The big SteamOS update that drops AMDGPU-PRO in favour of Mesa has left beta

I guess SteamOS uses RADV now then? Did SteamOS have Vulkan support before?

I use SteamOS and since I'm still continuously use it since it was released, you can imagine that it does the job and my thoughts about it are pretty positive.
Except for this: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamuniverse/discussions/1/1291816880499593115/

Edit: To be exact this is not an issue with SteamOS as a distro, but rather with the Steam client's BPM and is true for all distros I tried (and even on Windows).
But the issue is more aggravating on SteamOS where BPM is the only intended interface.


Last edited by dubigrasu on 6 Jun 2017 at 7:38 pm UTC

Well, SteamOS development has never ceased according to bits and pieces of information we have gotten. And using Mesa is awesome step and importance cannot be understated. Thank you team and thank you all Mesa developers. It was gamble for AMD to go open source route, but it starts to pay off.

However question is what's current end game for Steam Machines? Will be there any new generation machines? Or prototypes? Or vendors have given up or never cared in first place (which is highly plausible scenario)?

I never expected first generation to take off really. However would be interesting to understand Valve's long game here.

Is it using S3TC with libtxc_dxtn? If so, how did they clear the licensing? The patent expires in around 120 days, so I expected them to hold on until then.

I use SteamOS and since I'm still continuously use it since it was released, you can imagine that it does the job and my thoughts about it are pretty positive.
Except for this: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamuniverse/discussions/1/1291816880499593115/

This has made me crazy for a few months now, ever since I discovered it was happening with the Steam client. I could make it happen by starting BPM, and then starting a game in BPM. BAM! CPU would skyrocket and stay high until I left BPM and returned to the Desktop client.

I avoid BPM now. I've reconfigured my Steam Controller configs so they don't use any of the on-screen, BPM reliant menus, and I design my new configs without menus too, which is a shame since these are powerful tools.

Thanks for the link to your Steam post, it was very informative. And thanks, too, for all your testing and troubleshooting. If Valve were to put forth half the effort you have, it would be fixed soon.


Last edited by Nanobang on 6 Jun 2017 at 11:51 am UTC

This is huge affirmation of Mesa and AMDs open-source efforts! It excites me and I'm currently an Nvidia user! XD

I imagine most SteamOS users are running audio through HDMI. How is this working out without AMD DAL/DC merged yet? Or are Valve using a custom kernel?

I imagine most SteamOS users are running audio through HDMI. How is this working out without AMD DAL/DC merged yet? Or are Valve using a custom kernel?

If their GitHub repository is anything to go by, I would say no (no "display" folder in https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steamos_kernel/tree/brewmaster-4.11/drivers/gpu/drm/amd ). Then, they might have their source tree elsewhere, or maintain some patches separately (edit: I also checked their available patches, it doesn't seem to be included).

I think it makes sense, given their relatively low head count, not to focus too much on maintaining too many out-of-tree patches.
Plus, RADV and the rest of the stack might be progressing quickly, but it's not top-notch yet. They are still working on some kernel features designed for VR, so I guess they have time to wait for DC.


Last edited by MayeulC on 6 Jun 2017 at 2:12 pm UTC

Hopefully nvidia will start to think about freeing their driver when they see this.

Is anyone here actually using SteamOS? What are your thoughts on it?

I installed it a couple years ago with Stephenson's Rocket.. I've done some modifications, but still running it on my TV box.. I like it overall, although it can seem a bit flaky on updates at times (I've had to fix things via command line rescue mode and/or ssh). Overall, though, it does a fine job as a basic game console in BPM. I wish they'd build more advanced game console features into it and media apps though.

I use SteamOS and since I'm still continuously use it since it was released, you can imagine that it does the job and my thoughts about it are pretty positive.
Except for this: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamuniverse/discussions/1/1291816880499593115/

This has made me crazy for a few months now, ever since I discovered it was happening with the Steam client. I could make it happen by starting BPM, and then starting a game in BPM. BAM! CPU would skyrocket and stay high until I left BPM and returned to the Desktop client.

