PC Gamer had a chat with Alienware manager Frank Azor about the changing situation of Steam Machines. They feel Windows 10 is part of the reason Steam Machines and SteamOS didn't do so well.
He also mentions that the limited library we have compared to Windows is an issue, which is obvious, but slowly improving with time. One comment that I found a bit odd was his comment about what controller you can use (he says controller, meaning gamepad), as Linux generally has very good support for almost all gamepads. SteamOS specifically will also soon gain official config support (like what you can do with the Steam Controller) for the Dualshock 4, which is currently in Beta. This will be rolled out to others in future too. Even without that ability for other gamepads, Linux/SteamOS still works well with most of them.
Sadly, he also points out that the Alienware Alpha with Windows 10 significantly outsells the Steam Machine version of the unit. Not sure I'm really surprised there though.
I don't see the Windows 10 store being much of a threat yet, considering the low sales that have been described and the controversy surrounding the newest Call of Duty. With the release of the latest CoD, gamers found if they got their copy from the Windows store they couldn't play with anyone on Steam. The fact remains though, things could still turn sour at any point—especially if Microsoft start adding in more and more cross-play titles with Xbox One and the Windows 10 store cutting into Steam sales. I don't see Valve dropping SteamOS anytime soon due to this.
Personally, I don't ever want to use Windows 10 for anything more than benchmarks and comparisons. All those privacy issues are just too much for me. I know you can turn some off easily, and others with downloadable scripts, but it goes too far for my liking. I am surprised more people don't have an issue with just how much it tracks you. It's worrying.
It seems like the release of Windows 10 has calmed down OEM concerns about users gaming on PC. This isn't good for us, but it's certainly not the end of the world. The fact still remains that SteamOS and Steam Machines have pushed Linux gaming to heights some of us never dreamt to be possible.
So while SteamOS momentum may be slow, Linux gaming in general is still doing rather well in my opinion. Just look at how many games have been ported this year despite SteamOS and Steam Machines not doing so well in terms of sales.
We still need more day-1 ports of bigger titles, VR support and games that perform closer to Windows to even begin eating into Windows market-share.
What's your take on this?
Thanks to calvin for letting sending it in! Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quote“I think the landscape two years ago was very different to what it is today,” Azor said. “The catalyst for the Steam Machine initiative was really around what Microsoft’s decisions were with Windows 8, and if you remember that operating system, it really stepped away from gamers in a big way. We were concerned as an industry that we were going to lose PC gamers on the Windows platform to any other platform that was out there, whether it was console, Mac OS X, Android.
“So that’s where the partnership between Valve and Alienware really initiated around the Steam Machine concept,” he continued. “We said: ‘Hey, we can’t lose Windows as a gaming platform.’ We had to take matters into our own hands because we couldn’t rely on Microsoft. So we did that, and we started pursuing the path that we did.”
He also mentions that the limited library we have compared to Windows is an issue, which is obvious, but slowly improving with time. One comment that I found a bit odd was his comment about what controller you can use (he says controller, meaning gamepad), as Linux generally has very good support for almost all gamepads. SteamOS specifically will also soon gain official config support (like what you can do with the Steam Controller) for the Dualshock 4, which is currently in Beta. This will be rolled out to others in future too. Even without that ability for other gamepads, Linux/SteamOS still works well with most of them.
Sadly, he also points out that the Alienware Alpha with Windows 10 significantly outsells the Steam Machine version of the unit. Not sure I'm really surprised there though.
I don't see the Windows 10 store being much of a threat yet, considering the low sales that have been described and the controversy surrounding the newest Call of Duty. With the release of the latest CoD, gamers found if they got their copy from the Windows store they couldn't play with anyone on Steam. The fact remains though, things could still turn sour at any point—especially if Microsoft start adding in more and more cross-play titles with Xbox One and the Windows 10 store cutting into Steam sales. I don't see Valve dropping SteamOS anytime soon due to this.
Personally, I don't ever want to use Windows 10 for anything more than benchmarks and comparisons. All those privacy issues are just too much for me. I know you can turn some off easily, and others with downloadable scripts, but it goes too far for my liking. I am surprised more people don't have an issue with just how much it tracks you. It's worrying.
It seems like the release of Windows 10 has calmed down OEM concerns about users gaming on PC. This isn't good for us, but it's certainly not the end of the world. The fact still remains that SteamOS and Steam Machines have pushed Linux gaming to heights some of us never dreamt to be possible.
So while SteamOS momentum may be slow, Linux gaming in general is still doing rather well in my opinion. Just look at how many games have been ported this year despite SteamOS and Steam Machines not doing so well in terms of sales.
