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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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The comments on this article are closed.
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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Quoting: RedfaceWell, 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.Quoting: barottoSteamOS has its flaws, but being a crippled console OS is not one of them.Quoting: wleoncioit'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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Quoting: EdmeneWell 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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Quoting: Purple Library GuyI'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
Quoting: scaineThe 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.
Quoting: scaineThen, 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.
Quoting: scaineAnd 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.
Quoting: scaineSure, 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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Quoting: calvinMicrosoft 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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