Seems Valve really are trying to do a big push to get Linux graphics drivers up to scratch. Last night Pierre-Loup tweeted about a new hiring and the name might be familiar to some.
Welcome keithp to the team! Our open graphics group is now 5 strong, but still hiring. Shader compiler performance people especially wanted.
— Pierre-Loup Griffais (@Plagman2) March 13, 2017
Yep, none other than Keith Packard, a well known name in the Linux community who worked on the X Window System. He previously worked for Intel, then moved to HP and now he's settling in at Valve to continue Linux development. He will still remain at HP while doing this work for Valve too.
This is likely work towards pushing Virtual Reality support and making it better on Linux. Our open source drivers have already come a long way, but now we have some serious people paid to push them even further. Not only that, but game porter Feral Interactive have also been pushing more patches into Mesa. Awesome stuff.
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Valve were right about Microsofts goals with regards to gaming on windows via the app stores and a walled garden approach. Recently MS has been moving forward at a faster pace with their xbox integration and valve are ( relatively speaking ) running out of time for a viable alternative.
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Valve were right about Microsofts goals with regards to gaming on windows via the app stores and a walled garden approach. Recently MS has been moving forward at a faster pace with their xbox integration and valve are ( relatively speaking ) running out of time for a viable alternative.
It really looks like their lever on Microsoft.
"You're doing more app store enforcement? Well, we can hire Linux developers..."
10 Likes, Who?
Kallestofeles Mar 14, 2017
This is excellent news. The more people working on Linux's projects, the better for us all, especially when it's big names like Keith.
4 Likes, Who?
The effort from Valve seems to be more than just words. It would be great that people understand what is microsoft purpose with windows 10. It is simply about dispossessing users from their own hardware and datas on the long term. They want you to buy just a terminal that you will rent and on which everything is streamed from microsoft cloud servers including your personnal datas, applications, games... and that you will have to pay/rent as well.
Luckily life on linux is getting better everyday, thanks to all the volunteers and actors involved, including Gaming on linux, Phoronix, Feral interactive/Aspyr/Vp valve and all the contributors to vulkan and open source drivers.
Last edited by Jahimself on 14 March 2017 at 12:46 pm UTC
Luckily life on linux is getting better everyday, thanks to all the volunteers and actors involved, including Gaming on linux, Phoronix, Feral interactive/Aspyr/Vp valve and all the contributors to vulkan and open source drivers.
Last edited by Jahimself on 14 March 2017 at 12:46 pm UTC
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IMHO the MESA development seems stalling a bit: ok, they are making everything more robust and faster (and that is very nice and welcome, of course), but, apart from the Vulkan related efforts, there isn't new development regarding all those missing OpenGL extensions. A quick look at MesaMatrix shows that only the 34% of the "Other extensions" for radeonsi (54% for Mesa in general) are finished, and that is holding for two major releases of the library, which means not less than 6 months without new developments...
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johndoe86x Mar 14, 2017
Valve were right about Microsofts goals with regards to gaming on windows via the app stores and a walled garden approach. Recently MS has been moving forward at a faster pace with their xbox integration and valve are ( relatively speaking ) running out of time for a viable alternative.
I've said for awhile that Valve needs some competition. Microsoft and Valve trying to outdo each other will greatly benefit us all.
5 Likes, Who?
Great to see Valve putting more effort into the graphics infrastructure and keeping Linux as a gaming platform alive.
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elbuglione Mar 14, 2017
"Shader compiler performance people especially wanted"
OMG!!!
OMG!!!
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Yey! Keith is a great developer. What ever his duties will be, it's a great thing that he'll be able to work full time on it. Great from Valve to get such an experienced developer on board.
Commits will show what he'll be up to.
All the best at Valve, Keith!
Commits will show what he'll be up to.
All the best at Valve, Keith!
2 Likes, Who?
GustyGhost Mar 14, 2017
IMHO the MESA development seems stalling a bit: ok, they are making everything more robust and faster (and that is very nice and welcome, of course), but, apart from the Vulkan related efforts, there isn't new development regarding all those missing OpenGL extensions. A quick look at MesaMatrix shows that only the 34% of the "Other extensions" for radeonsi (54% for Mesa in general) are finished, and that is holding for two major releases of the library, which means not less than 6 months without new developments...
Mesa got over the major hurdles of reaching OGL 4.5 compliance finally. There isn't much left to do except Vulkan and performance improvements.
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RussianNeuroMancer Mar 14, 2017
Mesa got over the major hurdles of reaching OGL 4.5 compliance finally.Only for GCN and latest Intels, unfortunately.