We still need more day-1 ports of bigger titles, VR support and games that perform closer to Windows to even begin eating into Windows market-share.
What's your take on this?
Thanks to calvin for letting sending it in! Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Never had any issue with Windows 10 up to now.
Still have it installed, mainly for gaming.
I'm more than fine with it.
Still have it installed, mainly for gaming.
I'm more than fine with it.
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And you also still can, don't use past tense:-)Was the Steam Machines even available outside of the US? I wanted to buy one but none of them appeared in Australia.Yes, at least in Europe you could buy the ones from Alienware and the ZBox from Zotac.
And not just from Steam but through regular Zotac and Dell sales channels, which means basically all major PC shops.
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From a German site:
https://vrodo.de/valve-virtual-reality-ist-die-finale-plattform-steamvr-fuer-osx-und-linux/
Money quote and translation:
Also I think that Valve and the big publishers make already profits with Linux games. Nothing which finances the games themselves, but Linux ports creates additional revenue. One percent additional sales is very much. For many games this is maybe the profit margin. See Alien: Isolation for example. If you program games so that they are easily portable, you get an additional source of income. Large publishers calculate this way. They have to port their games on many platforms to be profitable. So I do not worry about more games, as long as our community does not shrink.
On the other hand Windows and the consoles are very important for the development of sophisticated games. Only if you have new developments you can port something to Linux. Obvious. Linux is much to small for primary development, but clearly big enough for high quality ports.
https://vrodo.de/valve-virtual-reality-ist-die-finale-plattform-steamvr-fuer-osx-und-linux/
Money quote and translation:
Valve is investing both in hardware and software and is convinced that the combination of virtual and augmented reality is "the final computer platform," says Ludwig in his presentation at the Steam Developer Conference in mid-October.I think Valves Linux's commitment is very sustainable and has a lot to do with VR. At this point Steam Machnines will become much more useful.
"It is difficult to imagine what could still follow a platform that controls everything you hear and see."
Therefore it is important that the new technology is built on open systems, according to Ludwig. Its definition of an "open platform" is as follows: It must run several devices from different manufacturers with the same software. Hardware and software should not be interdependent.
This helps to prevent gatekeepers from deciding which software and hardware may be made and published. According to Ludwig, an open platform promotes the will of all participants to engage in experiments.
Also I think that Valve and the big publishers make already profits with Linux games. Nothing which finances the games themselves, but Linux ports creates additional revenue. One percent additional sales is very much. For many games this is maybe the profit margin. See Alien: Isolation for example. If you program games so that they are easily portable, you get an additional source of income. Large publishers calculate this way. They have to port their games on many platforms to be profitable. So I do not worry about more games, as long as our community does not shrink.
On the other hand Windows and the consoles are very important for the development of sophisticated games. Only if you have new developments you can port something to Linux. Obvious. Linux is much to small for primary development, but clearly big enough for high quality ports.
6 Likes, Who?
The story would've been much different if Valve was as capable as Sony or MS in terms of pushing studios to support their platform. Sony was able to convince all studios to target PS4 way before PS4 was even on the market. If Valve did the same and marketed the Steam Machines as a new console and convinced publishers to target the paltform it would've been a success. People are comparing SteamOS games to Windows games because SteamOS is marketted as a PC replacement rather than a new console platform. Notice that no one compared the number of games on PS4 to those on Windows like they often do with SteamOS.
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But then there are coming big titles to Linux, thanks to all the hard work of all the porters and porting companies, so I cheer again. Just to realize, how much you have to fiddle around with those games, to make them work. There is always something you have to fiddle around on Linux, and it feels like it's a lot more than on Windows. Of course Windows also has its problems, but in general, it have to admit to get the impression, it's more stable in general. Even though it's running on even more different hardware setups.
The occasional indie game might be badly packaged, but it's rare. Windows requires a lot more nit-picky stuff to get games running than Linux. On Linux, you double click and the game launches. On Windows, it launches two, sometimes three, separate launchers - directX, .net framework at least. Then, if it's AAA, you might find that the game doesn't launch, or has terrible performance until you update your graphics driver. If anything goes wrong after that, the stock support answer is "update your graphics driver, update your computer" and until you do that, you're stuck. And until a few years ago, when they started asking for the directx output, they didn't even have an established way to get information pertinent to fixing your issue.
Sure, Linux gaming has less performance, and sure, we're missing a few triple-A titles, I might have bought. But it's a whole lot more reliable and consistent than my fifteen years experience of gaming on Windows.
I don't miss it at all, and luckily, no game will ever have the ability to make me reconsider Windows as an option. That ship has sailed.
