 10,000 Linux games out there since it's availability, and nearly 8500 of those not availble on Steam, Steam has yet to match the average number of Linux releases per year. Also, Steam spent 9 years not supporting Linux. And, Steam still requires that all games for Linux also support Windows and this still precludes many older Linux ports bound by license and practical issues from availibilty on the service.

[geamandura]

What's been your favorite moments and games over the past three years of Steam on Linux?

Civ V + Beyond Earth of course, but unexpectedly BlazeRush. Looks incredible and is rock solid on Catalyst. Haven't had so much pure dumb fun on the PC since I was a kid. Fully recommended!

[anda_skoa]

And, Steam still requires that all games for Linux also support Windows

What? That sounds like an odd requirement.