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Oh, at first I thought "KeithP" would be Keith Peters ;)
Well a few moments before when I was switching from the teaser to the article I was wondering if John Carmack or Michael Abrash were leaving Oculus after all that lawsuit crap with Zenimax...
Well a few moments before when I was switching from the teaser to the article I was wondering if John Carmack or Michael Abrash were leaving Oculus after all that lawsuit crap with Zenimax...
1 Likes, Who?
Regarding Mesa. Did anyone manage to run Trine 3 on radeonsi recently? It hangs / doesn't work for me. I wonder if it's my setup, or Mesa issue. If the later, I'll report it to their bug tracker.
Which is OK, at least for demanding games. You don't want to use anything older. Mesa developers obviously prioritize recent hardware, since each driver needs additional work.
Last edited by Shmerl on 14 March 2017 at 4:31 pm UTC
Mesa got over the major hurdles of reaching OGL 4.5 compliance finally.Only for GCN and latest Intels, unfortunately.
Which is OK, at least for demanding games. You don't want to use anything older. Mesa developers obviously prioritize recent hardware, since each driver needs additional work.
Last edited by Shmerl on 14 March 2017 at 4:31 pm UTC
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Open source is awesome, but having skilled developers hired full time to work in open source is magnificent. My thanks to Valve in this regard.
Valve were right about Microsofts goals with regards to gaming on windows via the app stores and a walled garden approach. Recently MS has been moving forward at a faster pace with their xbox integration and valve are ( relatively speaking ) running out of time for a viable alternative.I thought that had stalled a while ago, but I've been hearing about their app store becoming a reality recently and some kind of controversy involving a certain game's release. @Liam, as someone who isn't trying to keep up on Windows happenings, a "state of gaming on Windows" article would be interesting. It might not be "gaming on Linux" per se, but people keep saying Microsoft's moves are the driving force behind Steam's Linux efforts so it would be informative to see the correlations. And if Microsoft's crappy new restrictions extend beyond games, that's even better for Linux adoption :)
6 Likes, Who?
IMHO the MESA development seems stalling a bit: ok, they are making everything more robust and faster (and that is very nice and welcome, of course), but, apart from the Vulkan related efforts, there isn't new development regarding all those missing OpenGL extensions. A quick look at MesaMatrix shows that only the 34% of the "Other extensions" for radeonsi (54% for Mesa in general) are finished, and that is holding for two major releases of the library, which means not less than 6 months without new developments...
I don't know this for sure, but I believe AMDs Linux team have probably refocused on getting DAL/DC ready for Vega launch since the big names at AMD have gone quiet lately and other developers outside AMD have been picking up the slack.
I believe second half of the year we will see more progress on missing extensions. But I think more important is focusing on bring performance up in general.
Also while I'm happy to see VR being worked on I was hoping to see radv being ahead of opengl by now.
1 Likes, Who?
This is encouraging news now all we need them to do is re hire the guys they got rid of that did the original source engine ports and get working on some linux games new ip exclusive to IP that would be a very strong statement.
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Kimyrielle Mar 14, 2017
Graphics drivers and related performance issues are probably our biggest sore spots right now, so that's good news. I hope he won't work on -just- VR though, at least not as long as the drivers are lagging behind their Windows equivalents in general. To be honest, VR is very unlikely to become a mainstream thing in this decade, that will be a battle for another day.
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Keith Packard has commented on the consulting he'll be doing for Valve.
TL;DR: This is part time. First task is allowing VR to bypass the window system, next is frame timing reporting.
TL;DR: This is part time. First task is allowing VR to bypass the window system, next is frame timing reporting.
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Why is contractor work called "consulting"
And while it's good they are trying to improve things under X, it only highlights that it's time to push Wayland forward instead of lagging behind.
Last edited by Shmerl on 14 March 2017 at 10:24 pm UTC
And while it's good they are trying to improve things under X, it only highlights that it's time to push Wayland forward instead of lagging behind.
Last edited by Shmerl on 14 March 2017 at 10:24 pm UTC
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I wanted to comment to @Shmerl. But gamingonlinux decided to time out on me. Again. As daily several times. Too pissed to write more right now.
The new server was supposed to be better, since we got it, I have more timeouts and low loading times from austria than when I ask my wife to cook dinner (I'm cooking... for good reason ^^).
Last edited by STiAT on 14 March 2017 at 11:33 pm UTC
The new server was supposed to be better, since we got it, I have more timeouts and low loading times from austria than when I ask my wife to cook dinner (I'm cooking... for good reason ^^).
Last edited by STiAT on 14 March 2017 at 11:33 pm UTC
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