Steam Machines, Steam Link & Steam Controller Officially Released & SteamOS Sale

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!

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

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

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!"

Quoting: ShabbyX

Quoting: ricki42

Quoting: 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.

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!

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.

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.

Quoting: Pecisk

Quoting: maodzedun

Quoting: Mountain Man

Quoting: 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.

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.

Quoting: melkemindI 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.

I think part of the problem was on the software side but by the time I got mine last Friday things seemed to have been mostly fixed. Besides the initial firmware update, I've already seen another one, which shows Valve are working hard. Also, a month after the early adopters, we have the benefit of existing controller profiles, including some official ones. The fact Fallout 4 was released with a day one official Steam Controller profile from Bethesda, speaks loads about how developers look at it. Granted the Bethesda profile was horrible, the effort is still appreciated :P.
On a more Linux related topic, playing Borderlands is a true pleasure as the game supports simultaneous gamepad/mouse input, which means you get the benefits from the controller layout and easy button navigation + the touch pad aiming.
Wonder if it would work in Wine though. A quick test in Skyrim proved what I already suspected - it's much better than with Xbox controller.

Quoting: wleoncioI'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.

I don't think it's biased. If my theory is correct, it works exactly the same way on Windows in that it checks for changes or new systems.

This is what I think happens: Steam has a list of active hardware+OS configuration for each user. When the user logs in from something different, the survey will come up (not every time, I think they only send surveys at certain times every month probably to avoid annoying people who constantly tinker). Steam will then add the configuration from that survey to your list. If you don't use a setup/PC for some time, Steam will assume you don't have or use it anymore and drops it from your list. Next time you log in from that dropped computer, Steam will notice it as a new setup, give the survey, and add it back.
This way, the Steam survey is representative of pretty much all users, rather than a random sample. It also avoids annoying people if they randomly get the survey several times in a row.
I don't know how in the analysis they handle users with several setups, but I'd guess the easiest way would be simply to split between the configurations. So I'd now count as half a user with an older Fedora laptop, and half a user with a mid-high end Ubuntu PC. If this is the case, then a Linux user who boots into Windows and gets the survey, will for the next couple of months (however long Steam keeps configurations on file) count as half a Linux user and half a Windows user. They may have better methods like actually weighing by how much time you spend on each; I somewhat doubt that though, people may spend a lot of time offline which could skew the result.

I also think the survey results seem reasonable at about 1% Linux. Whenever we do get platform-specific sales data, Linux is usually around 1-5%, occasionally higher, but mostly this is what I remember seeing. If on average Linux users buy the same number of games as Windows users, but we have about 1/4 the games, it makes sense that we have sales numbers of ~4%. I doubt Linux users on average do buy the same number of games though, simply because the games they want may not be available, and they may get them on Windows or console or skip (fewer games to impulse-buy during sales!). But a few % Linux sales makes perfect sense for a 1% user base and about 25% of available games.

Sorry this got so long, I'm just getting a bit tired of this whole 'the survey is rigged' thing every time Linux sales and stats come up. Instead of complaining that the survey comes up every time you (not you personally wleoncio, general you) boot into Windows, just don't boot into Windows and don't buy games that don't have Linux support. That's the best way to improve the numbers and ensure you count as Linux and Linux-only.

I'm just going to say this and I'm done with this thread: everyone is entitled to their opinions. Respect it, don't go overboard.

I'm having a fairly frustrating time with the Steam controller. The mouse pad doesn't work from time to time in Big Picture Mode and some games it just isn't working correctly. I'm lacking patience with this.


Last edited by Storminator16 on 11 November 2015 at 7:05 pm UTC

[quote=maodzedun]

Quoting: melkemindWonder if it would work in Wine though. A quick test in Skyrim proved what I already suspected - it's much better than with Xbox controller.

It works! As long as you have steam client running, all configurations and mappings work outside of Steam as well.

I just tested this on Fedora 23 with Morrowind running under Playonlinux... I created simple mapping for it, and it seems to work well.

Quoting: Storminator16I'm having a fairly frustrating time with the Steam controller. The mouse pad doesn't work from time to time in Big Picture Mode and some games it just isn't working correctly. I'm lacking patience with this.

The mouse pad? It isn't even used in Big Picture mode except if you're in the web browser... What you are seeing is intentional behavior. They will let us customize it in the future - the option is there, but not accessible yet.

Quoting: adolson

Quoting: Storminator16I'm having a fairly frustrating time with the Steam controller. The mouse pad doesn't work from time to time in Big Picture Mode and some games it just isn't working correctly. I'm lacking patience with this.

The mouse pad? It isn't even used in Big Picture mode except if you're in the web browser... What you are seeing is intentional behavior. They will let us customize it in the future - the option is there, but not accessible yet.

The first time I launched it (pre-hack we all have to do), it partially worked.

So, I figured out my issues. The aforementioned hack we all have to do (at least on Ubuntu; thanks, Canonical), I butchered the changes I needed to make in /lib/udev/rules.d/99-steam-controller-perms.rules.

Yeah, this controller makes couch gaming infinitely more enjoyable. Not that the Xbox 360 pad didn't, but this just rocks.

OK guys, you can stop the ranting about the bad launch now (Fallout 4 came out on the same day, remember?). Now there is a picture of steam hardware at the top, where Fallout 4 used to be. You happy now?

I wasn't even expecting for Valve to do something special on launch. All their products so far produced most of the hype hype themselves.

Quoting: edve98there is a picture of steam hardware at the top, where Fallout 4 used to be.

Refresh the page a few times and it'll switch back to Fallout. This is how it's been since the launch.