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From a German site:Interesting article, thanks for the link.
https://vrodo.de/valve-virtual-reality-ist-die-finale-plattform-steamvr-fuer-osx-und-linux/
Money quote and translation:
Valve is investing both in hardware and software and is convinced that the combination of virtual and augmented reality is "the final computer platform," says Ludwig in his presentation at the Steam Developer Conference in mid-October.I think Valves Linux's commitment is very sustainable and has a lot to do with VR. At this point Steam Machnines will become much more useful.
"It is difficult to imagine what could still follow a platform that controls everything you hear and see."
Therefore it is important that the new technology is built on open systems, according to Ludwig. Its definition of an "open platform" is as follows: It must run several devices from different manufacturers with the same software. Hardware and software should not be interdependent.
This helps to prevent gatekeepers from deciding which software and hardware may be made and published. According to Ludwig, an open platform promotes the will of all participants to engage in experiments.
Also I think that Valve and the big publishers make already profits with Linux games. Nothing which finances the games themselves, but Linux ports creates additional revenue. One percent additional sales is very much. For many games this is maybe the profit margin. See Alien: Isolation for example. If you program games so that they are easily portable, you get an additional source of income. Large publishers calculate this way. They have to port their games on many platforms to be profitable. So I do not worry about more games, as long as our community does not shrink.
On the other hand Windows and the consoles are very important for the development of sophisticated games. Only if you have new developments you can port something to Linux. Obvious. Linux is much to small for primary development, but clearly big enough for high quality ports.
I like how the Valve Programmer states that they believe in open platforms.
“Man kann sich schwer vorstellen, was noch auf eine Plattform folgen könnte, die alles kontrolliert, was man hört und sieht.”
"It is difficult to imagine what could still follow a platform that controls everything you hear and see."Next stage could be smells and taste, and further and that is scary if it can control what people think.
Lets hope that companies like Microsoft, Apple and Google will not build brain implants in the future.
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Then, if it's AAA, you might find that the game doesn't launch, or has terrible performance until you update your graphics driver.
Definitely not my experience.
It works far better than some folks here like to admit (or assume).
And this a major issue when it comes to getting more people use Linux for gaming.
I guess it's very unlikely someone switches to Linux due to the UX when it comes to games.
(There might be other reasons, though)
And when they do, they'll be most likely disappointed (in comparison).
I take it as a sad fact.
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I'm sorry to doubt the Dell argument about steam machine, as windows 8 and 8.1 still have better performances over windows 10 and 7 on gaming.
And now that windows 10 is going even more against gamers with UWP platform, with lower perf than windows 7 and 8.1, microsoft is fine for dell?
This does not make much sens, but most of the devs intervening on that debate was saying the same as dell, and in the end many of them have accepted to work on UWP which really is a shame for them.
Luckily as you say Liam, Linux gaming is still growing, and getting better everyday thx to the devs who actually care of other platforms and don't fall in the UWP windows 10 only trap.
If steam don't get too much money from MS to accept to make crossplatform with UWP it will be a good point for valve in the future of Linux gaming.
I think that we should read it more like "Win8 was going against the gamers but with the release of Win10 there came DirectX12 and also gamers didn't seam to switch away from the platform so we now see it as a non-issue.". This is the problem with monopoly players like Microsoft, they can abuse their user base in every way or form and they will still remain loyal to the brand because "there is no alternative".
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As to the privacy, I've noticed a trend. Basically, each version of Windows invades your privacy more thoroughly and tries to control your updating and whatnot more aggressively than the version before.
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SteamOS has its flaws, but being a crippled console OS is not one of them.it's up to Valve to create a suitable competitor
Valve cannot create a suitable competitor to Windows.
Why the hell should I use SteamOS, which is nothing more than a crippled console OS, when I can use Windows, a full blown operating system??? Which, by the way, allows me to play the entirety of the Steam library at full speed.
We need a polished and complete desktop OS.
Ubuntu was promising 10 years ago, now it's a clusterfuck.
Its based on Debian 8 and you get root access so you can change almost everything except the proprietary drivers from Nvidia, AMD etc.
They could have done something similar as Google with Android, using the Linux Kernel and some libraries but then no way for users to escape the Steam client. Instead the bundle a desktop too which is very spartan, but its open to install every Linux program you want and have access too.
I have installed some GOG games for example.
Steam Big Picture is limited compared to the window mode, but also that is possible to run steam in window mode if you want.
It is in fact the first console since the Amiga CD32 I got interested in and bought for above reasons, and also that it is PC hardware, so if I at some point should want to then I can install another Linux or even Windows.
