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New Valve's Steam coming to Linux.
http://www.phoronix....ws_item&px=ODE3Mw

Hmmm curious. This is significant. If they relase Steam for Linux... the games are not far behind if at all.

Buh-Bye Windows.
New Makes a lot of sense
They have already committed to doing Steam for the Mac. Getting Steam running on the current Mac OS puts them a good chunk of the way to Linux. They have to do a new interface, but most of the underlying engine would be the same.

The real question will be, how many games can actually be played on Linux? I expect most will still be Windows only.

Jay
New ...
If Valve was putting the effort into getting Steam on Linux to run successfully... I'd imagine that they have a bunch of effort into games on Linux.

If they don't have the games for Linux (and OSX) its just a play for more customers to pump up the numbers.

I seriously doubt they'd put in the additional functionality without the games. What would be the real point?

They have probably got so many people using Steam with Wine... they figured it was time to get it working natively.
New Linux servers
Most shooters have Linux server binaries, but no client. I expect most of what starts on Steam will be those server only binaries.

It will probably mostly depend on how much real game support the Mac gets. The same logic applies to the games there as it does to Steam itself. If your going to port your game to the Mac, you might as well go the whole way to Linux. Linux by itself isn't going to attract enough attention from most game developers, but the combined Mac + Linux market might be worth it.

It may also depend on how much of a consistent platform Steam enforces. If it simplifies Linux game development by requiring a decent base platform, more games will go to Linux.

Jay
New If the are already...
Linux Server Binaries... there is no point as most servers do not need a real license to run.

Installation of said Linux Binaries vary widely. Therein lives the opportunity. But still client binaries need to be available.

I want games on Linux and not just the "server binaries".

I'm betting they have more already done than they are currently letting on with.
New It'll be down to individual publishers.
I expect that many will adopt the Cider technology, which basically wraps a Windows executable inside a Wine runtime.

Performance is as pisspoor as you might expect.
New In that case, wouldn't VirtualBox make more sense?
I assume what is keeping people from gaming inside virtual machines is graphics performance. In Olden Days there was a company that made "universal" accelerated graphics drivers for OS/2....

Ah, yes. Kendall Bennett's SciTech Display Doctor.

http://www.theinquir...ideo-driver-blues

The technology was bought by a company called Alt Richmond which seems to be going after graphics for "portable devices". http://www.altrichmond.ca/gav.html It's hard to tell if it's anything more than a patent bank at the moment, though.

It's an old problem. Unless the manufacturer of the hardware supplies good drivers, most people and most system vendors aren't going to be interested. 3rd party drivers almost always take longer to deliver, are slower to be updated, and riskier (will it work or not? will it be fast enough?). Similarly for solutions involving Wine.

One keeps hoping for a graphics "standard" that's fast enough, stable, open and inexpensive and/or free. But the market changes too quickly, and there's too much money to be made in keeping things proprietary (see ATI vs nVidia). DirectX zz, kernel changes, X changes, Quartz, etc., etc.

If VMs with arbitrary OSes could push the hardware as hard as "native", then issues in porting games would go away. Or if someone would make a "good enough" console VM, that might be a decent solution to gaming on Linux and Mac - consoles don't change quickly.

"I'm playing 12 simultaneous PS3 games on my Magny-Cours Hackintosh!"

Someone needs to come up with a breakthrough product that makes people want to provide the best possible support for it. I'm not holding my breath, but eventually the hardware may be fast enough that it won't matter. Presumably above ~ 100 fps the eye doesn't care even if the display device can keep up.

A me-too gaming box on MacOS and Linux probably isn't going to do it when the console and Windows markets are so big. Presumably Valve is doing the port to keep its options open in case Steve's new boxes really take off. And, as static Jay said, if you're doing a Mac port then a Linux port might not be that much more work. A universal system (run Windows, Linux, Mac, console games, and have a DVR all in the same box) might be a compelling solution but it's a long and difficult slog (not to mention the various license issues that would have to be solved and Apple and MS probably see little advantage in permitting such a thing).

