Here Are The Steam Survey Results For Linux During August 2016

[karolherbst]

Ok.
I thought this last generation wasn't sold at a loss.
I mean, it has really old hardware...

well maybe they do a little, but it shouldn't be the main source of profit.

[johnc]

I think it's fair to assume that AMD's new ZEN processor will bring prices down.
If Steam boxes based on ZEN processors + AMD RX480 come out cheaper than current consoles, and SteamOS gets included in Linux usage, i think that might be the final nudge that Linux gaming needs...

Come on, man. Steam boxes were DOA. Even Valve doesn't care about the project.

At this point if people want to see Linux gaming they have to support other platforms like Android (maybe Nintendo?) and hope there's a trickle-down effect.

[chrisb]

Well bugX is on bugzilla, several people reported it:

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=93649

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=95308

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=96271

Have you tested whether a previous kernel/mesa work? Then bisect?
Or is this a bug that has always been present but only became visible after a change to the game binary?

[sarmad]

If 2~2.5% is true, somehow 0.86% looks low indeed

But probably not every gamer is on steam, some might use GoG, wine or even traditional opensource gaming scenario, etc...

I would say it's because Linux gaming itself is new and majority of Linux users do not have capable hardware for games.

[Amarildo]

Is he TF2 lock-up on GCN GPUs reproducible? I recall trying TF2 on my R9 380 with AMDGPU without issue, but it wasn't really a long play-session.

Oooh yeah, it's real. Trust me.

dungeon , do you think you're able to locate the bug in Mesa or the RadeonSI driver?

[Amarildo]

Have you tested whether a previous kernel/mesa work? Then bisect?
Or is this a bug that has always been present but only became visible after a change to the game binary?

This is a very weird issue, because I don't really know where it is. I think it's not in Mesa, and here's why:

* On Debian Jessie with kernel 3.16 and Mesa 10.3, the problem doesn't happen;
* On the same Debian, but with mesa backported, the problem also doesn't happen;
* On the same Debian with Mesa backported and the Kernel backported, the problem still doesn't happen;
* On Arch Linux with Mesa downgraded to 10.3, the problem happens;
* On the same Arch Linux with Mesa and Kernel downgraded, the problem still happens;
* I'm not 100% sure I downgraded the Firmware on Arch, but I'll try today since I'm testing a few drivers in Linux;
* I have a vague memory about downgrading the kernel, mesa, and the firmware, and the issue was still there;
* On vanilla Arch with Catalyst/FGLRX, the problem doesn't happen;

So I do think this issue is much bigger than everybody things and only happens with a certain combination of Mesa, Kernel, Firmware, and possibly libdrm, llvm, and other pieces of software as well.

What I really think is that VALVe should investigate this, but they're too proud to do so.

[Amarildo]

Maybe this is the cvar to try or ConVar or whatever... People i can't fix all your bugs

Thanks. I tried it, but it didn't work.

[MrRtd]

Debian, steam for at least two years. No survey ever requested.
Numbers are crap.

The survey does seem to offer itself up rather randomly. I happened to get the survey last month on my new Linux desktop and only got it once on my Linux laptop that I've had for years.

[Kano]

@Amarildo

LLVM issue?

[dungeon]

He, he, not everything is llvm issue... TF2 enabled texture streaming feature to save some mem back then for Linux and issues with radeonsi started from there i think.

Without, they likely had higher memory footprint, longer loading times, but better performance. And now they had everything opposite plus random lockup on radeonsi