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Well the few gaming related things in Win 10 are dx12 (didn't show any major improvement in comparison with dx11 in general) and the xbox app (make the performance worst due to game recording if you don't disable it).
I don't see many gaming improvement in Win 10 actually, plus you have less privacy (especially if you didn't changed the privacy settings) and UWP that isn't good and I don't know if has support for advanced monitor syncing like freesync and gsync (but hey now is possible to play XBOX games :|, a possible way to locking the windows platform and don't have access to the executables), the only thing that has truly improved is the UI that in Win8 had some problems of usability for PC as for the Windows update we all know that is worst now since you can't choose what to update, it just updates and the maximum you can do is postpone to a certain time of the day and sometimes takes a long time to Windows finish the update process.
Last edited by Edmene on 14 November 2016 at 8:19 pm UTC
I don't see many gaming improvement in Win 10 actually, plus you have less privacy (especially if you didn't changed the privacy settings) and UWP that isn't good and I don't know if has support for advanced monitor syncing like freesync and gsync (but hey now is possible to play XBOX games :|, a possible way to locking the windows platform and don't have access to the executables), the only thing that has truly improved is the UI that in Win8 had some problems of usability for PC as for the Windows update we all know that is worst now since you can't choose what to update, it just updates and the maximum you can do is postpone to a certain time of the day and sometimes takes a long time to Windows finish the update process.
Last edited by Edmene on 14 November 2016 at 8:19 pm UTC
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Ignore it, please or delete if possible Liam.
Last edited by Edmene on 14 November 2016 at 8:20 pm UTC
Last edited by Edmene on 14 November 2016 at 8:20 pm UTC
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Well, you can force it to act like a real desktop Linux if you know what you're doing. But its reason for existence is to be a console OS. It is almost certainly easier to wipe it and install Mint or something than to get SteamOS itself configured to be a good desktop.SteamOS has its flaws, but being a crippled console OS is not one of them.it's up to Valve to create a suitable competitor
Valve cannot create a suitable competitor to Windows.
Why the hell should I use SteamOS, which is nothing more than a crippled console OS, when I can use Windows, a full blown operating system??? Which, by the way, allows me to play the entirety of the Steam library at full speed.
We need a polished and complete desktop OS.
Ubuntu was promising 10 years ago, now it's a clusterfuck.
But it's ludicrous to complain about it. Valve took Linux and used it to create a console OS so they could ship a console. Now barotto is complaining that (shock! horror!) SteamOS is a console OS. Well, duh. There are plenty of good Linux desktop distributions; SteamOS isn't one of them just like whatever they stick in routers isn't one of them--it's not supposed to be.
Valve has not so far attempted to create a competitor to Windows; they seem to have assumed that Ubuntu, Mint, and so on were handling that side of things. Valve adding one more desktop Linux distro would have just caused resentment and it probably would have sucked anyway because that's not their expertise. Instead they tried to create a competitor to Microsoft's Xbox, which would synergize with desktop Linux. They didn't succeed, at least not so far, but SteamOS has acted as sort of a reference implementation for gaming and a target for game developers. I suspect that nowadays distro rollers who care about desktop users try to get in sync with SteamOS for the gaming-relevant stuff so games will run.
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Well the few gaming related things in Win 10 are dx12 (didn't show any major improvement in comparison with dx11 in general) and the xbox app (make the performance worst due to game recording if you don't disable it).I'm no expert, but it seems to me the general consensus is that DX12 is quite good, very similar to Vulkan, and is in fact a significant improvement over DX11.
While as near as I can make out Windows 10 is worse than Windows 8 in many ways, I can see the argument that it is better from a gaming/game developer perspective.
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 14 November 2016 at 8:35 pm UTC
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I'm no expert, but it seems to me the general consensus is that DX12 is quite good, very similar to Vulkan, and is in fact a significant improvement over DX11.It is better but at the moment for the gamers, dx12 didn't delivered what it should, performance gains of dx12 versus dx11 in the games that have support for it are marginal in most of the cases, for someone change to Windows 10 just for it at the current state isn't a good enough reason.
While as near as I can make out Windows 10 is worse than Windows 8 in many ways, I can see the argument that it is better from a gaming/game developer perspective.
Most probably the dx12 game performance isn't stellar due to most engines being dx11 focused and the released games being in production for quite some time, except by ashes of the singularity which is one game that had good gains, especially for AMD GPUs because since the inception of the nitrous engine: low level APIs were considered, at the time mantle.
Last edited by Edmene on 14 November 2016 at 10:03 pm UTC
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johndoe86x Nov 14, 2016
The occasional indie game might be badly packaged, but it's rare. Windows requires a lot more nit-picky stuff to get games running than Linux. On Linux, you double click and the game launches. On Windows, it launches two, sometimes three, separate launchers - directX, .net framework at least.