I avoid BPM now. I've reconfigured my Steam Controller configs so they don't use any of the on-screen, BPM reliant menus, and I design my new configs without menus too, which is a shame since these are powerful tools.

Thanks for the link to your Steam post, it was very informative. And thanks, too, for all your testing and troubleshooting. If Valve were to put forth half the effort you have, it would be fixed soon.

Hey, thanks for the confirmation. I took the liberty to mention your post in that bug report, hope you don't mind.

IMO they were too early with SteamOS for their intended use case/audience. These things are supposed to compete with a console that's just plug and play.

As others on the thread have said you need some Linux knowledge to troubleshoot issues. In the next year, we should actually have wider Wayland adoption, merged DC/DAL in mainline and more solid Vulkan infrastructure. Hopefully the Nvidia Wayland issue will also get worked out. They will also move steam over to Debian 9 which has been much smoother for gaming for me at least for the last 6 months or so compared to Debian 8.

I'm fully steamified, running SteamOS (on a self-build pc ofcourse), steam controller(s) and steam link. I think SteamOS is great for the pure gaming experience. A true desktop OS is better and more complete if you want to tinker a lot. But as i want to just play games without any effort (i already spend way to much time @work as a linux admin with fixing things), SteamOS has been a really great fit. Sometimes i get worried about Valve and their commitment to SteamOS but then they release a major update and i'm happy again. Really, how can you not be? Never in my gaming history have i ever collected so many (great! & original) games, and i'm playing them on Linux.

The only real problem i have is that it seems as if Valve does not have a lot of QC, Steam client updates are frequent and almost always something suddenly doesn't work properly anymore. Last week, my steam controller didn't work properly when connected by usb cable (worked fine wireless), every now and then steam link problems pop up (i hate those), and so on. They get fixed rather quickly though (mostly the next day), but still, it puts a bummer on the limited down/play-time i have.

I use SteamOS and since I'm still continuously use it since it was released, you can imagine that it does the job and my thoughts about it are pretty positive.
Except for this: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamuniverse/discussions/1/1291816880499593115/

Edit: To be exact this is not an issue with SteamOS as a distro, but rather with the Steam client's BPM and is true for all distros I tried (and even on Windows).
But the issue is more aggravating on SteamOS where BPM is the only intended interface.

I've raised this with our developer contacts at Valve and linked to your Steam community post for all the details. I think we've seen a few rare but strange performance drops for people playing in BPM and this bug looks like the cause.

kudos on the detailed and easy to follow post, having spent most of my days reading and logging bugs for over a decade a nicely written report is a joy to read :)

Hey, thanks for the confirmation. I took the liberty to mention your post in that bug report, hope you don't mind.

I don't mind at all! In fact, I'm delighted you did, as I had meant to, then quite simply forgot in the hustle and bustle of the day. :)


Last edited by Nanobang on 7 Jun 2017 at 11:51 am UTC

I've raised this with our developer contacts at Valve and linked to your Steam community post for all the details. I think we've seen a few rare but strange performance drops for people playing in BPM and this bug looks like the cause.

Wow, thank you for sending this to Valve. This issue is killing my gaming experience, and so far (although I kinda posted the bug report everywhere I could) I could'n get someone from Valve to directly acknowledge it.

I've raised this with our developer contacts at Valve and linked to your Steam community post for all the details. I think we've seen a few rare but strange performance drops for people playing in BPM and this bug looks like the cause.

Wow, thank you for sending this to Valve. T

No problem, you did all the hard work :) It was more copy pasta for me with a few Feral game examples thrown in.

Switching between BPM and desktop mode is much slower for me since the update. But CrossOver and GOG games work much better for me now, maybe due to proper driver support for Skylake and my GTX 1080 in my Zotac EN1080.

I guess SteamOS uses RADV now then? Did SteamOS have Vulkan support before?

Steamos had vulkan support in the previous release: it was nvidia driver release 367 something.
It was incapable of handling vulkan on any steam machine though...
The worst part about this news is that I missed it, and I packaged 381.09 for steamos myself and gave it a higher precedence than valves repo, so I never noticed that steamos *stable* released a newer nvidia driver version: 381.22, which fixes all vulkan problems on steam machines.