Today will go down in the history books of Linux gaming that’s for sure. Sadly, this release has been pretty quiet. I was hoping for a much bigger bang like we were given with the original announcement, as this release day is a bit of a let-down. We haven’t seen any major new games released with it today, I was expecting at the very least one of the Saints Row games and Rocket League, or just something with a bit of oomph to it.
However, there has been a vast amount of activity on SteamDB’s page of Linux game hints, so it’s probable that a few developers have sped-up a bit.
It remains to be seen how Steam Machines will affect our market share, while I am sceptical about it all I am remaining excited and positive about it. It’s the only thing that has ever truly pushed Linux gaming, and I will be forever thankful to Valve for their efforts.
We probably won’t see any real activity in the Steam Hardware Survey for our market share moving for a good few months, and we still don’t have a clue how Valve will show it. It will be foolish of them not to show it at all in their survey, so we will just have to wait and see. It is a real concern of mine though, as I've never seen anyone get a survey in Steam's Big Picture Mode (does it even exist there?).
I officially have a Steam Controller in my hands right now (FINALLY), so you can expect some real thoughts from me on it soon. I also have a dedicated Steam Machine I have been testing and playing games on for the last few days, so I will also have some thoughts up on SteamOS soon too.
The weird thing is, they haven't announced an official release of SteamOS. Their news about SteamOS is pretty much non-existent. I would have assumed it would have been given official release status today too, but apparently not. If it is, they are being quiet about it. I'm starting to think they won't ever give SteamOS a "final" release status, but keep it as an ongoing development with small milestones.
You can find the Steam Sale right here. You can buy a Steam Controller here, a Steam Link here or just view their new hardware page here.
How do you feel about today? The best thing to takeaway from it is that hopefully we will have a continuing steady pace of new Linux games. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
However, there has been a vast amount of activity on SteamDB’s page of Linux game hints, so it’s probable that a few developers have sped-up a bit.
It remains to be seen how Steam Machines will affect our market share, while I am sceptical about it all I am remaining excited and positive about it. It’s the only thing that has ever truly pushed Linux gaming, and I will be forever thankful to Valve for their efforts.
We probably won’t see any real activity in the Steam Hardware Survey for our market share moving for a good few months, and we still don’t have a clue how Valve will show it. It will be foolish of them not to show it at all in their survey, so we will just have to wait and see. It is a real concern of mine though, as I've never seen anyone get a survey in Steam's Big Picture Mode (does it even exist there?).
I officially have a Steam Controller in my hands right now (FINALLY), so you can expect some real thoughts from me on it soon. I also have a dedicated Steam Machine I have been testing and playing games on for the last few days, so I will also have some thoughts up on SteamOS soon too.
The weird thing is, they haven't announced an official release of SteamOS. Their news about SteamOS is pretty much non-existent. I would have assumed it would have been given official release status today too, but apparently not. If it is, they are being quiet about it. I'm starting to think they won't ever give SteamOS a "final" release status, but keep it as an ongoing development with small milestones.
You can find the Steam Sale right here. You can buy a Steam Controller here, a Steam Link here or just view their new hardware page here.
How do you feel about today? The best thing to takeaway from it is that hopefully we will have a continuing steady pace of new Linux games. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:
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Also, while I am somewhat disappointed about how silent today went, I am also kind of relieved.
We know that OpenGL is too old for modern gaming and we have been having performance problems for it. I was certainly hoping Steam Machines would come out after Vulkan is released. I guess they didn't want to delay that so much, so they didn't build the hype either. Once Vulkan becomes common-place, who knows, maybe they start building the hype too!
Either way, good job Valve, we love you!
We know that OpenGL is too old for modern gaming and we have been having performance problems for it. I was certainly hoping Steam Machines would come out after Vulkan is released. I guess they didn't want to delay that so much, so they didn't build the hype either. Once Vulkan becomes common-place, who knows, maybe they start building the hype too!