No, this is not how it works on Windows. The only time I see multiple windows pop up is during an installation procedure the first time it runs. Even UPlay has gotten less intrusive. Yes, it's still another layer of DRM, but it's gotten much better. Once the game is fully installed, it runs on a button click.
Then, if it's AAA, you might find that the game doesn't launch, or has terrible performance until you update your graphics driver. If anything goes wrong after that, the stock support answer is "update your graphics driver, update your computer" and until you do that, you're stuck.
To be fair it's almost always best to run the latest drivers in any operating system. I've never had a game not launch on day one, even before downloading the latest driver updates.
And until a few years ago, when they started asking for the directx output, they didn't even have an established way to get information pertinent to fixing your issue.
I've never gotten to this point. I've gamed on PC since the original Doom, and I've never had to call a company to give them any kind of log file because my game didn't start. Not saying it doesn't happen, I've just never experienced it.
Sure, Linux gaming has less performance, and sure, we're missing a few triple-A titles, I might have bought. But it's a whole lot more reliable and consistent than my fifteen years experience of gaming on Windows.
I don't miss it at all, and luckily, no game will ever have the ability to make me reconsider Windows as an option. That ship has sailed.
That's fantastic that you're so committed to Linux, I've recently decided to dual boot because I'm sick of the built in spyware from Microsoft, however, Windows gaming is not as you describe it.
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I've said this before, but it's worth saying again. People need to stop thinking of SteamOS as a competitor to Windows. I doubt that was ever Valve's intention. As someone above already mentioned, Steam Machines were an alternative to those people who were going to leave Windows anyway and switch to consoles. Valve is making a boatload of money from Windows gamers, and all they've done is add even more revenue from Mac and Linux game. For them it's a win-win situation.
Steam as a whole is their platform, not just SteamOS. They have multiple streams of revenue coming in. That's actually good for us because it means we'll still get games even if SteamOS isn't highly competitive because Valve doesn't depend on it to stay afloat.
Steam as a whole is their platform, not just SteamOS. They have multiple streams of revenue coming in. That's actually good for us because it means we'll still get games even if SteamOS isn't highly competitive because Valve doesn't depend on it to stay afloat.
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well on the business side of things, Microsoft won't completely go walled garden until they know they have all the major companies on board with it. So far EA has their own storefront setup that I don't think they want to relinquish everything to the MS store anytime soon.
Everything is in flux, which is why things with SteamOS have stagnated. But with more vulkan development around the corner. all throughout next year should start the next evolution of gaming, which is where we will see DX12 and Vulkan go head to head and we find out the performance is almost identical. with some edge cases of each API having better performance over the other.
plus wine will get dx12 support which I'm really curious to see what sort of performance there will be. (i'm assuming there will be little to no performance hit). which will be all the more reason for Steam to incorporate their own version of wine at that point, as part of their runtime. this will help to alleviate most compatibility issues on Steam OS.
When it comes to the mainstream gamers all they want is for things to work without much fuss. it all boils down to what games can I play and what is the performance compared to price. Where as most of us geeks it doesn't matter so much.
Wine, Vulkan and DX12 development will be a good time for Steam OS to try to shine. Which will be over the coarse of the next couple of years.
Everything is in flux, which is why things with SteamOS have stagnated. But with more vulkan development around the corner. all throughout next year should start the next evolution of gaming, which is where we will see DX12 and Vulkan go head to head and we find out the performance is almost identical. with some edge cases of each API having better performance over the other.
plus wine will get dx12 support which I'm really curious to see what sort of performance there will be. (i'm assuming there will be little to no performance hit). which will be all the more reason for Steam to incorporate their own version of wine at that point, as part of their runtime. this will help to alleviate most compatibility issues on Steam OS.
When it comes to the mainstream gamers all they want is for things to work without much fuss. it all boils down to what games can I play and what is the performance compared to price. Where as most of us geeks it doesn't matter so much.
Wine, Vulkan and DX12 development will be a good time for Steam OS to try to shine. Which will be over the coarse of the next couple of years.
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Microsoft can't go walled garden; it would enrage enterprise, and that's a primary market for them - much larger than gaming, despite its status as a growth market.
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Microsoft can't go walled garden; it would enrage enterprise, and that's a primary market for them - much larger than gaming, despite its status as a growth market.
You're gonna have to explain that one to me.
Apple is very walled garden; and for whatever reason enterprise loves Apple. Microsoft's biggest product is Azure (and patents/licensing). Windows doesn't net them nearly as much, or at least so I've been told.
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