All of this is yet another argument against software patents and for reasonable copyright terms. These problems wouldn't be so daunting if software copyrights expired after 20 years or so, rather than 95 - http://www.copyright.../publicdomain.cfm ... Yeah, like that'll happen anytime soon. :-(

Cheers,
Scott.
(Who imagines that a great way to lose millions would be to try to develop a fast virtual PS3 or XBox for Linux, and who isn't a gamer anyway...)
Expand Edited by Another Scott April 24, 2010, 07:58:06 AM EDT
New I hope not.
If so, its pointless.

It'd a sad state and a failure in class if that is the case.
New Don't know if this will be the same for Linux
http://www.macrumors...ed-beta-underway/
Reports confirm previous claims that Steam and the Source gaming engine will run natively on Mac OS X using OpenGL instead of relying on a wrapper such as Cider to translate the Windows versions to Mac.
New If that is true..
it'll be trivial to get it working on Linux.
New Re: Valve's Steam coming to Linux.
In the article linked, they also state that the Source engine's coming to linux. If that's the case, they're going to have the source games available pretty shortly... the source article is two years old... I bet it's done and now they're cranking up the delivery system to move half-life, counterstrike, etc to linux. If they see a quick uptake on the linux clients for those games, I bet other games will quickly follow.

I'd also perhaps look to them partnering with someone to deliver a linux based console; boom-headshot to being them being pushed around by the owners of the proprietary consoles currently extant. It's good strategic planning to make sure they don't end up as simply a Jobs' auxiliary software vendor.

I mean, if you could get a 300 dollar linux console that played half-life, doom3 and descendents, and counter-strike, as well as letting you do all that internetty goodness and movies-on-demand, would you get one?
New Put Myth in a gaming console with Blueray
Add some external storage and you've got everything you need for the home entertainment center.
--

Drew
New Remember, this is the same Valve that was...
...going to bring Half Life to Mac OS (not OS X).

Long story short, believe it when it happens.

I'd like to think it will, but Valve have form on this business of promising stuff and not delivering it.

Further, I wonder how much 'porting' will be done and whether they'll just do like Corel did with WordPerfect and like EA do with their Mac games, and (as I mentioned above) just kludge their PC executables onto Linux with Wine.

New True enough
on the other hand, I can't see how they could possibly justify spending that money, considering that they have to know that simply wining their software will only result in people staying away in droves.

If the rumours are actually true, I'm pretty sure that this is a bid to ensure they never get held hostage by their platform vendors.

Of course, always believe it when it happens. But hey, would it be irresponsible to speculate? It would be irresponsible not to!
New Re: True enough
On the gripping hand, the Linux gaming market is strewn with the failures of the past; remember Loki?

Wining their stuff might be the only cost-effective way to get Source titles on Linux, given that the aforementioned Linux gaming market is tiny.
New Yeah, but if they hired a guy in 2008 to run it
and all they've done in two years is wine Source, then they really suck at their job.
     Valve's Steam coming to Linux. - (folkert) - (15)
         Makes a lot of sense - (jay) - (8)
             ... - (folkert) - (7)
                 Linux servers - (jay) - (6)
                     If the are already... - (folkert) - (5)
                         It'll be down to individual publishers. - (pwhysall) - (4)
                             In that case, wouldn't VirtualBox make more sense? - (Another Scott)
                             I hope not. - (folkert)
                             Don't know if this will be the same for Linux - (SpiceWare) - (1)
                                 If that is true.. - (folkert)
         Re: Valve's Steam coming to Linux. - (jake123) - (5)
             Put Myth in a gaming console with Blueray - (drook)
             Remember, this is the same Valve that was... - (pwhysall) - (3)
                 True enough - (jake123) - (2)
                     Re: True enough - (pwhysall) - (1)
                         Yeah, but if they hired a guy in 2008 to run it - (jake123)

APOD is cool today.
200 ms