Either way, good job Valve, we love you!
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Mblackwell Nov 11, 2015
For those experimenting with controller setups, try a Mouse Joystick setup for games where you can't simply set Mouse as the right pad (some games don't support simultaneous input). I also found that adding the gyro at a really low sensitivity allows me to fine tune my aiming. I know there are already some setups that use it, but just confirming that it really does help.
I really don't like the feeling of joystick input on the trackpads though, maybe it's just me.
Also some games like Alien Isolation have decent defaults, and other games like Dying Light you'll have to tweak and tweak. In general it does take a lot of getting used to. It's a pretty different/alien setup, even moreso for people like me who generally play on older/Nintendo controllers so all of the buttons are flipped.
Damn you Microsoft (actually it was SEGA first on the Dreamcast) for flipping the buttons!
Last edited by Mblackwell on 11 November 2015 at 5:20 am UTC
I really don't like the feeling of joystick input on the trackpads though, maybe it's just me.
Also some games like Alien Isolation have decent defaults, and other games like Dying Light you'll have to tweak and tweak. In general it does take a lot of getting used to. It's a pretty different/alien setup, even moreso for people like me who generally play on older/Nintendo controllers so all of the buttons are flipped.
Damn you Microsoft (actually it was SEGA first on the Dreamcast) for flipping the buttons!
Last edited by Mblackwell on 11 November 2015 at 5:20 am UTC
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Quoting: MblackwellI really don't like the feeling of joystick input on the trackpads though, maybe it's just me.It's all going to depend on the game. It looks quite natural for Audiosurf 2:
View video on youtube.com
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It really is worrying that Valve doesn't seem to care about the official launch of its own product. Even if it's a long race, they should at least have published something on their news page, something like "We've got some nice surprises for Linux and Steam OS gamers planned for 2016, so sit tight!"
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Quoting: ShabbyXQuoting: ricki42Quoting: Mountain ManI know from personal experience that Steam for Linux throws up the survey request far less frequently than it does on Windows. I went nearly two-years without a single survey request in Linux, but I would get one every couple of months in Windows, which was ironic considering that at the time, I booted into Windows only occasionally and used Linux almost every single day. I've heard from a number of other people who have had the exact same experience.
I'm starting to wonder if the bolded is exactly the reason. For a bit over a year, I've been running Steam almost daily on my gaming PC, I got the survey once early on. Today, I started Steam on my laptop, just to check out the sale, I don't use it much to play anymore. And of course, the survey pops up. Both run Linux, Ubuntu on PC, Fedora on laptop. Maybe the hardware survey has a higher chance of coming up when Steam notices some change compared to your usual setup, rather than polling people completely at random. Valve anyway knows what OS you're using to connect, they don't need a survey for that.
Don't know, just a suspicion I have. If anyone here has a second Linux machine that they don't usually use for Steam, maybe even with a different distro, try starting Steam a few times to see if you get the survey, would be interesting if this is reproducible.
This seems to be exactly the reason. I had never got the survey, until I switched daily gaming to Linux and very few times that I went back to windows I got asked to do the survey. Not sure how "time" plays in this, but anyway, last month I changed my graphics card and sure enough, in the beginning of this month I got asked to do the survey on Linux. It does actually make sense for valve to be interested in knowing your "new" hardware, not just random sampling.
I've been distro hopping for the paste month and each time I installed steam on a clean build and had to setup the initial login I would get the steam survey every time. It would seem to me if you choose to except the survey then it automatically does it each month, but on occasion it seems to just popup for it to renew for some reason. I'm not sure if you decline if it still sends system information or not. I've always excepted it.
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Total War: Rome 2 should have been a RELEASE title - very disappointed in CA about this. And they can't say they didn't have enough time, it was announced so long ago it feels like it was still in the dark ages!
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Quoting: neowiz73I've been distro hopping for the paste month and each time I installed steam on a clean build and had to setup the initial login I would get the steam survey every time.
I'm starting to think about setting up a Live USB just to boot up once a month, install and log into Steam. Since we know the survey is biased, we should do something to lessen it.
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Quoting: ShabbyXWe know that OpenGL is too old for modern gaming and we have been having performance problems for it.The latest OpenGL 4 versions are quite modern and have dropped much of the legacy baggage. So OpenGL itself isn't the reason why many ports are not quite up to snuff, at least not directly*. Also, as evidenced by the multitude of crappy console-to-Windows ports, shoehorning a new, different graphics API into a finished product is almost always detrimental to performance. Anyway, you're right in that Vulkan is soon the way to go for anything graphically intensive.
*While the API is fine, the infrastructure is severely lacking. And by that I mean documentation, debug/validation tools, proficient developers etc.
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Quoting: PeciskQuoting: maodzedunQuoting: Mountain ManQuoting: Segata SanshiroWell, there go my extremely unrealistic hopes of a Fallout 4 release :(I was at least hoping for a surprise Witcher 3 or Mad Max announcement since those are two games that were originally slated for Linux.
I'm not really disappointed about Fallout 4, to be honest, because Bethesda games are traditionally hellaciously buggy, and Fallout 4 appears to be no exception. It also sounds like it has been dumbed down from Fallout 3, which was already dumbed down from the orginal Fallout games.
Yeah, yeah - the grapes are sour. Face it, people - the Fallout 4 release completely outshone Steam Machine day. People care about the Controller and the Link, but they don't care about a system that can't run Fallout 4, the Witcher III or GTA V. Plain and simple.
Wii U also don't run any of these games. I find Fallout kinda interesting, but is it killer game? Not really. Gaming is huge. All these games are big but they aren't whole gaming.
Said that, I will buy Witcher III at same minute they release it on SteamOS, as for Fallout 4 and GTA V - strangely, they don't get my heart going (Saint Row IV is another matter).
No, sorry, but you're completely wrong. The Wii U comparison is apples to oranges. Nintedo have a niche market that depends on specific types of games and brands. They are targeting a certain audience. The Wii has never been a direct competitor to the PS or Xbox (not even with the release of Kinect). While in the case of Steam OS or Linux, if you prefer, it's direct competition with the Windows gaming market, because the games are the same. There is not one commercial Linux game that is not on Windows, not one exclusive. There are thousands Windows games that are unavailable for Linux gamers.
And Fallout 4 not being a killer game? Dude, just... wow. Yesterday it peaked at 440k+ concurrent players topping even CS and Dota. Just because you aren't interested doesn't mean it's not an absolute smash hit. I don't like the COD series, but it doesn't change the fact they're a killer game series. This isn't about personal, subjective opinion. There are actual metrics to you can use to measure how important a game is - number of players, number of sales. Both of these parameters make GTA and Fallout complete hits.
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I think we are looking at it from the inside out rather than how the rest of the world sees it. To us, SteamOS launched with now "new" launch titles. To the rest of the world, it had 1500+ launch titles, more than any console ever had at launch. Having said that, Rocket League is the one game that should have been ready since they did promise it during preordering.
On an unrelated note, I'm starting to think the people who complained about Steam Controllers were just whining because they like to whine or were trolls. It didn't have as steep of a learning curve for me as it seems to have for many people. It just took me an hour or so to get the hang of it. My 8-year-old daughter picked it up and knew what to do with it almost instantly. Granted I'm not playing some competitive FPS online, but the controller wasn't really made for those anyway.
On an unrelated note, I'm starting to think the people who complained about Steam Controllers were just whining because they like to whine or were trolls. It didn't have as steep of a learning curve for me as it seems to have for many people. It just took me an hour or so to get the hang of it. My 8-year-old daughter picked it up and knew what to do with it almost instantly. Granted I'm not playing some competitive FPS online, but the controller wasn't really made for those anyway.
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